A Quick Aside About Some Really Weird Sonic Developments

Between demonic aliens driven by self-preservation and trashy visual novel games with horror twists, it looks like true evil never dies—it just comes back in really strange forms sometimes.

CONTENT WARNING!

This post contains sensitive material that may not be suitable for all readers. The material in question includes:

- Bad language
- Frightening imagery
- Mentions of rape
- Political topics

The Element of (Lacking) Surprise
A New Day... of Reckoning
Return to Paradise
An Unexpected Shift

The Element of (Lacking) Surprise

While I do, in fact, have a few posts I hope to start writing soon, I’ve decided to release a short impromptu entry just to (a) tide you over until the next one and (b) cover some… let’s call them funky developments. It should come as no surprise that the Sonic franchise gets brought up rather often here, which is why it’s a little surprising that I really only like three games from said franchise nowadays. As I mentioned in my post devoted solely to this topic here, the modern games aren’t the entries I hate the most, but they are the ones I’ve become the most ambivalent towards. I appreciated Team Sonic Racing for its simplicity, gameplay, and break from that same old boost formula from Unleashed and onwards (not to mention the obvious inspiration it takes from Heroes), but by the time of Frontiers, my interest in and enthusiasm for the series were already lying six feet under. Speaking of death, the most unexpected Sonic-related thing to happen in recent times was the release of that Agatha Christie murder mystery adventure that unfortunately has too much of a HuniePop-esque visual novel style for my comfort zone.

If that wasn’t already a taste of weird shit to come, not only does the logo for the third Sonic movie perfectly replicate the Sonic Adventure 2 logo with the same sense of overly wistful nostalgia that made me roll my eyes at the Big fishing missions in Frontiers (sorry, but it still doesn’t change the fact that the Sonic I knew as a kid is dead), but I do have to give it props for the decision to cast Keanu Reeves as Shadow. It was one of those casting decisions you’d never see coming in a thousand years, but once it happens, you realize how much sense it makes. In general, though, the Sonic movies have contrasted with the Mario movie for casting actors based on how well they fit the characters as opposed to purely star power, meaning you don’t get Bowser voiced by Jack Black or Seth Rogan as Donkey Kong. Of course, with Jim Carrey retiring, it sounds like we’ve seen the last of his phenomenal take on Eggman, which means that Sonic 3 is probably going to suck. Besides, two recurring problems (aside from not going all-out in making a buddy cop comedy starring Sonic and Tails) have to do with focusing too much on the human characters and reimagining the backstories of the Adventure games in ways that take away what made them so compelling to begin with, the level of blanket exposition being just one example out of a hundred. Yes, these movies are cute and genuinely funny at times, but I’m well past the point of geeking out over them by now.

A New Day… of Reckoning

As I mentioned in my Black Doom post here, there was once an alliance in the Sonic universe that was unusually complex yet subtle in its culture and worldview, as it introduced (a) plenty of fascinating world-building and (b) somewhat reasonable justification for their plan to attack the Earth, that being for their own preservation (or “prosperity”, as they call it) as well as saving humanity from their inevitable fate. Moreover, I made sure to mention how I’ve been rewriting the story of Shadow the Hedgehog in a Choose Your Own Adventure-style retelling called the “Recollected Cut”. Along with this, I’ve expanded on the history of the Black Arms in a graphic novel called Black Comet, which aims to double-down on the unique world-building while acting as a climate change allegory and blending in elements of Old Norse culture. Hell, I’ve gone on to overhaul both stories since that post was published, like ditching the concept of Z9 (Black Doom) as a student, refining just about every line of dialogue, drastically trimming down scenes that dragged, etc. Suffice it to say, the whole Black Arm thing is the best aspect of Shadow the Hedgehog by a wide margin, yet all the creative ideas introduced were unfortunately drowned out by writing done by people who just didn’t seem to care about the material or their audience. I’ve noticed this stronger than ever recently when listening to the cutscene music on its own, as you have these great compositions being overshadowed (no pun intended) by the same egregious writing and vocal performances.

