Sum-Up Sunday: Bricks, Booms, and Mania, Oh My!

News concerning all things fast and blue over the past few weeks has started to pick up quite a bit, and since a lot has transpired following the release of Sonic Boom: Fire & Ice, I think it’s fair to say that a quick recap of recent events is in order!

Read on below for the full breakdown of our Sonic coverage since the Fire & Ice launch:

Week of September 26th:

• That week’s Mash-Up Monday combines the flavours of Sweet Mountain and the raw power of Team Chaotix!
• The “Shattered” arc of Archie Comics’ Sonic Universe came to an end with issue #90: Knuckles battles Ixis Naugus head-on for the ultimate fate of Angel Island and the Master Emerald as the planet pieces itself back together!
• After a year’s delay, Sanzaru Games’ Sonic Boom: Fire & Ice launched for the Nintendo 3DS! The game based on the spinoff cartoon made its North American debut on Tuesday, September 27th with an accompanying launch trailer the next day.
• New footage comes from the mega-crossover LEGO Dimensions, showing off the 2016 Ghostbusters as they take on the haunted parade balloons from the movie – now starring Balloon Dr. Eggman and Sonic the Hedgehog.
• You really can’t teach an old echidna new tricks. An amusing glitch was spotted in Sonic Boom: Fire & Ice with Knuckles flying by digging through the air. All in a day’s work for the dreamboat governor-elect!
• A Sonic 25th anniversary café was recently opened in Japan, and will be until November 13th. In related news, I was not yet invited to come and this upsets me greatly.
• Amazon Prime members in Canada can finally cash in on the service’s 20% discount for preorders and new games. Now’s not a bad time for Canucks to preorder the Collector’s Edition of Sonic Mania !

Week of October 3rd:

• The week opens with the TSS Review of Sonic Boom: Fire & Ice, brought to you by Hero of Legend with a second opinion from yours truly!
• The signature songs of Metal Sonic and NiGHTS into Dreams‘ Reala sound more alike than you think, as that week’s Mash-Up Monday has shown.
• Good news for Xbox One owners! The Xbox 360 version of Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed is now backwards-compatible for your modern system. Now if only Unleashed, Generations, and ’06 got that same treatment…
• Season 2? Can it really be? It just might! The season premiere for Sonic Boom‘s second run is listed for October 29th, though we have yet to hear any actual confirmation from SEGA or Cartoon Network. Fingers crossed!
• Remember that Sonic Mania infomercial? SEGA’s right back at you for a behind-the-scenes look with Hoshino wine spills and Iizuka-san Fan Club shirts aplenty.
• AaaaAAAA FREAK-OUT! Friday, that is! Animator Hat-Loving Gamer revisits the Death Egg Robot battle from Sonic the Hedgehog 2, and it goes off on quite the crossover tangent from there.
• What’s this? Wallets crying out in emptiness after putting money aside for Sonic Mania’s Collector’s Edition? A commemorative art-book from SEGA and Cook & Becker ought to intensify that!
• Jirard Khalil reviews Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric in a new episode of The Completionist as he plays the game to completion… well, almost.
• The Sonic Amateur Games Expo—SAGE 2016—is happening right now! Try out a megaton amount of fan games made from aspiring developers all over the Sonic community today until October 22nd!

Week of October 10th:

• You like Crisis City? How about some Crisis City for your Crisis City so you can Crisis–––okay, never again. Have a listen to “Crisis City Remastered” for this week’s Mash-Up Monday, complete with a Kingdom Hearts twist towards the end.
• Don the ritziest garbs from your wardrobe and hone your art appreciation abilities, as a Sonic the Hedgehog fine art exhibition is coming to Washington Green-owned galleries!
• Archie Comics’ Sonic: Mega Drive – The Next Level is coming in November, but how does a preview of some of the awesome artwork by Tyson Hesse and Matt Herms sound to you?
• After three years of build-up, Archie’s Sonic Unleashed adaptation wraps up at long last with Issue #287 as Super Sonic and Chip take on Perfect Dark Gaia! Pick up the finale of the wide-spanning “Shattered World Crisis” arc at your local comic retailers today.
• Something about seeing Sonic and Mario switching body types and personalities for this week’s Freak-Out Friday really bothers me… also, the next round of our Photoshop Contest series is a go with the theme “Let’s Give Sonic Something to Cry About!”
• SEGA of Europe has heard your pleas! The Collector’s Edition of Sonic Mania is now available for preorder on Amazon UK–––wait, what do you mean it’s “already gone?”
• And finally, series superstar and fan favourite Big the Cat is confirmed to appear in LEGO Dimensions next month. Shadow, Tails, and Knuckles are also there for some reason.

With the Sonic add-on coming to LEGO Dimensions, season 2 of the Sonic Boom cartoon on the way, and more information on Sonic Mania to come, things will likely keep picking up speed from here on out. Stay tuned!