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Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric's troubled development explained

T

TimmiT

Member
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Mo7esa1Tfk

Made by Tamaki, who writes for Unseen64. Basically confirms what was assumed if you looked at what the game looked like earlier in development, but it's nice to have a confirmation. Basically: the game was originally being made with unspecified next-gen hardware in mind. When most of it was done SEGA made the Wii U exclusivity deal with Nintendo, so they had to port it that even though it doesn't natively support Cryengine 3. They were also given a limited amount of time to port things over, and at that point they couldn't start using a different engine.

I do recommend watching the video to get a better picture of what happened. I wouldn't be too quick to blame Big Red Button for the game being so bad.
 
C

Cleve

Member
Welfare said:
This game was sent to die by being released on the Wii U. An XBO/PS4 version probably would've been better.
Click to expand...

It would have sold a lot better on the other systems, but I have serious doubts about it's quality regardless of platform issues.
 
F

Father_Brain

Banned
sörine;164749809 said:
Except CE3 does natively support Wii U.
Click to expand...

As far as I know, you're correct.

Yes, this was the first (and thus far only) CE3 release on Wii U, and I have no doubt that the engine was poorly optimized for the platform, but it seems like the game had a lot more wrong with it than graphical and performance issues and I dunno how fair it is to blame the hardware beyond that.
 
L

L Thammy

Member
Omega Kirby said:
Dethroning sonic 06, which at least had good music, is an impressive feat.

Oh Sega
Click to expand...

Funny enough, a big part of Sonic 2006's problem is that they were dead set on the Wii without knowing what the system's specs actually were. I wonder if anyone at Sega learned anything from that.
 
D

Drilbit777

Member
Omega Kirby said:
Dethroning sonic 06, which at least had good music, is an impressive feat.

Oh Sega
Click to expand...

It takes a special game to dethrone Sonic 06, never thought that would ever happen lol. At least with Sonic 2006 you can laugh at all the horrible glitches and enjoy the music. But this is just plain atrocious, there is nothing good about Sonic Boom Rise of lyric at all
 
T

TimmiT

Member
Drilbit777 said:
It takes a special game to dethrone Sonic 06, never thought that would ever happen lol. At least with Sonic 2006 you can laugh at all the horrible glitches and enjoy the music. But this is just plain horrible.
Click to expand...

Well, you could laugh at the horrible glitches when watching videos of others playing it. And while Sonic Boom is mostly just boring, Sonic 2006 was incredibly frustrating. So I wouldn't really call it worse.

Gonzo The Great said:
The game sucks

Let's blame the Wii U
Click to expand...
I'm not saying that the game was bad because of the Wii U's hardware. These problems probably wouldn't exist if they made the game for that platform from the start. The problem was more having to switch from targeting PS4/Xbox One to Wii U mid-development.
 
M

Maffis

Member
Cyd0nia said:
I blame the publisher as much as the developer for sure, the onus of some quality control for their brand should be on them... but some things are just unforgivable too.

It made for some great / funny youtube videos though

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3h4gToN_6Ok
Click to expand...

The publisher is the only to blame. They forced the devs to ship an unfinished product. I really doubt that the programmers working on the game actually felt like it was complete.
 
C

Cleve

Member
Bullshots happen for all titles. Even if this game had 60fps gameplay with graphics that blow the order out of the water it would still play like shit.
 
G

guek

Banned
Welfare said:
This game was sent to die by being released on the Wii U. An XBO/PS4 version probably would've been better.



Oh please
Click to expand...
Sonic historically sells better on Nintendo platforms so even if that were true, it likely wouldn't have preformed much better. It was just garbage.
 
S

Sunnington

Banned
I remember hearing there might have been massive code loss as well.

It's tough to excuse BRB. The Nintendo exclusivity deal was announced in May 2013, a year and a half before Boom was released. Obviously the deal must've been struck before then. It wasn't only the bugginess of the game. The gameplay, combat, and platforming was super shallow. It made Unleashed's combat look like a masterpiece in comparison.
 
Tizoc

Tizoc

Member
Welfare said:
This game was sent to die by being released on the Wii U. An XBO/PS4 version probably would've been better.



Oh please
Click to expand...

It was released on the Wii U because previous Sonic games on the Wii did well on it and its sister system the 3DS and NDS.

If anything I would've preferred if they just went with UE3
 
S

sarcoa

Member
Didn't the Nights sequel unofficially suffer the same fate? Was developed with Xbox 360 and PS3 in mind, then reassigned to the Wii way too late in the process?
 
Welfare

Welfare

Member
guek said:
Sonic historically sells better on Nintendo platforms so even if that were true, it likely wouldn't have preformed much better. It was just garbage.
Click to expand...

I don't mean sales, I mean at a technical level, it would've been better.
 
S

stan423321

Member
I honestly think that the (IMHO rather bad, but whatever) redesign concept art highlight a more important facet of this catastrophe. Nice to see one more confirmation on the sudden port though.
 
C

Cyd0nia

Banned
Welfare said:
I don't mean sales, I mean at a technical level, it would've been better.
Click to expand...

If they'd been shipping in the same time frame it probably would have just meant better textures in the terrible cutscenes, badly edited so that characters just stop moving, or teleport around the scene.

I agree with Maffis, SEGA shouldn't have shat on BRB and destroyed their young reputation by making them release this unpolished.
 
