
So here’s the deal with this Sonic game: it’s not really much like a normal Sonic game. Rather than being about trying to take the fastest path to the finish, a lot of time is spent exploring the levels as you can collect a bunch of crystal fragments and blueprints in most of them. These also take a lot longer to finish than your usual Sonic stage, as they can easily take up to 15 minutes to complete if you’re looking around for collectables. You can also switch between four characters in these stages: Sonic, Tails, Knuckles and newcomer Sticks, all of whom work very differently from past games.
Turns out that Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood was going to have an opening with some very nice looking 2D animation. Shadzter from the Sonic Stadium did some digging around and found a demo reel by Joel MacMillan, an art director at Bioware who worked on the game. The video contains some clips of this opening starting at 1:12. The animation made use of both screens on the DS, with stuff happening on both of them.
Why the final game didn’t have this opening isn’t known. Our best guess is that it’s because the stylistically it looks incredibly different from the game. It’s a shame, because it’s clear that a lot of work was put into making this.
This week on the Swingin’ Report Show podcast Barry and George are joined by Mat Kraemer, Lead Designer at Sanzaru Games, developer of Sonic Boom: Shattered Crystal for the Nintendo 3DS. Topics covered include the development process of the handheld title, how Sanzaru interacted with various teams including the TV show crew and the team at Big Red Button, what Sonic games Sanzaru looked to for inspiration, and Mat’s favorite classic SEGA games and consoles.
There has been a lot of talk about the Sonic Boom franchise this past week, so it was great to sit down with Mat to learn more about how the 3DS game came to be. Hey! Why are you still reading this when you should be listening?
SEGAbits and Sonic Retro team up to bring you a podcast focused on SEGA’s new Sonic Boom franchise! Hosted by Barry the Nomad of SEGAbits.com and David the Lurker of SonicRetro.org, Boom Talkalaka features discussion of the many aspects of Sonic Boom – from comics and episodes of the cartoon, to the video games and toys.
Give the show a listen and in the comments tell us what you think! If you have any questions or comments you want David to read on the next episode, leave your message here with the subject line “Boom-Grams”: http://segabits.com/contact/
This Saturday at 1pm EST/6pm GMT, the guys at Find the Computer Room will stream Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric to help raise money for Emily Monroe, a 3-year-old girl who has been diagnosed with cancer. Special guests lined up for the event include Mike Pollock and Cindy Robinson, among others.
FTCR member FTA has provided a video detailing everything that will go down:
The stream will take place on the FTCR Twitch page. If you would like to donate immediately, you can visit Emily’s GoFundMe page.
