Netflix have officially announced Sonic Prime, a new animated series coming to to the service in 2022 from Wildbrain Entertainment.
Wildbrain have released a press release, with the following summary:
The 24-episode animated adventure for kids, families, and long-time fans draws upon the keystones of the brand and features the “Blue Blur” of video game fame in a high-octane adventure where the fate of a strange new multiverse rests in his gloved hands. Sonic’s adventure is about more than a race to save the universe, it’s a journey of self-discovery and redemption.
The series will be animated at WildBrain’s Vancouver studio, and SEGA and WildBrain will jointly participate across production, distribution and licensing. Man of Action Entertainment, creators of Ben 10 and the characters and team in the Academy Award-winning feature Big Hero 6, have been brought on as showrunners and Executive Producers for the series.
It’s certainly an interesting premise, but it remains to be seen what this show will actually look like. More recently, Man of Action dipped their toes into the video game pond with Mega Man: Fully Charged, which… didn’t go down particularly well. Hopefully we’ll see some bits later this year.
When Tracker isn’t playing SEGA games, he’s talking about SEGA games. Or drawing about SEGA games. Or all of the above. You can also catch him over on Twitter.
SEGA is having yet another organisational shift, as the start of the new fiscal year looms. From April 1st, corporate functions will be integrated between the SEGA SAMMY Holdings group (aligning the operations of SEGA and Sammy more, from what we understand), and there’ll be some staff shifting about too. Perhaps none more eye-catching than Yakuza creator Toshihiro Nagoshi, who’ll be stepping back from his role as SEGA’s CCO (that’s Chief Creative Officer) and into a Creative Director role.
The corporate changes aren’t anything surprising and are fairly normal around the start of a new fiscal year, and it might not even mean a whole lot to the average SEGA fan; but SEGA’s getting it out of the way quite early, and Nagoshi stepping back is at least somewhat of a surprise. He’s certainly had a bumpy couple of years; with his revelation in 2019 that he’d had heart surgery, and the furore he kicked off in 2020 after managing to insult a pro Puyo Puyo player live on air. Either way, we do wonder if this could mean Nagoshi gets closer to the games being developed at SEGA again, because that would obviously be no bad thing.
When Tracker isn’t playing SEGA games, he’s talking about SEGA games. Or drawing about SEGA games. Or all of the above. You can also catch him over on Twitter.
Tags: sega japan, sega sammy, Toshihiro Nagoshi Posted in News | Comments Off on SEGA Reshuffling Management And Structure Again, Toshihiro Nagoshi Steps Down as CCO And Becomes Creative Director
Roger Craig Smith’s tenure voicing SEGA’s beloved mascot Sonic the Hedgehog has come to a somewhat abrupt end, as he’s announced through Twitter that after 10 years, he’s moving “onward to new zones.”
It’s certainly a surprise; for the past decade, Smith’s voice has become synonymous with the hedgehog for an entire generation of young fans. The older generations couldn’t seem to agree, but for our money he was probably the most consistently solid English voice Sonic’s had to date.
Should this mean we won’t be hearing Smith in the next Sonic game, it’d mean his final role as Sonic wasn’t actually a Sonic game; he recently voiced the blue blur in Puyo Puyo Tetris 2, as part of a recent content update.
It goes without saying, but we wish Smith all the best in whatever’s next for him. For many Sonic fans, now the question is – who’s next? Unsurprisingly, Ben Schwartz is a name popping up quite a lot on Twitter right now, after his stellar perfomance as Sonic’s movie counterpart – but only time will tell.
When Tracker isn’t playing SEGA games, he’s talking about SEGA games. Or drawing about SEGA games. Or all of the above. You can also catch him over on Twitter.
Puyo Puyo Tetris 2 will be making its long-awaited PC debut on March 23rd, as that’s when the game will be coming to Steam.
The game’s Steam page doesn’t have pre-orders open right now, but we expect it won’t be long now until they are. The trailer’s description also confirms the recent content update will be included, as well as the upcoming ones. On top of that, the next content update for the game is set to be showcased on a Japanese Puyo stream at the start of February, and we suspect Western announcements won’t be far behind.
When Tracker isn’t playing SEGA games, he’s talking about SEGA games. Or drawing about SEGA games. Or all of the above. You can also catch him over on Twitter.
The upcoming remake of Monster World IV, Wonder Boy: Asha in Monster World, has received a new trailer and a fresh round of details to go along with it.
The trailer is notable as is showcases a fair improvement over the previous ones; Asha’s animations appear to have been reworked, and on the whole it looks a bit nicer( you can also search about photorealistic animation here)The latest press release makes particular mention that the developers have been taking on feedback, and given the frosty reception to the initial showings, it’s sure looking like it.
