It’s here, the brand new side-scrolling Sonic game! No, not Sonic Mania. It’s Sonic Boom: Fire & Ice for the Nintendo 3DS! In this SEGA News Bits, Barry shares with George, and our viewing audience, his thoughts on the game. Did SEGA and Sanzaru Games learn their lesson from Sonic Boom: Shattered Crystal? In the comments below, let us know what you think of Sonic Boom: Fire & Ice! Also, don’t hate Barry.
SEGA News Bits is a production of SEGAbits, covering all things SEGA and Sonic the Hedgehog. When we touch on Sonic stories, you’ll be seeing them here on Sonic Retro as well. If you enjoyed this episode of the SEGA News Bits, make sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel and never miss an episode!
Browsing Tag
Sonic Boom: Fire & Ice
SEGA’s Sonic Boom: Fire & Ice releases today for the Nintendo 3DS in North America, and will release a few days from now on September 30th in Europe. The game is available both digitally on the Nintendo eShop and physically with a special Launch Edition for the Americas which includes a collector’s box and a DVD of select Sonic Boom TV show episodes featuring Metal Sonic and Shadow. While reviews have started to appear elsewhere on the web, expect a Sonic Retro review soon.
After the break, check out the full press release from SEGA!
E3 is kind of like going to a wedding, they’re a pain to get to, your feet are destroyed by the end of it, and the whole thing is done and over with as quickly as it started. 2016 marks the first year of me being the E3 guy, which is exciting! Brand new games, some we might not see or hear from for years to come and since this is Sonic Retro, I’m only going to be talking about Sonic Boom: Fire and Ice.
It’s been a pretty long time since Sonic Boom: Fire & Ice was last shown to the public. After it was delayed there was a bit of a drought with no new footage or info whatsoever. That’s changed now though as SEGA just released a new trailer for E3 2016 and we can finally confirm that, yup, it still looks like a Sonic Boom game.
It does look like there is some added variety with the new bosses and shoot-em-up sections, but aside from that the game looks like more of Sonic Boom: Shattered Crystal. Which probably isn’t a good thing seeing how Shattered Crystal wasn’t that great. Still, the game will be playable at E3 next week so we’ll probably be able to see if Sanzaru has tried to make Fire & Ice much of an improvement over its prequel when new gameplay footage from the event gets put up online.
Fire & Ice will be released on September 27th, 2016 exclusively for Nintendo 3DS and will have a special Launch Edition in the US. The special edition will include a DVD with three episodes from the Sonic Boom TV show, which is surprisingly decent and worth taking a look at if you haven’t yet.
Update: The official Sonic Youtube account has uploaded the trailer to Youtube, and mentions in the description that “[a] number of notable improvements are being made to the game, including enhanced level designs built for speed, better functionality, and all-new Fire & Ice gameplay mechanics.”
Because SEGA decided that they’re no longer releasing new Sonic games annually to give developers more time to properly finish the games, there hasn’t been a big new Sonic game in the past year. The Sonic fanbase doesn’t seem to be used to not having a new game to complain about play for longer than a year, meaning that they’re desperate for news. So desperate that they’d even look for info at the Toy Fair.
That being said: we’re part of that Sonic fanbase, and we also happen to be just as desperate, so time to look for new info at the Toy Fair. Thanks to the Flickr of Paul Nicholasi of Idle Hands, we know all the new details from the Tomy booth at the event. And it turns out that there’s quite a bit of new stuff to know about, though nothing about the new big 25th anniversary game everyone wants to know about.
Update: Of course right after I put up this article I realize that Sonic 4: Episode 1 was delayed by a few months. Welp. Still, at least this time it wasn’t because there was a public outcry.
What do you get when you mix fire and ice? Apparently SEGA realizing that releasing yet another unfinished Sonic game is a bad idea. For the first time ever (seriously, correct me if I’m wrong on this cause I can’t think of any other time when SEGA’s done this) the company has delayed a Sonic game in order to make sure that it’s polished enough for release, with Sonic Boom: Fire & Ice now releasing in 2016 “when it’s ready”. You know, as opposed to previously released Sonic games that clearly weren’t ready for release.
It’s always been pretty clear that Sonic games are often rushed to make the deadline, even back with Sonic 3 & Knuckles when they split the game into two releases due to time constraints. So SEGA actually letting the developers take their time to finish the game is hopefully not just a one time thing. So it is a little reassuring that SEGA’s blog post mentions that they think that making sure a game is ready for release isn’t just important for Fire & Ice, but also all future Sonic games. We hope that that’s true, cause we really, really don’t want another Sonic 2006 or Rise of Lyric.
Podcasts
SEGAbits & Sonic Retro present Boom Talkalaka #4: Sonic Boom: Fire & Ice Emergency Broadcast
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.
In this emergency broadcast, Barry and David discuss SEGA’s surprising reveal of Sonic Boom: Fire & Ice for Nintendo 3DS. That’s right, the games aren’t over yet! Oh… but the comics are, as we also discuss the sad cancellation of Archie’s Sonic Boom comics which will occur with issue 11. We also discuss the premiere of the TV series in Europe and *SPOILER ALERT* discuss a shocking revelation that alters the very fabric of Sonic Boom’s reality!
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