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The Retro Age: Sonic Month
317 Plays2 years ago
The first episode of Sonic Month is here! Join us as we start from Sonic's humble beginning in 1991 up until the infamous prototype known as Sonic Xtreme. Does the Retro Age still hold up today? Or does it falter under it's reputation? Let's find out in this episode!
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Transcript
Introduction to Sonic Month
00:00:05
Speaker
Welcome to Chatsunami. Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of Chatsunami. I'm Satsunami and rolling around at the speed of sound is none other than the egg sandwich himself, Adam. Adam, welcome to Sonic Month.
00:00:33
Speaker
can I stop now? I'm really dizzy and I think I lost all my rings. I think I lost all my rings a few worlds back but hello hello good to be back. I'm excited to go on this journey. Can I just say before we start it is a surprise because you know me I am the Sonic Aficionado out of both of us yet somehow you were the one that suggested this month. I know I know I was just so keen it's just I could feel you really restraining
00:00:58
Speaker
You know, you're aficionadian-ness? Is that a word? Yeah, why not? It is now. I can feel you're restraining your love for the franchise and I just felt, you know what, we need a month.
Adam's Sonic Journey Begins
00:01:11
Speaker
Need a month just to get it all out there. Plus I really wanted to deep dive into this series myself. So would you like to tell the lovely listeners at home what you've actually been doing in preparation for this month?
00:01:22
Speaker
Well, I've been immersing myself in the world of Sonic. I've painted myself blue. As you say, I'm rolling around in my red shoes. No, I've just, I've been getting to grips with as many Sonic games as I can legally get my hands on from, you know, from the 2D platformers to the, to the transition into 3D. So yeah, I've just been trying to immerse myself in all things Sonic. I'm telling you just before I got on air, I've been watching old Sega commercials, but understanding why Nintendo is boring and dull and Sega is for cool kids and being a cool kid myself, I, I
00:01:50
Speaker
really resonates with me. But no, I've been just trying to immerse myself on everything sonic. I mean that is true. We are both two cool dudes with the attitude, you know? Radical. You watch some MTV after this. Let's go collect pogs. Yeah. I like it. Let's watch Nickelodeon. Radical dude. Let's do it. Radical tubular. You feel her.
00:02:11
Speaker
Oh back when for some reason Californian surfer talk was all the rage somehow it was all the rage yeah touching on what you were saying about the adverts for Sega you know back when Sega did what Nintendo you know I still think that's one of the best examples of like marketing
00:02:32
Speaker
for video games. It's amazing. I love it. It's so, so good. Out of curiosity, before I jump in and start gushing over this franchise, what was your experience growing up
Childhood Sonic Memories
00:02:44
Speaker
with Sonic? Like, were you a Sonic head? I really had
00:02:48
Speaker
virtually no exposure to Sonic. I never had a Sega console, maybe just under 10 years ago. I probably couldn't have named a Sega console. I don't think I even knew Sega did consoles. I had a recovered memory recently. I actually remember that I did have a slight exposure to one of the original Sonic games. I have a cousin who's about seven years older than me, and when I went over to his house one time, he had a console which I now recognize was a Mega Drive here, a Genesis in the US.
00:03:15
Speaker
And he was playing a game which I now can recognize as, I think, the original Sonic. So I don't think I actually played it at all, but I think I kind of enjoyed watching. It looks pretty cool, but that was really my only exposure to Sonic. Honestly, yeah, until about a couple of years back when I tried out Sonic Adventure at Satsunami's abode. But yeah, really minimal, to be honest. It wasn't something that ever appeared on my radar.
00:03:39
Speaker
In a way, I was going to say in a way that's surprising, but thinking back on it for myself, I think the only reason I kind of got exposed to it was because my brother had, well, I was going to say Sega Genesis, but Mega Drive here, that's just sacrilege. He had the original Sonic.
00:03:56
Speaker
can't remember if he bought two or three. So I knew all of it, but I was in a very unique situation where one of my brothers grew up with the Nintendo consoles, my other brother grew up with the Sega consoles, so I was kind of getting exposed to both sides of the coin. I don't know, like although I liked playing them, you know, like I would play Duck Can, Mario of course, you know, I'd play Sonic, I would play that weird Mega Drive one where it's like
00:04:23
Speaker
kind of if it's like unicycles trying to get from one side to the other. You know there'll be like a Sega fanboy listening to this so not dissing you but if you can tell me the name of that game please do. At the same time I never really got into the series until my brother got a Dreamcast and I started playing Sonic Adventure. Loved it, it's one of my favourites of the series and probably one of my favourite games of all time really.
00:04:49
Speaker
it's just one of those as I've said before it's one of those comfort games where you know it's like putting on a cozy blanket and you're like ah back in you know those days where you didn't have any responsibilities you just could play games all day. I remember being in I think it was I was in the city with my mum shopping and I remember just by chance seeing Sonic Adventure 2 on the shelf and this was for the GameCube so
00:05:13
Speaker
Now, I turned around to my mum and I'm like, oh, can I get it? And luckily, I managed to get a copy and I've loved the series ever since. I kind of went back and played the remake of Adventure on the Gamecube and yeah, I just went down the rabbit hole. Well, as the series progressed, I think it was probably up until Sonic 06 where... The Shroller broke the camel's back, yeah. The Shroller broke the camel's back, that was a... Yeah, that was a dark time, but the only reason I've got a PlayStation 3, that's why.
00:05:41
Speaker
Anyway, I'm not bitter. How are you? Nah, I'm all good. Yeah, I've always been a fan since. Even after Soniko said I've kind of kept an eye in the distance.
Sega's Marketing and Sonic's Appeal
00:05:51
Speaker
You know like one of those dramas you watch where it's like the distant relative looking in the shadows just like wondering what they're gonna do next and it's like some
00:06:00
Speaker
have been good some have been bad but yeah that's really my experience with it. Going back to the originals because let's face it Sonic is an absolute titan of a gaming icon. Oh definitely I mean I think there's a very strong argument that if you were to make like a Mount Rushmore of em gaming characters he has a very strong claim to be up there. Oh absolutely. I was laughing when I had a look at what Sega were gonna make their mascot. Did you actually know what their mascot was gonna be before Sonic? Is this the is it the rabbit?
00:06:30
Speaker
Well that too, like there was different designs. Theodore Roosevelt was the one. Yeah Theodore Roosevelt and Pajamas which actually became Eggman. Funny enough there was the rabbit, there was lots of iterations. In fact no there was an armadillo as well I think which turned into mighty the armadillo which I don't know if you've seen his design yet. I've not, I've not. Is he part of the Sonic?
00:06:56
Speaker
kind of. He was introduced in a spin-off game called Knuckles Chaotix and he really never came back up until I think he came back in Sonic Mania but that was it. He came back as DLC which came out a couple of years ago so it is cool they're recognising him now but yeah. Is it he hanging out with Charming the Bee is he basically?
00:07:18
Speaker
Oh no, Charming the Bee came back. Sorry. It was just him left behind, was it? It's him and Fang then. I'm trying to think of other... Oh yeah, Fang Bean the Duck. You know what, I'm not even gonna... I'm not gonna die in this green hill. Like, I'm not gonna be like, oh yeah, bring back Bean. The fans do manage it. Bring back Fang. Nobody wants Fang and Bee. Well, maybe they do. Maybe they're sort of dedicated fan base. We don't know that. Fang's in Sonic Fighters, isn't he?
00:07:44
Speaker
I genuinely think that's the only game he's been in. Other than mods, I actually don't think he's been in another game unless... Is he not just a purple wolf? See when it was fine it was okay, it was the 90s, we didn't know any better. It was a different time Adam.
00:08:09
Speaker
Is he a weasel? I'm saying that. I don't know what he is. Let me double check. Now, this is me saying, oh, I'm the sonic aficionado. I think you're right. I think he is a weasel. He's either a weasel or a, no, I'm sure he is. I'm the sniper almost. Yeah, he is a weasel. He's also called Knack the weasel, so he is a weasel. Is that like Pop goes the weasel?
00:08:31
Speaker
Because he's got a gun. Oh Sega, never change. In fact, no, please change. I think that's why you don't make consoles anymore. No, I want to fang the sniper game. It sounds amazing. What, you mean like a kind man? That would get me into, that would have got me into the Sonic series. See, they made an FPS with fang. I'd have been all over that. So Shadow the Hedgehog wasn't enough to pull yet. It wasn't quite enough because it was a third person. The first person, that was my jam.
00:08:59
Speaker
Well, see to be fair, knowing the landscape of FPS games nowadays will probably get like Sonic storming the beaches of Normandy. You're what I'm now going to go into ranting about Vanguard. It's too early in the night.
