Categories #Games

Sonic Boom RoL Once Had a Beautiful Hub

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Author Shadzter
24 Comments

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmM28X7m_WA[/youtube]

Big Red Button developers have been busy again by recently uploading more test footage and concept art from Sonic’s last console outing Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric. In the above footage taken from Tuan Nguyen’s demo reel (with Skylanders footage cut, thanks to SSMB’s Blue Blood), we can see the scrapped beautiful hub world first seen in the GDC 2013 CryEngine 3 demo footage in a playable state.

https://vimeo.com/116913752
Devon Roderick has also released two test footage clips in the above video, one of a cutscene and one of an NPC.

Creepy Shadow

Onur Cayli has released a large amount of images showing character renders he worked on, including the rather creepy looking Shadow render you see above.

What do you think of these latest releases? Do you wish the beta hub made it to the final product? Speak out in the comments.

Sources: Tuan Nguyen’s demo reel, Devon Broderick’s demo reel and Onur Cayli’s portfolio

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24 Comments

    1. Wow Sonic Boom Rise Of Lyric beta or demo for Wii U has some awesome graphic & also I saw the hub world is so beautiful in this Sonic game! Then also the Sonic characters animation pose was to amazing but man Big Red Button did a fantastic job in the past of last year!!!

  3. Can Sega please hire a team to restore the visual quality of the beta, into the actual game?

    1. Don’t ever count on that happening. If they cared that much about reviving old games then we would’ve had a Sonic ’06 remastered and our Sonic 3&K remastered would be out by now.

      1. But there wasn’t anything to salvage from 06, without just making SA3. It played too much like an Adventure game (with poor game design) that they should just get the few redeeming elements (such as mech design) and translate it to a new Adventure game.

  4. Man, dude… What happened here? I mean, I know what actually HAPPENED… but the game looked beautiful before! It’s ridiculous how it could even evolve to look how it does now. I’m sorry, Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric.

    Also, Shadow has a pretty “SIIIICK!!” motif going on there with his hand and facial expression.

  7. Ugh, that look so much better than the final product. Stupid underpowered Wii U hardware. Who was the smart guy at Sega who had the idea of signing up the Nintendo exclusivity contract!?

      2. it has many things to do with it .
        sega didnt want to lose money creating a high budgeted game for the system since its not selling like the PS4 or Xbox one so the install base is very low which translates to less revenue being generated from the game .
        if the game had a PS4 release sega would have forked some more money on it .

        1. Didn’t this have a budget of a regular multiplat game? It’s BRB’s fault for wasting those 3 years of development not to mention Sega pushing it out for a holiday release when it clearly wasn’t ready

  8. More of what could have been.
    Unfortunately, it’s just that: what COULD have been, not what it was.

    While this looks great and all, was I the only person who felt one of the game’s biggest faults was its “story”? Every time this “could have” stuff shows up, it’s always about gameplay (which is important, I’m not trying to downplay it) but nothing about what the story originally was. I honestly think even if the gameplay had been good, the story (in its current state) would have mauled it for me in the end and I would have hated it anyway. Hopefully something will leak about the original story to show that it also could have been great.

    Also, that Shadow looks very off to me proportion-wise. I think it’s falling into uncanny territory which makes it look creepy.

    1. Well it did have a much bigger and more fleshed out story before. Remember the “ancients”? Or the place they fell into in the first reveal trailer? None of that made it into the final game. There are also what seem to be many carvings from the “ancients” all around the game. I believe these people are mentioned only once or twice in the final product. Not to mention when Lyric is able to counter Sonic’s homing attack only after ONE meeting in the past. I’m almost certain they would’ve met several more times in the original story.

      I think the problem arises from
      1) Using CryEngine on the Wii U
      2) The devs Using CryEngine for the first time
      3) A TOOOON if things being cut for time, and/or Wii U limitations. I hate to be in a day and age where consoles are still limited by specs honestly.

      1. Oh, yes, you are most certainly correct. It is very clear that originally there was more to the story. Thing is the existence of a story including ancients and more interactions between Sonic and Lyric isn’t enough for me to determine that the original story was “good”, just that it was more fleshed out. Personally, I’d love a full synopsis of what the original story was about–or at least enough to determine if the original story could hold its own. I’d like to think it could, but based on how Shadow and Knuckles were written I have my doubts.

        I also 100% agree with your 3 points.
        As for the second part of your third point though, consoles will always have limits in comparison to PC and sometimes to each other if they’re based on silly gimmicks that require additional computing power like the WiiU is. (Not to say WiiU is awful–just that games for it need to be build specifically for it and nothing else from the get-go in order not to fail miserably. Okay so from a dev standpoint it is pretty awful.)

  12. Am I the only person who realises that IS part of the final hub? The only difference I see is the idle character animations. That cutscene segment is also from the finished game..

    Oh and what the hell is with Shadows eyes?! It’s that Japanese reveal image all over again. D:

  13. Don’t hate me,but the problem isn’t the Wii U, as we see here: https://youtu.be/srz_xVXat3I
    The hub world was on the gane at works (at least as title screen).I think that this game has so much potential but they lost many files.

  14. We could have had this, we really could. But those whiny Sonic fans wanted speed sections in the game so this beautiful setting got scrapped for the empty hubs we have now.

    Stupid whiny fans!

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