A Hedgehog Analyzed: ‘Noise To Signal’ Take On Sonic
Pop Culture website Noise to Signal have recently posted the first in a series of stories detailing the trials and tribulations of our favourite blue hedgehog both in-game and out. The first story titled ‘Sonic Adventures, Act 1’ rewinds way back to the birth of Sonic and goes into detail about the process behind creating the blue blur.
A lot of the information won’t be new to hardcore fans especially after recent videos going back to the same era. The article does throw up one or two facts even I didn’t know and is laced with a healthy dose of opinion throughout by someone admits early on Sonic isn’t quite their favourite game series.
“…over the next few weeks, the site will be presenting the complete history of Sonic The Hedgehog in TOO MUCH DETAIL. My aim is to cover all aspects of the character’s evolution, including the games, the creative direction adopted by Sega, and the licensed products produced, including TV shows, comics, novels- the works. All the opinions that follow are my own. This may sound a rather odd disclaimer, but basically if I don’t pass comment on something I mention, then I haven’t played/watched/eaten it.”
Overall it’s an intriguing read and I’ll be keeping a lookout for future updates.
Originally written by the author for TSSZ News.
Nothing new here for me unfortuanatelly. 🙁
Sega>nintendo
nintendo>sony
sony>microsoft
man in my country there aren’t many sonic figures for sale 🙁
whats going on here what are they talking about tell me
Next to the (un)healthy dose of opinion, that article also contains factual errors.
1) “You’d be hard-pressed to find a poorer piece of software that the Wii’s Sonic and the Secret Rings.”
Absolutely wrong, finding something worse, especially on the Wii, is dead easy. Not to mention that Secret Rings was fairly good for what it was, but that’s opinion again… 😛
2) “shared a number of bugs with the US iteration released on the same day, such as the fact that Sonic will die instantly from contract with spikes instead of simply loosing his rings”
There is evidence that this so-called “spike bug” behavior was intentional and not a bug. See http://info.sonicretro.org/Spike_Bug
3) “The second alteration Sega of America made is much less forgivable. Feeling that Amy Rose would not appeal to their domestic market, the character was edited out of the game, replaced with the older Jessica Rabbit-alike “Princess Sally”. Annoyingly, the character stuck, and has blighted the US incarnation of Sonic ever since.”
Bullshit. Amy Rose was not edited out of Sonic CD US. Only her name in the game’s printed manual was replaced. Also, this sounds as if Princess Sally was invented for Sonic CD US and had several appearances in following Sonic games. Which is totally wrong again, she was an already existing character from the SatAM cartoon (and Archie comic) and had no game appearance, apart from a minor one in Sonic Spinball.
4) “The European release of the game was a mix and match version of the two competing versions, taking the US soundtrack but also retaining Rose.”
This guy is getting less and less credible. It’s common knowledge that the European release of Sonic CD was virtually identical to the Japanese one, music and all.
Yawn… nothing interesting
Well it’s an interesting read… if you’re not a Sonic fan and as previous comments have pointed out the writer isn’t great when it comes to the facts. Also mixing up fact and opinion, they also don’t seem to be able to proof read what they’ve written as there’s a number of mistakes in the grammar.
Writing aside there are a couple of things I didn’t know but I’m going to be reading this series with a pinch of salt.
Thanks for the kind words, those that have supplied them. And everybody else? You’re welcome to jump in and correct me when my knowledge breaks down 😛
There’ll be a new instalment of the article every Sunday, until we reach the present day. As Paul pointed out in his news story, ‘Sonic Adventures’ is very much one nutter’s opinion on the history of the character. Think of me as the Sonic equivalent of one of those old men you see bellowing at passing cars late at night…