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BioWare Shares Information on Sonic RPG
Once again, it's not a strange dream: BioWare is making a Sonic the Hedgehog RPG for the Nintendo DS. Since the announcement back in June there have been precious few details. Luckily, Wired's Game|Life had the chance to speak with BioWare's CEO Ray Muzyka and President Greg Zeschuk about more than just Mass Effect. They discuss the genesis of the game, the depth of the title's story, and a bit on what gameplay will be like: "Game|Life: BioWare's previous efforts have been for the PC and the Xbox (and now the 360 with Mass Effect). What is the appeal of designing for the DS? Ray Muzyka: The handheld group at BioWare is certainly very excited about the innovation that can take place on the DS platform. We're really innovating what a BioWare RPG is with this title - we're looking forward to offering new and unique ways to enjoy a fast-paced, story-driven experience with tons of exploration, customization and progression. We're very excited by the opportunity to use all the cool features on the DS, and to make BioWare's first handheld RPG, one with a lot of action too, since it's based in the Sonic universe!"
...it's based in the Sonic universe!
How interesting. To me, the fun and quality of Sonic games are inversely proportional to how many characters they've added to its universe. So, the "Sonic universe," by it's very existance, makes me sad for the franchise.
Sonic didn't take on extra story baggage nearly as elegantly as, say, Zelda, Mario, or even Jak and Daxter. And it's not something to be proud of.
I guess it was just begging for an RPG, then. But with BioWare behind it, hopefully this could have the same splash that Super Mario RPG did.
More Twoson than Cupertino
BG was absolutely fantastic.
BG2 was fantastic.
KOTOR was meh.
Mass Effect looks mediocre at best - ignoring the pathetic bullshots their marketing people seem to think they are fooling gamers with. Seems like every company using the UE3 engine feels the need to release bogus shots to cover the poor quality of the engine.
According to the article, BioWare is going to be creating a Sonic RPG.
And, well, that's it. I think I got that much from the title.
They're not ready to talk details. They're not ready to explain what the gameplay will be like. They're not ready to talk about what characters are going to be in it.
All they really said is that it'll be an RPG, it'll be on the Nintendo DS, and it will take place in the Sonic universe.
Good to know, I guess, but that's exactly what the first article said. This offers nothing new! Unless someone can point to something I missed.
...as long as all the characters are made of Paper.
What's that? They'll be 3D models in the Sonic Team "Universe" that sports about 3 billion more characters than common sense?
Um, nevermind then.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
One of the reasons I enjoyed Sonic and the Secret Rings is because you
PLAY
AS
SONIC
the entire game.
Limit the other characters to Tails, Knuckles, and MAYBE Amy Rose (being generous here) and leave the other characters out of the story.
Please.
If Shadow even so much as shows up....
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
I can agree that Bioware isn't what it used to be. Too big, and I don't have much faith in them though they do turn out some nice products on occasion, just not super innovative. (I gawked at the "what a bioware rpg is" comment, they take themselves too seriously there).
Regardless, I am a developer working on the Unreal 3 Engine. This is the best licensable engine in the industry right now, period. There is no limit to the quality you can push through it aside from the hardware you're on and the talent of your team. This comes from experience and knowledge, take my word for it.
That aside, sadly 90% of the screenshots you will ever, EVER see from any media outlet or "press release" or whatever, is doctored. Every one. All publishers are shit-eating liars. That's another thing that comes from knowledge and experience (though I wish it weren't so).
Sonic's own platform games haven't been done right in years, what the hell is an RPG going to do? I don't care WHO'S making it, it's basically a Furry Fest as it is.
Let's stop dilly-dallying and just change "-1: Overrated" to "-1: Disagree" or "-1: Doesn't Subscribe to Groupthink".
There was no real information in that interview. I think the headline is misleading. It was just PR BS. "Come play our game! We promise it won't suck! It's innoviative, exciting and FAST-PACED!!!"
N'Gai Croal has an interesting take on why Bioware would develop something like this. Here's the gist of it:
So we can probably not only look forward to an awesome Sonic RPG, but also to a second, yet unanounced DS RPG from Bioware. Makes a lot of sense to me.
To me, the fun and quality of Sonic games are inversely proportional to how many characters they've added to its universe. So, the "Sonic universe," by it's very existance, makes me sad for the franchise.
