Sonic Boom

[kirbychu]

Ooh, Orbot and Cubot? I wonder how they'll look. It's nice to know they're there, though. Eggman's always worked best with a pair of bumbling robot sidekicks.

[Nester the Lark]

Allegedly, this is a very early, off-screen, in-development screenshot of Sonic Boom. It certainly looks like a test area more than anything that's been officially shown of the game so far. Needless to say, even if it's authentic, it is not representative of the final game. But it is kind of an interesting curio.

On a separate note, something else interesting occurred to me. Since everyone has been playing "Six Degrees of Sonic" with lead level designer Chris Senn, who was also team leader on the cancelled Sonic X-treme on the Saturn, there's actually another loose connection that I haven't seen mentioned yet. It's been noted that Bob Rafei previously worked at Naughty Dog as the lead artist on the Jak & Daxter trilogy and Uncharted 1, but the game designer for those games was Hirokazu Yasuhara, who worked at Sonic Team and was the director of the original Sonic trilogy on the Genesis/Mega Drive. Of course, he doesn't have anything to do with Sonic Boom or Big Red Button, but it's kind of interesting nonetheless.

[Nester the Lark]

Here's what appears to be some leaked prE3 artwork if you're interested.

[kirbychu]

There was actually some concept art leaked a while back showing Marine and what seemed to be Emerl, as well as a bunch of new characters, but it looks like it wasn't posted here.

[TV Eye]

Those pics are pretty cool. I see one that looks like Emerl, one that looks like Tikal, and one that looks like Vanilla.

[8bitretroshit]

Is that Uncle Chuck on the bottom right?

Like Megaman Battle Network, it's kind of fun to see these old characters redesigned in different ways. Wonder if more'll pop up at some point (Shadow undoubtedly will)

[kirbychu]

Apparently the voice of Eggman has hinted that that ISN'T Marine, and may be an entirely new character... But if that's true it's kind of stupid. Aside from looking a hell of a lot like Marine face and markings-wise, she's the same colours and uses a boomerang. :/

[Nester the Lark]

I'm not criticizing the artwork or anything, but it seems to me that the Sonic characters stick out a little compared to the other original characters, not unlike in the old Sonic SatAM cartoon. I guess the new characters are more Western in style, which clashes a little with the traditional Sonic style. Maybe the redesigns were meant to address that, but there's still a distinct difference, IMHO.

On that note, the raccoon character definitely looks like a Sonic character, so she's probably Marine.

I do really like the artwork overall, tho. High quality stuff. And I appreciate that it sets itself apart from the main series.

[Manspeed]

I dunno, I think these look a lot more fitting than the backup cast of SatAM. The new designs for the main cast help a lot.

[The Qu]

Have a new character.

[kirbychu]

Ah well, not Marine. I can understand the need for having a new character here, though. She's obviously there to be the character things get explained to for the audience's benefit. She fits in visually with the cast better than Chris did, and she's obviously got more to her personality than JUST being the Watson, so that's cool.

Doesn't look anything like a badger, though. She looks more like a chipmunk to me.

[Nester the Lark]

I guess she's going to be part of the main group? Does that mean she will be playable in the game?

EDIT: Sega Nerds pointed out that Sticks bears a resemblance to Aika from Skies of Arcadia.

[Nester the Lark]

Ton of new info revealed today.

The Wii U version is titled Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric, and the 3DS version is Sonic Boom: Shattered Crystal. Rise of Lyric focuses on action-adventure and combat while Shattered Crystal is more about platforming and puzzle solving. Lyric is the new villain, who looks like a Don Bluth character to me. Both games are scheduled for release in November.

New art and screenshots at Sega's blog.

New details from Siliconera via GoNintendo:

- Sonic retains his Spin Dash
- follow up a Spin Dash into enemies with multiple kicks, accomplished by hitting the Y button
- Knuckles is slow, but powerful
- Knuckles has a 3-hit combo and a breakdancing flare move
- Amy is armed with a hammer and a three hit combo
- she also has a move where she lunges forward with her hammer and spins it
- she is the only character with a triple jump
- Tails is the only ranged attacker
- he can fire grenades by pressing X and this move can be charged
- pressing Y makes Tails drop a robot that seeks out enemies
- use the Enerbeam to yank off enemy shields and grab enemies
- Sonic spins the enemy around with the Enerbeam until you toss it at another enemy
- you'll use this trick to defeat the Crab Driller mini-boss
- the game includes multiple collectibles, include robot scrap parts used for upgrades
- search for Shinies, which are buried treasure
- you can only see this treasure by using the Wii U controller to light up a path
- unlock items and concept art from finding these goodies
- you'll get to fight Eggman and you are able to choose from all 4 characters during the battle
- the computer controls the other three characters when you aren't using them
- Eggman takes his egg shaped spaceship and merges it with a walker to fight you
- use your Enerbeam to grab robots and toss them at Eggman
- when Eggman is stunned, you can use the Enerbeam and yank Eggman
- this makes all the computer-controlled characters do the same to help yank Eggman down
- when he's on the ground, hit the attack button to make all the characters come in and beat Eggman up

And finally, gameplay footage from Rise of Lyric:



EDIT: Here's a preview that shows a lot of combat footage:

[TV Eye]

I'm getting a huge Ratchet and Clank vibe from the environments shown. As well as the grappling...

Still looks really good. I don't think people should go into this expecting a standard Sonic game. It looks more like an adventure beat-em-up.

[Nester the Lark]

New gameplay footage with lots (LOTS!) of corny character chatter:

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EDIT: Here's a preview of the 3DS version with gameplay footage: