#Sonic Rangers

[artboxartist]

“Covered in scars // but roses are growing through the cracks”

[jason-gold-falcon]

Finally Decided to Follow up that Future Sonic Design with another character. Future Knuckles! And I must say, I'm quite satisfied with this one.

[ministry-twilight]

((To think Sonic Frontiers was originally going to be called Sonic Rangers))

[blazehedgehog]

I think a problem with Sonic nowadays is that Sega sees the franchise as too profitable too simply drop but not profitable enough to really put that much money or reverence behind. Yes, I know apparently they are expanding Sonic Team but we will have to wait and see on that one. Thoughts?

I don't even know if it's "not profitable enough." Like they always give Sonic a shout out in their earnings, year after year after year. There have definitely been dry spells to be sure, but even if Sonic has been slipping over the years, I think it's still well within the top ten (or even top five) earners for Sega.

Which, at the same time, could be a big range that's hard to calculate, too. I guess we don't know how big is big enough for Sega. There are a lot of factors at play here and it's difficult to say one way or another.

Sonic Unleashed was definitely a game where there were complaints from the development team about the cost of making assets. Levels were gigantic, full of detail, and most of it was hard to see for how fast you moved through it. But they also spent the next three or four games vastly simplifying that pipeline, chopping out expensive features and streamlining asset use. Like I can't imagine Sonic Lost World was a very expensive game for them to make.

And something you gotta keep in mind is that a lot of the more modern engine refreshes are more about making asset generation easier and faster for the artist. Like, raytracing is (financially) expensive, but it's about giving the artist tools to just... put a light in the game and just have it work without having to write and tweak a million shaders. Even PBR, a similar system that predates raytracing, was about that. Taking "good graphics" out of the realm of programmers and coding and more into, like, the same way people tweak settings on their cameras.

(Pixar literally does this: the current version of their render technology actually simulates specific models of cameras and lenses)

I would think, and hope, that even though Hedgehog Engine 2 doesn't look THAT different from HE1, the tools behind it are making it easier to make levels. (Sonic Team even gave a CEDEC talk about this once called "The Level Design Forest", outlining how they were trying to optimize and simplify their level creation process.)

There are many mysteries about why Sonic games are the way they are, and we can only speculate what happens behind the scenes. Like how Takashi Iizuka has implied Sega's higher-ups won't let him make Sonic Adventure 3, or that recent tweet from Morio Kishimoto, where he reveals that there was actually a completely different director on Sonic Frontiers back when it was called "Sonic Rangers." When they changed directors and Kishimoto took over, he apparently reconfigured the entire game to become Sonic Frontiers as we know it today.

There are always a lot of factors at play in these kinds of things, and we're probably not even aware of 10% of them.

[kookie-star]

🦔 Sonic the Hedgehog MEGA Post 🦔

So far, all the Sonic art I've done since 2015 to the current year ;v; (Including AU's)

I’ll be updating this post every time I have Sonic-related art.

[latin-dr-robotnik]

You may remember that last year I cited Sunset Overdrive as my ideal example of the amount of movement freedom Sonic Frontiers (at the time, Sonic Rangers) should give the player, especially if we’re heading into a sort of “open world” or “open zone” (as the official page says) environment...

Well, I returned to the game to grab some footage for a project... and I am once again thinking about the importance of giving the player all the tools to chain jumps, dashes, wallruns, grinds and stomps together to navigate the world and, most importantly, keep a good combo going that is both fun to do and gives the player some neat benefits (like special perks unlocking when you’re “in the zone”). Sonic already has a lot of these movements at his disposal in both Adventure and Boost-era games, so in my opinion Sonic Team should go wild with the possibilities and let players engage with the upcoming world in creative ways. (Even if we don’t get tight urban areas like Sunset Overdrive to go crazy.)

I’ll take that over holding the boost button across an open, empty zone to reach the next activity any day of the week. And maybe Ohtani-san won’t allow it, but pls some pop-punk music would be great too.

Oh, btw, Sunset Overdrive is still a very fun gem.

[cold-fire-yo]

I'm calling it now.

Sonic Frontiers is going to be a really bad game and the 5 year wait won't be worth it.

Sonic Team/Sega/Whoever is going to rush it out for a holiday season. If not that, then it will be delayed for another year or longer.

[ayo-edebiri]

Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers (2022) dir. Akiva Schaffer

[silverequation]

More hedgehogs and chao

[pennyadodumuss]

NakaShimas (I'm Home!)

[jason-gold-falcon]

WE CAUGHT UP!

This Picture I made a few days ago. I finally decided to give Future Sonic an Updated Design. Gotta say, I'm pleased with the result.

[your90s2000sparadise]

Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade Floats, 1990's - 2000's

[blazehedgehog]

Thoughts on Sonic Frontiers

I want to wait and see more, because I know there's stuff from the leaks that hasn't been shown yet.

But I do get the vibe of, like... does Sonic Team still want to be making Sonic games? Because, like, you play Super Mario Odyssey, which I would also qualify as an open world game, and it still carries the Mario flavor. It doesn't matter which continent you're in. It contains the signature Mario vibe.

You can't say that from what we've seen of Sonic Frontiers so far. Yes, you can run fast. Yes, there are grind rails. But it is totally missing that signature Sonic the Hedgehog identity.

The reason people are cracking "Sega hire this man" jokes is because it looks like you dropped Sonic the Hedgehog in to somebody else's game. Specifically Breath of the Wild, or maybe Genshin Impact.

If you aren't attached to a "Sonic's identity" concept or are just happy to play anything with a blue hedgehog in it, I'm sure this looks great. But I'm skeptical for the same reasons I was skeptical of Sonic Lost World. A Sonic game should be a Sonic Game, you know? If you're going to start a debate with me because "A Sonic game is anything made by Sega starring Sonic" then I'm sure you'll also love it about the time Pizza Hut starts serving tacos.

I'm not totally against everything shown in that IGN video, and like I said, I want to see what else they've got, but what I saw today was 7 minutes of Sonic doing a lot of Zelda puzzles.

[hayweerc]

"Bound by Chaos" AU. Chapter 9 Spoilers ⚠️📖

Espio reveals himself to the main three.

This is his first official full appearance in the fanfic for Bound by Chaos. Silver and Espio are in a relationship- they parted ways in the past and are finally reunited.

In my universe, a harpy song can only affect those who are pure Mobian. Any other race or half race won't be affected by their spells.

I turned Wave into the main harpy that was in this chapter.

[gemlikrogue1996akaexsurget]

A little gift for @StacyBlankVA on Twitter/X! Surge as the Green Power Ranger. This idea happened after a long brainrot between us.

[kinoselynn]

kill him