To me the fun and quality of Sonic games are properly proportional to how many 2d walls I get my blue spinning guy to smash through.
Big apple, new Yorik, undig it, something's unrotting in Edenmark.
Oh boy, the Genesis! Heh. That's funny. You see, because they linked it in to a Sega reference while still being grammatically correct! Boy oh boy, I'm still laughing from that one. Yeah. Not.
Is there really such a lack of worthwhile ideas in the world that somebody thought a *Sonic the Hedgehog* RPG was a good idea? Why are videogame producers so terrified of working on original ideas, set in original settings, with original characters? Sonic the Hedgehog as a concept is so light on story, the whole idea is ridiculous. This is such blatant cashing-in it's laughable.
They discuss the genesis of the game,
Very punny...
While Sega seems to have some insane fixation with introducing a new and soon-to-be-forgotten character in each Sonic game, no matter how close it is to the basic Sonic platforming game, they still seem to be lacking in the massive amount of characters that now make up RPGs, both playable and NPC. Perhaps it's fanboyish, but I've been a fan of Archie Comic's Sonic the Hedgehog, collecting them since I was 12 or so (about a decade now). In that time, Archie has branched out the Sonic universe immensely, giving BioWare more than enough characters to choose from or adapt, as well as many locations and scenarios.
Even without that, the "critically-acclaimed" Sonic the Hedgehog cartoon from early '90s Saturday mornings has a smaller (although similar) cast of characters.
If they don't want to pull exclusively from the U.S., they could always look to Fleetway's Sonic the Comic from the UK, which I'm not as familiar with.
What I'm getting at here is that if BioWare just makes up a bunch of shit characters instead of pulling from a large pool of already-established characters in the Sonic universe, I will be one very pissed off fan.
"They discuss the genesis of the game..."
pun-tastic!
Future indie game developer of America (and possibly Canada)
Evidently im just a Bioware fanboy, they have made some games I didnt care for but I liked Icewind Dale, Neverwinter Nights, KOTOR and even Jade Empire. They seemed pretty consistent to me, no they usually are not necessarily innovative technology wise but they make a tight game with decent depth, storyline and replay value, which I will take over innovative and boring any day.
Make it a 2D platformer where you control a pink hedgehog... sort of a "Sister Sonic". I don't even think you have to come up with a new game, you could just take some Falcom created game and change the sprites around.
I mean it worked for Youme Koujou Doki Doki Panic.
...but they should keep Vanilla.
And Eric Clapton.
Together. I'm writing a xover fanfic.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
I think the difference is that most Mario games realize that they're somewhat stupid. I just loved the Luigi side story in one of the Paper Mario games, where he starts out complaining that Mario always gets to rescue the princess, but later gets his own princess to rescue, going through bizarro versions of Mario's adventures, crossing paths with him from time to time, and even writing books about his experiences, which you can find as items and read. Mario games realize that they're not serious.
It also means that you don't have to take yourself seriously when playing Mario games. There's no issues with adults playing Mario games, because of the slightly ironic take that the devs and writers seem to have on most Mario concepts. Most Mario games are like a Pixar movie: Good entertainment for children, but with a lot of not-so-obvious jabs and ideas that make it enjoyable for adults, too.
Sonic, on the other hand, desperately tries to be a serious game, going as far as introducing realistically rendered human characters which have weird love relationships with Sonic. That's just disgusting, and it's dumping crap on our childhood memories.
Most recent Mario games are intelligent, fun and slightly ironic. Most recent Sonic games are just stupid, not to mention that they fail in the gameplay department, too.
lol
Bioware has discussed moving onto a mobile platform for a long time, and given the success of the DS, it is a very easy move to make.
So why is Bioware doing this? Well, you have a choice of either developing your game engine on your own dime and releasing it to take it's chances on the market... or you can use someone else's IP, have them pay you to create the game, you create YOUR game engine on THEIR dime... and you don't have to really be concerned with whether the game succeeds or fails, since they will be assuming the bulk of the risk (and thus the profits).
BUT... most importantly... you get to create your own DS game engine virtually for free. And, nothing is really preventing you from working on a game using your own IP (and that game engine) at the same time.