2024 – A Year In Supersonic Review

2024. It was busy. Very busy. Quite possibly the busiest year I have seen from SEGA in a long time! Somehow, they managed to top the surprisingly busy 2023 in just about every way. And thanks to Atlus, SEGA has a game that is a serious Game Of The Year contender for the first time in many years!

Oh, and that doesn’t even include the Sonic franchise! If you were to remove all of SEGA’s non-Sonic IPs and only left Sonic, I definitely think I could argue that SEGA was still very busy this year! As a matter of fact, this year is a rare occurrence in that we already know what next year’s Sonic console release will be. As the spotlight shifts from the Ultimate Lifeform to racing cars and mobile games, the coming year could prove to be very interesting for Sonic fans. And as for SEGA’s other IPs, there’s much to look forward to. The IP revivals they announced last year are still on the way, and now Virtua Fighter has been added to the list of resurrected franchises.

Did I say this year was so very busy? Because I’m still amazed about that. There were so many Sonic and non-Sonic things that released that I don’t even think this article will be able to properly cover everything. But that doesn’t mean I won’t try anyway. So, with that all said, it’s that time of the year where we say goodbye to one year and welcome in another. We look back, but also look forward. It’s also that time where I say hi to you all and continue a yearly tradition that I have been doing for 14 years and counting! Every year, I give an opinionated year in review of SEGA, where I reminisce about the past 12 months and try to predict what the next 12 months will bring. When I say I have been doing these “Supersonic Year In Review” articles for 14 years, I’m not kidding! It has gone on so long that I’ve written installments of this series on 3 different sites, including here on Last Minute Continue! Right below this paragraph, you can see every previous installment that I have done.

2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019
A Decade In Supersonic Review: The 2010s | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023

Of course, it is worth noting that it isn’t strictly Sonic the Hedgehog that gets attention in these articles anymore, though I still give the franchise a little extra emphasis. I now give SEGA as a whole more discussion time, and I’ll even take a moment to acknowledge other companies like Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft! But enough of the introductions. Let’s get started! It wasn’t easy to decide with everything that happened this year, but let’s see what I feel were the top 10 Sonic and SEGA news stories of the year:

Top 10 Sonic/SEGA News Stories of 2024

10) Sonic Prime Concludes – It happened very early on in the year, but Sonic Prime finally concluded its run. It… didn’t exactly go well though. In fact, in a year that was borderline perfect for the Blue Blur, this is one of only 2 things that didn’t quite go the way SEGA had hoped. The show is very divisive. Ironically, it’s not the most divisive Sonic television series to come this year!

09) Amplitude & Relic Entertainment Separate From SEGA – Unfortunately, this year was full of layoffs and studio closures. And unfortunately, SEGA was not able to avoid it. SEGA joined the growing number of companies announcing layoffs in March, The silver lining is that there weren’t any studio closures. Amplitude, the team behind the Endless and Humankind games, was able to part ways with SEGA in November without issue. Relic Entertainment, the studio behind the Warhammer and Company of Heroes games, had to be sold. We still don’t know who exactly bought them. We know it’s an “external investment group” but that’s all. However, it has allowed them to go independent too.

08) Sonic Racing CrossWorlds Approaches – This year was so damn busy for Sonic the Hedgehog that we already have a taste at what is in store for the franchise in 2025, and we’re only just about to enter the new year! As of this article’s writing, we know very little about this game. All we have to work with is a brief teaser trailer, a website, and that’s really it. Of course, a year from now, we’ll know all about it. But it does make things a little more interesting as we begin 2025!

07) The Sonic Symphony Tour – One thing that has been a constant presence throughout 2024 has been the well-received Sonic Symphony Tour. I think I’ve lost count of the amount of shows they have done, and they’re still not done just yet! They have just 2 more shows left to go. Americans can go see them in on January 4th and 11th in Atlanta, Georgia and Washington DC, respectively!

06) SEGA Channel 2? – SEGA has been making headlines all year. Some of them good, some of them bad. This one though? It’s…not what people were expecting. It seems that SEGA’s interested in launch a game subscription service, similar to Netflix, At least, that’s what SEGA COO and president Shuji Utsumi said! There hasn’t actually been a final decision made on that, but considering that it can be argued that the whole “game subscription service” thing began in the days of the 90s with SEGA Channel, it seems we may be about to go full circle soon!