Possibly an even stronger example is the Black Arms’ strange and little-known connection to the famous Nazca Lines in Peru that conspiracy theorists have proposed were etched by aliens—the file names for Glyphic Canyon and Sky Troops read as “nazca1” and “nazca2”, respectively; the cutscene music for when Shadow first arrives in Glyphic Canyon is titled “Vast Nazca”; and one of the actual Nazca Lines can be seen sketched in chalk during both stages, that being the hummingbird symbol which ironically resembles a Black Wing or Black Hawk. Oh, and before you ask, this connection has encouraged me to refer to the island that the stage Death Ruins takes place on as Isla Nazca in the Recollected Cut as well as hint at the Black Arm connection further in Black Comet, although this consists of little more than some of the Nazca Lines showing up as hieroglyphs in Z9’s palace, the Heart of Darkness, as to not rub the connection in too blatantly.

So, why talk about this now? Well, as I also mentioned in that post, the Black Arms pretty much vanished after the destruction of the Black Comet, a detail that I’ve phased out of the Recollected Cut as it implies the genocide of an entire race—instead, Shadow simply uses the Eclipse Cannon to bounce the Comet light years away from Earth. Either way, you can read that post if you want more of the background info, because Sonic Generations will be rereleased for newer systems this fall, and presumably included with all new copies and made available for existing copies will be a Shadow-focused expansion. The premise? I kid you not—Black Doom’s coming back. That’s right! Those alien bastards are gonna do it again, and I literally just came to accept that they never would! Granted, this still doesn’t mean I see any reason to geek out over it, as the Modern Era isn’t known for featuring quality writing, and it’s quality writing that villains with complex motivations like the Black Arms need to work—or more mature writing, I should say, as Shadow the Hedgehog suffered from feeling like it was written by a teenager.

Unfortunately, since we’re long past the point of giving Shadow a heartwarming friendship that reminds him of Maria (something I know was in the Archie comics even though I rarely read them growing up), the chances are slim that they’re actually going to take the time to make it smart, funny, or emotional, which is a concern given it’s simply an expansion to a preexisting game. Unlike Black Comet, it feels like they’re doing it simply for the sake of nostalgia as opposed to doing something fresh with the source material, and as I said in my Sonic games post, there’s an obvious difference between sticking with a formula that worked with people and throwing in minute details from that formula. People actually want the formula, not just reminders that it used to exist.

The best part of this whole ordeal? Well, aside from hopefully getting to hear the scariest voice in the history of fiction once more, I guess it’s time to get on with something I’ve been meaning to do for long enough now: dub Black Doom over with Neil Breen’s voice! Man, don’t I have enough to do in my free time?

Oh, my god, I think even Neil Breen’s writing surpasses this game’s…

Return to Paradise

Disappointing as it is, I’ve been in acceptance for a while now that the Adventure formula is never slated to return, no matter how successful that formula would be compared to the current one (for all the rumors of an upcoming Heroes remake, I fail to trust any of the sources I’ve heard them from.) This has pretty much led me to divorce myself from the brand, and to be fair, I’ll gladly just take the time to return to my Definitive Childhood Trilogy. That being said, it’s become a common talking point that fans are the only factor keeping the Sonic franchise running, a fact that’s only exacerbated by how fan outcry saved the first movie by getting the original design for Sonic changed. So, the question is, what would happen if these same crazy shithea– I mean, dedicated followers took matters into their own hands and sent the series down the path it deserves?

Well, most would rightfully say that sounds like an awful idea, but more often than not, some of the fan games they’ve produced are still far more enjoyable than any of the recent official releases. Granted, most of these tend to lack storylines of any kind, remain stuck in the prototype or demo phase, and/or utilize the modern boost formula if not the classic formula (which suggests that it’s more successful than it seems on the surface, now that I look back on it), but during the boarding school situation I’ve referred to ad nauseam here, another guy on the autism spectrum introduced me to a fan game that I could barely fathom at the time. In Sonic World (no, not the hub world feature from Sonic Jam), I could play as just about any character that has ever existed in just about any stage that has ever existed for free, and while its graphics left much to be desired due to having been developed on an ancient game engine called Blitz3D, its modding possibilities were borderline limitless, and I’d officially come face-to-face with the ultimate Sonic experience and the ultimate escape from that turbulent period in my life… I mean, aside from my comic series ElectroNuke, as the characters from that mean eighty times more to me.

