Video: Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric Blame Could Largely be With SEGA, Not Big Red Button

So much for SEGA not being involved in this.........

oof, if this is all true then I feel really bad for that developer. Having to downgrade a finished game to fit a platform is hard, let alone with an engine that was designed to work with said platform. That's a tough job.

Uh, wasn't that known for quite some time?
SEGA told BRB to port Sonic Boom to WiiU because they didn't want to finance an entire seperate game for their "3 exclusives" deal with Nintendo. BRB employees once stated that the CryEngine3 was a nightmare to deal with, since it wasn't designed for high-speed platforming, and the compatibility issues with the WiiU worsened this, not to speak of the overly strict deadline SEGA forced on them.

Sega does what Nintendon't!

I don't get why Sega wanted all 3 Sonic exclusives to be released in a year. They wouldn't have been plagued with issues if they had more time to work with. Sonic Boom was an ambitious project from the start

@Kaze_Memaryu I certainly didn't know this.

I blame the Sonic fans as much as Sega. They've lapped up a series of sub par Sonic games, steadily worsening each time, going back as far as Sonic Adventure. That's why Sega will let any old rubbish with Sonic in it get made.

@mjc0961 totally agree. It's so aggravating and duplicitous

Sonic has "run" his course. Ohhhhhhhhh... sorry

Why oh why would you give your most valued franchise to a studio MAKING THEiR FiRST GAME?!

That's a crazy wildstep by Sega in any case.

@YoshiTails No, it wasn't a bad step. BRB did a great job, however SEGA showing up and saying "Hey guys, I know you are developing this for completely another console and using an engine incompatible with Wii U, but please, port it to Wii U anyway, kthnxbye" is what killed the game.

Sorry guys, but there is no excuse for a title like this.
If anything, both are at fault. Sega, for giving their flagship title to an inexperienced developer, changing the development platform and obviously setting an unholdable deadline and BRB, for not even fixing very obvious bugs.

If anything, this could have been just a mediocre, bland and boring game. The lack of assets, gameplay features and creative ideas could have all been the fault of a hasty engine rewrite. Weve seen this time and time again. And at this stage, it would have been just another licensed game, like the recend Pacman Adventures. Bland, boring but playable and ejoyable for the little ones.

But there are no excuses for the plethora of bugs, errors failures this game has to offer. If the deadline i nearing and you have too much stuff on your hand, cut something out to leave room for QA testing.

And even though Sega themselfes might be responsible for most of the blame, BRBs image is tarnished. I dont think that customers or other publisher will trust their abilities enough that they can show what they might be able to programm.

Sega was in a situation, where they simply couldnt afford another failure and they decided to give away their key franchise.
They are simply stupid, there are no two ways about it.
Pretty much in the same league as "Were going mobile now" Konami or "Were gonna ReReReReReReRerelease Resident Evil again" Capcom

It sounds like SEGA should have been warier of BRB, considering their reputation. BRB needed to work out if they stood a chance of delivering the product before they took the cash.

The only victim here is Sonic. :'-(

This could have been so cool. I hope to see it fixed someday with another game.

@mjc0961 Aliens Colonial Marines doesn't prove anything here. That one was Gearbox's fault or rather fraud. Get your facts straight before resorting to name calling.

@Artwark Who the heck actually believed that? SEGA is the dang publisher, so they had everything to do with the final product.

The blame should be solely directed towards Nintendo fans that didn't buy Lost World, especially as 2013 was a lame year for Wii U in terms of quantity. Third parties on a Nintendo console again proved itself to be a lost cause, I don't blame SEGA for wanting to get out of that exclusivity deal ASAP.

@mjc0961
Right-click, "copy video url", paste on a new tab, done.

@TheWPCTraveler
Make bad games? lol

In all seriousness, though, I love Sega with all my heart - almost as much as I love Nintendo - but they have a history of screwing up what should have been great (Sega Saturn comes to mind), so I feel sure that even if they don't get 100% of the blame, they deserve the majority share.

I was hyped at the announcement but the whole thing lacked any serious quality come launch and I was unwilling to buy either game by that point.

@mjc0961

So what about Alien: Isolation? That one is quite highly regarded. And it came out after Colonial Marines.

I loved Colors, Generations and Lost World. In fact, I only got my Wii U to play Lost World. Of course, I ended up being able to play other great games along the way, but I'm that much of a Sonic fan.

