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Sonic Forces and Sonic in Non Games

Sonic Forces is a game changer for the Sonic franchise as a whole and Sega hasn’t let on about how much sway it will have on the franchise from now on.

That’s a big opening sentence right? Sonic is a huge and extremely diverse franchise that as a game series has also been an extremely viable and popular cartoon, comic, toy, and music sensation that long extends past the reach of its home in Sega of Japan.

Each region had a story of Sonic with the Western Story taking more place in their comics and cartoons while the Japanese story is more manual relegated when the Sega Megadrive and Genesis had finally gotten the mascot. The Japanese manuals had extensive lore that you can read on each page of Sonic Retro here, here, here, here, and here. This is the lore that from 1998 onwards shaped the franchise. It has islands that magically move on their own (or via tectonic plates), legends about gods with magical gem stones, and little planets that time travel.

It’s a legacy series that has been a hallmark in games that Games Historians still don’t know how to fully process in regards to its rivalry in Nintendo’s Mario. Mario had tried cartoons and comics and even became the very first game to be adapted to film whose quality is very debatable among people for where it lacks faithfulness to Mario and where it was sensible to deviate from the 8-bit classic on the NES to make its story. Miyamoto even argues that it might have been too faithful to the respected series but that’s another discussion. Nintendo had a very experimental phase in the 90s when Sega became a serious competitor to the Games Industry. And one of those things was a pop culture presence that involved all of media.

Sonic encompasses any media the blue hedgehog can get its hands into. Its even in unofficial mix tape CDs and continues on to be sampled in works by big musicians and the iconic ring jingle is even the sound used in digital cash registers. Sonic is ingrained into pop culture psyche. It is a true pop culture success Sega never anticipated. It’s a sensation that has worked as a sales machine everywhere except in Japan. That’s not that they didn’t try to make it big in Japan even having a short running manga series that came to be known in Sonic Fan Circles aside from the manga adaptations to advertise the games themselves.

It was a very interesting little series that almost comes across like Looney Tunes with superheroes and a bad guy.

It introduced the East to Sonic’s own more unique adventures where Dr. Eggman would hatch a plan and spring it on the citizens of Hedgehog Town and Sonic would save the day. The new thing though is that Sonic has a Superman and Peter Parker secret alias that transformed into Sonic when the moment needed him to. It’s like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde but not as mentally unstable. It even introduces characters that are now series staples in the cast.

Designs changed and they were adapted to the series since. Amy Rose is a fan favourite Canon Immigrant and Charmy Bee is part of the Chaotix who shows up from time to time.

Then there were the Western takes on Sonic the Hedgehog. Some shortlived, some only getting cancelled in the early 2000s in the case of UK comics company Fleetway and their series, Sonic the Comic.

Theirs is a very interesting story taking place after the Origin of Sonic the Hedgehog promotional story that was reprinted in Disney Adventures’ Second Issue. This same book would take on plenty of game properties and Sonic was an early story for them.

This story involved Sonic having been friends with a Good Dr. Robotnik who was then known as Ovi Kintobor similar to Alucard in Dracula myths. In this story Sonic had engaged in a speed experiment gone wrong that turned him blue due to the effect of going past the speed of sound and turned the jovial scientist into the fearsome robot slave making Robotnik. It was an interesting story that the Western branches of Sega had made canon to their regions’ version of Sonic until 1998′s Sonic Adventure and Sega of Japan’s mythology came to be the full original canon. These comics have an ardent fanbase that celebrates the comic for being closer to the games than the Archie Comics counterpart and even has a dedicated online webcomic continuation of the story that’s running into the 200s now that features fan favourite online artists like @adamisart and @thekkmart. It’s a very fun read and these books are eclectic and fun even if unique in their interpretations of the franchise. One of these ideas are The Cyberniks.

