Everyone!
I have scans of all the pages of the article, but not the issue itself, I'm not a subscriber (dammit I should be).
I've found some extra, small tidbits that may be of interest:
- Tetsu Katano is the Director this time. Not sure what he's done before. He was the one who thought it was a good idea to give Sonic a sword. I'm offering dart boards with his name on it, free of charge!
Yojiro Ogawa, director of Secret Rings, asked him to come up with the idea of the next game (this being it of course).
- Morio Kishimoto is the Lead Designer.
- Kishimoto tried a lot of different controls, but settled on the one we know of, and Katano jokes about not having tried the Balance Board yet! XD
- It seems that townsfolk do appear in the stages themselves.
- It says that you purchase items from GRATEFUL residents, so that feature is unlocked by saving a specific person/people? I don't know.
- They say that the game remains first and foremost about speed, and the swordplay is mixed with traditional Sonic platforming, so that may hint that it's not on-rails. On-rails isn't traditional Sonic platforming.
- Neat! NP says that the demo they played ran silky smooth, and boasted incredible draw distances!
- Finally, there are 4 screens not shown on Gamekyo and Blue Blur, etc. They show impressive shots of the in-game level.
One shows a shot of the inside of the castle, in a dungeon tunnel, sewer-like area (there's a stream of water running through out the tunnel.
Another shows a shot of the front of the actual castle, with some nice color of green for the grass and trees in front of it.
A third one is a bit high up with some horizontal bridges (tiny ones) and with a waterfall to the right, and some plants!
The last shows a tall, straight stairway (it's viewed from the side) and it shows a large statue of a knight to the left of the stairway (it's close to the camera). In the distance from the right of the stairway, you can see more of nice green plant life.
That's all folks!
Hope this is good info!