#onewaydreamcore

[biolizardboils]

Yesterday night i watched this video essay about SA2's plot (specifically Shadow's role in it) and it was so good that i got. Genuinely upset about how the Adventure era became such a joke in the 2010s. Like, upset enough to spew paragraphs about it to a friend.

How were we, as a people, convinced that SA1 and SA2 were a mistake? How did we decide that multiple playstyles, complex themes, spoken dialogue and even 3D GAMEPLAY were the issues? How did we believe it so hard that even Sonic Team seemed to believe it?

I'm so sad that it went on for years. I'm so sad that we're still feeling its effects—from humans and G.U.N. being in off-screen limbo, to people looking at this Dragon Ball Mickey Mouse shit and only seeing the Mickey Mouse. (It's both!! It was meant to be both from the start!! It's when one overtakes the other that it stops feeling like Sonic!!)

Anyway I guess Sega heard my ramblings last night cus boom. "Shadow is cool and looking to him for inspiration is cool too. Also it's his year and we made his motorcycle real."

And the response?? On here and Twitter, people are talking about how they relate to Shadow and the kid in the video!! Yeah, there's still other people making fun of it, or are just confused by it... but they're being drowned out by the sincere stuff. That's so fucking wonderful.

Shadow enthusiasts: enjoy your year. You've more than earned it.

TL;DR: this shit dropped just in time to stop my supervillain arc 💙

[biolizardboils]

…What else is new?

[biolizardboils]

so happy about the new Elise art..... she deserves this win. people who genuinely like her deserve this win.

i agree that she couldve been written better. i used to see constant complaints about her, and not all of it was unfounded.

but way too much of it boiled down to plain ol' misogyny. it scared me. it still does, honestly.

her winning the poll is a good sign, i think. im happy that mentioning her name doesnt summon nasty comments anymore, at least not instantly. im happy that she looks so cute. im happy that she's happy.

[biolizardboils]

Now that everyone's firing Frontiers back up, I wanna talk a bit about One Way Dream.

First off, I saw rumblings of Nate having a song in the game and it being "a message from Sonic Team" before beating it on Hard. So while I didn't get to have a "NATEWANTSTOBATTLE???" moment, I knew beforehand what lens to receive the lyrics through.

I held it in through the first verse. I got a little shaky during the second.

And then... "Even if they laugh, we'll never bite the dust." That's when the tears came.

I should state the obvious: Corporations Are Not Our Friends. I understand this; it's why I held off making this post for months. There's no need to remind me.

That being said.

I watched Sonic Team have to pull back, further and further every year. Backed into a corner, corporate mistakes echoed at them whenever they tried to climb out. I watched them try, just before stagnating for a decade. With staff leaving for greener pastures, pressure from their parent company, and jokes where there could've been honest criticism, it's not a choice I can blame them for.

For all the shit we get for still liking these games, the people making them seem to get it just as bad, if not worse. And unlike us, they couldn't outright talk about it if they wanted to. That would be critical of their parent company, critical of the people who book interviews with them just to bring up '06. That would be complaining. Or worse: unprofessional.

So to suddenly see them make something that lasted longer than 10 hours... with exploratory gameplay and boss fights like THAT... with fondness for the characters' pasts and setups for their futures... with rough edges, yes, but with updates that prove they've been listening to us... all to the tune of a 30% pay raise and the highest-selling Sonic game since 2003...

...and then hear this?

Yeah.

[biolizardboils]

thinking of Prologue Divergence and how it showcased different eras of Sonic lore just... coexisting. 

A Flicky perching near the Adventure-style outdoors M.E. shrine. Chao living in Sky Sanctuary from 3 & Knuckles. Even brand new things like the giant-chair-idk-what-its-called being buried in Knuckles' home until he found it by chance. 

It all exists at the same time, in the same space, and they don't clash or cancel each other out. It's all the same world. It’s that easy.

I'm used to seeing it in fanfiction, but not in the official product. Maybe if Sega had done something like this sooner, we wouldn't be at each other's throats as much. Maybe everyone (me included) wouldn't feel the need to defend OUR version of Sonic against all the others.

But hey, better late than never, right?