00:09:13
Speaker
Night is Young and so are we. Unlike this franchise which is 30 years old. Well 31 this year. Yeah it celebrated its 30th birthday last year which surprisingly without a game but that has garnered a bit of controversy. Like the anniversaries are always quite a tender time. Especially for the 15th anniversary. I wonder what happened there.
00:09:37
Speaker
Yeah, me too. Moving on. Imagine a world long before Sonic 06, before the adventure series, before Sonic became a literal walking meme. Sonic was pretty much on top of the world, wasn't it? Oh, without a doubt. I mean, it's quite stunning to look at the years before. The years just before Sonic was first released, where Nintendo had about over 90% of the North American video game market
00:10:05
Speaker
share in the late 80s early 90s and then you look at you know a couple years after Sonic's released like Sega, the Sega Genesis Mega Drive is outselling the Nintendo NES and the SNES as well so it really did have a massive impact in a very short amount of time.
00:10:20
Speaker
And it's the fact that, going back to what I was saying about the mascots, I think the character they wanted to use initially was someone called Alex Kidd. Oh, yeah. And it was like, just, it almost reminds me of, you know, Pitt from, I was gonna say Smash Bros. Kidd, I kind of, that's the one. Yeah, I don't imagine that, well, maybe in an alternative universe where Sonic 06 is a good game, maybe Kidd. Alex Kidd still is in the face of saying it, isn't he? Yeah, maybe.
00:10:51
Speaker
I'm looking at pictures now. He's still not the face. Sorry, Alex. Yeah, no, he's a bit of a... He's got a face only a mother could love, right or not? Yep. Close this browser window.
00:11:04
Speaker
Before we talk about the amazing impact that Sonic had, as well as the maybe troublesome times towards the end of his Golden Era, and also need to give you time to clue your browsing history, will we listen to a few messages just before we go into it? Let's see what's coming across the info waves. And as always, we will be right back just after these messages.
00:11:27
Speaker
Welcome to Chatsunami, a variety podcast that talks about topics from gaming and films to streaming in general interest. Previously on Chatsunami, we discussed Game of the Decade, Deadly Premonition, the romantic thriller, Birdemic, and listen to us get all sappy as we discuss our top five Christmas films. If that sounds like your cup of tea, then you can find us an anchor, Spotify, YouTube, and all good podcast apps. As always, stay safe, stay awesome, and most importantly, stay hydrated.
00:11:58
Speaker
We are Beer and Chill Podcast. Podcast where we review TV shows, games, movies and whatever else takes our fancy. So what are you waiting for? If you're a cool kid like us, you're gonna listen to the Beer and Chill Podcast. You can get anywhere from Spotify all the way to your grandma's radio. My name is Jan. And I'm Craig Yisi. And we are Beer and Chill.
Exploring Original Sonic Games
00:12:33
Speaker
So Adam, he flicky, ha ha, wink wink, it's an inside joke, find me. Flicky was telling me that you have been going back and playing the retro Sonic game. I have indeed, your Flicky is well informed. So before in the lead up to this episode, I played the original Sonic the Hedgehog. I also played the sequel Sonic the Hedgehog 2.
00:12:55
Speaker
Unfortunately, I couldn't get a hold of Sonic 3, Sonic and Knuckles, so I had to rely on other people's opinions to see what the consensus was on that one. But I also gave a try of Sonic CD and then Sonic 3D Blast, so a good couple, not all of them, actually that came out in this initial period, but a good few of them. Enough, I think, to give me a good sense of what the kind of Genesis slash Mega Drive era of Sonic was.
00:13:18
Speaker
I have seen a couple of interviews and gaming journalists who have actually come together and have held this view of, oh, Sonic was never good in all of this. And I think personally, not for any bias reason, but I genuinely think that's a very disingenuous point of view to have. Because if you look at it in the sense of, or even just the context of the 90s, what did you have before Sonic?
00:13:42
Speaker
you had the Mario series which don't get me wrong back then it was like a really well structured platforming game and everything that blew everyone's socks off but compared to that there wasn't anything really fast paced except for Paul maybe but I mean was Atari bringing out anything that was gonna rival Mario at the time?
00:14:03
Speaker
I mean, oh God, no. I think speed kind of things were, so maybe something you found more in arcades still at this point, perhaps, rather than on your home console. Because I'm trying to think if, say you had some racing games, I think, didn't they, in arcades? Because isn't that the first technical appearance? Isn't that technically the first appearance of Sonic?
00:14:21
Speaker
is in a Sega arcade racing game because he appears as one of these ornaments that hangs off the driver's rear-view window. So I guess, I don't know what those games are like quality-wise for speed, but really I can't think of anything you're right on the consoles that was trying to tap into this game. As we say, Mario, unless you were skilled in speedrunning it, it's not really meant to be played as a fast game.
00:14:45
Speaker
As far as, again, maybe I'm wrong, but that's not the sense I've ever got with the kind of original Mario titles. Do you know the ironic thing is, I think by accident Mario actually inspired Sonic in a way, because I think Yuji Naka, who was the Sonic creator, he ended up looking at people who were speedrunning Mario and thought, okay, I want to create a game similar to that.
00:15:08
Speaker
in terms of speed and things, trying to get from point A to point B the fastest, and of course after a couple of very infamous redesigns and dropping the human girlfriend, which ironically enough would not appear until 2006.
00:15:24
Speaker
ended up birthing Sonic into the gaming sphere. If you look at it back then, Sonic was really just like the anti-Mario. Yeah, I mean, well that was deliberately, if you look at Sega's kind of marketing, and a lot of this comes from Sega of America, they had a very famous five-step program to basically try and dethrone Nintendo, and there were things like lowering the price of the Genesis, bringing more sports games to it, but crucially as well, they were trying to appeal to that
00:15:49
Speaker
audience. At the same time, they were looking for a character to basically defeat Mario. And so these two things kind of came together to form Sonic, who is a far more, it's kind of edgy, but he's a far more kind of cool character, who in a way is much more relatable than Mario. He's got much more personality. You know, he's got that kind of cool, like too cool for school attitude to him and everything in the way that Mario doesn't really have. Mario's kind of more a blank slate and is more appealing, I guess, to a kind of younger audience. While Sonic is far more, you can see it appealing to that kind of older audience.
00:16:19
Speaker
So they kind of, these things kind of converged into what basically Sega was looking for as a way to distinguish its own products, you know, to basically like beat Nintendo. It's honestly a genius idea though, because if you look at the, again, I keep using this term gaming landscape, but if you go back to that time, video games were really more, they were really considered more of a childish thing.
00:16:41
Speaker
Oh definitely, that's who they were majoritivly marketed to. Nintendo was appealing to that 9-13 age group, because they'd be the ones who would then badger their parents to buy them an NES for Christmas, you know. And it worked! Nintendo was hugely profitable at this time, but then Sega looked at that older, that slightly older age group, as a kind of untapped market, but also quite sensibly as if you can get the older brother or the older sister to play a Sega Genesis, there's a good chance then that the younger Charles is going to look at the older Charles and be like, oh I want to emulate them and play the Sega.
00:17:09
Speaker
So it's actually quite a good way to then get into another that younger market as well by targeting the older one. And it's the fact as well that although we always see it either if it's like videos online or people talking about their experiences with seeing kids do like stupid things.
00:17:26
Speaker
kids don't really want to be treated as kids you know like I mean think about and I know it was a while ago but think about when we were kids you know like if someone talked down to you as a kid and you're like I'm not a kid even though obviously you were but you didn't want to feel
00:17:41
Speaker
is if you were a kid and I think this was absolutely an ingenious idea that they were treating them a bit more maturely as well, like the younger audiences, without going to over the... well in terms of the 90s I suppose Robocop was a toy, so it was all of the like Ghostbusters was a toy as well and it was a different time, okay? It was a
00:18:02
Speaker
every time but yeah it was absolutely ingenious and especially with Sonic 2. I know I'm kind of jumping ahead a little bit but if you look at how popular Sonic was and then the year after they brought out Sonic 2 where we had Sonic and they introduced a brand new character which is called
00:18:20
Speaker
quite a risky move because it was like you know it was one year since Sonic came out in 1991 and already they were bringing in new characters and Tails was kind of the really the quintessential player two character of gaming
00:18:36
Speaker
Oh yeah, definitely. There has been a history of quite hated video gaming sidekicks. You think of Navi. I know a lot of people don't like Slippy Toad from the Star Fox series, so it is always a risky move. As you say, you have a large fanbase for the main character and then you bring in more. There's always that risk that people aren't going to take to them and actively hate them.
00:18:57
Speaker
but Tales seemed to be a really popular addition. I think especially people like the fact that it made the game 2 player, and as well you could play the game as Tales, even though at this point I didn't actually play Esonic 2 as Tales, but what I understand he plays quite similarly to Sonic, it's more like a reskin, rather than when later games he would get a unique moveset. But even then I suppose at least it kind of adds some variety to the game, you know you're playing a different character and stuff, so again it was a risky move as you say, but it did seem to pay off quite well.