B

bobbychalkers

Member
That explains a whole lot. Shitty dubstep and dubious character redesigns aside, I was actually hyped from that first trailer. It was really scummy of Sega to use that footage for the reveal.
 
S

Storm Kyleis

Member
In an interview with CVG, Crytek CEO Cevat Yerli spoke positively about Wii U despite Crytek not working on a title for the system itself. He's impressed with what other developers are doing with the console, though.

"My opinion of the Wii U is very high. It's just that we didn't have a business case unfortunately that justifies us making a game for it."
"It doesn't mean that CryEngine 3 doesn't run on Wii U - it actually runs beautifully. In fact, there actually is a game in development from a respected developer that we will be announcing. I've seen the game running and it looks really great."
Click to expand...
www.nintendolife.com/news/2012/06/cryengine_3_runs_beautifully_on_wii_u

Huh... What am I missing?
 
M

Mr-Joker

Banned
It doesn't matter what system the game was going to release on, it was always going to be a terrible Sonic game as the team clearly did not get how to make a Sonic game.

Furthermore blaming the Wii U for the game being in a broken state is just sad, if a talented developer couldn't get the game to run as Sonic Team managed to deliver a non broken game with Sonic Lost Worlds, which runs at a smooth 60FPS.

So what is Big Red Button excuse?
 
O

OmegaSmash

Member
Reminds me of what happened to Nights: Journey to Dreams. Made for PS360, but had to be ported down to Wii and suffered massive changes (most of which are still in the game's data)
 
Welfare

Welfare

Member
timetokill said:
"Sent to die" means sales, though. There's no technical connection to that phrase whatsoever.
Click to expand...

Poor phrasing on my part.

Sent to die by being released on the poorly performing Wii U and on an engine that isn't natively supported. Poor Wii U performence + plus the technical fuckary going on with the game equals death.
 
T

TimmiT

Member
Cleve said:
It would have sold a lot better on the other systems, but I have serious doubts about it's quality regardless of platform issues.
Click to expand...
Mihael Mello Keehl said:
Naw they cant use that as an excuse.. they just made a shit game all around
Click to expand...
Kriken said:
A more beautiful game wouldn't have fixed all the bugs and terrible dialogue
Click to expand...
PBalfredo said:
That explains the game's poor performance but not some of the design decisions and the character's verbal diarrhea.
Click to expand...
Sunnington said:
I remember hearing there might have been massive code loss as well.

It's tough to excuse BRB. The Nintendo exclusivity deal was announced in May 2013, a year and a half before Boom was released. Obviously the deal must've been struck before then. It wasn't only the bugginess of the game. The gameplay, combat, and platforming was super shallow. It made Unleashed's combat look like a masterpiece in comparison.
Click to expand...
Merc_ said:
The game might look better, but it still would've been terrible.
Click to expand...

Obviously I can't say for sure they would have fixed the other problems the game had if they didn't have to switch from targeting PS4/Xbox One to Wii U mid-development, but it certainly added more problems than just worse visuals. At least having to port it to the platform likely introduced a large amount of bugs they didn't have time to fix, and it seems likely that they had to remove features to get it working. It's also possible that adding features would have been a problem after having to port it.
 
S

Storm Kyleis

Member
Mr-Joker said:
It doesn't matter what system the game was going to release on, it was always going to be a terrible Sonic game as the team clearly did not get how to make a Sonic game.

Furthermore blaming the Wii U for the game being in a broken state is just sad, if a talented developer couldn't get the game to run as Sonic Team managed to deliver a non broken game with Sonic Lost Worlds, which runs at a smooth 60FPS.

So what is Big Red Button excuse?
Click to expand...
Well, this is their justification for the bad graphics, not the entire game.
 
S

sörine

Banned
antitrop said:
That most of the development was completed targeting "unspecified Next-gen hardware", until Sega signed a WiiU exclusivity deal with Nintendo, and only gave them a short amount of time to port it over.
Click to expand...
18 months is a short amount of time in this industry? News to me.
 
A

Azure Dream

Member
Skips some issues about the game structure, though. All the lore clearly embedded around the world that's never paid off (like the ring and hedgehog imagery), characters changing personality partway into the game (Sonic in particular, as if the game's original beginning was excised up to a point), references to characters being more actively involved than they actually are (Perci), Sticks' different personality from the rest of the Boom media, et cetera.
 
S

stan423321

Member
Mr-Joker said:
It doesn't matter what system the game was going to release on, it was always going to be a terrible Sonic game as the team clearly did not get how to make a Sonic game.

Furthermore blaming the Wii U for the game being in a broken state is just sad, if a talented developer couldn't get the game to run as Sonic Team managed to deliver a non broken game with Sonic Lost Worlds, which runs at a smooth 60FPS.

So what is Big Red Button excuse?
Click to expand...

SLW was planned as a Wii U game and was published as a Wii U game. RoL was apparently planned as something like XB1 game, but ended up being published as a Wii U game. This makes a huge difference at the technical level, though I think gameplay-wise it was still doomed.
 
S

sonto340

Member
stan423321 said:
SLW was planned as a Wii U game and was published as a Wii U game. RoL was apparently planned as something like XB1 game, but ended up being published as a Wii U game. This makes a huge difference at the technical level, though I think gameplay-wise it was still doomed.
Click to expand...

I imagine midway through development when it got pushed to Wii U only, they spent so much time trying to get it to run at all that the gameplay became a bit of an afterthought.

Game had definite promise, it's a shame it turned out so shit.
 
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