05) The Little Knuckles Show That Couldn’t – Sonic the Hedgehog’s TV offerings this year were…quite something. I already talked about Sonic Prime, but there was also a Sonic Movie Knuckles spin-off show that served as an appetizer as fans waited for the next Sonic Movie to come out. But, well…I think it can be argued that this show did even worse than Sonic Prime’s finale episodes did. The reception was not that great.

04) Sonic The Hedgehog Movie 3 & Knuckles – For Sonic fans, when they weren’t hearing about Sonic X Shadow Generations, they were hearing about this. We’re only just beginning to see how Sonic Movie 3 is doing, as it hasn’t even been 2 weeks since it premiered. In fact, it’s not even available in certain regions yet! So far though, it’s doing very well in the countries that it is available in, especially in the United States!

03) Virtua Fighter Returns – Last year, SEGA announced the revival of 5 of their gaming franchises at The Game Awards. They didn’t revive another 5 IPs this year…but they did bring back 1 of them! Once again, The Game Awards featured another SEGA franchise returning. This time, it’s Virtua Fighter! As with Sonic Racing CrossWorlds, we know very little about it. Both games were announced in the same show though. And it certainly capped off what has been quite a year for SEGA!

02) Atlus Strikes Gold – Back when SEGA acquired Atlus 10 years ago, no one realized just how much impact it would have on both companies. That has only gotten more obvious this year, with Atlus having an absolutely amazing year. They released not 1, not 2, but 3 major RPGs this year! Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengence, Persona 3 Reload, and Metaphor: ReFantazio! Metaphor has been considered a serious contender for Game of The Year. It was even nominated for it in The Game Awards this year (it lost to Astro Bot)! It is extremely rare for a SEGA-published game to get accolades like that, which only added more icing on the cake that was 2024

01) The Year of Shadow – 2024 wasn’t just a great year for SEGA. It was edgy too. For Sonic fans, Shadow the Hedgehog was the theme. He starred in an extra episode campaign in Sonic X Shadow Generations, he was the main focus of Sonic Movie 3, he’s now in Sonic Dream Team, Shadow was the main star of this year’s Sonic social media takeover, there was merch, there was anime, there was…pretty much everything. Was it successful? I’d say yes! All things must come to an end though, so Shadow’s year will be nothing more than a memory soon. SEGA has said they’re open to doing this with other characters though, so who knows? Maybe 2025 will feature someone else!

Honourable Mentions: Sonic Hacking Contest 2024, Mario & Sonic Ends

I’m not done talking about this year’s headlines just yet! For all the good and bad that has happened, there’s also the weird. Sometimes it involves something that SEGA did that confused everyone. Other times it was something so very weird that people got a big laugh out of it, even if that…wasn’t the reaction SEGA wanted. And that’s what this next segment is for. Let’s take a look at this year’s Sonic and SEGA news oddities.

Sonic/SEGA 2024 News Story Oddities

Persona 3 Reload Becomes Persona 3 Overshadowed – On one hand, I get it. Metaphor: ReFantazio released in the same year, and it sucked a lot of the air out of the Atlus room. On the other hand…sheesh. I didn’t think it would be this bad. I’m still quite surprised at how little Persona 3 Reload broke through outside of Persona’s fandom. It hasn’t been really nominated for anything, despite it having a rating of 87/100 on Metacritic. It’s really unfortunate. I feel like it deserved much more. It’s a great game, I’d even go so far as to call it my Game of The Year! Just…don’t get me started on the music, because I will get sidetracked quickly and not be able to stop gushing about it. Persona 3-related music is good. Very good. Probably the best video gaming music I’ve ever heard. I’ll just leave it at that. I just wish many more got to experience this game and music too.

Mario & Sonic At No Olympic Games 2024 – Would you believe that it has been almost 20 years since the first Mario & Sonic game released? Would you also believe that we’re not going to get another one, because they didn’t release one this year? In fact, SEGA and Nintendo didn’t say a thing about it. The International Olympic Commitee, or IOC for short, revealed they were parting ways with the gaming companies. A series of games that went on for nearly 20 years has ended, and it has done so very quietly.