00:19:24
Speaker
And going back to what was saying before about people kind of retroactively going back and saying Sonic as a series, oh it was never good and things. It's the fact that it was, again I use this phrase a lot, I always say oh they're a trailblazer but in
00:19:39
Speaker
In this case they literally were. They were trying new things. They were pushing their consoles, their technology to the limits. We had this new speedy hedgehog with, as you said Adam, the attitude. And yeah, he instantly took off all over the world. I think Nintendo must have been worried just a little bit
00:20:00
Speaker
I think they definitely were. I mean, it's funny that there's been quite a few good documentaries recently about this kind of era. There's one called, I think it's called Console Wars, and I think it's based off a book of the history book of the same name. I think if you've got Sky over here in the UK, you can get access to it. I'm not sure it might be on HBO Max or something in the US. I'm not sure.
00:20:19
Speaker
talk to a lot of people from that era, and the Nintendo people kind of play it off as like, oh we weren't really that worried and stuff, but I think that's very much like a kind of the victor writing the, you know,
Sonic's Golden Era
00:20:29
Speaker
the winner writing the history. I think they definitely were, because just to say the Genesis was outselling the SNES from 92 to 95, you know, for like a good solid four years, the Sega was beating Nintendo. Okay, it wasn't, perhaps Sega never had the, you know, the ridiculous market share that Nintendo had in its heyday.
00:20:44
Speaker
But they still were very legitimate competition for that period. So I think it is very much a case of looking back and saying, oh no, no, we knew we would be fine and we knew we'd win at the end of the day. I think it's that way of trying to disguise that. I bet there was a lot of worry about the actual threat that Sega posed.
00:20:59
Speaker
and this is something we were actually discussing before we came on the episode but it's amazing how Sega kept up the pace with this franchise. The reason I'm laughing is because I'm looking at my notes here and it's just the fact that you could probably compare this to like nowadays Call of Duty where every single year they have a game
00:21:20
Speaker
that comes out in this time period. So from 1991 to 1994, this is probably the golden era or the golden age of Sonic. You know you've got Sonic 1 in 1991, Sonic 2 the year after, Sonic CD the year after that, which I have to admit I was surprised because I thought Sonic 3 came out before that and of course it's capped in 1994 with Sonic 3 and Knuckles.
00:21:44
Speaker
Aha, there we go, we've got Knuckles in. Yeah, it's just incredible they kept up that pace. And if you ask any Sonic fan – hello there, I don't – you know, if you ask any Sonic fan, they will tell you that these are some of the most treasured and most nostalgic and popular games of the franchise.
00:22:04
Speaker
Yeah and I can see why because I think obviously for a lot of people this probably maybe was their formative gaming years. So it's that time where I think media, whether it be films or TV or especially games can leave the biggest imprint. It's the same thing for me why I hold the original Halo so fondly because I played it when I was 10 years old. It was at that perfect age to imprint on me so I can totally see why people feel so strongly about these particular Sonic games.
00:22:29
Speaker
especially because, as you say, Sega was in its height then as well. So, you know, you really are in the heyday of both Sonic and Sega. I think one of the things that did make it stand out amongst, I mean, technically Mario did this as well. Well, for Mario 1 and 3, I want to point that out because Mario 2 was not Mario, if that makes sense. Do you know the story behind that one? Yeah, it's that reskinned, I can't remember what the original game is, but it's a reskin of like a Japanese game, isn't it? That's why it's bizarrely different.
00:22:56
Speaker
Yeah well you have to like pluck out turnips and throw them and Mario can't jump. I haven't played it myself but from what I've seen all of it I was like yeah this isn't Mario. Whereas Sonic just kept building on really just the foundation. So it laid the foundation with Sonic 1 which I have to admit I'm not
00:23:15
Speaker
really a big fan of Sonic 1. I think it's probably because I've been so spoiled with gaming nowadays. There's so much choice, there's so many different mechanics and things, and there's a wider variety. So in comparison, I'm like, eh, it's not my cup of tea anymore. But back then, you know, it must have been amazing to play this for the first time and just speed along Green Hill Zone platform through. Is it Marble Zone?
00:23:42
Speaker
But it's the fact that in that one, you just had Sonic running from left to right and platforming. In Sonic 2, of course, you had Tails. Tails had his own kind of move set later on. The spin dash was brought into the fray, which is still amazing. Sonic CD, that had, I can't remember what it was, but it was the
00:24:03
Speaker
Oh, that's bad. The time travel as well, but there was like a figure of eight run that he does on the spot and then he zooms forward. Is it the super peel out or something? Super peel out. That's the one. Thank you. Who's the Sonic fan now? I was going to say, I'm just testing you, Adam. Don't throw me up. I don't think I was able to pull it off when I played Sonic CD, but I heard it was in the game.
00:24:28
Speaker
Yeah, no same. I'm going to admit I am not a fan of Sonic CD. Like stick with the spin dash. Yeah. Although funny enough with Sonic CD, did you know Sonic CD was the very first game I played in the year 2000? Oh really? Oh well. Yep. So if you want to know the very first game I played in the 21st century, it was Sonic CD. The reason I remember that is because I went to a neighbor's, it was like a neighbor's millennium party. I remember once we came home and
00:24:56
Speaker
and we welcomed in the new year. I'd asked my mum, oh, can I play this? We had this demo on the PC for Sonic CD and I was like, oh, can I play a little bit? And she was like, yeah, go on. So I played the demo, like, which is just the first level. I didn't mind it. Well, I loved it at the time, obviously, but I didn't mind it then. But going back, it's far too loud, it's far too in your face, far too flashy. I really don't like
00:25:22
Speaker
Sonic CD. And again, personal opinion, you know, if you like Sonic CD, that is perfectly fine. Nobody's judging you here. Did you feel the same way with Sonic CD when you tried it? Yeah, I really didn't like Sonic CD either. I think it looked, it really looked great. I think that's a kind of trend with all of these early Sonic games. I think they all look great. It's that pixel art is so unique and that the colours pop, the levels look really cool and everything. So it looked great, but I found it very frustrating to play.
00:25:51
Speaker
It's one of these things that I think I admire. I admire the depth they put into the game because it's got that whole time travel thing. So there's like four versions of each stage, I think is like good present, bad present. There's so many different versions of it, which I really admire, but I found it like far too gimmicky for me. I didn't really understand the time travel stuff I have to admit. And then I got through the first level, first stage and I got to the second stage, which is like collision. I can't, it's collision something collision course, maybe.
00:26:18
Speaker
And honestly, like, there was just so many bounce pads in that, and there were so many bounce pads placed that I couldn't see them. Like, I would run into so many, and I eventually almost got caught in this, like, infinite loop of, like, bounce pads and the pinball flippers. And I was like, no, I've got to, like, I've got to get out of this game. Like, it was just, it was too much for me. But I kind of admire it, but just, yeah, I didn't take to it as much as I took to the early Genesis games. Sonic CD was one of those games I often met when I bought it.
00:26:44
Speaker
years later on Steam thinking, oh, this is my childhood, I'm gonna love it. Nah, I really do not like it. And again, you know, if you enjoyed this game, perfectly valid. But for me, and I suppose for you as well, Adam, I know I'm speaking on your behalf, but I'm assuming that's correct. Just not for us.
00:27:03
Speaker
and of course what came after that the year after was Sonic 3 and Knuckles which technically Sonic 3 came out first and it only featured Sonic and Tails, did you know? Yeah, which I love but also blows my mind is the whole lock on cartridge thing. Yeah, well we'll talk about the 32X in the room.
00:27:25
Speaker
As I've said before, you know, game and landscape, word of the day, write it down. Sega had this very weird marketing strategy where they were on top of the world with Sonic, you know, in 1991 they made the splash all the way through to 1994.
00:27:42
Speaker
The only issue with that time was gaming technology was changing. It was developing with the Nintendo 64. We had the PlayStation 1 coming out. So those are the only two real titans, weren't they, at the time? The Nintendo 64 and the PlayStation... Did Philips try something or am I... It's the CD-i of this time. Philips CD-i. I think Atari had their Jaguar as well, I think.
00:28:10
Speaker
Sorry, a moment of silence for Atari and Atari fans. All two of them. OK, right, we're good. So the Phillips CDI is actually infamous because they got a Zelda game licensed for it. And that's the one. I don't know if you've seen the cut scenes for that. Oh, I've seen some of those cut scenes. Oh, yeah, that's the game. I was going to say it didn't age well, but I think even back then.