The trailer also gives us more of the Japanese voice acting being added to the game, as well as a new Q2 2021 release window. There’s also a reaffirmation that physical copies of the game will include the original Mega Drive title on a separate cartridge for Nintendo Switch, and as a download for PS4; Gematsu reports that this version will now be available at retail, whereas previously it seemed like it’d be exclusive to Strictly Limited, with only 3000 copies being made.
Japan has received a more solid release date of April 22nd, and will also be getting physical versions; their Special Pack will include two artbooks.
Wonder Boy: Asha in Monster World is launching for Nintendo Switch and Playstation 4 later this year.
When Tracker isn’t playing SEGA games, he’s talking about SEGA games. Or drawing about SEGA games. Or all of the above. You can also catch him over on Twitter.
— みどりぷよ（ぷよぷよシリーズ公式）『ぷよぷよテトリス２』好評発売中！ (@puyopuyo20th) January 14, 2021
Puyo Puyo Tetris 2’s first major update has been released, and it brings along with it 4 new characters. Alongside fan-favourite characters such as Lidelle, Ms Accord and Ocean Prince from the Puyo Puyo Fever titles, Sonic the Hedgehog himself has joined the Puyo Tetris battlefield – and it’s not a mod this time!
Other additions include a raid-style boss battle mode, inspired by a similar feature in Puyo Puyo Chronicle. You can earn Skill Battle cards not available through Adventure Mode by teaming up with other players to take on boss characters. Speaking of Skill Battle, the Sonic-themed cards have now been added into the main game, too.
There’s also four new music tracks, to go along with the new characters; including Tropical Resort, from Sonic Colours.
This… certainly came out of nowhere. We suspect this is what SEGA Europe were teasing for tomorrow’s stream, in which case they weren’t kidding about it being special. Currently only the Japanese announcement is available, but our Playstation 4 downloaded the new update, and Sonic and company are indeed present and accounted for.
When Tracker isn’t playing SEGA games, he’s talking about SEGA games. Or drawing about SEGA games. Or all of the above. You can also catch him over on Twitter.
You may have seen the various unused gameplay elements and alternate artwork from this prototype in pre-release footage or the various magazine coverage from the time. This includes the UFOs in Marble Garden Zone, the different neon signs in Spring Yard Zone, the checkerboard ball that Sonic can run on in Green Hill Zone and the different stage titles for Spring Yard Zone and Scrap Brain Zone. Well, they’re all in this prototype and it makes for a fascinating insight into the game’s development.
Fast becoming one of the most important resources for digital archiving of prototype software, Hidden Palace have released another slew of prototype versions of various Sonic the Hedgehog titles. These new dumps of late development builds of Sonic Adventure 2, Sonic Spinball and Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine showcase some fascinating insight into their development and feature a slew of differences from their final builds.
Sonic Adventure 2 features many grammatical errors that would be corrected for the final build, Metal Harbor and the final Sonic and Shadow battle are considerably more difficult and the driving stages feature different collision results when driving into other vehicles. The full list of differences can be read on the Hidden Palace entry for this release.
All of these dumps can be downloaded and played through emulation or on real hardware from the Hidden Palace entries linked above. Hidden Palace will be streaming and revealing their “last present from under the tree” tonight (31/12/2020) at 10pm GMT on Twitch, so if you’re excited to see more prototypes from their team then be sure to tune in.
A tech demo for a Simpsons game on the Dreamcast has been discovered by ‘sreak’ over at the Dreamcast-Talk forums. This demo of a game called The Simpsons: Bug Squad! was dumped from a Dreamcast dev kit and developed by Red Lemon Studio in 2000 as a pitch to Fox Interactive. It was never greenlit and this demo is the only evidence of it ever existing.
It’s an interesting little title putting you in the shoes of a bug in The Simpsons’ homestead, and you explore the area in a similar way to Toy Commander. You can check out the game in action via the video embed from the Dreamcastic Channel below:
Upcoming Monster World IV remake Wonder Boy: Asha in Monster World will be getting a few physical editions of varying complexity, from Strictly Limited Games.
The contents of each pack vary; there’s the regular edition which simply gets you a physical copy of the game for either Nintendo Switch or Playstation 4 (there is no physical option for the PC version), followed by the Collector’s Edition which comes with the entire kitchen sink – including your very own squishable Pepelogoo. Finally there’s the Mega Collector’s Edition, which has the contents of the CE as well as some more extras on top; including a sticker, pin badge, and even an exclusive statue of Asha and Pepelogoo.
Most notably though, all physical versions will include the original Mega Drive version of Monster World IV, ported to the respective platform. For Switch owners, it’ll be included on the cartridge, while PS4 owners will receive a download code for the MD title.
According to Gematsu, pre-orders will open later today. They also have a detailed run-down of what each edition contains. If you want one you’ll have to act though; even the regular edition is limited.
When Tracker isn’t playing SEGA games, he’s talking about SEGA games. Or drawing about SEGA games. Or all of the above. You can also catch him over on Twitter.
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