You're hyped up for an all-new Sonic game for the Saturn. However Sonic Team decided to make an all-new game called NiGHTS instead. Meanwhile SoA struggled in developing Sonic X-treme before abandoning it altogether. Fans would have to settle with a Saturn port of Flickies Island instead (not helped with having the 2nd worst loading time of any Sonic game, no save points, and no Super Sonic). Another insult to injury is Sonic the Fighters not arriving Stateside because the idiots who were in charge of SoA at the time were manginas. Welcome to the Saturm Dry Spell.
>>12646326They could have had a new 3d sonic in 98 but Sega waited 10 months to release the Dreamcast outside of japan for some reason.
Sonic team to compensate and appease fans with the Sonic Jam compilation. The Sonic World feature was foreshadowing for their next project in December of '98
Sonic R tried to replicate the successes of Mario Kart 64 and Diddy Kong Racing only to get mixed results. Further insult to injury a few months after the Saturn's demise, Nintendo greenlits Super Smash Bros. proving that whomever was charge of SoA at the time had to be dropped at birth or ate lead paint as a kid.
American Sonic Fans had to rely on the Archie comics to compensate for the lack of game. Unfortunately the writers jumped the gun by killing off their version of Robotnik and having Sonic fight one-note mamelukes, not knowing the real Eggman would return for Adventure.Pic related.
>>12646326not every console needs to be a hit everywhere. xbox also had regionitis with failing to sell japan. oh well. still a solid second place its first two outings
>>12646348Introducing new villains is a good thing though. Always relying on Robotnik is very Saturday morning cartoon (and even the 80s Ninja Turtles had more villains than Sonic)
>>12646353Which is why everybody in Archie was pissed when Sega demanded they bring Robotnik back, doubly so when they now had to make him look like he does in the games.
>>12646326>>12646337This, I was there and Sonic Jam was what held us over. It was a great compilation for the time and really felt like a celebration of classic Sonic. The Saturn also had lots of great Sonic Team games, and NiGHTS and Burning Rangers genuinely felt like the next generation of Sega games.Also, ‘96-99 was when the original, oldhead Sonic fandom appeared online in places like the Hooked on Sonics usenet boards and The GHZ, which would eventually grow into Sonic Retro and culminate in Mania. Sonic fans were really smart and funny at the time, and it was a fun culture to be part of. Sonic definitely felt a little passé, but not in a bad way. The trouble started brewing with the release of SA2, and that game’s GC port was the beginning of the end.
>>12646353The problem was that they were one-note
>>12646326This was my first Sonic game, got it bundled with a Mega Drive model 2. I still like it
>>12646369Well as far as I can recall, 'robotization' was the coolest thing Robotnik ever did, and it's not even technically canon, because in the games, all Sonic has to do is bop them out of the things.
>>12646326>However Sonic Team decided to make an all-new game called NiGHTS insteadGood night is better than any Sonic
>>12646381Good night(s), Saturn pride.
>>12646350But it created a nasty little gap between games
Had SoA & SoJ stopped dickfencing during the mid-90s Sonic and other Sega titles would've gotten better publicity
>>12646376its best controlling 3D /vr/ Sonic game
>>12646326They could have released Picrel, easily, but chose not to.
The only thing I truly find weird was the lack of a Sonic the fighter port. It even ran on the same engine as Fighting Vipers which was ported competently. truly odd
>>12647040SEGA, unfortunately, become incompetent by around 1994 or so, with the failure of the 32X and the semi-failure of the Sega CD. It went downhill from there. A Sonic the Fighters port could have single handedly revived the Saturn, but they completely dropped the ball.
>>12647028This is a prequel to Sonic 1, and Sonic's first encounter with Eggman. You can't convince me otherwise
>>12647028This wasn't that good, trackball controls were ass
>>12646379>and it's not even technically canonIt's okay to say IDW is garbage, it's a retro board after all.
>>12646348The writers were 'trekkies who weren't in the thought space of actual comic book companies, so they assume they can just throw in comic book nobodies to make things work.The worse part was when they did do more prominent villains, they shat the fucking bed at the end of the their run.Fucking Mammoth Mogul, dude was a multiversal threat and got raped by a giant off-model fox boy via an asspull. >>12647381Honestly the comics are generally not that good, it had a few sick moments like Mechaized Sonic vs Mechanized Knuckles and Super Neo putting Sonic and Knuckles in their place but shit's a needle in a haystack.
