Categories #Games, News

UPDATE: Sonic Underground’s Sonia Spotted in ASR Wii & PC

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Author Shadzter
74 Comments

SSMB Member Yuluga has just brought to our attention a cameo appearance from Sonic Underground’s Sonia in Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing’s Roulette Road course discovered by members of Sonic Reikai forums.

The appearance was spotted in a YouTube gameplay video but we have just checked it out ourselves in the Wii version and snapped the above photo of the cameo and can confirm this is the real deal. The cameo has also been noticed by fans in the PC version but as for the other 3 versions we’ve checked them out and it is nowhere to be found.

The above picture of the card has apparently been extracted from the game and the Sonia artwork on the card look’s very similar to a piece of fan artwork by deviantArt user lightning_duchess which you can check out below.

We’ll query this with Sumo Digital’s Steve Lycett and report any information we can obtain here.

Thanks to Yuluga for the heads up!

UPDATES

Lightning_Duchess now known as RianaLD has made a statement regarding her Sonia art being in Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing. You can check it out at her devianART page. Thanks Silva Rymes for the heads up!

RianaLD has posted a follow up statement at her deviantART. Thanks Silva Rymes for the heads up!

After some research we’ve discovered the Sonia card only appears in the Steam edition of the PC version with the disc release displaying Amy. RianaLD, the owner of the artwork, has the PC version and confirmed the artwork is in that version. RianaLA lives in the U.S. where only the Steam version is available so we’re pretty confident its the Steam version with the Sonia artwork while the EU only disc release displaying Amy.

At 0:52:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JC19lh1lnFY

At 0:45

bzdrte5 has also helped 100% confirm it is in the Steam version in a post with a screenshot at the SEGA Forums. Thanks bzdrte5!

Executive Producer at Sumo Digital Steve Lycett has just commented on the situation in a post at the SSMB :

Wow, I have a night off – and I miss all this

We take these things seriously at Sumo and will be contacting the original artist directly to offer our sincere apologies to her, this was entirely unintentional.

Not much else I can really add!

—
S0L
—

RianaLD has posted a new journal entry at her deviantART detailing Steve Lycett’s apology on behalf of a level artist and how the mistake happened. Steve reports that Sonia appears in both disc and Steam PC versions under low detail track settings. Thanks again Silva Rymes for the heads up!

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74 Comments

  1. Triplets born the throne awaits.
    Scratch and Grounder for DLC
    Give up your children!
    For they need 1970’s trousers mode!

  4. @ AAUK
    Nope, I’m not kidding. Amy is the card on the stacked up cards and that one on the floor looks like Sonia. Go boot up a Wii copy of ASR and you’ll find this is very real. Yuluga informed us at the SSMB that it is in the PC version so out of curiosity I checked the console editions and found it in the Wii version. It’s nowhere to be found in the PS3, Xbox 360 and DS versions.

  6. hehe, I pointed this out a couple of threads a go. It’s very strange that she’s in here, and if she’s here, why no manic?

  11. @ Unknown Neo
    Yeah, its the large card on the floor. Sorry for the crappy DSi quality photo :p

  12. This really makes me so happy. More cartoon characters should make cameos. Maybe Scratch and grounder will appear in Sonic 4.

  14. Soniiiaaa on the groooouunddd, Sonia Onthegraayaaand! I long for my cameo but I have to wait, to appear too soon will look despirate.
    The card on the ground is definitely different to the other card at the top of the screen though.

  17. Jeez…

    Please don’t let her be a downloadable character…

    What’s her All-Star gonna be? Annoying the other drivers with crappy singing?!

    God!…

  20. Oh, didn’t see that it was the floor, not the cards. My bad.

    Lemme check on my Wii copy, as I don’t remember seeing that at all..

  22. @Muigi: Looks nothing like Sonia? Wow, you need a new pair of eyes in that head, eh?

    THAT.. That’s not fair. They use a mediocre character from one of the worst Sonic cartoons, yet they neglect any SatAM references?

    Seriously! Where’s the love for the BEST Sonic cartoon?