So, SEGA has become a media powerhouse in recent years, but at its core, it is still about the video games. So, let’s take a look at their Sonic game releases this year, as well as a report card on how well I feel SEGA did this year. And just to avoid any confusion, my “negative/mixed/positive” ratings for the year’s Sonic releases are based on the initial reception that a Sonic game receives from the fanbase and gaming media reviewers when that game releases. What the reception is now will more than likely change in a few years. I only look at the initial reception, however, as that influences a game’s sales and will ultimately dictate the direction Sonic Team decides to go for their next release. As for the ratings themselves, here’s what they mean:

Mostly Negative – The Sonic game is all but unanimously considered bad at release. Games such as Sonic 06 and Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric fall into this category.
Negative – The Sonic game is considered bad by a majority at release, but there’s still a sizable minority that enjoyed the game. Games such as Sonic Forces fall into this category.
Mixed – The Sonic game has no clear consensus on what people think of its quality at release. It’s a divisive game. Games such as Sonic Lost World and Team Sonic Racing fall into this category.
Positive – The Sonic game is considered good by a majority at release, but there’s still a sizable minority that disliked the game. Games such as Sonic Colours (the original 2010 version) belong here.
Mostly Positive – The Sonic game is all but unanimously considered good at release. Games such as Sonic Mania/Sonic Mania Plus and Sonic 3 & Knuckles go here.

2024 Review For The Sonic Franchise

Sonic X Shadow Generations
INITIAL CRITICAL RECEPTION: Mostly Positive

Yes, I know Sonic Rumble is a thing. It still hasn’t actually “released” yet. For now, it’s in a closed beta. So, unfortunately, I’ll have to skip that one until next year. But I did want to acknowledge it so you all know!

2024 SEGA Report Card

Summary: I really don’t know where to start here. This was easily SEGA’s best year in a good while. There really isn’t a whole lot that they did wrong! A lot of games came out, a lot of them are selling well, and a lot of them were high-quality! They’ve branched out into so many forms of media and, for the most part, they seem to be doing okay with that as well. Utimately, they I think they deserve a grade that is one of the highest I’ve given them in the past 14 years! So, why is my grade not an A or A+? The layoffs, losses of Amplitude and Relic Entertainment, and the very weird business practices. They still keep putting DRM into their games. The pricing and DLC structure for games like Sonic X Shadow Generations and Persona 3 Reload is very bad. Still, things could’ve gone a lot worse.

Grade: A-

There’s just one thing left to do before it’s time to close things for the year, and it’s always the thing I love doing the most for these articles. Every year, I make predictions for what the year will be for Sonic, as well as SEGA in general. I also take a moment to review the predictions I had made the previous year to see how well I did. The results can be quite amusing! So, let’s take a moment to see how well I did with predicting this year.

Reviewing Last Year’s Predictions…

Sonic – Sonic’s 2024 will be less busy than 2023, but it won’t necessarily be quiet either! The final 8 episodes of Sonic Prime’s season will release in January as planned. I think that, by the end of the year, we’ll also know whether Sonic Prime will get another season or not. Sonic Movie 3 news will ramp up as filming comes to an end, and it will release in December without any issue. I think the first trailer will be posted in the summer, followed by a second in the fall. I think the Knuckles spinoff series will finally premiere, and it will do so in the spring. IDW Sonic, meanwhile, will come back from its break by the summer and continue normally.

As for Sonic games? I think we’ll get a Sonic spin-off title, though I don’t know what. I think we might hear a little more about future plans for Sonic on mobile devices, maybe even the announcement of another mobile game. I also think Sonic Superstars will get 2 more costume DLCs, one coming in January/February, and another coming in the spring. As for whether the game will get a “Plus” version, I don’t think that will happen. So then… what about Nintendo’s next console? If 2024 ends up being the year it releases, I don’t think a Sonic game will release on it until 2025 anyway. That said, I think this is the year that will decide whether they still want to make Mario & Sonic Olympics games. I think we’ll get one and it’ll release by November of 2024. But if we don’t, that’ll be the biggest sign yet that they’re moving on.

