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10 SONIC TEAM GAMES WHICH WEREN'T SONIC GAMES

2/8/2018

16 Comments

 
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Following the release of Sonic The Hedgehog, Sega's Sonic Team - headed up by Yuji Naka - became a byword for real sweet stuff. Unfortunately, that reputation gradually withered, until it reached a point where the perception was that Sonic Team would just pump out any old shit with Sonic's face on it. 

Nicely, Sonic Team is undergoing something of a re-evaluation in the wake of Sonic Mania - which it supervised, probably. That must be especially nice for them, given that their most recent fully-developed game, Sonic Forces, was about as much fun as forcing a push-pin into your own forehead.

But hey - Sonic Team isn't all about Sonic. Here are 10 Sonic-less games - barring the Puyo Puyo sequels it has worked on, because... reasons - which were produced by Naka's heirs.

Ha ha; knacker hairs.
RISTAR (Mega Drive)
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Sonic Team's final Mega Drive title - coming out about a year after Sonic & Knuckles - Ristar wasn't entirely dissimilar to the Sonic games.

It "starred" - oh-hoh! - a little star-shaped guy, with arms and legs that could stretch to abnormal lengths. It lacked the speed of Sonic, but more than made up for it in the sheer wealth of ideas - Ristar could use his ridiculous arms to propel him through levels, grabbing enemies and headbutting them, and lob objects around and that. Plus, it boasted some gorgeous visuals that were clearly the work of the team behind Sonic.  

Sega very much intended Ristar to be a new mascot (indeed, the character's origins dated back to early development of Sonic The Hedgehog), but its release - just three months before the Sega Saturn - punched its potential sales in the throat. A shame, because it's a bit of a lost gem.
NIGHTS INTO DREAMS... (Saturn)
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In lieu of any proper Sonic game on the Saturn, Sega flogged Nights Into Dreams... as the system's potential mascot.

​It's fair to suggest that an androgynous "dream person" who was inspired by Sonic Team's research into REM sleep, the theories of psychoanalysts Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud, and Cirque du Soleil, didn't exactly scream "mass market".

Also, the graphics - as nicely designed as they were - were let down by clipping and rough textures. Consequently, sales were somewhat disappointing, though this didn't prevent the release of a festive mini-sequel - Christmas Nights - and a full sequel for the Wii, some years later.

What was with the ellipsis at the end of the title though, Sega? According to the dictionary, an ellipsis is "the omission from speech or writing of a word or words that are superfluous or able to be understood from contextual clues".

So what are the missing words? Judging from the "contextual clues", I would suggest this: "Is a Twat".
BURNING RANGERS (Saturn)
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A firefighting game featuring a bunch of anime-inspired futuristic firefighters, Burning Rangers was a brilliant idea in search of a console that could do it justice.

As with Nights, it was prone to glitching - meaning that much of the team's extensive and unnecessary research (which included studying robot firefighter prototypes, apparently) was wasted. As with Nights, it failed to do much to turn around the system's waning fortunes. 

However, it did feature characters called Big Landman and a woman called "Tillis".

"Watchu talkin' 'bout, Tillis?"

​"This isn't the time - my hair is ablaze!"

CHUCHU ROCKET (Dreamcast)
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Though it may not appear it to look at it, ChuChu Rocket was designed to test the power of the Dreamcast.

It was the first game to feature online multiplayer, and was an experiment to see how many characters the machine could handle on screen at any one time. Though it wasn't perhaps the blockbuster release some would've expected from Sonic Team, the experiment directly lead to Phantasy Star Online, and the chaotic puzzle game was a surprise hit for "Seg-Seg" (Sega).
SAMBA DE AMIGO (Arcade, Dreamcast)
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Initially released in arcades, before making its way to the Dreamcast (and later, the Wii), Samba de Amigo was a rhythm-action nonsense, which featured a maraca-playing monkey.

​It was an expensive proposition on home systems, given that it had to be sold with a pair of maraca controllers which couldn't be used for any other game. You could, however, use them to smash yourself in the eyes every time you thought about how much you'd spent on a game that was about a maraca-playing monkey.

