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2013 - A Year In Supersonic Review; 12/31/2013
Topic Started: Tuesday Dec 31 2013, 08:30 AM (2,886 Views)
SSF1991
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A summary image detailing 2013's highlights (from left to right): Sega's purchase of Relic, Knuckles in Eddie Lebron's Sonic Fan Film, Sonic in Sonic Dash, Mickey Mouse in Castle of Illusion HD, the Aliens: Colonial Marines scandal, Sonic and Mega Man battling in the Archie Comics Worlds Collide crossover, Sonic Lost World, the reincarnation of Sonic Wrecks as Last Minute Continue, Hatsune Miku's skyrocketing in popularity in 2013, the Summer of Sonic 2013 logo, Sonic dancing at Sonic Boom 2013, Sega's purchase of Atlus, Sonic and Amy competing in the Sochi Mario & Sonic game, the birth of Sonic Revolution, Sonic at the 2013 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, Knuckles' shadow in the Sonic Boom cartoon image teaser, Ken Penders, Sonic posing with Yoshis in the Sonic Lost World Yoshi's Island DLC, and Sonic running in Hidden Palace Zone in the Sonic 2 remastered port on mobile devices


New Year's is here again. It seems like with every passing year they do so ever so faster. This year felt like a blur, a blue blur, if you ask me. And it's no surprise. This was certainly an eventful year! 2012 was the calm after the storm following Sonic's 20th anniversary in 2011. 2013 seemed to be a leftover rain shower. 2011 was certainly a big year and 2013, as big as it was, didn't come close. Nevertheless the year of 2013 was still insane. And one Sonic Paradox tradition is to look back at the previous 12 months that Sega, Sonic, and their respective communities experienced as a nice homage to close off the year and to look forward to the coming 12 months that will make up 2014 by making predictions on what will happen. It started at the end of 2010, continued in 2011, took off in the revamped Announcement section of the Sonic Paradox forums in 2012, and now in 2013 will conclude what I think turned out to be a rather...questionable year. There were a lot of surprises, a lot of stories. But there was, and still is, lots of questions. It may take 2014 to answer them.

Lastly just an advisory. I try to report on the most positive material as possible because, well, we're tired of negativity aren't we? And I always try to show the best in everything when making these articles. Stories that tend to paint things in a negative light, I never post. I may tweet things on Twitter but I have limits when it comes to them on the Sonic Paradox homepage. However...these end of year articles are an exception. I don't show any mercy because, quite frankly, this is about looking back at the previous 12 months. I'm not going to be artificial and make it sound like a year went wonderfully for companies when they obviously didn't. Basically I'm not hating on the company. If there's any hating it would be about the year they had to experience. So while the rest of the year contains no negative articles about anyone, there will be discussion about negative stories from other sites in this article because simply put: it was a huge story during the year.

TOP 10 SONIC NEWS STORIES OF 2013

The deja vu begins. It's once again time to look back at what I felt were the top 10 biggest Sonic news stories of the year.

10) Michael Jackson & Sonic X-Treme - Two of the biggest mysteries in the Sonic community had some more closure given when the latter had provided brand new information on the bosses of the game that could've been and the former, thanks to an investigation by GameTrailers, provided more pieces to the complex Michael Jackson and Sonic 3 puzzle. While there's still things to be established and answered this year certainly wasn't just one of questions. This was probably the only time during the year when things were answered instead of asked.

9) The ASRT DLC Train - All Stars Racing Transformed had a nice touch when it recieved a lovely Steam porting onto PC in January to kick start the year. With the game now out on all the main platforms the process of DLC began...but only on Steam. It started with the formal release of the Metal Sonic & Outrun DLC on Steam in February. General Winter came in July. Willemus was added unexpectedly a month later. Then the biggest shocker of them all, the Yogscast, came about earlier this month of December. Now we have the arrival of Ryo Hazuki on the horizon. It looks as though his turn in All Stars Racing Transformed won't be until after the new year, however. Despite this there's no question that Sega and Sumo want to keep this game going with DLC and the train is going to pick up speed, no question, next year.

8) Sonic Boom Announced - This came out of nowhere. In fact the vast majority of the stories in the top ten list were shockers, a theme that simply never let up. Despite there being a smallsign of foreshadowing in June, October saw the official unveiling of the upcoming CG TV cartoon that still has everyone scratching their heads just as much as Sonic Lost World has done. I was when the news came out, and still am, optimistic about the show. But the main reason for the head scratching? We know just as much now as we did when it was announced. Nothing new has come out the past two months and the show still has almost year before it is scheduled to premiere worldwide on television so it may be a little while still before things get answered.