The popularity of this game raged on from Release 1 through 8, but come Release 9, it was criticized more than ever for being notably unfinished despite adding a plethora of well-crafted stages as well as new enemies and objects. Certainly seemed like someone just stopped caring… but then, lead developer Ozcrash started lying compulsively and threatening to rape his co-developers’ siblings.

Wow. Uh… way to go from one to one thousand.

While I have my doubts that he meant the latter, the development process came to a standstill, and after a rushed tenth release, the game’s cancellation was announced on the official site. I mean, sure, this doesn’t mean the previous versions couldn’t be enjoyed, but within a year of announcing that, the dev team began a new project dubbed Sonic World DX, a more advanced and graphically impressive remake that continues being updated to this day. What a heartwarming revival!

Yeah, well, many of the characters from the “legacy versions” like Chaos and Fang were unfortunately phased out entirely, and despite DX supposedly offering even greater modding capabilities, none of them have been added back. Aside from most of the legacy versions’ glitches, performance issues, level of detail, and potential for sporadic crashes (the most infamous being the dreaded “memory access violation”) remaining intact, it also features a separate hub world gamemode called “The Island”, and while it does feature characters like Cream and Vanilla that I never cared for in the slightest, it’s pretty much as wholesome and innocuous as it gets… until you come across four female animals based closely off the cast of the viral visual novel game that I have and will be calling “Doki-Doki Banana Chips” as a loving tribute to Sonic Adventure 2. Fuck my life.

Now, see, this wouldn’t be nearly as huge a problem if I was still able to enjoy the legacy versions, but that all ended after getting my current PC—out of nowhere, my screen became riddled with flashing white transparent pixels that rendered playing without distraction impossible. Disabling every graphic setting got me nowhere, as was the case when I cleaned out my save directory. My assumption is that these versions are incompatible with Windows 10, RTX cards, or both, and I was never able to resolve it…

…until now.

After trying and failing to mod a similar enough experience into Sonic Adventure 2, Heroes, and Generations, an update was made on the Sonic World website that stated Release 9 had gone open source, meaning it’s been decompiled and can now be freely modified by anyone. Initially, this didn’t mean much to me aside from, “oh, well, maybe, people can fix its many issues now!”, but little did I know that the Github page for the source code (you can access the page here) already contained a little something called Release 9 Plus, which has never been added to the Sonic World site’s release page. To my surprise, it had become considerably more playable, featured an option for beautiful new water effects, and even allowed for the full disabling of the bloom effect to get rid of those flickering pixels! Case and point, the game has been restored to its former glory, and I’ve even taken to porting character and stage mods from earlier legacy versions as well as DX, although some were lost from the official site and Gamebanana and therefore required extensive searching on YouTube, Reddit, and Discord for potential mirrors. On top of that, using a program called DGVoodoo has allowed me to insert DirectX into this game and others, thus enhancing the performance and inexplicably making the PC version of Sonic Heroes work on my computer after years of refusing to launch properly.

An Unexpected Shift

Wait… what’s this paragraph for? I’ve already talked about all the crazy stuff happening with Sonic. I mean, you have unimportant little developments like that mobile… game… thing, Sonic Rumble, but it’s not like there’s anything of note there. Sonic is still stuck on a road I have no interest in following. Okay? We’re done. Bye-bye! See you when we talk about bad religious movies! Or my history with mods! Or the online true crime and mystery community! Or schlubby older men from the midwest! Or the descent of Super Smash Bros. into an ego-fueled shitfest! Or albums by singers with golden lungs that you’ll never listen to! Or past dreams of mine that could only come from the mind of a schizophrenic person on acid! Or whatever the next post will be about!

Oh, and Trump’s being sentenced on all 34 charges as we speak. Time to crack that bottle of merlot open!