Shortfuse the Cybernik

Vermin the Cybernik

These two are a form of Badnik that are Badniks but with animals the size of Sonic instead of the typical little “real” animals you’ll usually find popping out of Badniks. They’re made to be much stronger than your typical Badniks and have traits that, similar to Metal Sonic, are like a character but enhanced with technology. This is very similar to the very mysterious character of Infinite, a cybernetic character who we know nothing besides a name and a motivation to bring Sonic down.

The Archie Comics are also something that seems to have had a huge imprint on this game via cultural osmosis or coincidence. The Archie Comics had a deal for a limited series of Sonic in 1993 which coincided with the showing of Sonic the Hedgehog on Saturday Mornings (known to fans as Sonic SatAM). These comics featured a team of Freedom Fighters against the wannabe tyrannical Dr. Robotnik who in SatAM had conquered their homeland of Mobotropolis and roboticized to become his lair in Robotropolis. This event also happened in the comics but it focused more on the humour of the Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog until SatAM’s cancellation after the episode The Doomsday Project in December 3, 1994. The Archie comic was a fairly popular series that has run alongside the franchise from 1993 to 2017, finalizing it at 24 years strong. One more year and it would have hit a 25 year long milestone in publication. That is no small feat and is a testament to the popularity and strong nature of Archie’s Sonic to become a major part of the franchise that outlived the original cartoon it was based on.

Boy those models sure look nice and professional.

The cancellation of Archie happened July 19, 2017. And on the day right after we got another trailer for Sonic Forces this time for Infinite Themselves.

And this logo is the one that is shown to be the logo for the character.

What is particularly interesting now is that the characters from Sonic the Comic inhabited the world of Mobius, a long running miscommunication between Sega of Japan and America. This caused the planet of Mobius to be the name that most people in pop culture would associate and accept as Sonic’s Home World. Here is some trivia:

“The name Mobius may be a reference to a shape known as the Möbius strip, a shape with no clear start or end that appears to have multiple sides, when in fact there is only one. This could be intended as a reference to the cyclical nature of species dominance on this alternate Earth / Mobius.”

The logo that we had seen before is a Moebius Loop, made popular by the artist, M.C. Escher.

Look at those ants go.

Something that is fairly popular and well noted in Sonic 2′s level design is the use of these strips in Emerald Hill Zone. We’ve seen these come up in the franchise several times over since.

So why is this important? There’s still a branding issue. A single logo is used for consistency so you’re not confused about what it represents. This is a common practice in marketing. This is why the Sonic the Hedgehog logo stays roughly the same to its motifs even in new logos and designs.

So what does this logo mean?

Why did Sega make it a huge thing in the E3 Trailer? Archie Sonic doesn’t have that as a logo and neither does Sonic the Comic. This is a brand new logo. However, this logo can be simplified a lot like how Infinite’s turned out to be. It even looks like it could belong on a flag of a fictional nation. That’s interesting. The last time we saw a fictional nation in Sonic, we got Sonic Unleashed.

And this was the logo of Eggmanland, the Doctor’s Nation that he built from the scraps of the Earth after it was destroyed. All of the nations alongside it were based on real world nations.

Shamar’s Flag, Sonic Unleashed (2008)

South Africa’s Flag

If this is a new nation in the Sonic Universe then we could potentially be looking at the incorporation of Mobius into the Sonic Games’ Lore. This would be groundbreaking integration of the West’s ideas of Sonic coming into the games after years of fan demands and the cancellation of the Archie book which was coming right off of the Sonic Unleashed adaptation before it ended. There’s also the note that there is a world map in Sonic Forces which is particularly peculiarly similar to Sonic Unleashed.

Sonic Unleashed (2008)

Sonic Forces (2017)

This may be all a coincidence, but there’s been a big marketing push that Sega has been more than happy to oblige with Sonic Forces that this game will be huge and that we haven’t begun to scratch the surface of it all.

Let’s look at Infinite and the Avatar again. These characters are vital to the puzzle.