00:28:32
Speaker
It's like, you know when you open your fridge and it's just like curdled milk? Yeah, this was cheese. I should have thrown this out a year ago. Throwing it in the bin. You know, Phillips is just like, no, the cheese is mine. But anyway, so we'll bash, they'll do another day, and then my green shield is on. But yeah, to kind of extend the life of the Sega Mega Drive,
00:28:55
Speaker
they decided to put in
Marketing and the 32X
00:28:57
Speaker
this. It was actually quite a good idea in a way but it made the Genesis or the Mega Drive whatever you want to call it, it made it look as if it was on life support because you had to put in this massive thing at the top of it to play games in 32 bits instead of 16. So they marketed it as double the power. I'm probably going to post some of these adverbs like
00:29:21
Speaker
on Twitter, but some of them were just filthy. Even in terms of controversial gaming things, I mean, we've got one where it's someone slotting the 32X, it's like a massive bulky cartridge thing, and you've got a young boy looking at it and the caption says, Mommy, what are those two Sega machines doing? To which the reply is underneath, they're making an arcade system, dear. And the other one is
00:29:49
Speaker
Oh I was gonna ask if you wanted to read the next one but I don't think you... Let me get it out. You can do it. Okay so this is the next advert. Oh yes! More! More! Faster! Faster! Faster! And scene. Is it hot in here?
00:30:08
Speaker
Sega should have hired me back in the day. They really should have, yeah. Even though I was only like, I don't know, three or something. I don't know, a few time travels back then. I think Sega still would be in the console game, you know. I need to find one of those billboards in Sonic CD, get back to the bad. Exactly. Is that the good future or the bad future? I think we all know it's the bad future.
00:30:32
Speaker
Can I just say the caption underneath this? And I swear to God this is a real advert. It says, what did you think we were talking about, you little degenerate? And I'm like, I have never been shamed by a gaming advert before. I'm not going to lie. This is like John Romero telling me I was going to be his B-word. Yeah, it was a different time, Adam. It was the 90s. I mean, video game marketing is much better now. Oh, well, well. Hi, Cyberpunk.
00:30:59
Speaker
I was sponsored this place. Cyberpunk bashing aside, I'm going through the list. It's like Atari, Cyberpunk. Okay, here we go. Yeah, they had this cartridge you could add on, which then meant that you could play Sonic's expansion, I wouldn't say. You know, it was like Sonic and Knuckles, so the and Knuckles cartridge was actually like an interlocking cartridge onto Sonic 3. But then as well, could you not then also take your Knuckles cartridge
00:31:25
Speaker
And like, it's not into your Sonic 2 or take the Sonic 2 car and slot it into the knuckles. They put knuckles into it. I love the innovation, to be honest. Like, I mean, again, maybe it's a terrible market practice of charging, you know, extra for expanded content, but I still love the idea. I think it's great.
00:31:41
Speaker
Because I think initially they wanted to bring it out as one cartridge, but they either ran out of time or whatever the reason was, I don't know. And I think one of the kind of charms to it is that Knuckles plays completely differently, but not completely, but very differently rather compared to Sonic because Knuckles can glide, he can climb up walls, you know, he can reach different areas that maybe Tails can get to or Sonic even.
00:32:07
Speaker
It's really interesting how they put so much love and attention into these games. And as you said, the arch style in these games are absolutely fantastic. And I was playing maybe just a tiny bit of Sonic 3. Don't get me wrong, I'm still terrible.
00:32:22
Speaker
But at the same time, one of the things I appreciated was, so you know in Sonic 1 and 2, once you finish a stage and then it cuts to black and then it loads the next level? For Sonic 3, it doesn't do that. It's like a kind of seamless transition.
00:32:38
Speaker
Yeah, and it seems like the levels made a lot more sense how they were laid out in the way before in the previous games. It kind of appeared random as like, oh, you're in Green Hill zone. Now you're in a chemical plant. Now you're in space. It seemed like with Sonic 3, like it was a far more logical transition, as you say, between different stages.
00:32:56
Speaker
it almost felt as if they were trying to tell a cohesive story, especially with Knuckles stealing the Chaos Emeralds. This is during a time where video games were told purely with booklets in the games themselves. You know, it wasn't told, you know, they didn't have the capabilities, but with these sprites they told a story. You know, you get to see at the end of Sonic 3 they go
00:33:22
Speaker
onto the Death Egg which is like a, it's basically the Death Star but with Doctor Eggman's face on it or Doctor Robotnik back then but yeah it's like Robotnik's face on it and it's great it's honestly absolutely fantastic and that's the thing though it's like you get to see the story unfold and I mean you've got things we could we could honestly praise these games for ages you've got the level design as well
00:33:45
Speaker
something that is quite interesting and I don't know if you noticed this when you were playing but when you're playing through and you stick to the higher paths you don't get punished as much compared to like the lower levels so like if you go to the lower levels there's going to be a chance there's more enemies more spikes
00:34:02
Speaker
more hazards, whereas if you get good at the game and you're able to dodge all of them, you'll be able to get to the end much, much faster and in a kind of safer zone at the very top of the map. Don't get me wrong, I don't think that carries over to every stage like Marble Zone. There are more linear ones out there as well that
00:34:22
Speaker
Yeah, there's one that is literally, as you said, linear. It's one path that you can only get down. And of course, there's all the underwater levels, which aren't fan favourites at all. But I mean, there's also the music as well, which is iconic. I mean, even with Sonic CD, the music's just great, isn't it?
00:34:41
Speaker
It's so good. I mean, the music for all these games, the ones I certainly played, is absolutely top notch. It makes replaying, because as you say, this was the this was the era of gaming where you were going to have to replay a lot of these levels again. Just that thing of having like these glorious visuals and this great music.
00:34:56
Speaker
As you say, having the kind of multiple pathways was really clever and adds that replayability.
Sonic's Gameplay Mechanics
00:35:02
Speaker
And it's great that it gives you kind of a reason to master these levels, and especially from Sonic 2 onwards, where I know in all the games you can collect the Chaos Emeralds and everything. But in the first game, as far as I understand, the only real benefit you got from that was the
00:35:16
Speaker
good ending quote unquote you know while from Sonic 2 onwards there was like a gameplay benefit because you could become supersonic and it obviously made the levels a bit easier it gave you kind of better movement and you know more power and everything so it gave you a kind of a tangible reason to go after these things to master levels and find the secret stages which I know that the secret stages in Sonic have a kind of mixed reputation about what people looking at the secret stages in Sonic 1 just made me want to vomit basically it looks nauseating those original ones
00:35:44
Speaker
but it's really cool the stuff they kind of built into it. I know a lot of people consider Sonic 3 and Knuckles the kind of peak of the series. That's quite a popular one. People point as the best Sonic game ever. I just wondered, not so much for the series as a whole, but do you have a favorite game from this sort of Mega Drive era? Is there one of these games that you look at as being the best?
00:36:04
Speaker
This is probably going to be a controversial take, but Sonic 2 for me. The reason being, ages ago I got the Sonic Mega Collection, so it was basically like a disc that had all the old games on it, both Game Gear and
00:36:21
Speaker
otherwise, and the main ones. I'm going to touch on this briefly. I don't like the Game Gear ones. I think they are atrocious. Obviously it's 8-bit. I get it. And again, it was saying to you earlier, something that I didn't realise was that Sega actually had an 8-bit console.
00:36:37
Speaker
called the Sega Master System. I thought they started at the Genesis. I really did, but apparently not. So yeah, fun fact of the day. But yeah, the Game Gear games, I didn't like. And obviously there was like a load of spin-off games, like the Tales one, Doctor Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine, which was a, I think that was a reskin of, I can't remember what it was, is it Pollo? It's Pollo, I think. Yeah, I'm sure I remember it. It was like a reskin of that. And I think all the games were doing that at the time. Like Mario had Doctor Mario,
00:37:07
Speaker
or bathe in that one. It was one of those, so can't really hold that against them. But I remember playing through the first game and I thought, eh, I really don't like this. And again, it's me going back after enjoying the adventure games and all the later games compared to that era, because although I did play this era of games, it wasn't really the one I remember most in my childhood. I remember seeing it being played. I remember trying it, but this really wasn't my era.
00:37:36
Speaker
if that makes sense. So I decided to go back and play the originals. I played the first one, really couldn't get into it, because nowadays it is really outdated. But I just want to preface this, but back then it was obviously the kind of loot and the platforming zone. Same with GoldenEye. I would say that Sonic holed up better than GoldenEye 64, or just GoldenEye, sorry. It holed up better than GoldenEye, but yeah, I couldn't get into it. Sonic 3, I did
00:38:04
Speaker
try, but I just wasn't feeling it. I don't know why, I just don't think I played enough of it. But there was just something really charming about playing Sonic 2. I don't know what it was, I really don't, but there was just something about you and your new friend going through all these zones together. Fighting Robotnik, you've got that amazing soundtrack at the end, you know, when you're falling to earth until it saves you.
