Today, Sonic has regained the popularity he enjoyed in the first half of the 1990s, when - at least in the U.S. - he was, for a time, better known among American children than both Mario and Mickey Mouse. But after that, he struggled to stay relevant, and aside from the successful Sonic Adventure games for the Dreamcast, there wasn't much to celebrate regarding Sonic for roughly two decades.
It's easy to forget that as recently as twelve years ago, Sega was once again on the verge of driving the struggling character into the ditch. At that time, they had decided to team up with Nintendo to make a major push for Sonic with a concept that included a TV series, merchandise, and of course, games. It was called Sonic Boom, but it didn't get very far because the reviews for the games - Sonic Boom: Shattered Crystal for the Nintendo 3DS and Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric for the Wii U, both released in 2014 - were disastrous (or mediocre at best). After Sonic Boom: Fire & Ice from 2016 also received lacklustre reviews, the concept was scrapped.
Today, we know that Sonic bounced back and began his big comeback with games like Sonic Mania, Sonic Frontiers, and most recently Sonic Racing: Crossworlds, as well as the highly successful movies. But how could things have gone so wrong with Sonic Boom?
In an interview with Sega Retro (via Time Extension), Chris Senn, who helped develop the games, now talks about just how out of touch the management actually was and how chaotic things could get:
"Nintendo and Sega were building this huge launch plan where our game would tie into another game being made, that would tie into a TV show, that would tie into a whole new toy line. They didn't have the toys designed, so we were designing the game, and they'd come back with, "Well, could you add these vehicles in the game?" And we're like, "Dude, we're shipping in six months. How could we?" We tried to work with a lot of competing requests and demands while running out of time. Had the decision not been made to make this what it ultimately turned out to be - bugs aside - I don't know if the game would have shipped, honestly."
Unfortunately, it also seemed as though Sega had completely forgotten what makes Sonic, well, Sonic, and that led to an approach that goes against everything the character truly stands for:
"We were about six months from shipping, and before that I had brought up, "Where's the speed in our game?" I saw lots of combat being developed, puzzles, but where's the speed? The reaction I got was unanimously, "Well, we're not making a classic Sonic game." And I'm like, "Yeah, but it's Sonic. How are we going to deliver something without speed?" At one point - I kid you not - one of the pitches for this game was, "This is going to be the slowest Sonic game ever."
In other words, it was a bit like making a Mario game without the jump ability. This resulted in a concept that never came to fruition and was scrapped prematurely. But it also shows just how desperate Sega actually was at that point, before they finally got back on track by actually letting Sonic be Sonic.
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