And yet I was never tempted to buy this game at all. Sega should have never handed their beloved IP to an inexperienced developer.
I will be happy if we see another game from Sonic Team though, even if it doesn't come to the Wii U at this point.

I think putting Sonic in that game was mistake #1. I understand trying new things - Sonic Adventure is my favorite Sonic game - but as @Einherjar pointed out this game may have done ok as a random children's platforming budget title, but it just isn't a Sonic game. Those laser leashes should have been everyone involved's first clue.

I played the game for about an hour and it was enjoyable. I enjoy laid back exploration platforming w/ a stroyline and random NPC encounters. But it was never a Sonic game. I know they were trying to distance themselves from typical Sonic games by calling it Sonic Boom and linking it to the tv show, which isn't awful considering what passes or kids tv these days, but Sonic in videogames is too well established for that idea to work. I don't think the same concept worked too well for Ratchet and Clank:All4One either. That game was a million times better, but the R&C fans didn't think so.

They should have made this a Teen Titans Go game. That show is asinine but my kids love it, and they would easily fit into a team platforming game. Nobody would care that it was so broken and sucked then. Or TMNT, they seem to have more budget games than retail.

It was a bad idea from the start.

That was a great video. I never fully blamed BRB for the game, as SEGA was pushing them hard to release the game earlier then the game needed anyway.

I feel like SEGA was only concerned with getting sales from children that watch the show, and were alright with the game not being favorable to older, more experienced gamers.

@Grumblevolcano Well, we're not stupid. There hasn't been a quality Sonic game since the Sega CD.

Is Sega still going to make console games, or is it going only to mobile like Konami?

@rjejr To be fair, at this point, there isnt reall a definitive "Sonic Formula", as the series has been reinvented oh so many times.
Which is, if you ask me, both a good and a very very bad thing.

For instance, it is Marios biggest strenghth. Every new format brings something new to the table to make it a fresh experience.
But Mario never straied too far away from the beaten path.

Sonic on the other hand never found back to its roots that made the series iconic in the first place.
In its early days, it was Marios competitor, both were platformers, but Mario went the technical, mostly horizontal route, while Sonic banked on maze like Stages, many different routes from A to B and something, Mario rarely offered: Vertical stage layouts.

Much like Castlevania, there really is no "Thats how its supposed to be" type of gamepay style. But Sonic is missing its baseline. That one core thing that distinguishes it from the rest. And no, its not "gotta go fast" and it never was.

Sonic Boom was just another new style of Sonic without said baseline, without character and without any charme whatsoever.
Its biggest problem though was, that it wasnt just mundane and boring, but it was also highly broken, flawed and buggy.
And that rubbed people the wrong way. Many accepted the fact, that highly complex games often come with a plethora of bugs simply due to the fact that they are highly complex and possibly even QA nightmares.
But for a game so barren, and errors so obvious, most people just felt like Sega is openly giving out the one finger salute to them for not even caring in the slightest where they put their brand on.

Would it be a technically ok game, it would have been just another licensed shovelware game.

But weren't the bugs only 60% of the problem? From what I've seen the bugs make people laugh, but the boring fights and levels is what make people really groan.

@Einherjar - The worst game I've played recently by far, was Dreamworks Dragons 2. It wasn't even a game, you just flew a dragon around and island. That was it. There were a few other things thrown in but it was SO BAD. I swear if all the people in the world who criticize app games were stranded on an island playing only it the first thing they would ask for when they were rescued would be a smartphone.

So yes, I think shovelware sells if given the right license, and nobody criticizes it for it, and it doesn't dilute the franchise. Nobody is going to avoid the next Dreamworks Dragons game b/c of that sludge. but making a bad Sonic game risks the sales of future Sonic games. If the game starred the TMNT and sucked nobody would care and it would probably sell even better.

"But Mario never straied too far away from the beaten path."

SM3DW - open world
NSMBU - 2D mutiplayer
Paper Mario - flat single player adventure
Mario and Luigi DreamTeam - RPG adventure
Mario kart - racing
Mario sports Mix - a variety of sports
Mario vs Donkey Kong - puzzles

Strayed? Mario has been on more paths than Where's Waldo and Carmen Sandiego combined.

@SwaveSays The Adventure games and Generations are easily the best Sonic games.

We all know SEGA rushed the game. The game was going on an awesome direction and anyone can tell.

@rjejr You didnt quite get the point i was trying to make with Mario there.
Not counting the spinoffs, Marios core mechanics never really changed at all.
Sunshine being one of the few examples.
Also, im talking about the main line of Games here, if you include everything Sonic has been into, we have a Mario Party clone, a Virtua Tennis clone, a Mario Kart clone etc.