[biolizardboils]

sad i cant get Frontiers yet. im gonna gush about the Knuckles short so i wont be so sad

so it took me a week to realize the prologue comic and this short have different subtitles. the comic has Convergence and the short has Divergence. the acts of coming together and coming apart, respectively. hmm

also for anyone who missed it: this year, official Sonic social media said “here’s some fun material to get you caught up on series lore, also SURPRISE these are canon and take place just before the next game!” the timeline for this material is as follows: TailsTube (video series) >> Prologue: Convergence (comic) >> Prologue: Divergence (animation). if you haven’t seen them yet, enjoy!

on to the actual short: man. game-wise, Angel Island has been kinda irrelevant the entire time i’ve been into Sonic, zone reuse aside. i read up on its history, the games it was used in, and i revered it as the lore’s first big cornerstone. but outside of fanfiction it never really felt like it mattered until lately. i’ll shut up about it eventually, but damn, shit’s had me like this all year

so now that Classic-era lore and Everything After aren’t walled off from each other anymore, i guess the M.E. has two shrines (the indoor one in Hidden Palace, and the outdoor one seen from SA1 onward) and Knuckles moves it between them for some reason. you’d think he’d just keep it in the first one instead of letting it make a big green Come-Steal-Me beacon in the sky lol. maybe it’s an ancient custom, or he just wanted the rain to wash it

i love Flickies :) idek why, i just do. funy birdy

“Perhaps it’s karma...” Knuckles sweetie no!! your ancestors’ mistakes should not be yours to bear!!

TIKAAAAL MY DAUGHTERRRR

i like how this flashback clarifies two things the original SA1 cutscene didn’t, one happy-ish and one sad. on one hand, at least some of the trampled Chao could get up right after, instead of them all laying there dead (that freaked me out when i first played it). on the other, Pachacamac violently threw aside his own daughter. between this and popping Longclaw in the SCU, this guy just keeps getting worse

Perfect Chaos’ roar is so uniquely gorgeous for a 25-year-old soundbite.. the chills i got when the screen went white and it rang out...

“The question is: whose power was it originally? Who build this shrine to the Emeralds, and where did they go?” holy shit holy shit holy shit?? like?? ive wondered about the Emeralds’ origins before, but i never thought the series would address it. im not even sure i want them to address it; it’s been up for fan speculation for so long that an official answer might not live up to the hype. that being said they’ve got my full fucking attention

Tikal and Chaos are still around :’’’) its cool that they can come down from Sonic’s World Heaven whenever they like apparently

its also cool that Knuckles casually follows Tikal’s light ball. i wonder if that happens often, her pointing him towards cool shit on the Island

still not over Chao living in Sky Sanctuary man;; its so obvious that i cant believe it was never shown before! like of course Chao live on the Island, they lived near the shrine in the past! of course they live in this zone specifically, its like the Hero Garden but 10x bigger!

the gorgeous shot of Knuckles twirling in the air!! he was dodging buildings but he was enjoying himself at the same time!!

shoutout to Pablo, my spoiled NiGHTS Chao in SA1 that i haven’t visited in years lol

so many questions about the Koco Thing the Chao wanted... is it just a mask, or the front half of a real Koco’s corpse? if the latter’s true, where’s the back half? the Gear Thing looked like it fit snugly underneath the face, as if it’d been inside the Koco. i doubt Sonic’s gonna have to crack these Baby Rocks open to collect Gears, but the framing here looks too intentional. (if the game answers any of this please don’t tell me i wanna find out on my own)

speaking of spoilers there’s now no spoiler-free way for me to look up what the thing Knux put the Gear in is called so im stuck calling them Ancient Lawn Chairs

his goofy ahhh scream when he comes out the other end lmaoo

“Oh, an ambush, huh? Your funeral.” bro the delivery there....

the way the music cuts off as he prepares the punch and comes ROARING back in when it hits!!!!! i took Katie and Tyson’s advice and watched this on my big TV and i swear the impact SHOOK my whole house it went SO HARD

the fucking GASHES he makes on the third robot i FELT that shit. i felt his POWER, the WEIGHT of his every move throughout the whole scene. from that first punch something different started to happen it was amazing

AND THEN HE BRINGS THE WHOLE CLIFF CRASHING DOWN OH MY GOD

Sonic and Knuckles will see a robot teetering on a ledge and say “is anyone else gonna style on this guy?” and then not wait for an answer