  23. What would be hilarious, would be that they had mistaken her as Classic Amy/other forgotten character for inclusion in an attempt to add some nostalgia. Also funny that the cards are put together using exiting art as opposed to original art, adding to the possibility of someone just doing a search for art and making background/props out of them.

  26. Oh wow…did not expect that xD

    I always liked the Underground characters, just not the show. Its so strange to see sonia in an actual sonic game (even if it was possible theft). Makes you wonder if manic is hiding somewhere too…

  27. I hate to bring this up, but technically this art is completely up for grabs. There’s no creative common license applied to it, and the copyright that is placed on the bottom right is insert wrong thus makes the ownership invalid. In order to secure this piece as your own you need to not only have the copyright symbol © but the year it was created. The copyright symbol by itself is meaningless. And since there is no creative common license there’s nothing preventing anyone from taking it and claiming it as their own. Basically the only type of copyright applied here is that it was posted in a public viewing area (but that only goes so far).

    As a artist myself I can safely say this is really bad when this type of thing happens. That is why you need to take the extra precautions when posting your work. Insert the copyright symbol in everything along with the year made like so ©2010, and for extra protection add a creative common license as mentioned above. Which by the way is free, compared to buying a copyright which, when I did it for an art piece I did, was something like $35 electronically and $40 by mail 9or something like that, the digital submission was cheaper so I went that route).

  28. @Greg: And I made a follow-up post saying that I was mistaken.

    After taking a closer look myself on Roulette Road, I simply said: “….snap.” There I was staring right at the texture. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw it, and I could’ve sworn I was seeing things. By God, it was the exact same texture as it is above.

    I hope this can somehow come to a peaceful solution…

  29. *Plays ‘Hallelujah Chorus’, Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Da’ and ‘Celebrate’ at the same time*

    Everyone search every inch of this game for Manic, Dulcy, Mina, Johnny Lightfoot, Sara, Cosmo, Scratch and Grounder, etc!

  32. I posted this on TSSZ…I’ll post it here as well:

    I hope no one forgets this isn’t the first time a TV Series character had a cameo.

    Sonic Spinball had the Freedom Fighters, and Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine was basically a AoStH game, which featured characters from the cartoon

  33. If that was me that got my art in the game, I would fangasm. And scream like a girl. In the face of everyone I know. And crap myself. All at once.

    ANYWAY still stinks she got her stuff stolen.

  34. There aren’t any other girl hedgehogs, so they HAD to work her in there! They could’ve used Rouge the Bat for the Queen of Spades, or even Vanilla the Rabbit, or Blaze the Cat. Who would be a better choice?

  38. If Archie Comics allowed it, it might happen. Of course, maybe they could let the OTHER cat into the game. By “Other cat,” I might as well refer to Salem Saberhagen, from the Archie Comics Sabrina.

    Best reaction: Geh?

  41. @ bmhedgehog
    Yeah we saw that earlier, was cool of her b/f to do that XD We didn’t add it to the article as it has no relevance since we grabbed enough evidence before it was made. Still awesome though.

  42. Wow that sucks that her art was stolen; taken without permission. I’m glad and disappointed about it. Sonia is not even a Sega character for crying out loud <__<; I don't even like Sonia anyway XDD lol

  43. @JayFoxFire: I dunno, they’re offering her internship as an apology. I’d be pretty happy about that…

    @YoshiAngemon: Best reaction = SO MUCH YES THE WORLD EXPLODES

  44. I just played the PC version and went to the exact spot where the screenshot and Youtube video were and it was Amy, also the stacked cards are all numbers in the PC version. So is not in the PC version.

  45. @ TheWax
    Weird because everyone else in the forums say it is, I don’t have the PC version myself so can’t check it out myself. You did go on Roulette Road right? Do you have the Steam version or the disc version? Maybe it’s on one version of the PC edition but not the other.

  48. Well I think the response RianaLD has given is much more mature than the typical monkey fanboy responses we usually see. I think this is probably a case of an accidental use of a similar-looking character in the early design phase. It’s hard for developers these days to deduce the difference between official and fanart as the latter is being produced at with much greater attention to detail and quality – hell you even see stolen fanart appearing on fake ebay goods, they’re that hard to tell apart!

    Either way, I applaud Riana’s response to this.