00:38:30
Speaker
Granted I save scummed like Kale and that one too. As I said, like I'm not good at these games. I'm not gonna sit here and pretend oh I mastered it in one go, I'm really not that good. So it took me a couple of attempts but I just I really enjoyed it. I know Sonic 3 is the one that everybody says is the best. I think that that objectively that's probably true but for me
00:38:54
Speaker
I would say that Sonic 2 for me was my favourite personally, because there's just something about it. Fun fact, did you know this, that see the very last song in Sonic 2, did you know it was remixed as a love song for Sonic 06?
00:39:11
Speaker
I did not know that and I wish she hadn't told me that. I'm kidding, I'm just joking though. I didn't know that, that's interesting. Too much I am going to send you that after this. I just want to say it's not a love song between Teals and Sonic. We're not going into deviantart fanfiction here.
00:39:28
Speaker
It was weird but it was interesting to see how Sega was growing and I don't know whether they were just growing too fast but they definitely left their impact on the gaming scene but I think obviously the fact that although there were titans of the 16-bit era they could not keep up the same because you know you had the 32X, you had the... I don't even know what you call it but it was like a CD attachment
00:40:01
Speaker
something like that. Yeah, I think it was the Sega CD. Whether that did well or not, I'm not too sure. I know Knuckles' Chaotix, which, so before we go on, because we have been talking very positively about this particular four years of Sonic, or rather three years, I'm getting ahead of myself. But yeah, before we go into what could possibly be seen as like a, I suppose, a warning, a foreshadowing, as it were. Aha, Sonic reference.
00:40:22
Speaker
Was it not the Sonic CD? Was it not the Sega CD?
00:40:28
Speaker
Is there anything else you want to say about this era of games? I'll just quickly give my outsider take on the first two games. I said I wasn't able unfortunately to play Sonic 3, but I'll speak to the first and second ones. I agree with you about the original. I found it very difficult to get into.
00:40:44
Speaker
After repeated playthroughs, I did find myself really enjoying Green Hill Zone, and the music's great, it looks great, and the level's designed to really play to Sonic's speed, and that's really fun, but when I hit Marble Zone, the one after it, I instantly just knew I wasn't gonna play any more of it, because it's such a jarring design shift, and it comes more like a regular platformer, which I just didn't think meshed very well with Sonic. I think the first game feels like a really great proof of concept,
00:41:11
Speaker
but I don't think it was able to reach its full potential. I think in Green Hill Zone, for me, that seems to be a bit of a consensus. They didn't quite understand how to make a Sonic game yet. They felt they had to rely a bit more on the classic platforming tropes, which don't work as well. I think its influence and its legacy is greater than the actual quality of the game, I would say, but I totally agree with you. I was surprised how much I enjoyed the second one.
00:41:38
Speaker
I think it's probably one of the best gaming sequels that I've played because it takes what was so good about the original and then just successfully builds on that. And there's some great zones as well, like Emerald Hill and Chemical Plan, the first two zones are so much fun to play. I went through those and I was having a great time and I kind of stopped at the third stage, which I think is a
00:41:55
Speaker
aquatic ruins, I want to say. I kind of stopped there. I wasn't sure I was going to play much more, but I found myself just kind of coming back to the game and just playing more and more until I actually ended up beating it. Again, I saves come through as well, but I'm a filthy casual. I'm not very good at platform games. I didn't have the classic experience, but I really enjoyed it. I had a lot of fun with it. And it just felt like it was nice to see the universe get expanded with tales. As you said, it was cool that they built on the kind of having different paths.
00:42:21
Speaker
everything through the level. I think it was they built a kind of two act structure into each stage in Sonic 2 rather than in the in the first one you have like three acts per year big stage. I thought the two act structure was much better. The Spin Dash we said before was a great addition and it was just a really really fun game to play like I just really enjoyed it and it really felt like they'd kind of got what was unique about Sonic and what made him such a fun character and made the game such fun platformers. So that one for me as well just just really stood out and
00:42:47
Speaker
I said, it's a shame I couldn't play Sonic 3. But from what I see, I think the leap between Sonic 1 and Sonic 2 is much bigger than between Sonic 2 and Sonic 3. It seems like Sonic 3 is kind of like polishing and refining what was good about Sonic 2. So I guess in that way, you could say Sonic 2 is the battle. It took a much bigger leap forward than Sonic 3, kind of just reinforced what was great about Sonic 2. Well, if you look at like 1992 to 1994, we had Sonic CD in between. So you're exactly right, you know, you had
00:43:14
Speaker
this kind of game in between to really just give them some breathing room and like, you know, kind of hone in on what makes Sonic good, what doesn't. Considering what was happening outside of the games as well, because as soon as Sonic hit the shelves, it became instantly popular. You had cartoons, you had the comics, you had thousands of toys of course. It was just like a 90s icon come
00:43:38
Speaker
completely out of the gate. Whereas, I mean, Mario was as well to an extent, but Mario was kind of what you were saying. Mario doesn't really feel like a character. He feels more like a job role. And this game, you know, is like, we need a
00:43:54
Speaker
hero to save the princess and it's like okay Mario. And don't get me wrong I'm not understating the impact of Mario because that again is another fantastic and influential platformer but I think in terms of comparing Mario to Sonic, Sonic definitely had the edge and I think maybe that's what caused his downfall towards the future. Would you say his overinflated reputation kind of caused issues later on in this era?
00:44:20
Speaker
I definitely think so because I think when you have a series that's so beloved and so popular, the expectations and the standards are set much higher. And, you know, any kind of any kind of deviation from that, even if it's not, even if it's, you know, maybe it's just a slight dip in quality, I think is inflated to be this massive, like, you know, oh, my God, this is almost like death blow to the franchise.
Transition Challenges to 3D
00:44:40
Speaker
So I think as well, and I'm sure we'll talk about this in later episodes, but I think the way Sonic is kind of structured and built
00:44:47
Speaker
It was always going to be a more difficult transition to 3D than I think Mario was, so I'm sure we'll get into that. But definitely, I think the expectations were so high, it was almost that thing, it almost seemed too easy for it just to fall. And I'm just looking at the year after Sonic 3 and Knuckles. In 1995, they brought out Knuckles' Chaotix for the Sega 32X. That's why there's a weird one.
00:45:13
Speaker
This is where they had Knuckles as, of course, the protagonist, but this is where they introduced the characters of the Chaotix. So you had Vector the Crocodile, Espio the Chameleon, Charmy B. All three of them came back in Sonic Heroes, which, eh.
00:45:30
Speaker
You know, you've got Vector, but then you've got Charmy, you know, you kind of win some, lose some in that front. And of course they introduced Mighty the Armadillo, who really wasn't taking the inn again until, as I said before, it wasn't until Sonic Mania that they brought him back as a DLC character. Same with Ray the Squirrel, because apparently Mighty and Ray were like side characters in a Sonic arcade game, but it was like,
00:45:56
Speaker
Japanese exclusive only. I know we'll talk about this in later episodes, but there is quite a funny thing where in one of the levels, I think it's the City Escape remake in Sonic Generations, but there's actually posters of like Ray the Squirrel invited the Armadillo saying, have you seen me?
00:46:15
Speaker
I thought that was quite cute, that was quite funny. I think as soon as Knuckles' Chaotix came out, it was kind of, it was mixed, I think. And although they had such a bigger reputation, it was, I think this was kind of the beginning of the end in this generation. Because as we said, they were trying to make the Genesis
00:46:37
Speaker
They were trying to put on life support. They had the Sega CD, they had the 32X on top, it just looked like a mess. And then they brought out the Sega Saturn, which, oh boy. So 1994 I think was when they brought it out in Japan, and then I think 1995 was the American release. I think Europe probably got it the same, but I'm going to be honest, I don't think I've ever seen a Saturn in person with you.
00:47:01
Speaker
No, I actually, I just looked up a picture of it because I was like, I actually don't know what a Sega Saturn looks like. It is that one that, you know, I was gonna say sacrificial lamb, but I don't think that's quite the right term for it. But it was that one that just got run over in this generation. And I think they didn't have a very good
00:47:17
Speaker
I think this was meant to still, the Saturn was still meant to kind of, it hadn't fully embraced 3D yet. I don't think in the way that the Nintendo 64 and the PlayStation had, you know, were built to be 3D consoles. I think the Saturn was still kind of clinging to that 2D style. They had a very, they had a pretty messy launch as well in the US where I think they kind of panicked about the release of the PlayStation. So I think they released the Saturn early, but only in like select stores, which then like pissed off the other like big supermarkets who didn't get it. So they refused to stop getting the Saturn. So I think this all just led to the
00:47:47
Speaker
the Saturn just getting basically wiped out quite disastrously in this era, which I think you really can point to that as the kind of downfall of Sega in the hardware game. It just seems so bizarre because they were making all the right decisions, you know, 91 to 94. But then just after that, when the Saturn came out, it was meant to compete against the Nintendo 64 and the PlayStation. Honestly, see if I told you, think about a console of that era. Like, what would you choose?