“AND AFTER I WIN--” god i LOVE his confidence here

and then the floating angry preschooler brought out her biggest toy and said “bet” zcxvcbnm

fr tho what did Sage do to him?? did she Orb him immediately or did the Big Thing kick his ass first

poignant call back to the opening monologue aside, Knuckles’ screaming made me think of this lol

“But sometimes...” Knuckles. sweetheart. no man is an (Angel) island. sounds like you need another lesson on the true superpower of teamwork. ill try to give you one when i get the game and free you

I’m Here’s drop over the credits and Sega’s eye logo joined forces to jumpscare me back-to-back lol

i aint got no deep final thoughts but god damn these shorts just keep getting better exponentially, what kinda black magic they doing over there

[biolizardboils]

im on day 4 with Frontiers and i gotta say some shit!!! it’ll be vague but minor spoiler warning just in case

so like i said a bit ago, im taking my sweet time and writing notes cus this is the first time in a DECADE a Sonic game’s gonna last me longer than 3-4 hours and im savoring that for all it’s worth. im still on the first island, and im not leaving till im better at the controls (im okay in Open Zone but get tripped up in Cyber Space because my Boost-era muscle memory keeps kicking in and oops i Stomped into the void again). playing this slowly feels unnatural, but i thought i could do it.

but today, i saw a cutscene that implies something BIG about the Islands’ past. and now the slow-and-steady approach is gonna be so much harder. i am chomping at the bit to understand what i just saw. i can basically buy extra story crumbs, but i want loaves of it in my mouth right now.

because... that’s how i’m used to consuming Sonic stories. starting out, i couldn’t afford the consoles to play them, so I read summaries on wikis and watched cutscene compilations. by the time i had the money, i’d spoiled every game with substantial plot for myself. lots of these games tug at your heartstrings in surprising ways; i love those games dearly, but knowing the tug was coming and when really did lessen their impact on me.

and because most of the games after that didn’t try to tug, i’ve always felt like i missed out on something.

ive waited for a game that dared to tug again for 13 years. and Frontiers just did it. it’s not a decade-old game i don’t have the console for, it’s a game that came out this month, that i’m playing right now. it's consistently kept me bouncing between “what the fuck” (confused but delighted) and “WHAT THE FUCK” (SCARED BUT EXCITED), and it’s got a mystery i can let slowly unfold, absorb in pieces by design, like i’ve always dreamed of.

and it feels so alien that i have to consciously keep myself from looking stuff up and sabotaging it all. i feel like that one guy who finally found water after dehydrating in a desert and drank so fast it killed him. i’m so fucking thirsty and i know better than to just gulp the water, but it hurts to wait. it’s horrible and amazing and i hope im getting the feeling across.

is the game making anyone else feel this way, or am i making a mountain out of a molehill? seriously, if im just insane from being here way too long, please be honest with me

[biolizardboils]

utterly obsessed with a specific aspect of how the final fight ends. major spoilers below the cut

so. im talking about Super Sonic's final blow to the robot resembling the foot poke from 06. like it made me laugh in the theater, but now something about it just grips my brain. 

the whole scene gives off an all-encompassing sense of triumph. the cinematography, the effects, the swelling music; the Emeralds reacting to Sonic’s desire to save his parents as they sacrifice themselves to comfort him in certain death; the simple awe of seeing Super Sonic on the big screen, a lifelong dream come true.

and it culminates in, of all things, the foot poke. a direct reference to the series’ greatest failure, a source of shame from its creators and fans alike, an infinite ammo that both parties have been hit with with constantly for 15 years. hell, it was Wikipedia's featured article on the movie’s release date.

i don’t know for sure it was meant this way, but it’s oddly poetic that the movie takes a moment from the series’ lowest point... and incorporates it into its highest high in decades. something something bringing things full circle, embracing your mistakes so you can rise above them... there’s a saying out there that explains the feeling better, i’m sure. just.... fuck, man

[biolizardboils]

im still laughing at the notes on that shadow lore post but now im also thinking about like... the gap between what "normal" people think sonic games are about, and what theyre actually about. its a pretty big gap and that post is a reminder of that. 

what caused that? im genuinely curious. what lines of communication does the series lack in marketing or whatever that other games dont? was the gap always there, or did it begin after certain games? what can be done to close it?

cus i dunno, i just... wish it was easier for people to Get It. to get why some people are so passionate about these characters and their world and also being anti-military. 

it felt like a miracle that enough people who know and care about the Lore gathered to make the Sonic Movies. with the direction theyre heading, they might help to shorten the gap. in the meantime, i just wanna know how to make that miracle the rule and not the exception.