​Just buy some real maracas, for pity's sake. Failing that: a "rain stick".
PHANTASY STAR ONLINE (Dreamcast)
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As the first online RPG for a home console, allowing four players to embark upon a quest together, Phantasy Star Online was undeniably groundbreaking. Indeed, Yuji Naka described the game as the Dreamcast's "killer app".

​Unfortunately, while it just about managed to meet sales expectations, it failed to be the breakthrough hit which saved the Dreamcast from its ignominious fate. There's no question that it was a landmark, which influenced the genre and industry going forwards, but while the series has continued - on and off - in the years since, but it's hard to argue that it retains much more than a cult following.

Also: "phants".
BILLY HATCHER AND THE GIANT EGG (GameCube)
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In some respects, Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg was the most archetypically Sonic Team-y game since Ristar. A rather lovely-looking 3D platformer, which starred a chicken suit-wearing "lad", who navigated his world while rolling a variety of different eggs around, it was full of character and neat ideas.

​Certainly, it had the makings of a hit... but was a huge flop for Sega and Sonic Team, selling less than 250,000 copies worldwide. Consequence: Sega's Yuji Naka was so distraught that he hasn't laid an egg since! 
ASTRO BOY (PlayStation 2)
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By 2004, Sega was deep into its wilderness years, and it's a mark of how far the company had fallen that it farmed out a licensed game to the team responsible for its biggest franchise.

​Astro Boy was a 3D platformer - with Nights-esque flying stages - starring the iconic, semi-nude, robot boy. It was solid enough, but hobbled by a dreadful camera system, which made boss battles a confusing mess. 
SEGA SUPERSTARS (PlayStation 2)
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This was Sega doing a Super Smash Bros. by bringing many of itsfranchises together in a series of mini games; Sonic, Nights, Billy Hatcher, Space Channel 5, Virtua Fighter, Super Monkey Ball, House of the Dead, Crazy Taxi et al. Unfortunately, they chose to do this while supporting Sony's not-entirely-popular EyeToy peripheral, meaning that it was every bit as dreadful and disappointing as you might expect. 

Frankly, if people wanted to sway back and forth they'd get drunk - not stand in front of their televisions like they were performing some arcane ritual in order to summon Bruce Foreskin.

​I don't even know what that means.
FEEL THE MAGIC XY/XX (Nintendo DS)
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A launch title for the Nintendo DS, Feel The Magic: XY/XX did a good job of showing off the capabilities of the new hardware. It was a collection of mini games which used the touch-screen and microphone, all with the intention of impressing some blank-faced female love interest. It was properly bizarre - in a Wario Ware sort of a way - and featured a group of antagonists called the "Rub Rabbits".

That's right: itt does sound like a company that would produce "marital aids".

In Japan it was known as Kimi no Tame nara Shineru - or "I Would Die For You" -  while a later prequel was called Aka-chan wa Doko Kara Kuru no? ("Where Do Babies Come From?"). Not a lie.
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16 Comments
Grembot
2/8/2018 11:12:43 am

So Sonic Team could only make good games if they were 2D, that makes sense. It’s a shame that once we found that extra D that people thought the first 2 were rubbish. And now everybody wants to make 2D things again, this must all mean something.

Reply
Col. Asdasd
2/8/2018 11:20:19 am

Interesting, I'd never heard of Sega Superstars before. Is that the Eye Toy being used in that screenshot?

Phantasy Star Online was definitely ahead of its time. Xbox Live and PSN would be the really beneficiaries of Sega's pioneering work into bringing online to consoles.

Early online games always fascinated me, when there weren't so many established structures as to how or what they should be. It's possible that I'm just nostalgic for the promise the dawn of the internet going mainstream seemed to hold, of connecting with people from all over the world to share our experiences and do incredible things.

We've since discovered that exposing ourselves to internet strangers is frequently neither interesting nor fun, but I can't help but wonder whether we've been betrayed by the games themselves - games designed in ways that bring out the worst, rather than the best in our behaviour. Who knows.

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Col. Asdasd
2/8/2018 11:25:32 am

D'oh - you specifically mention that it was an EyeToy game. Probably why it hasn't held strong in the annals of game history.

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DEAN
2/8/2018 04:02:20 pm

Yeah, interesting thought.