>>12646331So after the JP launch of the Dreamcast, SoA wanted to do the opposite of Nintendo's god awful N64 early lineup and have a stronger western library before deployment of the DC on the Quad 9 date. (This lineup looks very strong, but aside Sonic and MK, this wasn't enough sadly)Also Bernie, probably one of the few good things he done, had to clean off the Genesis and Saturn games off the shelves and convince retailers to sell new SEGA products again ahead of the US launch.Also there was a power supply storage at NEC, which unfortunately help fucked over the Dreamcast distribution...
>>12646326This port existed because after SoA fumbled Xtreme (even with all the shitty NiGHTS engine rumors, it's still Americans fault alone), SoJ and SoE had to huddle up and think of a quick plan to get Sonic back in action as a console mover WITHOUT """""marketing""""" meddling from SoA.SoJ also wanted Sonic to have a better presence in Japan and want the upcoming Sonic titles to actually sell good over there.Lo and behold: Project Sonic '97 A project of "three phases" where they had to ship out very important Sonic titles to Japan to give the brand a better presence.First phase was a so-so collection bundled with a tech demo of what's coming in the horizonThe second phase was a multiplayer 3D Sonic game involving racing, which the makers of 3D Blast had to put together with some involvement with Sonic Team.The 3rd phase was a port of Sonic 3D Blast, which Japan never got on their systems until now, so it was basically a new Sonic platform release over there.The extra phase was Sonic Pocket Adventure, which was a precursor to the Advance trilogy due to the staff working on that (thanks to SEGA collabing with SNK) eventually making DIMPS due SNK imploding in the 2000s due to evil pachinko men. The game even had the original logo for the Project Sonic initiative, which says a lot about it.After the phases were done, SoJ eventually put out Sonic Adventure, which became not only a hit, but was the first real domestic hit in Japanese since Sonic 2 dropped there.If it wasn't for PS97, that would have been it for Sonic and SEGA in general.
>>12647408>Also Bernie, probably one of the few good things he done, had to clean off the Genesis and Saturn games off the shelves and convince retailers to sell new SEGA products again ahead of the US launch.This is btw the reason why he refused to localize japanese games and launched titles like Panzer Dragoon Saga with a stock of a few thousand copies. Or why he refused to sell the backup memory cart (needed for Dragon Force), and Working Designs had to import carts from japan and sell those themselves.
>>12647028I love this, but I don't think it would've helped, it's short and not that much more impressive than 3D Blast, also the latter feels more a proper 3D platformer with exploration and freedom.
>>12647378>trackball controls were asswho cares, the Saturn doesn't use a trackball
>>12646326Imagine being a sonic fan at all
>>12647330It makes the most sense to me. Explains why Sonic spends the whole game being a mostly-helpless rodent running for his life, and by his next encounter with Eggman in Sonic 1, he's not going to take that fat man's bullshit anymore.
>>12647452Thus Satan of Saturn
>>12647395Unfortunately most fans who truly knew video game source material were too young at the time so most adaptations of video games at the time were at the "mercy" of out of touch boomers
>>12647502This was more ass
>>12647632Noticed it never got a release since then?Trackball controls were a Faustian deal. A port was out of the question.This is also why the cancelled Star Fox Arcade never came to the Wii.
>>12648754It's why most ports of Centipede/Millepede were enh
>>12646326>Imagine being a Sonic Fan from 1996-99What do you mean imagine?
>>12649152After Knuckles' Chaotix was left wanting, fans were hoping for a new Sonic game. As stated before, Sonic Team was too busy with.NiGHTS, Sonic XTReme was a bitch to create and had to be canceled, so fans had to settle for a Saturn port of Flickies' Island with the 2nd worst loading time of any Sonic game.
Bump
>>12646331>They could have had a new 3d sonic in 98 but Sega waited 10 months to release the Dreamcast outside of japan for some reason.The problem with releasing a Sonic Game in 1998 is that the Saturn was almost completely ejected from retail outlets by that point. Not only would it have not sold consoles, but probably would have been a limited print release like so many of the other Saturn games released in 1998. Sega's window to get a Sonic game out to market on the Sega Saturn was Black Friday 1996. Sega if America honestly did make claims that Sonic X-treme would be released by Holiday 1996. Retailers were anticipating it as well. But they couldn't deliver, and Sonic 3D Blast for the Saturn was thrown in at the last minute as compensation. This did not make the Saturn look good up against the launch of the N64 and Mario 64, as well as releases like Crash Bandicoot on the PS1.
Further complicating matters was the anticipation for the PS-exclusive FFVII