But from SMB to 3D World, Mario has alsways been a technical platformer.
Sonic on the other hand often changed drastically, from a simple (3D) platformer to a brawler / beat em up to an on rails runner to a high speed obstacle course to a Galaxy clone and a brawler again.

And he always controlls vastly different.
Sure, Marios mechanics also changed over the years, but never so much, that you come from one game and youre completely lost on the next one.

Thats the baseline i was talking about.

@Grumblevolcano Your comment is right. As an example, when Wii U gamers see a game with the rating of 7 from Sega they say it sucks. When from Nintendo they say they still buy it no matter what.

Also, Nintendo Life keep trash talking Sonic Lost World in many article's. In one of their articles they even thought giving Sonic Lost World a rating of 7 initially a decision that was too generous. As a result of these kind of attitudes among Nintendo's and websites alike, third parties really do not have a chance to thrive on Wii U.

Not to forget that Sega also made Alien Isolation which sells over 3 millions since launch. Should it be released on Wii U it would only sells 3000.

@rjejr

Something to consider from your Dragons comparison. Can SB be considered a licensed game tied in this game to a show, and as most licensed games, expected to be a poor cash in? Wayforward is very hit and miss with their games, and even their licensed games suffer because of the deadlines and stuff. While Shantae always get stellar reception and reviews.

I know it is not an excuse to release a mess of a game, but is AC Unity diluting the AC IP because of also being a glitch paradise? And when you have Sonic games getting meh reviews since a decade or so, then maybe there is not a lot to worry about for Sega.

Still don't understand why the project wasn't assigned to Sonic team or at least Sega of Japan! Who the hell is big red button anyway?

The subtitle of the article should be changed to "Say-gah" because gah! is what most people would say about this latest Sonic outing.
Besides that, Seg-ah is the wrong way to pronounce SEGA:

Interesting video. CryEngine 3 is a VERY capable engine IF put to good use, and a 3D platformer is not something that falls into that category.
Both are to blame, even though I myself certainly laid a lot of blame at BRB's feet once the game was out.
After the numerous monstrosities that we have witnessed I was itching to see another good Sonic game, because the character really deserves it.
To this day, my personal favorites are the 16 bit games (Sonic 1 to 3, Knuckles & Sonic CD), Sonic 3D Blast, Sonic Adventure 1 & 2, Sonic Generations and Sonic Colors on the Wii. All the other games in the main series are a pile of steaming excrement.
The only other games that I like are the All-Stars racing games and there is also some fun to be had from the Sonic Riders games. (PC, GameCube)

Big Red Button's claims with the CryEngine 3's compatibility issues on Wii U heavily contradicts what Crytek themselves, the engine's very developers, said in 2012 about their engine running "beautifully" on the Wii U. The German developer even intended to bring their game Crysis 3 to the platform, until publisher EA shot them down.

Same thing happened with 06. But imo is way better than Sanic Bum.

Well Sega now knows not to give their games to made by "newly wed" game company. Sega now finally knows that they fu**ed up and basically they will think twice next time

@GreatPlayer I know right, Nintendo fans have got a hatred against the newest sonic games, but don't worry bout them

The reality is the problem starts with Nintendo making an underpowered console. Almost all cross platform ports (while they lasted) ran a little worse on WiiU, when they should have run decisively better than the 360/PS3. The second problem was an only partially successful attempt to shoehorn an XB One game on to WiiU. The third problem was that the game design is somewhat generic and stale, although the concept visuals looked awesome.

@Larrykoopa18 Aside from a couple good DS games and sonic 4 SEGA has not done the hedgehog any favors.

@Larrykoopa18 I agree with you. What I do not understand is why the CryEngine runs well in every single current console except Wii U. Is it something so special about Wii U that it could not handle CryEngine?

In addition, BigRedButton has probably more than one year (probably two years or more) to fix the game on Wii U. The three-game deal was signed well before the release of Sonic Lost World. In addition, before switching the game to Wii U, BRB said they finished a major part of the game. Therefore, more than one year is not enough for them to optimize the game's performance on Wii U?

@HopeNForever @ThomasBW84 And BigRedButton said they did not know the game going to be on Nintendo Platform. It was quite improbable because every new sonic game has appeared in Nintendo platform. If not on Nintendo platform which platform can it be? Xbox One? Or iPhone?