00:48:14
Speaker
It'd probably be the PlayStation and Nintendo 64 and one of those two would come instantly to mind. It's not going to be the Saturn. I can't imagine many people who do the World Association game is going to think, oh yeah, the Sega Saturn, everybody's favourite. Because I mean, do get me wrong, during the original games we talked about, there were hundreds, or not hundreds, but there were loads of spin-offs. You had 8-bit Sonic, you had the Game Gear ones, you had
00:48:40
Speaker
you know, all the other ones we talked about, and of course Knuckles Chaotix, which did not play well. From what I've seen, I haven't played it personally, so take my opinion with a pinch of salt.
00:48:53
Speaker
And it does, doesn't it? And apparently if you play Charm, maybe there's no flight limit, so you can just keep flying. Is that just an act to play this game? To play Charm? Yeah. Play Charm ain't just fly with Vector or whoever you want. Aye, and that's it. You won the game. Well done, champ.
00:49:10
Speaker
You can come home now. You're saved today. But of course, I was actually laughing at this when I was thinking about it because it is weird how even nowadays gaming companies panic when they're releasing a new console, but their flagship mascot isn't part of the release. So think about the Xbox Series X, which I had to think about the naming convention there because I was like, oh yeah, I forgot it wasn't as cool or it didn't make sense.
00:49:36
Speaker
You know, they didn't haveable infinite, for example, when that released. And I can't remember, did the PlayStation 5 have any exclusives? PlayStation is weird now in that it doesn't, PlayStation doesn't have a mascot per se. Yeah, true. Now, you know, I mean, I guess Ratchet and Clank was the one that released of the early, which is kind of, I guess, some. I said PlayStation, you probably wouldn't think Ratchet and Clank.
00:50:00
Speaker
That's your first big game. So yeah, like it again, I think mascots aren't quite as prevalent now in gaming as they once were, but especially for this era, as you said, it's weird. It must have been weird to not have. But then I found that weird to think that Sonic the Hedgehog wasn't a release title for the Genesis. I never quite realized that the Genesis or sorry, the Mega Drive was, you know, released a few years before Sonic the Hedgehog, which was good because just because you think Sega, you think Sonic. It's funny to think that actually there was a period before, you know, Sonic and Sega's history.
00:50:27
Speaker
I mean, especially with the Master System and the Alex Kid. Of course, yeah, for Alex Kid, I'm forgetting who was the OG mascot. Oh yeah, I'm in it with silence. Okay, we're done. So, yeah. There wasn't really like a flagship Sonic game which came out, and I'm just looking at my notes here, and it was 1996.
00:50:47
Speaker
that Sonic's quote-unquote first 3D game came out and that was Sonic 3D Blast or I think it was called Sonic Flicky Adventure here or Sonic's Flicky? I don't know. It wasn't good. It was like a 2.5D isometric like top-down view and knuckles. It was not really... you played a bit of this because I haven't really had much experience with it other than obviously like
00:51:11
Speaker
during the research, watching the videos, but you said you played a little bit of this, didn't you? Yeah, I really did not like this game at all. Oh really? As you say, it's not a full 3D, it's like an isometric 3D view, as you were saying, and it does not suit a Sonic game.
00:51:26
Speaker
I think Sonic had to make Sonic a lot slower in this because he feels a lot more sluggish and quite slow and it's so difficult. You have to jump on enemies. It is really difficult to tell where Sonic is going to land with the view. While in the 2D game it's quite clear where you can judge it quite well, I found it so tricky in this one.
00:51:46
Speaker
And yeah, I played the first zone of it, and then I was like, this game is just not for me at all. And yeah, so I bounced off it very quickly after that. So yeah, I kind of failed foray into 3D. But interestingly, I think the only interesting thing about this game is that it was made by, if I'm not mistaken, Traveller's Tales, who then moved here to make the LEGO, you know, most famous making the LEGO series of games now. So that's kind of cool. Do you know how we're talking about Sonic fighters and your OG Knack the Weasel?
00:52:14
Speaker
Sorry, fang, my sniper fang. When are we gonna get a mode in World of War where a play is like fang the sniper? If only I could code, I would totally do that right now. One day. Yeah, you guys don't know this, but this is like the kind of catalyst into Adam's like coding career now. We need more coders like you, son. Imagine that being like, who's your inspirations fang the sniper?
00:52:42
Speaker
is like opening up the locker and it's just a picture of that. My boy. My boy. The man. The man. What? What is your affinity to? I don't know. I like the fact that he's called the sniper in this Sonic. That's true. It seems just sort of like when you've got the hedgehog, the echidna, the sniper. It's like a Team Fortress character. I love it. You know what? I can't even argue with that because I'm just trying to think of the other characters in Sonic Fighters. I think you've got Bark the Bear and Bean the Duck.
00:53:10
Speaker
Or is it Bean the Bomber? I actually think he might be called the Bomber. Oh my god. Why are these characters never had their own things? Let me just imagine. Bean the Dynamite. That's it. What the hell? I love it. Have you actually seen it? Are you looking at that? I'm looking at Bean now. My goodness. What a crazy universe. I love it. That laughs we had.
00:53:33
Speaker
Yeah, now a bark has just barked the polar bear. That doesn't seem as cool when you have a sniper and the dynamite. Yeah, the sniper, the dynamite and the polar bear is really the same. But yeah, I was trying to see if that had a home release and while it did have a home release on the Xbox and PlayStation arcades,
00:53:52
Speaker
yeah apparently it was only an arcade game for Sonic fighters so the first kind of home 3d game was this sonic 3d blast which actually i think it came out for the genesis as well i could be wrong i'm pretty sure there was like a port of it to the genesis but then the year after of course we got sonic r which was the racing game i can't remember who developed it but i think he just wanted to develop it as fast as possible and just get it out the door and be like yeah
00:54:21
Speaker
you know what, it's a Sonic game. You know, long before that was actually a phrase in the gaming industry's lexicon. Travel the tales again apparently. They have quite the affiliation with the Sonic series, I'm just realising. It's really weird, doesn't it? To think that they just moved on. It's understandable.
00:54:37
Speaker
considering what happens. Like hindsight's a wonderful thing. You might be thinking, okay, that's it. That's us wrapping up. You know, you can see that Sonic 1 to 3, fantastic games, the highlight of this generation of gaming, and yay, had a bit of
00:54:53
Speaker
trouble you know going into the 3D era and you know we wouldn't get a good 3D or a acceptable 3D game until the Sonic Adventure series but no dear listener no no no no no we have one more game that we need to talk about that of course being Sonic Extreme and that's extreme
00:55:12
Speaker
Oh yeah, it was in 90's Adam. We didn't know how to spell. We really didn't. There was a lot of illiteracy back then. Oh yeah, Sonic Extreme. Where to begin with this one? This was gonna be like the main 3D Sonic game. This was gonna be the Sonic game to launch him into the 3D space. It didn't work.
00:55:33
Speaker
spoilers because for Sonic fans out there, you'll know this game. You'll know this with Infamy and go, oh god. But for people who aren't Sonic fans, I'm assuming you didn't know about this game either. I had never heard of this game I think until you brought it up a couple days ago and then I looked into it. I had never heard of this one at all.
00:55:51
Speaker
It's interesting. It went through absolute development hell where it was like you had to play Sonic in this really rudimentary 3D world and it was through a fish island, wasn't it? Yeah, it seems so bizarre but it's like they're feeling that was the only way to actually see what Sonic was doing.
00:56:11
Speaker
does sound like they just really were struggling mightily without to bring Sonic into a 3D environment. And I mean, this topic in itself could be a whole Chatsunami episode in its own, but the long and short of it was there were severe relationship issues between Sega of America and Sega
00:56:30
Speaker
of Japan because from what I know, I think it was Sega of America that were developing this. Unfortunately, they were called the Sega Technical Institute. I'm going to let you figure out what that anagram sounds like. I read it back and I went, oh no, it was the 90s. It was a different time. Basically, they didn't get a development kit.
00:56:50
Speaker
so they didn't have like a Saturn to practice on. Half of the game was developed on Windows of all things, and I think the other half was developed on a very late developer kit that they got for the Saturn, so one half of the team worked on that and the other half worked on Windows. They really just split up everything.
00:57:07
Speaker
It looked to me like they had to almost develop two separate games and kind of unnaturally weld them together in that it was like, you'd obviously have the, so you would have the kind of, as you say, the Fisheye Len sort of 3D regular Sonic sections, but then it was going to change for the boss fights.
