Can you really believe it’s been six whole years since I started this Fleetway thing back in part 1? How time flies when you’re having fun… or are too lazy to keep writing really long pieces without year-long gaps!
Anyway… last time a lot of things happened. Amongst other things there was a new foe, a tragedy, a crisis of confidence, some time travel shenanigans, and on the tail end of that we’d just discovered a Drakon Prosecutor back in the distant past of the Floating Island. You can read all of that in part 9 though: let’s dive in and get back to where we were, shall we? Hit the jump for the second half of StC’s adaptation of Sonic Adventure – and remember, LARGE spoilers for the end of Sonic the Comic lie beyond, as this part covers the very end of the comic’s run of original material.
Browsing Tag
Sonic Adventure
Once again it’s just over a year since last time in the series. Having gone through a variety of one-offs and short-run stories, we rejoin Sonic the Comic at issue #175, for the final original story in the comic’s run – the 10-part adaptation of the Dreamcast launch title and fan-favourite that is Sonic Adventure. The world of Sonic Adventure being as different as it is to what had already been established through StC’s continuity, the writers decided to do their own unique take on the story. I’ll warn you at this point though – because this is the last story of StC, there’s some MAJOR spoilers ahead in tying up loose ends and just throwing a few curve balls at the reader. Consider yourselves warned, OK? Where else do you get spoiler warnings for material that’s nearly 2 decades old?
Right. Let’s get this thing rolling! Hit the jump to continue.
Sonic Retro user Morph and several others have gone through Sonic Adventure DX and created a mod that restores the lighting effects that were previously seen in the original Sonic Adventure into the PC version. The difference gives off more vibrant colors in the environment that also reacts to objects and characters. You can download the mod from the discussion thread in our forums.
Lighting can be used to set a specific tone or mood in an environment. But why is it such a difficult thing to remain consistent when converting this to other game platforms? The game featured an artistic shift that occurred when the game was converted to other platforms. A combination of technical hurdles and creative liberties can dampen the original artistic intent, and Sonic Adventure is no exception. The original Dreamcast version featured a “Lantern” engine which provided impressive looking lighting effects using palettes on SEGA’s then cutting edge game console. However the dozens of ports of the game left out these lighting effects in favor of using drop shadows instead, until now. Check out additional videos, comparison screenshots and an interview with Morph on the mod after the jump!
17 years ago saw the launch of the Dreamcast in North America on September 9th 1999. We’ll be taking a look at games that launched day and date with the system and share our memories with SEGA’s last major console.
Sega held a party for Sonic’s 25th anniversary at one of their Joypolis parks in Japan earlier today, which they live streamed online. There they showed new gameplay of Sonic Boom: Fire & Ice and announced that the next main Sonic game will be released in 2017.
But the coolest thing that was shown was the original concept art of various Sonic characters. While a bunch of it has been shown before (and can be found on our wiki), we also get to see never before seen design sketches of characters like Shadow the Hedgehog, E-102 Gamma and Big the Cat for the first time. You can see all of the concept art that was shown above.
[Source: The Video Game Art Archive]
Yup, after half a year it’s been decided to make Monday Links a thing again. Many board meetings at the Sonic Retro HQ were held to discuss the return of this beloved (?) weekly (???) feature, and we finally decided that it’s probably not worth our time. Then we realized that handling a Sonic news fansite in this day and age isn’t really worth our time either, and that there really hasn’t been any point to anything we’ve put up on this front page for years now. So with that taken into consideration, Monday Links has returned after all, cause really it’s not any less pointless than anything else on the front page.