I suppose Minecraft kind of gets where you're heading.... but the potential of what you're suggesting is a lot more than that... and more than this too but this is still kinda cool:

Some years ago I went to a casino with some friends and we played Blackjack and that but I got quite into playing this poker game called Caribbean Stud - if you have no idea what I'm talking about then the key thing with this game is that all the players are playing against the dealer and not each other. So yeah, much like Blackjack and Roulette... BUT the thing with Caribbean Stud is that there's little to no use trying to be clever with it. You won't find a serious gambler playing it with a system and all that because it's even more of a game of luck and chance than the rest... poker without bluffing? What's the point?! Well, that's the thing and it's a good thing; socially speaking.

So my point is that if you remove the hardcore mentality (not the gamers just the mentality) and give the players a common enemy that's kind of not too in your face then you create a better environment for people that just want to take it easy and have some light background distraction to their socialising. Nice.

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Col. Asdasd
2/8/2018 09:38:16 pm

Thanks for your reply DEAN. I think you might be on to something there - perhaps it would explain the boom in board games, many of which have co-operative, asymmetrical or non-confrontational multiplayer just like Caribbean Stud seems to describe. Of course, some are directly competitive too.

It would be strange if the wireless frontier promised to us as the future of interaction was instead being delivered by something so analogue, low-tech and local.

Spiney O'Sullivan
2/8/2018 11:26:48 am

In the space of seven days, we get two articles mentioning Burning Rangers. And Nights into Dreams to boot. What a week.

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Tony Nuts
2/8/2018 04:49:04 pm

I know, right? I too am positively giddy

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Voodoo76
2/8/2018 12:18:46 pm

I remember a Sega magazine review of Nights trying to convince people that it was better than Mario 64, and yes that included the graphics!! I suppose Nights did have an actual working clock made from flowers and its own bespoke control pad, so not all bad then.

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Ian link
2/8/2018 12:49:44 pm

Sonic Team also led the way with regard to extras on the disc, typically wallpapers. At the time they were great but I expect they've not aged too well.

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Marro
2/8/2018 04:45:32 pm

I've been playing Ristar on a quasi-legal Megadrive handheld thingie.
It is a work of platform genius, as good as any Sonic game. It's full of those neat little quirky details that make you smile at a game. It would've been regarded as a classic if it was released a couple of years earlier.

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Floop
2/8/2018 08:06:10 pm

Ristar.
pronounced "wrister"
WANKING

Reply
Robobob
2/8/2018 08:24:05 pm

I bought the special pad to play Nights on. I mean the game was good - I seem to remember when you weren't flying you could run about as the boy or the girl and you got chased by a clock or something and you could go on rollercoasters (am I remembering that right?). But I don't remember any other use for the pad, so that was good.

Also, forget the ellipsis, wasn't it actually NiGHTS or some nonsense?

Reply
Spiney O'Sullivan
3/8/2018 12:04:39 pm

The analogue pad could be used on a few other games as it was the Saturn's standard analogue stick controller, not just a Nights add-on. It didn't work on a lot of games, presumably because a lot of multiplatform developers couldn't be bothered focusing effort on that controller since nobody was going to buy the game on Saturn anyway. I think I remember it working in Burning Rangers, Sonic R, the Sonic World game in Sonic Jam, Sonic 3D, Duke Nukem 3D, Croc (insofar as you could call the controls in that game "working") and the Panzer Dragoons.

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Fancy Pants
2/8/2018 11:02:09 pm

That bloody Eye Toy was the biggest pile of shit in gaming history. The bastard stupid thing with the hilarious (not hilarious) furry pet thing nearly led to my daughter murdering me. She was only four years old or something.

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bigsmile
3/8/2018 01:56:09 pm

Were Ristar and Astro Boy Sonic Team games?

Ristar uses the Sonic 1 engine and one of the artists would later go on to be one of the chief Sonic designers, but that's the only connection.

Astro Boy was made by UGA, who absorbed by Sonic Team before the game was released, which is why it has a Sonic Team logo on it. The people behind it had nothing to do with Sonic Team.

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Jtmissile
3/8/2018 05:07:15 pm

I wouldn’t call Forces a bad game, but it’s definitely lacking.

Reply



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