00:57:23
Speaker
into something more two dimensional around things it was almost like there were two separate games and then had to try and like force together and you know the game would have to have to realize when you know you were in the boss fight section when you were in the regular sections and like switch everything so it did just seem like a kind of a holy holy mess really of every of development
00:57:41
Speaker
Because you're totally right, they had a team developing the actual stages, and then you had a team that were developing the boss battles. Then you had concept artists who were drawing concept art for levels that didn't exist.
00:57:56
Speaker
I think there's only one that does exist, but the rest of them are just like, oh yeah, draw this. Supposedly, I don't know how true this is, but apparently at one point, I don't know if it was the Head of Sega or the Head of Sonic team. One of them came to see how the development of the game was going, and once they saw, they were kind of like, eh. I think they said, well, good luck with that.
00:58:19
Speaker
then kind of left. It just went through development hell, like there's apparently stories of some developers actually moving out of their flats and actually into the offices to work on this game. Oh the crunch. It really was though, it was absolutely ridiculous because that's what they were saying. How eventually, I think because Sonic Team was working on Nights Into Dreams,
00:58:41
Speaker
Gonna be honest, Night's Into Dreams, not something I've really dedicated a lot of time to. I know of it through that one part of Sonic Adventure where you go through the pinball machine. Oh, of course. I knew the name sounded familiar, I forgot about that. Yeah, other than that, no idea. I have no, like...
00:58:58
Speaker
relationship or, you know, connection with Nights into Dreams. I've got no idea what it's about. But it's
Impact of Sonic Extreme's Cancellation
00:59:05
Speaker
a weird one. So their focus was kind of into that. And apparently it did well, I guess, for Sonic Extreme. It ended up, I think it was Yuji Naka, the head of Sonic, who basically said that they saw how it was developing. And he was like, no, this is terrible.
00:59:22
Speaker
Don't rubbish this. Can you imagine working on this game for several years only for someone to turn around and just be like nah, dump it all? I can't decide whether it would have been absolutely soul crushing or just like relief or the unholy mess that was going on. Perhaps somebody was like thank god this unnatural beast is being put down. I can only imagine though as you say all the work you put, especially if you're like moving into the office as well and everything, you must just be like what was it all for?
00:59:48
Speaker
Why did I kill myself for this project? Considering that technically their first 3D game was Sonic 3D Blast and then two years later Sonic Adventure got released and that's like a fully fleshed out 3D experience and you look back at Sonic Extreme and both of them are like night and day. They're just completely different. It's like how can you go from Sonic Extreme to Sonic Adventure? They're just both completely
01:00:16
Speaker
really different. On the plus side though, apparently the developers all went to like good homes. They went to good companies and they started developing like, I think one of them, the one who moved into the office, they ended up working on the Far Cry series.
01:00:33
Speaker
Later on, and there's a couple of other, like, honourable mentions where they went to more prestigious studios, so you know what? I'm kind of glad that they managed to get to something better than what could have been, which is a bit of a shame, but honestly, I think, personally, and I'm curious to hear what you think, but I think it probably was the right decision to cancel this game, because I think this game being released could have done more harm than good if it was released in the state it was.
01:01:03
Speaker
I'm inclined to agree with you. This doesn't sound like it was going to have a happy ending, give this was just from everything. I cannot see how a good game could have... I don't even know how an average game could have come out of this. This feels like it was headed towards an unholy mess. Yeah, I mean, I know the Sonic series has had its low points and had its bad games.
01:01:21
Speaker
I don't even know if Sonic 06 would have approached the potential disaster this could have been. So I think Sega were right. And I don't think the release of this game would have probably saved Sega. It probably would have sold well being a Sonic game, but then if you were to release something that was this bad quality, it probably would have damaged Faith further in Sega. So I don't really see any upside to them releasing this. I think it could only have gotten worse. So I think they made the right call.
01:01:47
Speaker
It's actually quite interesting to think what gaming would have been like if it came out. You know, like would people have looked back on it and said this is the worst game ever or why was Sonic good? Or, you know, because Sonic was coasting on his reputation, wasn't he? I definitely think so, especially that there'd been no bad main series game yet.
01:02:06
Speaker
There had been no game that was universally recognised as being, you know, bad. I'm sure if it had been released we'd have got people down the line about now going back to it and being like, actually, you know what, this was a good game and we all just didn't get it at the time. You know, or defending it on what it could have been. But I think it was probably for the best that just didn't see the light of day. And it seems like...
01:02:26
Speaker
some of the ideas were carried on. I mean, because from what I was reading the extreme was going to have like different playable characters. And I saw like there was going to be tales and tales was going to be like a first person flight thing, apparently, and then Knuckles was going to have it was gonna be like a top down isometric camera and stuff. So, you know, obviously the adventure series took up the having different characters to play for it, but I think they made the right choice and not you know,
01:02:47
Speaker
not drastically changing camera angles and everything you know at least characters kind of play as much as they have different moves at least they kind of play similarly which was i think a good idea and it seemed that they were going for like a kind of tube like design with a lot of the levels for the sonic levels you can probably tell me it's better but is that not similar to what is it lost ring is it secret world or
01:03:07
Speaker
The Lost World has a very similar kind of, a lot of those levels for Sonic appear to be kind of like a cylinder type tube thing that you can kind of go around, which I've heard mixed things about whether people think it worked or not, but that idea was carried forward, you know, albeit many, many years down the line. One of the things that I do appreciate the Sonic franchise is the fact that it does innovate a lot.
01:03:30
Speaker
it does try to push the boundaries of what's acceptable and tries to kind of try new things and give each game its own identity but I think especially for games like that they try to at least later on in the series and again we'll talk about that in future episodes but they try to bring back kind of older aspects of the franchise into the future slight spoilers I personally don't think that's a good idea but yeah
01:03:58
Speaker
So, to quickly answer, yeah, that was very cylindrical, where you just ran over the tubes. Same technically with Sonic Heroes, because in the Special Stages, that's very much the same as Sonic 2's Special Stages where you run through the tubes. Oh, okay! Relatively similar. I still get nightmares at both, but say what you have about that.
01:04:21
Speaker
It's probably, would you say though, as a kind of close enough point, but would you say that this was like a warning for what was to come in the later years of Sonic? I think it was definitely a sign of how difficult it was going to be to transition Sonic into 3D, and I think that definitely showed that it was going to be an awkward
01:04:43
Speaker
transition phase. It's hard to say because I know there's been Sonic games that have been panned, they critically panned in later years and stuff, but I don't know if extreme was a sign of that. I think it was very much a sign of the state of Sega at the time, and it feels like a lot of this game's failures as much as it was the difficulty of transitioning to 3D.
01:05:03
Speaker
I think a lot of this can be laid at the fact that Sega seemed to be a pretty, like, you know, bit of a mess of a company at this point. So yes and no, I think yes it pointed to the difficulty of the transition of Sonic, but no and I think a lot of this I would point to, like, the state of Sega at the time, rather than this game being the prophecy that, you know, Sonic was going to fall into disrepute.
01:05:23
Speaker
Because that is something that of course we brought up earlier that Nintendo must have been really worried when Sonic debuted and he took the world by storm and everything but compared to Sonic I think Mario's transition into 3D was handled a lot better.
01:05:41
Speaker
And considering what came next, you know, you had a whole plethora of the really mascot characters. You had Crash Bandicoot, you had Spyro. I mean, even like more obscure ones like Croc and... Oh, blinks on the Xbox. Blinks, of course. You had blinks. I have still not played that, but that was one of the reasons I went to the next box, would you believe? Not really, Feral.
01:06:05
Speaker
I saw it and I was like, oh no, it's like a really cool game and it's like, I can't play bits on the game pass, I think. Oh, I'll crack it open. I'm going to leave a slot out for that. But yeah, you had all these different games, you know, you had Banjo-Kazooie as well for the N64. You had Donkey Kong as well. Technically, I was going to bring up Bubsy, but that's a good point.
01:06:27
Speaker
There was Bubsy, even the worst ones, there was a whole range of characters getting brought into the fray and everything that you think, huh, okay, this is worrying. The pressure was amounting, I think, for Sega to do something and to try and... Let's face it, a franchise cannot get by on its reputation alone from the
Sonic's Decline and Legacy
01:06:50
Speaker
past. I mean, it could have been popular several years ago, it could have done
01:06:54
Speaker
everything right for a good couple of years, but a couple of bad games in a row just tarnishes it. I mean, we've talked in depth in our previous episodes about our Halo retrospectives, our Call of Duty retrospectives, you know, games like that that were such titans of their genres, but
01:07:12
Speaker
at the same time. Now it is, they're kind of seen as a joke. Same with Battlefield as well with us another tale. For Sonic I think they were kind of banking on the fact that, oh he's popular with the kids, let's see how this goes. I think this is definitely the time things started to waver and there was like a bunch of poor manager decisions. And it's weird to think something as prolific as Sonic got affected this badly in this kind of period because, I mean, if you look at Sonic 3 they had
01:07:40
Speaker
Michael Jackson of all people. And I know the controversies that happened later on, but back then, that was a huge deal, wasn't it? That they had his music, or not his music, but he worked on the music. Was that crazy? Yeah, he was directing the music originally, was he not? That was an absolute huge score. You could have got much more popular in the music sphere than Michael Jackson at that point. And I think that's probably why there's so many licensing issues nowadays. So that's
01:08:06
Speaker
kind of why you don't have as many ports. I think they are bringing out a port either this year or next year. Oh nice. Supposedly. It's like called Sonic Origins or something but yeah, there's controversy about that for another day. Like it's not widescreen or anything but
01:08:23
Speaker
Yeah there's just so much like interesting and great things about this kind of period of Sonic. It's definitely the one I think that leaves a big impact. Thinking back to our Sonic episode where we talked about the Sonic the Hedgehog movie in 2020.