[biolizardboils]

HI UM HOLY SHIT.

so i got drunk af at the theater and have a headache but ii m. SO FUCKING HAPPY. when a sonic movie was announced like 10 years ago, THIS was what i envisioned. the first one was an important stepping stone, and im glad thatthe foundation it built is still strong, but it also played shit way too safe and this blew it COMPLETELY out of the water.

people were cheering in the middle of it and at the end AND at the post credit scene. i got scared as hell and laughed my ass off and my heart pounded at seeing a dream come true. this is all over the place and super vague and im sorry but I'VE. you know what. I dont think ive EVER been this proud to be a sonic fan. they did shit justice. i cant believe how close we came to not getting this. this couldve ended with Gangstas Paradise but it didnt. its a miracle. i almost feel like we dont deserve this but also we DO for belireving in these characters, this world, these vibes for so goddamn long with the whole world telling us we were nuts. started from the bottom now we here

also durong the credits a guy was telling his friends how SA2 was his first video game, so I walked up to him and yelled "HEY" and pulled off my sweater to show him my SA2 shirt and he loved it. if youre out there man, you made my night and also can we be freinds

[biolizardboils]

watched the first half of the symphony last night and !!!!!!!!! holy FUCKING SHIT. hearing so much love get expressed for games and moments that usually get forgotten or ignored was so goddamn wonderful. it’s so inspiring to know that enough people saw the value in these moments to have them performed with such reverence, such extravagance!!! i’ve been to the Symphony of the Goddesses (basically this but for Zelda), and to hear Sonic get a treatment on par with that means so much to me!!!

my favorite part so far has gotta be the Believe In Myself/It Doesn’t Matter medley.... these songs and the character arcs in the Adventure games helped define the characters for the new millennium, and here they acknowledged that by playing footage of the climaxes of Tails’ arc in both games as they segued from the SA1 version of the song to the SA2 version. I can’t remember the last time Sega’s publicly recognized the importance of that arc.

and then they followed it up with an utterly breathtaking rendition of SA1′s It Doesn’t Matter, and i honest to god started bawling. i never in my life expected to hear to hear this important codifier of Sonic as a character played at this level of production quality, and with such understanding and love in every decibel. it was way too much.

anyway i stopped at the intermission cus i knew i couldn’t handle Crush 40 backed by a live fucking orchestra at midnight lmao. will listen to the rest later today!

[biolizardboils]

as someone who misses when Sonic games had an overarching lore and wishes it was more appreciated, i am overjoyed that the Echidna Tribe were in the movie!!! even though theyre not something the general public associates with Sonic, theyre an important cornerstone of said lore and the fact that they appeared in a big budget film for a mainstream audience to see (and the subtle hint that one of the Echidnas might be Pachacamac from Sonic Adventure) has blown the door way open for the games’ mythology to be adapted in the sequel(s)!! its so fcking unreal to think that actual Hollywood wants to take Sonic lore seriously after a decade of Sonic Team downplaying it because people who dont even like sonic insisted that the series shouldn’t have more than a barebones plot but i am absolutely ready for it

[biolizardboils]

IM BACK

AND I SAW THE MOVIE

im also super tiredddd so idk if im coherent rn but yall,,, im overwhelmed rn in the best possible way,,,,, i feel so impossiblly good right now and im so happy for everyone who worked on this from beginning to end and who took all the bullshit thrown their way in stride and made such a fun sweet film in spite of it all

maybe im still tipsy from yesterday but this?? this feels like the start of something....something big. like a tidal wave weve been fighting against for years is finally turning. like the money the movie's made (and will keep making!!) is a sign that people do wanna take sonic seriously when given the chance.

and god all i want us for sonic team to notice and give them that chance.

to think, a whole year ago i was terrified of what this movie was gonna do to us.... but now, its like the possibilities are neverending.