Sonic Generations: Join The Dots Time
This was actually referred to obliquely in an interview done at SOS and SW discussed it with Iizuka-san at SOS anyway in the brief time we actually had to talk shop with him between craziness. The knowledge is actually out there, people know, but respectfully haven’t commented further as its kind of our little story. So, thanks to them for keeping schtum for us.
So…
- It has been stated by SOJ that Generations was created specifically with fan feedback involved.
- Sonic Facebook did polls a long while back, one of which was a mysteriously long winded one involving the fans picking their favourite level from a wide selection of games.
…
Do I need to draw a map for you at this point?
That’s it. Feel warm and fuzzy if you voted though you didn’t know it you were in fact shaping Generations – a game which is looking so delicious we could consume it, were it not for the fact it’d REALLY cut up our gums. Of course if you don’t like the levels in Generations, you could say that the Community might only have itself to blame?
No prizes for guessing who was behind it all either. 😉
Well, it’s AWESOME that they really valued fan input…this isn’t really “new” information. We’ve known about this since before Sonic Generations was even officially announced. People connected the dots way back in October when there were the first rumors/leaks of the anniversary game revisiting old locales. In fact, that poll became on of the strongest bits of supporting evidence for the game’s existence until it was officially revealed in April…
I do have a question though, AAUK, if you don’t mind answering. 🙂 Unless I’m mistaken, the Facebook poll only included zones from Sonic the Hedgehog 1 to Sonic Adventure 2. So how were the zones from Heroes through Colors chosen?
Everyone figured this out ages ago. Like, before Generations was announced even. Still gotta love all the efforts you went through when you were with SEGA. I hope life is treating you well since you moved on.
If this is the exclusive news that would make people feel “warm and fuzzy” then I’m pretty sure we all knew that. I’ve seen people talking about how the polls influenced the stages in Generations for weeks. As for the last bit of saying the community can only blame itself, that’s only partly true. First off, they’ve said that the levels chosen were based on the fan polls and internal polls so this list of stages also represents the favorite levels of the developers, which makes sense because I KNOW that Sky Sanctuary was not the most voted level for Sonic and Knuckles, I believe it was Flying Battery actually, though I could be wrong, either way, the fans did not pick Sky Sanctuary as their favorite level. Also the poll only went as far as Sa1 I think, so in all reality, the direct influence of the fans on the levels was actually a lot smaller than you say.
If you say so.
Jack has a point, almost. Fans didn’t know at the time they were voting for anything in particular (and how could they? It would be silly to expect reasons to explained so early), so the final selection of stages is quite “unrepresentative of the series” as a result. It would have been better if the developers and whoever else was involved adapted the list to include a variety of stages rather than stick so rigidly to the results. Three cities (four even, counting CC) and three Green Hills is somewhat disappointing. And I believe, as Jack said, that the public poll only went as far as SA2.
But still, I’m not meaning to sound ungrateful or anything. The fact that this actually happened is simply wonderful.
Actually it went up to Sonic Unleashed I think.
Nope, only SA2. Dunno why that was, but it definitely ended there. I can’t find the poll now (seem to remember people saying it had been taken down), but this part I’d completely forgotten about http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=23050342417&topic=9769. Asking about level themes. *sigh* So that’s the reason for it then…
Sorry to disagree but it DID go up to at least Sonic 06… should know as I put the thing up.
Also sorry to disappoint a second time but that was just a normal poll, the only one with any actual seriousness was the favourite levels one. No other poll at that time had anything to do with research or game design, it was just for fun.
It really, really didn’t. http://board.sonicstadium.org/topic/8620-what-stages-do-you-want-to-see-in-sonic-generations/page__view__findpost__p__266654
Sorry completely disagree. Don’t care what someone noted down.
Ask around. Everybody remembers it ending at SA2. Furthermore, this totally confused everyone, especially after Generations was announced.
We’ll agree to disagree with the contents of my life, how about that. 😛