  49. Speaking of typical monkey fanboy responses, I think all of you are going overboard with the speculations about DLC characters!

  50. @ YoshiAngemon

    What’s wrong with wanting Mighty, Fang/Nack, Scratch, Grounder, Ecco, Flagman, Bayonetta and Tyris in as DLC? XD I kid.

    Yeah, some people are going a bit overboard but it’s fun to speculate even if you know it won’t happen and it’s not hurting anybody.

  51. i have to agree,

    RianaLD took this in a very mature way and to be honest, im rather impressed

  52. Yep, I guess this is a happy ending. It’s just as she said, it’s not as if she owned the character anyway. She does have the copyright of the picture itself, but, well, not only RianaLD but everybody here, i guess, would be pretty proud to see their own artwork in the game. It’s a minor cameo, probably a misunderstanding, as they said, but still it’s good to see it there. Of course, SEGA should act in a mature way and apologize for that in a official way. It IS fanart, but even fanart is something created by someone, so it contains effort and intellectual property.

    I think I’m writing too much.

  53. Is there a way to patch the disc version so I can have Sonia? I actually avoided getting the Steam version by importing the disc, and now I’m missing out. Could someone please MegaUpload the Steam Sonia file for me?

    Thanks…
    -HiFi

    PS: I’d be happy if my artwork was featured in a game. I call this mistake a big win for both parties!

  54. I think it’s nice to have this little unintentional easter egg in there – again I’m amazed with the hawk eyes of some of the people in this community. I think we all we we could have our art in a Sonic game! (Oh wait, I do! :3)

  55. @Jayfoxfire

    I’m pretty sure Sonia is a SEGA character. On all Sonic products it reads “Sonic the Hedgehog and all related characters are the property of SEGA”.

    Sonia is a related character therefore i believe SEGA owns her.

    BTW I liked your “so much more” video.

  56. Wrong.
    I Own the Disc Version, I’m from europe, and Sonia is in my game too! (Bought the disc at Worten’s Store in Portugal)
    As far as i saw, it’s in Wii and ALL PC Versions, not only in Steams version.

    If you need, i post screen shots to prove it.
    But eh, she must be proud, after all, her work is in a super great name, and if Sumo’s is going to apologize, that means that her work isn’t bad! (and it isn’t at all).

  57. @ sonictoast
    “Sonia is a related character therefore i believe SEGA owns her.”

    I see what you did there lol!

  58. I just read the involved person’s dA journal. Maybe she’ll get a job from Sega out of all of this… lol

  59. My bro noticed this when he first played the track XD I found it kinda odd that there would be a cameo to something like Sonic Underground, so I’m not surprised that this was a mistake.

  60. I, er, must be missing something entirely, because I cannot see it in either video. It’s Amy on the card, Sonia.

  62. @sonictoast

    O_o Sega owns Sonia? And not Sally Acorn? <__< she was in that Sega World in Australia before it was closed down.

    Thank you XD Glad you like it

  67. @ TheWax

    Hmm… I’ve had 1 report from someone who has found it in the PC disc version too. I wonder if this is a case of it happening in most but not all PC copies regardless of wether it is the Steam or disc version? Maybe there’s a coding error that triggers it in certain PC set ups? It’s very weird, it’s definitely in all Wii copies though.

  69. @The Wax: From Riana’s journal…

    “Somehow they missed it on the Wii version and the ‘low detail tracks’ of the PC version.”

    So if you have the low detail settings on (is this automatic or user controlled?), then you’ll end up with Sonia on the floor. It’s NOT Steam or disc specific, then.

  70. @rafthehay: I was looking at the one on the track. I tried looking again and it still looked like Amy to me.

    Maybe it’s just the quality of the video making it so I can’t see it outside of a screenshot. Since I’ll end up getting the Wii version anyway, I may as well wait to see it in-game.

  72. @ slam422
    If you’re looking for it in the videos they are comparisons, the Shadow one shows Amy and the Aiai video shows Sonia.

  74. @Sam

    Its not the character that their complaining about dude, Its Riana’s PICTURE of the character that she owns and has copyright of, that they used unintentionally in the game

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