The following is a documentary created by forum member and Sonic Cult founder Phugolz, providing an opinionated analysis of Sonic’s 20 years on Earth so far. Lots of swearing and toilets around, so viewer discretion is advised.
Sega’s Digital Brand Manager Ken Balough dropped by Gamespot’s On the Spot (29-minute mark) to show off another video morsel of Sonic 4‘s second episode and dropped a bit of a bombshell for those who bought Episode 1 and plan to pick up the second episode.
Available as free DLC, players will get to assume the role of Metal Sonic in Sonic 4: Episode Metal as he’s transported to the age of Sonic 4 as a throwback to Sega’s previous “Lock-On Technology” effort. Metal Sonic can be seen briefly roaming through Splash Hill and Lost Labyrinth, which Balough goes on to state won’t be simple cut and pastes of the original levels, but are new stages exclusive to Metal Sonic in order to connect his importance, as well as Sonic CD‘s, to the Sonic 4 story.
When people tell the short version of the development of the original Sonic the Hedgehog, there are usually two names dropped: Yuji Naka and Naoto Ohshima. The former, though starting out as a programmer, soon became the figurehead of Sonic Team, his smiling mug plastered all over any material regarding the behind-the-scene events. The latter, of course, being the man who designed the characters including the star. However, there was a third man who, one could argue, shaped the title into the addictive game that people still play to this day. That man’s name is Hirokazu Yasuhara, who was the lead Game Planner of the original Mega Drive quartet, as well as the Director to Sonic 3 & Knuckles. While the designs to the characters were amazing, and there was a solid engine being built around it, the actual layout of the game would have been very, very different had Yasuhara not been there to design those level maps that have been burned into our minds over the last two decades. Who knows how things would have gone if he had flown to the United States when he originally planned instead of being delayed to shape one of the biggest video game franchises of all time?
That is why this news, for anyone who was there during the height of the Mega Drive’s success, is a bit crazy to take in. As of today, reported on Gamasutra and confirmed by his own LinkedIn page, Hirokazu Yasuhara is now employed at Nintendo Software Technology, a subsidiary of Nintendo of America. Best known for their work on the Mario vs. Donkey Kong series, nothing has been said of what plans Nintendo has in store for the former Sega employee. Since he’s still in the United States, its very unlikely that he’ll have any role in one of the main Super Mario titles, but still. If you were to tell any 90′s kid that the man responsible for the layout of everything from the Green Hill Zone to Death Egg would one day be working at the house Mario built, would they have believed it?
This is bound to set off those of you against digital download services. Over in Japan, developers are beginning to pull games down from Nintendo’s Virtual Console service on the Wii. On top of WiiWare titles from the now-defunct Hudson and Irem’s library, Sega is pulling several Sonic titles from the service.
According to a report by Japanese website Inside-Games, these titles include the Mega Drive’s Sonic The Hedgehog, Sonic The Hedgehog 2, and Sonic & Knuckles, as well as the Master System version of Sonic The Hedgehog. The titles are expected to be off the service by the end of the month. It’s currently unknown if other titles will disappear as well or if they will remain up for a while longer.
This development certainly begs a few questions: for those that bought the games and aren’t privy to the homebrew side of the Wii, will they be able to access the titles for redownloading? More importantly, will such a move make its way over to Western shores? It’s too soon to say, but the move is no doubt very discouraging for Virtual Console supporters.
[Via Nintendo World Report]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfDlHdERxrE
Turns out the new Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 2 trailer (more on that later) may not be the most important Sega-related reveal today. A teaser trailer for the re-release of Jet Set Radio, a favorite of all Dreamcast fans, has just been released on Youtube. While there’s no release date announced, we do know that it will be released on Xbox Live Arcade and Sony Entertainment Network.
It seems like fans don’t need to worry much about Sega having lost the licensing to the music like with the digital release of Crazy Taxi, considering Funky Radio can be heard in the video above. Now let’s just hope it gets a better treatment than the other Dreamcast ports released so far as well.
Announced at the Nintendo Direct live stream earlier today, a crossover game for the Nintendo 3DS between Capcom, Sega and Bandai Namco is in development. The last of these three is also doing the publishing and one of their developers, Banpresto, best known for the Super Robot Wars franchise, is making the title.
That’s all that there’s known at the moment. Any details like what franchises appear in the game or if the game will even hit stores outside Japan still need to be announced. You can visit the teaser site here, but there’s not much there to discover besides the company logos. Still, whatever this is may be worth keeping an eye on.
Leave it to Sega to have their secrets disrupted by every external force in the universe. Kotaku is reporting that toys pitching the upcoming racing sequel were spotted at the New York Toy Fair with further confirmation from the representative on deck that the game will be out by year’s end and feature new playable characters. This information links up well with a teaser posted on Sonic Stadium that Sumo Digital was at work on another racing title.
We can only hope the shortlist includes the likes of Wonder Boy, a Rag Rappy from Phantasy Star, and Segata Sanshiro riding on a Sega Saturn controller.
Chances are the small percentage of you that picked up the PC version of Sonic 4: Episode 1 have gotten a small update to the game. Upon trying the game out, you might have also noticed that your settings were all gone and that your save file was gone as well.
While we could take yet another potshot at Sonic 4, let’s focus on fixing that issue. What this last update did is create a second executable file: one for Windows XP and one for Windows Vista/7. To restore settings, you’ll need to run the settings application included with the game. As for the save file, it’s still there with all your hard work. It just needs a little renaming.
To do so, head into your Steam folder located in Program Files, click on the folder named “steamapps” and then “common”. Click on the Sonic 4 folder and you should see a file named “Sonic_save.dat”. Simply rename this to “Sonic_vis_save.dat” and all your hard work will be restored.
Chances are the small percentage of you that picked up the PC version of Sonic 4: Episode 1 have gotten a small update to the game. Upon trying the game out, you might have also noticed that your settings were all gone and that your save file was gone as well.
While we could take yet another potshot at Sonic 4, let’s focus on fixing that issue. What this last update did is create a second executable file: one for Windows XP and one for Windows Vista/7. To restore settings, you’ll need to run the settings application included with the game. As for the save file, it’s still there with all your hard work. It just needs a little renaming.
To do so, head into your Steam folder located in Program Files, click on the folder named “steamapps” and then “common”. Click on the Sonic 4 folder and you should see a file named “Sonic_save.dat”. Simply rename this to “Sonic_vis_save.dat” and all your hard work will be restored.