Gaming Forums => General Gaming => Topic started by: Peachylala on December 21, 2008, 12:41:16 AM
Title: Sonic X-Treme: the most tragic moment in gaming history
Post by: Peachylala on December 21, 2008, 12:41:16 AM
Alot of people ask how Sonic's career has gone downhill. While I didn't find Sonic Adventure bad, it didn't really capture the feel of the Genesis Sonic titles. Yet after Sonic Adventure 2, and then the follow-up Sonic Heroes, I wondered what the hell was going on in Sega's company.
Though the story of Sonic X-Treme has been told so many times and it's long enough to make a damn book about, I think it could make an interesting discussion for a Nintendo fanboy who also liked some of Sega's games. While alot of change happened in 1996, which really changed the course of console leaders and how games were played, our favorite characters survived the transition to 3-D. Sonic, not so much.
This article, (http://www.lostlevels.org/200403/200403-xtreme.shtml) written by the Lost Levels with comments made by producer Mike Wallis and programmer Chris Senn, just makes Sonic's current situation much more painful. And it also cements my view that Yuji Naka is a glory hog, and Sega made a horrible mistake in giving him control of Sonic's future.
What the hell was wrong with Naoto Ohshima or Hirokazu Yasahara getting control? From comments I've read, these two were nice to the STi group.
Title: Re: Sonic X-Treme: the most tragic moment in gaming history
Post by: Flames_of_chaos on December 21, 2008, 12:27:57 PM
I thought that the biggest shame in the Sonic library is stuff like Sonic Shuffle and Sonic's Labyrinth.
Title: Re: Sonic X-Treme: the most tragic moment in gaming history
Post by: Peachylala on December 22, 2008, 11:20:35 AM
They released those games to the public. This game looked interesting, but Naka the Baka "didn't like it", and not to mention that Sega of Japan and Sega of America were at each other's throats.
Seriously messy. I wonder if Nintendo suffered problems like this? I hope not...
Title: Re: Sonic X-Treme: the most tragic moment in gaming history
Post by: Luigi Dude on December 22, 2008, 06:28:23 PM
Seriously messy. I wonder if Nintendo suffered problems like this? I hope not...
Which is a smart idea. Everyone complained NCL had too much of a hold on NOA, which should have been given more freedom, but you must realize there can only be one head of the company...and as such Nintendo wisely did not have the same problems Sega had.
This was an interesting article, and I wonder if they could have pulled off such an ambitious Sonic Project...because it sounded truly revolutionary for the time. I remember reading articles about this game back in the day, and I could never decide if I liked the games direction or not.
No, because NCL always made sure they had complete control over NOA. Yamauchi would never allowed NOA to do anything unless he permitted it.
Title: Re: Sonic X-Treme: the most tragic moment in gaming history
Post by: Ian Sane on December 23, 2008, 03:26:03 PM
Sega was such a dysfunctional company. Sonic Xtreme is small potatos compared to the whole Saturn/32X mess. While Sega of America was designing the 32X they had no f*cking idea that Sega of Japan was working on the Saturn. Ooops. Sega of Japan however was well aware of the existence of both systems and had set Sega of America to work on the 32X in the first place. Why would a company create two competing products and keep one group completely in the dark about the other? I don't know but, hey, Sega doesn't make consoles anymore so the "you guys are DUMB" conclusion is the best I can think of.
The closest Nintendo has ever had to these problems was when Miyamoto crapped on Donkey Kong Country. He later retracted that statement and admitted DKC was a good game, he was just frustrated by pressure to make Yoshi's Island have rendered graphics. Other than that they get along okay. NCL does have Japan-tunnel vision that can hang NOA out to dry but nothing at the level of Sega stupidity.
Title: Re: Sonic X-Treme: the most tragic moment in gaming history
Post by: KDR_11k on December 24, 2008, 03:48:24 AM
All I can think of is this (http://samandfuzzy.com/misc/sonicshark1280.gif)
Title: Re: Sonic X-Treme: the most tragic moment in gaming history
Post by: Kairon on December 24, 2008, 04:33:54 AM
Seriously messy. I wonder if Nintendo suffered problems like this? I hope not...
The worst thing I can think of right now is Miyamoto walking into Retro studios, killing 4 out of their 5 projects (causing the company to go through massive layoffs) and repurposing their remaining project to be Metroid in a first-person perspective. Much to NCL's credit though, they didn't just walk out and leave Retro high and dry after that: I think Miyamoto had, like, monthly teleconferencing meetings with the Prime team?
Title: Re: Sonic X-Treme: the most tragic moment in gaming history
Post by: Luigi Dude on December 24, 2008, 05:29:10 AM
The worst thing I can think of right now is Miyamoto walking into Retro studios, killing 4 out of their 5 projects (causing the company to go through massive layoffs) and repurposing their remaining project to be Metroid in a first-person perspective. Much to NCL's credit though, they didn't just walk out and leave Retro high and dry after that: I think Miyamoto had, like, monthly teleconferencing meetings with the Prime team?
This is because Retro was a complete mess at first. The reason those project were canceled is because they were going no where with no direction. Nintendo was smart to do what he did, because it made Retro finally get it's sh!t together.
Not to mention the first Metroid Prime wouldn't have turned out anywhere near as good as it did if Miyamoto hadn't gone Darth Vader on them. He pretty much said, make this game good or die, and well, the game ended up being one of the highest rated games of all time, and spawned two sequels that were also highly rated.
I'd say in Retro's case, the ends definitely justified the means.
