(07-06-2024, 02:31 PM)sundrowned Wrote:

got done watching the anime expo panel livestream not too long ago! super exciting all around with the commentary on his character, but this animation preview in particular has got me THRILLED. i had reasonably high expectations just based on the quality of the frontiers knuckles prologue and this has surpassed nearly all of them!!

anyways... sonic battle fans, how are we feeling???

thankfully I was able to watch this while at work today! I enjoyed the livestream a lot and it was so nice seeing everyone on the panel talk abt Shadow as a character and what they're hoping to achieve w/ the Shadow campaign in SxSGens, and I was actually so surprised when you-know-who was on the promotional poster they were giving away and then showed up in the preview animation!!!

all around I'm so excited and we're also getting 3 prologue episodes!! we're going to be getting so much Shadow content this year

This is it. I think my brain broke. Since when did we ever eat this good?

I have some questions regarding the events taking place but... DOES IT MATTER?! IT'S THREE WHOLE EPISODES OF THIS GOODNESS!!!

And as someone who plays Sonic Battle near religiously, yes, I am just about jumping into a time machine to get this thing out faster.

Hahaha, my thoughts exactly. I played battle but very little and don't know much about the lore. I never knew Emeryl was in the Arc. I wonder if HE is the second playable character in the Shadow campaign?

(07-07-2024, 01:52 PM)NeoMetallix Wrote: I played battle but very little and don't know much about the lore. I never knew Emeryl was in the Arc. I wonder if HE is the second playable character in the Shadow campaign?

Oh snap, I didn't think of him being the mystery character! It's certainly possible but we'll have to see. I don't have many candidates in mind for that myself.

Gee, if it is Emerl then I wonder if they'll use it as an excuse to use other characters' abilities. Test the waters on having more of the extended cast playable again. Though that's just me throwing a rock at the wall because it's fun. 

And about the Gizoid being on the Ark, that was very much explained in Battle, yes, as Gerald was researching the technology. Though I am curious why the trailer makes it seem like the Gizoid is the one who attacked the Ark and not GUN.

Not to say GUN is not involved at all, the comments can't stop screaming about how you can see GUN soldiers flash for a single frame. But I wonder if this is some sort of retconning of the GUN raid, or a different event prior to it or what. Correct me if I'm wrong, I don't recall it being stated in Battle that the Gizoid went rogue on the Ark like it did to the ancient civilization that built it, so I definitely have a lot of questions to be answered. 

(07-07-2024, 02:20 PM)Tominique Wrote: Oh snap, I didn't think of him being the mystery character! It's certainly possible but we'll have to see. I don't have many candidates in mind for that myself.

Gee, if it is Emerl then I wonder if they'll use it as an excuse to use other characters' abilities. Test the waters on having more of the extended cast playable again. Though that's just me throwing a rock at the wall because it's fun. 

And about the Gizoid being on the Ark, that was very much explained in Battle, yes, as Gerald was researching the technology. Though I am curious why the trailer makes it seem like the Gizoid is the one who attacked the Ark and not GUN.

Not to say GUN is not involved at all, the comments can't stop screaming about how you can see GUN soldiers flash for a single frame. But I wonder if this is some sort of retconning of the GUN raid, or a different event prior to it or what. Correct me if I'm wrong, I don't recall it being stated in Battle that the Gizoid went rogue on the Ark like it did to the ancient civilization that built it, so I definitely have a lot of questions to be answered. 

emerl going rogue on the ark is actually from battle! but it's hidden in dialogue from gerald's journal that you have to replay the story mode a second time to access, so it's pretty niche knowledge. i had to look it up myself to double-check it, haha.

however, shadow fighting emerl on the ark is never stated in the game, only that it was subdued by researchers, so that is something new they added. honestly that addition makes the battle story with shadow and emerl just that much more tragic to me...

as for emerl being the mystery character—i would love for emerl to return in a playable capacity, but based on how battle ends, i don't reasonably think they could return outside of flashbacks. if we're going that route, though, maybe gemerl from advance 3 and the idw comics could be the mystery character instead based on their connection to emerl? it would be a very wild choice if they were, but it's wild that emerl is relevant in any capacity at all in 2024 in the first place, so who's to say, really?

if i were to give my own guess based on what we know, that 2nd slot could possibly be a distinct black arms form for shadow. i recall hearing that shadow is planned to have distinct black arms abilities separate from base shadow(i don't have the source for where i heard that on me, i'd have to dig that up to double-check myself), so maybe that will manifest as a separate playstyle altogether & be enough to warrant its own tab on shadow's page?

This looks really cool and I agree with the sentiments expressed by others here. Between games, comics, movies, tv adaptations, we are getting absolutely spoiled. Sure, not everything has been a home run, but more often than not, it's been pretty great.

continuing w/ all the fun extras for Year of Shadow/Sonic x Shadow Generations, the official Sonic YT channel uploaded a video called 'Shadow 101' which describes various things abt him, from his shoes, to his chaos abilities, and even '06 is mentioned!




what's everyone's opinion on the vid? the video is narrated by Eggman himself, and he makes a few quips during the video, which I really like

In my opinion, the Sonic lore never reached such heights and gravitas as it did in SA2. It's wild too when you consider where Sega was at the time. The company was in very bad shape and had they not gone third party, Sega was essentially finished. That or some other company would have bought them and who knows if they would have even continued the Sonic franchise under a different company. Imagine an alternate reality where Sonic Adventure 2 really was the last Sonic game.

(07-11-2024, 07:23 PM)hooligan Wrote: continuing w/ all the fun extras for Year of Shadow/Sonic x Shadow Generations, the official Sonic YT channel uploaded a video called 'Shadow 101' which describes various things abt him, from his shoes, to his chaos abilities, and even '06 is mentioned!




what's everyone's opinion on the vid? the video is narrated by Eggman himself, and he makes a few quips during the video, which I really like

I'm surprised at just how well put together this video is for laying out Shadow's basics, but also the directing on Eggman's part. I very much believe Mike Pollock can make a serious Eggman, and him shifting tones when talking about the GUN raid on the Ark and about Maria was great.

Say what you will about Year of Shadow being mainly to hype up the movie. It's bringing back an aspect of Sonic I think we've all been missing. Some confidence.

(07-11-2024, 08:12 PM)BurningBlaze Wrote: Imagine an alternate reality where Sonic Adventure 2 really was the last Sonic game.

It's wild to think of the alternate timeline where Sonic ended at Adventure 2. It honestly wouldn't have been a bad end. An aspiring franchise about a speedy hedgehog that progressively upped itself in terms of storytelling, going out with a bang that is the story of SA2. And from years on it's remembered as a cult classic about the little hedgehog that could.

Of course, we know the franchise is far from dead and on it's third decade right now with no signs of stoppid. But there's some merit on thinking of the what-if of it.

(07-11-2024, 07:23 PM)hooligan Wrote: continuing w/ all the fun extras for Year of Shadow/Sonic x Shadow Generations, the official Sonic YT channel uploaded a video called 'Shadow 101' which describes various things abt him, from his shoes, to his chaos abilities, and even '06 is mentioned!




what's everyone's opinion on the vid? the video is narrated by Eggman himself, and he makes a few quips during the video, which I really like

i think they did a good job of elegantly explaining shadow's whole deal, considering how convoluted it can be. i really liked eggman's comments about maria, too. maria and eggman being related is something that tends to get overlooked by canon, so it's a nice little detail to not just mention they're cousins, but to include his perspective on her death as well.