Sonic Forces: Custom Hero Trailer, May 16, 2017

This kid has been an important part of the game the entire time. This character is tied to Infinite being in the game and this has been stressed over and over by Sega themselves. They’re You. They’re the Fans. They’re the love and dedication of 26 years of this franchise staying afloat. That’s way past cool. So if they’re You then who is Infinite?

They’re the hands of an author rewriting the work to fit their vision.

This is the Avatar of an Overly Controlling Mastermind of the Space Time Continuum. Which remember. Sonic is not unfamiliar with the concepts of space and time and how they affect the world. This was a big point in Sonic Generations, a game that used that as a plot to set up an anniversary game of revisiting old levels.

What’s most curious is the roster of villains that accompany Infinite and how they interact with the game as a whole, particularly when it’s made clear that Infinite is wrong.

They’re the living embodiment of a glitch in the system. Even the video of Their Theme is glitched out.

They sure love to be a living image corruption that’s for sure.

Let’s go back to the concept of a Cybernik. It was established that Dr. Eggman made these to be Super Badniks much like how Metal Sonic is one to Sonic. What if Infinite is the Cybernik version of our Avatar, Buddy?

A diagram of a Cybernik

They’re not fully mechanical but they’re very cybernetic and appear to have very natural features suggesting that they’re not purely a robot. This idea would go on into the Archie Sonic Comics where Dr. Eggman has an army of willingly and unwillingly roboticized soldiers that have enhanced abilities.

That’s too much of a coincidence. What bears intrigue more is the similarities in design to Vermin the Cybernik.

Pointed ears, pointed snout, and Ultron like design similarities are all accounted for. The only thing wrong is the tail which is a fox’s moreso than a rat’s. But otherwise, Infinite’s motif is fairly similar to Vermin down to wanting Sonic and Buddy the Avatar dead. That’s interesting with what is canon to the Cyberniks.

“Two Cyberniks were depicted during the series. The prototype was a squirrel-shaped Badnik, but an error occurred during the installation of Shorty the Squirrel as its organic battery, allowing Shorty to resist Robotnik's brainwashing. Shorty took on the name Shortfuse and became an outlaw, striving to defeat Robotnik's forces. Shortfuse possessed blasters on his arms and the ability to fly.

The second Cybernik, a rat named Vermin, was created to destroy Shortfuse. Although he could not fly, he was super strong and had more powerful blasters which were emitted from his eyes. He also possessed the ability to inject a crippling computer virus by means of his prehensile tail.”

Is it possible that Infinite is a Composite Character of these two? It’s looking more and more likely it seems. Also of note is that Vermin is a virus based character to himself as well and that is the basis of a lot of image corruption. Fascinating.

Now let’s talk about that last image and Sonic’s artistic influences.

Japan loves Felix the Cat and Mickey Mouse. They absolutely adore those two and Sonic was designed to be an incredibly iconic character that would sell competitively to Mario.

He was designed with a cutesy punk vibe to gel with what kids liked at the time. Someone that parents could accept and kids could really get into. This was from the competition where Sega asked their employees to design a new mascot to replace then mascot Alex Kidd who just wasn’t working. The character that Infinite threatens is someone fairly basic in design and simple, but why is Infinite threatening them? They’re not as important as Sonic. Or are they? It bears minding that the competition had many designs come out of it, this one included.

This kid bears a strong resemblance to Oswald the Lucky Rabbit.

Oswald is a prototype to a major company’s mascot. After Oswald, we got Mickey Mouse after Disney left Universal with his good friend and collaborator Ub Iwerks and their team. This rabbit concept would go on to become Ristar with the stretching arms idea intact. But it’s interesting to say that a possible prototype of Sonic would be threatened by a force that wants Sonic deader than Mephiles did.

Is Sonic Forces a legacy game? Is this the most important Sonic game this side of Sonic Mania? Time will tell.

I know that I’m excited though. Sega has my attention.

#sonic forces #infinite #pop culture #analysis

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