Overall, I think the Sonic news cycle will begin in 2024 with Sonic Prime, transition into Sonic Movie 3 throughout spring, and then simultaneously be about Sonic Movie 3 and whatever Sonic game release SEGA has planned for the rest of the year.

SEGA – SEGA’s 2024 is going to be similar to Sonic’s: less busy than 2023, but not really quiet either. I think we’ll finally see what SEGA’s “Super Game” is, including gameplay. As well as some more info on the 5 IP revivals that SEGA announced earlier this month, but I don’t think any of them will release yet – and any information we get will be relatively small.

We’ll get another Football Manager game, of course. We might also get a teaser of a new Persona game, but that’s it. I think 2024 will be a year where SEGA announces games but doesn’t release many. Maybe another IP that hasn’t had a game in a while will get a new game, like Hatsune Miku or Super Monkey Ball. But I think that will be it. Other than that, if we do get anything of note from SEGA, I think it’ll be something completely new that isn’t an established IP. Still, I think SEGA fans will be happy by the end of the year. There will be a lot to look forward to!

Well, I will say this much. I did better with my Sonic predictions this year compared to last year. I actually got some things right! Sonic Prime’s last episodes did, indeed, premiere in January as planned. We also learned shortly afterwards that Sonic Prime won’t be continuing. Indeed, Sonic Movie 3 released in December without issue. I even got the trailer release time frames almost perfectly. The first trailer released in August, and the second released in November. There was a February teaser trailer that came out as well, which is why I was almost perfect. I got the Knuckles spin-off release window down perfectly too. It happened in April! And indeed, IDW Sonic has returned…sort of. It has been up and down throughout the year. But there have been new issues that have been released, including one that came out this very month!

We…technically did get a Sonic spin-off game? They announced one anyway, which is Sonic Racing CrossWorlds! It may not be worth counting it though as it wasn’t actually released this year, just announced. We did get more information about Sonic’s future on mobile devices, and we even got a new Sonic mobile game announced as predicted: Sonic Rumble! Sonic Superstars, meanwhile…at first I thought I was had only close. We did get a costume, with Classic Sonic being able to put on a Shadow costume, and it did release in January. However, I specifically predicted 2 DLC costumes and i thought that was it. Then it was brought to my attention that I forgot the Diner Amy costume we got in July! So, I was actually closer than I thought! I only screwed up the release window of the second DLC! What I did get right is that a Sonic Superstars Plus has not happened. And as for the Mario & Sonic games….we did get an answer. The answer is that we didn’t get a game, so it’s probably safe to assume that they’re moving on from those. As for the Sonic news cycle, I was close. Sonic Prime was, indeed, the focus in the beginning of the year. But Sonic Movie 3, other than a small teaser trailer in February, didn’t really begin to make its presence known in the news cycle until summer. Sonic X Shadow Generations would dominate a lot of the year’s news cycle until the first Sonic Movie 3 trailer released in August.

I really underestimated just how busy SEGA would be this year. Not just with Sonic either, but SEGA as a whole, and that’s where my predictions really began to fall apart. I only got 2 things right! A new Super Monkey Ball game, Super Monkey Ball Banana Rumble, did release. And indeed, we did get very small information about those 5 SEGA IP revivals. But…that was it. My predictions ended up being the exact opposite of last year’s! I did very well with Sonic predictions after failing horribly last year, and I failed horribly with SEGA predictions after doing very well last year.

And now comes the big finale! What is 2025 going to be like for the Sonic franchise, as well as SEGA as a whole? It’s time to make some new predictions!

