Sum-up – The Sonic Stadium

E3 2014 has come to a close, and what a week it was for our blue hedgehog. In case you missed anything, Sum-Up Sunday is here to catch you up on all the big headlines that you might have missed. Tons of new footage from Sonic Boom, plenty of interviews, a trio of new trailers, and even a movie announcement. Check it all out below:

Monday

Over five minutes of promotional footage provided by SEGA for Sonic Boom was uploaded, giving us full quality and sound. Hear the little snippets of dialogue between the characters as they rush through speedy areas and fight off enemies.
Take a look at the Sonic Boom banner that was displayed proudly at the E3 convention centre. Hopefully it helped to drum up a little more interest for people to go try out the upcoming title.

Tuesday

Sonic Jump Fever, a sequel to the original Sonic Jump title, is coming soon to iOS and Android devices. It will feature a more dynamic action and combos, and doesn’t yet have a release date for any region… what? What do you mean it’s already out in Canada?
A trio of E3 trailers came out for the three areas of Sonic Boom. First is Rise of Lyric with some epic movie style narration, second came Shattered Crystal showing off the gameplay and character’s unique abilities, and finally the TV show which gives us an idea of the type of ham Eggman eats.
Some new concept art showed up for Sonic Boom for both Rise of Lyric and Shattered Crystal, giving a look at some of the environments – like sprawlingly tall trees in a jungle/forest, and some enemy designs.
And the big one – Sony Pictures confirmed that they were making a live action/CGI mix Sonic the Hedgehog movie! It won’t just be one though. It’ll be the beginning of an annual release movie franchise.

Wednesday

TSS begin their coverage of E3 with our hands-on preview of Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric, thanks to our own Jason Berry. Give it a read, it’s a good one that goes into plentiful of gameplay details and more.
Also, get a good look at the giant range of toys launching alongside the Sonic Boom franchise. Plushes, action figures, and Sonic figures with articulated joints to make them look like they’re from The Exorcist.
Is that Metal Sonic in Sonic Boom: Shattered Crystal? Eagle eye viewers brought to our attention that he’s most certainly there, clear as day; is it a random cameo, or is it something more? He’s had no design changes seemingly…

Thursday

Gamespot had a preview of Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric, and re-uploaded their footage clean. You can see a few more of the cutscenes, where you can see Sonic and Knuckles’ rivalry has been re-ignited, and Amy has become quite the confident member for the team.
Take a look at the Sonic Boom blackboard at E3. The video gives a look at the whole thing which Tails makes notes upon, which also includes the team’s individual little cameos made in their own respective colours.
We also got a hands on preview of Sonic Jump Fever. It’s definitely looking like a notable improvement on the original and it feels significantly less “empty” than it did before.

Friday

As E3 draws to close, TSS has another hands on preview – this time, with the 3DS version of Sonic Boom. This one is far more akin to a traditional Sonic experience than it’s big brother on the Wii U, with exploration also being a key element.

Saturday

Finally, we have an interview with Sonic Boom producer Stephen Frost. Stephen goes into a lot of neat details about the game in our 16 minute interview, so sit down and enjoy it with a nice hot drink. I normally go for tea.

And that’s all for this week – so much stuff happened! Phew. Tell us what you thought was the most exciting development of the week in the comments, and what you’re looking forward to most now you’ve seen more from Sonic Boom – the Wii U version, the 3DS version, or the TV show. Until next year and a new Sonic title, E3!

Well, Thursday proved to be quite the whirlwind of new information, didn’t it? TSS posted several updates about what was happening as it happened, but for those who may have been away from their monitors when the information dropped, or are looking for a one-stop-shop for everything Sonic Boom related that was revealed, here’s the run-down.

Sonic Boom: An Introduction

Sonic Boom is basically, SEGA trying something entirely new with the Sonic mythos. Whilst an awful lot of media for this series has surfaced, SEGA is keen to stress that this isn’t the definitive new direction for the franchise as a whole, and instead is more of a sub-series, and won’t replace the currently established franchise. This should basically allow them to be more liberal with design choices and such.

For example, with this ‘new take’ comes an all new set of character designs.

Sonic Boom's new designs for the main cast — Sonic Boom’s new designs for the main cast

Those who have been in the franchise for a while will immediately notice the differences between the current cast and the Sonic Boom cast. Sonic’s spines are a little messier, Amy is rocking a new outfit, Tails has a new mechanic motif, whilst Knuckles is… definitely bigger.

Of course, it wouldn’t be much use to create new characters if you weren’t going to do something with them! Enter….

Sonic Boom: The Video Game

The Sonic Boom video game is what is believed to be the third and final Nintendo Exclusive title that SEGA will be producing under the ‘3 game deal’ announced in 2013. The game will be coming to both Nintendo Wii U as well as Nintendo 3DS, and will be developed by Big Red Button Entertainment and Sanzaru games respectively. Sonic Team will not be involved in the creation of either of these two games, aside from being a collaborative partner.

There is currently no release date, or release time frame beyond the normal ‘Coming Soon’.

Several screenshots of the game were released, and an official teaser/gameplay trailer was also revealed, showing the bright new world that Sonic and his friends will now adventure through. The game looks to be a vibrant, charismatic platforming adventure, in which it has been confirmed that all four characters will be playable in both single player and multi-player modes.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTP-JbDBSCw[/youtube]

It’s also been stated that this game will serve as a prequel to…

Sonic Boom: The TV Show

The Sonic Boom TV show will feature Sonic and friends in the aforementioned designs, in a sizable series spanning 52, 11 minute long episodes. The series is being produced by the french based OuiDo studios, and is heading to Cartoon Network in the States as well as both CANAL J and GULLI in France towards the end of 2014, possibly at the start of 2015. No details on whether the series will be released in other regions just yet.

It’s worth knowing that the show has made it to production with the current voice cast intact. Roger Craig Smith is still the Blue Blur, Kate Higgins is reprising her role as Tails, and the ever-brilliant Mike Pollock is returning once again to give us more classic quotes as Dr. Eggman.

In the same vain as the video game, the series looks to be a fun, colorful outing filled with character driven stories, and some excellent looking action sequences. OuiDO has even produced a little 2-and-a-bit minute teaser of the cartoon to show us the kinds of antics we can expect Sonic and co to be getting up to:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dm-AFKUmFw#[/youtube]

This wasn’t the last of the information that we got though. Oh no, there’s more.

Sonic Boom: The ‘Everything Else’

Aside from the details of a game and a television series, there were also details of a tie in merchandise line to be produced by TOMY. This has been confirmed to include toys and apparel, but no further information has been revealed beyond these facts. It still gives all the merch-hogs (like me) something to be on the lookout for in the coming months.

It has also been stated that Sonic Boom will remain in western territories only. Japan won’t be getting any of the Sonic Boom action. Head of Sonic Team Takashi Iizuka has stated however that he WILL be overseeing the project.

Finally, SEGA’s official Sonic Boom website has also gone live. The current layout suggests that we’ll be seeing a LOT more information to come in the way of proper character bios, details of the video game, merchandise list and potentially more.

…That was a lot of info. Anybody still alive after all that? Anyway, now that we’ve had the chance to digest all the information from the last few days, what are your thoughts? Are you still eagerly anticipating this new direction, or are you still skeptical about the whole concept?

Sum-Up Sunday: The Week That Was E3 2014

Sum-Up Sunday: Sonic Boom Details Aplenty!