01:08:40
Speaker
even with the credits you had like the 16-bit art and things and you had Sonic running away from Eggman who was also in 16-bit and that's kind of the time capsule that you're always going to remember Sonic as because as much as I love the adventure series whenever you think of Sonic you don't think of him with the janky 3D models or you know the long quills and those six or whatever the hell they've done to him now you think of him as that 16-bit mascot from the 90s
01:09:08
Speaker
And it's that kind of image that carried him, but I don't think it really carried him past that, if you know what I mean. Like, into the 3D era, there was definitely teething problems. I think as well, you mentioned this before, but I think he was a victim of his own success, his own popularity, and that this era of games made Sonic
01:09:29
Speaker
you know, a mainstay of gaming and made so many people fans of his that I think, as you say, David, and it's what happens, I think, with fandom, you kind of click onto the vision and the reality of what, you know, of what your favorite franchise was like when you fell in love with it, when you perceive it to be its height. And then it's almost like when it changes, you look at it and you're like, well, that's just not as good. It's not really an objective question anymore. It's so subjective. So I think people love these original games so much. And it was always going to be
01:09:59
Speaker
You know, as much as there's similarities, it was always going to be a change when Sonic moved into the 3D era of gaming. I just think the expectations were just too high, and I think there was just too much of a rabid fan base from that Genesis Mega Drive era that they just weren't going to fully get on board. And some people did like it, and don't get me wrong, but I think there was not people to be there to be like, no, this isn't Sonic. This isn't our Sonic. So it's unfortunately that way of just being the victim of your own success, really.
01:10:27
Speaker
To me, Sonic reminds me of, you know those old 80s slash 90s coming of age films? Where you always had the bully who had the Letterman jacket and you know he was like the top dog and everything and all he's so popular and everything but they show him years later and he's still wearing the jacket but he's old and he's got nothing going for him.
01:10:50
Speaker
That's how I kind of think of Sonic. Maybe not as much nowadays. I think he's kind of clawed back a little bit of respect, but it almost feels as if that's the way Sonic was heading. It's this idea that he built up such a great reputation over three years, and then things started to waver because the kind of 16-bit party was wrapping up. People wanted something fresh and different.
01:11:14
Speaker
I will discuss this in later episodes but as much as I love Sonic for being able to take risks and try something different compared to like Mario or in the other kind of franchise like that at the time, it just didn't translate well.
01:11:30
Speaker
At least in the early period, as we said, Michael's Chaotix didn't really do well. Sonic 3D Blast didn't do well because obviously the Saturn was a disaster of a console. Sonic R as well was mediocre. I mean, there will be fans of these games out there probably, but I think the general consensus is that they're not as widely regarded. Yeah,
01:11:52
Speaker
as being what they used to be at least in the 1991 to 1994 period. And I mean technically you could extend it to 95, 96 because you might think, oh well it's still good, it's still good, it's fighting. But it is a prelude for what's to come and believe you me we still have a lot of research to get done. But
01:12:13
Speaker
Before we do wrap up and we tell you all what we really have planned for the rest of this month.
Revisiting Sonic Games
01:12:20
Speaker
Yeah, do you have any final thoughts about this kind of era of Sonic as a whole? I think I would just say it was really fun for me to go back and try the games of this era. 2D platformers are something that I never played when I was growing up.
01:12:35
Speaker
I've never really played until recently I'm not very good at them and I've never had that much interest but it was really fun to go back and play these games and to see what's made Sonic unique in this era and I was surprised at how much I enjoyed a game like Sonic 2 and just how much fun I had with it I don't know it just feels such a fun experience I had with it and I think it's probably the most fun I've had with one of these 2D platformers with Sonic 2 so yeah just just from my perspective I didn't I said I didn't really care for the original Sonic
01:13:05
Speaker
I didn't like Sonic CD 3D Blast, I thought was pretty bad. But that's Sonic 2. I just I really think I kind of got why Sonic became so popular and why he is, you know, still remains a mainstay of the gaming genre. And I can see why people have such a fondness for this era of Sonic. So it was it was a really interesting undertaking for me to experience that. And I kind of feel like I understand more about this series now than I ever did, you know, before this before this month started.
01:13:30
Speaker
And I mean, as I said before, like putting my cards on the table here, while I am more of a Sonic Adventure fanboy, it can really be understated how influential these games were for gaming. You have all of these different types of platformers, and trust me, I've played a lot of these when I was younger. You know, I even played the McDonald's one. Did you know McDonald's had a video game on the NES?
01:13:57
Speaker
I must go look this up. No, I did not know that. Well, it's either the NES or the SNES. I cannot remember which one, but yes, they had a platformer game. I've actually got it right behind me on my gaming shelf.
01:14:09
Speaker
I will take a picture and show you. You know, you had like the tie-in ones, like the Chippendale games, you had Earthworm Jim, for the Genesis, you had all of these different platformers. Obviously you had Alex Kidd, hahaha. That's the thing though, it's Sonic was the one that stood out. It was
01:14:27
Speaker
a friendly design that was approachable. I mean, say what you will about these games, like in hindsight, whether you love them or you hate them. The design work is top notch. They're instantly recognisable. They are instantly distinctive. They're just great, mixing that with great level design, great music that just got better and better. You know, it improved from Sonic 1 to 2, improved from Sonic 2 to 3, and the fact that they allowed you to play Knuckles with the expansion in Sonic 2, they didn't have to do that.
01:14:57
Speaker
at all. But they did it, and that is what made Sonic so memorable in the eyes of the fans. And it's amazing.
Preview of Future Sonic Discussions
01:15:03
Speaker
I just, I think there's so much love and attention that has been put into this series, at least in the early stages. And you know what? It had a very turbulent couple of years after it, but that is nothing compared to what we are going to dive into next week.
01:15:20
Speaker
So next week we are of course going to be diving into a very very very famous, well I say famous, technically infamous period of Sonic history. We are going to be starting from the Sonic Adventure series
01:15:35
Speaker
which of course started in 1998 and just as a little bit of a treat we are going to take it all the way up to 2008 which of course is the well I think it's probably the beginning of what you could probably call the modern
01:15:52
Speaker
era of Sonic with Sonic Unleashed. So we are going to be talking about this very, very, very, dare I say very infamous period where we of course have the greats like the Sonic Adventures and heroes. We have the weird like Shadow the Hedgehog
01:16:10
Speaker
and we have the oddities and I'm putting that very nicely as we will also be discussing Sonic the Hedgehog or Sonic O6, Sonic the Next Gen, whatever you want to call it, The Abomination, that ugly game that keeps coming to family reunions and you keep locking out the door. We will be talking about that. I'm excited. Are you excited, Ado?
01:16:32
Speaker
I am more nervous, I think, than I was to play the Mega Drive games, but I am still really looking forward to, because I am starting to get a bit into this series now, so I want to see where it goes. I know the opinions range quite widely across this era, but I'm looking forward to kind of digging in and seeing what I think of this era of Sonic. And I can't wait for you to experience that.
01:16:53
Speaker
Seeing that note, thank you so, so much for stopping by and listening to the very first episode of Sonic Month.
Podcast Promotion and Conclusion
01:17:02
Speaker
If you want to hear more of our episodes, or even more of our Sonic takes, we actually have an episode where we discuss the Sonic the Hedgehog movie, and I think that was the catalyst, wasn't it, for this episode.
01:17:14
Speaker
The seed from which Sonic month grew. Exactly. And if you want to hear my actual opinions on Sonic 06, you can hear my collaboration with the very popular streamer, Super Shadow 271, where we talk for about two hours. I was listening back to the episode today and I was like, Jesus, two hours. We talked about Sonic 06. So yeah, close into that. Chat Tsunami is, of course, available on Anchor.
01:17:40
Speaker
Spotify, iTunes, YouTube, really any good podcast app. So if you've got a podcast app, look for the Red Panther and search Chat Tsunami. And on that note guys, thank you all so so much for listening. Stay safe, stay awesome, and most importantly, stay hydrated.