Retro News
- Josh released the first part of his retrospective video series about Sonic spin-offs [Sonic Jam Spinball: Flickies’ Island]
- Matwek is doing the art for this neat looking game called Poncho on Kickstarter [An open-world puzzle platformer]
SEGAbits News
- Barry is doing a 9 hour Dreamcast marathon tomorrow for the 15th anniversary of the Dreamcast [The Dreamroom Dreamcast Marathon returns]
- SEGAbits is holding an event on November 22nd called the Sonic & SEGA Fan Jam [All of the info about it can be found here]
- Nuckles87 shares his impressions of the Japan-exclusive game Cool Cool Toon for Dreamcast [SEGA Import Guide]
- It’s time for another one of these round tables [What Dreamcast game defined the console?]
- My Life with SEGA takes a look at the SEGA CD games made by Digital Pictures [The magic of FMV games]
Sonic/SEGA News
- Sonic XG still exists and looks awesome [Giant Crabmeat!]
- A new album called Passion & Pride with songs from Sonic Adventure and Sonic Adventure 2 is being released, containing instrumental versions and a new remix of It Doesn’t Matter [Coming September 10th]
- This new Persona 5 trailer reveals the game’s protagonist and that the game is coming to the Playstation 4 as well as Playstation 3 [I want it I want it I want it]
- The first trailer of Yakuza Zero, which will be coming to Playstation 3 and Playstation 4, was released [*Put Zero chance of coming out of Japan joke here*]
- The latest Nintendo Direct has half an hour of Bayonetta 2 goodness to make you excited about the game [Controls that meld with your mind]
- It looks like Persona 4 Arena Ultimax will be published by SEGA in Europe [Maybe we won’t have to wait forever for it to be released here]
- SEGA points fingers at Gearbox for the Aliens: Colonial Marines marketing mess [As if Randy Pitchford didn’t look bad enough already]
- Hi Score Girl gets copyright complaints from SEGA [Remember kids: using SEGA properties in commercial stuff will probably get you in legal trouble]
- Dawn of War II now uses dedicated servers instead of Games for Windows Live [Because Games for Windows Live is terrible and also almost dead]
- Super Monkey Ball Bounce is now out on iOS and Google Play [Also known as Not Peggle]
- Sadly there will probably never be a cure for liking Sonic the Hedgehog [Guess we’ll just have to continue living with our condition]
Back in the late 90’s, Dreamcast owners could hop online via their console to surf the web and download various things to their VMU including free DLC. That’s right, not only did SEGA offer DLC in the late 90’s, it was free! Continuing our Sonic 23rd birthday celebrations, Liam aka TrackerTD of the SEGAbits This Is Saturn YouTube series put together this great showcase of most of the DLC offered in Sonic Adventure & Sonic Adventure 2. Celebrate New Years, the Dreamcast launch, Halloween, and more in the many fun additions made to these memorable Sonic titles.
Almost a year ago to the day, Sonic Retro forum member Orengefox shared with the world the discovery of two prototypes for Sonic Adventure and its sequel. While to the untrained eye the Sonic Adventure AutoDemo might not have seemed all that special, we here at Retro know better, our elite crack team of technologically-inclined persons more than excited to tear apart reams of code to find the secret caramel-filled goodness hiding underneath.
Indeed, it wasn’t long before all sorts of secrets were uncovered, including earlier versions of Ice Cap and Speed Highway’s “At Dawn” segment. But the deepest, most enticing artifact uncovered was the level architecture from a far earlier version of Windy Valley. Unlike the previously mentioned levels, the prototype Valley couldn’t easily be turned on, what was there full of pointers directed towards a build much earlier than what the AutoDemo used. While other people would get frustrated and walk away, I already stated above how excitable our crack team can get. It was only a matter of time before someone figured out the next step, with Retro Researcher evilhamwizard putting the pieces together, importing the third segment of Windy Valley into the PC version of Sonic Adventure DX:
More after the jump.
Retro user Orengefox posted on the forums his discovery of two Japanese prototypes of Sonic Adventure and Sonic Adventure 2 on Sega Dreamcast. Both of which have a potential source of content that are missing from the final builds with the Sonic Adventure Auto Demo showing some good promise.