2025 SEGA/Sonic Predictions

Sonic – This is one of those rare years where we go into the new year with a bit of an idea on what the coming year will be for the Blue Blur, so the predictions shouldn’t be too hard to make! I think that the final 2 shows for the Sonic Symphony Tour will go smoothly. I also think that Sonic Racing CrossWorlds will release in fall of next year, likely November, and I think it will be releasing on Nintendo’s next console. As for Sonic Rumble, I think it will have launched properly by July, though I wouldn’t be surprised to see more events for other Sonic mobile titles, including Sonic Dream Team. However, I do think it will be a quieter year compared to 2024. Yes, I do expect lots of merch, and I also expect IDW Sonic to continue with a new story arc next year, and that DC Comics crossover will happen with no problems. But now that the “Year of Shadow” is over with, Sonic Movie 3 has now released and Sonic television shows have concluded for now, I think there won’t be anywhere near as much content. Will there be a second Sonic console game next year? I doubt it. If there is, I can only see it being a remaster or port, and it would likely be Sonic Unleashed. But I think the focus will be on Sonic Racing CrossWorlds. As for the news cycle, I expect the first month or so to be more updates on how well Sonic Movie 3 is financially doing, before things shift to Sonic Racing CrossWorlds by spring and be the dominate Sonic news story for the rest of the year. The game will be playable at Summer Game Fest and Gamescom, and I think we’ll get another Sonic Central broadcast in the summer. Still, I think we’ll get a bit of a breather in 2025. The latter half of the year might get a bit interesting though. Sonic’s 35th anniversary is in 2026, so we might start hearing murmurs about what SEGA might have in store for it. We’ll see!

SEGA – SEGA’s 2025, I think, will be busy. Not as busy as 2024 was, but still busy! I think we’ll be at the point soon that SEGA starts opening up a bit more about those 5 IP revivals announced last year. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if one of those 5 games got a small gameplay trailer at some point next year. I do expect the next Virtua Fighter game to release next year, maybe in the late summer. I also think it’s going to be another big year for Atlus. They’ve already said they have multiple projects waiting in the wings for next year, and it’s highly likely that at least one of them is a Persona game. I think 2025 is the year that Persona 6 will be announced, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the game got an early 2026 release window for the time being. As usual, I also think 1 or 2 of SEGA’s other active IPs will get a new game.

The biggest thing of all for SEGA, and what will likely make 2025 still rather busy even if it’ll be quieter than 2024, is going to be what happens when Nintendo finally announces their next generation console. I do think we’ll be getting our first look at it in January, followed by a launch around the middle of the year. But SEGA is obviously going to be supporting the console in its launch year, and I think that they’ll be opening up about their Switch 2 plans around the same time that the console itself is revealed. Anything that SEGA reveals for the first time next year is very likely going to be coming to the Switch 2, or whatever name it is given. I’ve already said that Sonic Racing CrossWorlds will launch on it, but I do expect other games, including Persona 6, to do the same. Depending on how powerful the Switch 2 is, I think the new Virtua Fighter game could make an appearance on it too. Now, something else I should mention is that, since the Switch 2 will be backwards compatible with the Switch 1, I don’t expect SEGA to port much over since a lot of their recent offerings are already available on the Switch. However, that doesn’t mean that I don’t expect ports at all. For example, I do expect Switch 2 ports of Persona 3 Reload and Metaphor: ReFantazio. I also wouldn’t be surprised if there were Yakuza ports. All in all, I think SEGA fans will have a lot to enjoy next year. Even if just a pinch of these predictions come true, I think that could still result in a good year for them!

Epilogue

That’s everything! It’s hard to believe just how busy of a year SEGA had this year. I really do feel like I forgot a lot of things! And there’s very little to complain about SEGA’s offerings too! SEGA’s clearly on the rise as a video gaming company, and this year proved it in ways I don’t think any of us expected. I don’t think they’ve reached their peak yet, though we’ll see if 2025 really does offer a bit of a breather after what this year brought us!

I’ve been doing these articles for 14 years now and every year, for better or for worse, SEGA always finds some way to surprise me. I don’t know how, but they do. This year was no different. I do hope that I’ll be able to be just as positive about SEGA’s 2025 as I’ve been for their 2024. But, we’ll see! For now, I cannot thank you all enough for all of your support this year and for reading this whole article! SEGA tends to surprise me every year, but it’s just one of the many reasons why I enjoy writing these! To think it’ll be its 15th anniversary next year. Time flies! That all said… 2024 was, personally, not good for me IRL. I’m kind of begging for 2025 to change that, but I’m sadly not that hopeful. Nevertheless, I do hope you all have an amazing 2025, and of course, I’ll be back next December to do this once again. I hope I’ll see you all then.

For now – Happy New Year!

~Donnie