7) Sonic, Mega Man, and Mario To Collide In Smash Bros. 4 - E3 was a gamer's paradise for the general world of gaming this year due to the Xbox One and PS4's reveals and releases. For the Sonic and Sega community, it was lackluster. The next Smash Bros. game was announced, along with the big news of Mega Man's appearance that same day, to a crowd hoping for a return of Sonic to the franchise. Rumors of this (along with Bayonetta being on the roster too) came up before the game was even announced but it wasn't until October that Sonic was officially confirmed to return. This meant that Sonic, Mega Man, and Mario would all be playable characters in a video game for the first time ever. And even better, they compete against each other in a beloved franchise. No doubt will the game be the big event for a lot of people when it's supposed to be released next year.

6) RIP Polygon Jim - It's hard to believe that more than half a year has already passed since Sonic Retro veteran and the creator of the Motobug in Sonic 1 ROM hack passed away. And looking back, it was just another shocker. It still feels like it was just yesterday that the news broke out. While everyone has moved on I'm sure no one has forgotten. Rest in peace!

5) Hidden Palace In Sonic 2 iOS - In May, Sonic 1 iOS was released in May. It was awesome. Sonic 2 iOS came out seven months later. It was even more awesome. Why? Because Secret Rings has a run for its money, literally, when it comes to a palace being found. Hidden Palace was included in the Remastered port of Sonic 2 for mobile devices and accessed by players in a rather clever way. After years that have passed since the news of the zone's near inclusion in the final version of the original Sonic 2 the zone finally recieves the light of day and doesn't disappoint.

4) The Ken Penders Saga Concludes - If you guys recall from the 2012 edition of this article, the Ken Penders/Archie copyright case really tore the year up. This year saw a very complicated dispute continue and reach its climax in May when it was discovered that Sega themselves were getting directly involved into the case. Things suddenly turned around as the case was dismissed just two months later. While the first half of the year saw the final act of a drama being played out the second half saw the aftermath. With the case behind him Penders went to pursue his own projects, notably the relaunch of The Lara-Su Chronicles. Things may brew up again, however, as the Penders/EA-Sega case that was established and temporarily dismissed in 2012 had been brought back to life in higher courts and, although the dismissal ruling was upheld, indicates that interest in keeping the case going and taken to court is very much there. Whether the case will continue to be dismissed or brought to higher courts for more attempts to get the train going is another story and it looks like 2014 will be the answer to this along with the fate of Lara-Su Chronicles.

3) Nintendo & Sega's Sonic Lost World Alliance - Although we had yet another example of the next Sonic game being leaked via domain trademarking before it was formally announced, this time within a day before, no one expected who it would be that would do so. Nintendo, during their Nintendo Direct on May 17th. The newest Mario & Sonic olympic title was announced in that same Nintendo Direct video. I just happened to watch the Direct that day and let me tell you, that came so out of left field I think it took me all day to even comprehend what I just saw. This scene of irony, Nintendo announcing a Sonic game before Sega does, was just the beginning. It was also the launching point of Sega and Nintendo's alliance. Things have even gone so far that Yoshi's Island and Zelda DLC were confirmed for Sonic Lost World with the former out now for free and the latter coming soon. While the third exclusive Sonic-related title is still an absolute mystery I think it won't be one for much longer. Scooby Doo won't solve it. 2014 will.

2) Sega's Purchases of Relic and Atlas - Normally I'd list one article per number but these two purchases were so similar in multiple ways that I felt it would be best to combine them into one. And for good reason. Because no one saw this coming. No one! And they happened within a few months of each other! The first purchase, Relic, was a big opening act to 2013 after THQ's unfortunate demise caused an auctioning off of all their assets in January. The purchase of Atlas happened in May. And I ask: how? All of us thought Sega was in financial turmoil! It turns out that their parent company, Sega Sammy, has lots of money in reserve and is to blame for the purchases. At the time these purchases happened, however, that never crossed our mind. It was certainly the best highlight Sega had for this year. Their gaming IP library doubled in size within just 5 months!

1) The Aliens: Colonial Marines Scandal - Unfortunately this year had a nasty theme of the good being overshadowed by the bad. The week of Valentine's Day is quite possibly the darkest time Sega had during this year. Not only was the hyped Aliens: Colonial Marines an unplayable mess but a scandal broke out In February that the developer of the game of which Sega would publish, Gearbox Software, may have shown multiple actions of neglectance and incompetency on the road leading up to the game's release while Sega may not have been more assertive in directing the development of the game and gradually losing control of an increasingly sinking ship. This was only the beginning and only seemed to get worse. And it never ended. In fact it's still going, 10 months after this whole thing started! Now add in a lawsuit with Gearbox that the two companies will have to defend, the cancellation of the Wii U version, and new accusations that the game suffered from false advertising as well and this whole thing has become an absolute disaster. Sadly it looks as though 2014 will see this saga continue as the lawsuit gets underway.

HONORABLE MENTIONS: Sonic Wrecks Reincarnates Into Last Minute Continue, Release of Sonic Dash
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SONIC 2013 NEWS STORIES THAT TURNED OUT OFF

And now it's time to look at those articles detailing news that never happened or what were just plain silly.

European Nintendo Press Release Claims All 3 Exclusive Sonic Titles Out In 2013 - Well we got two of the three. However the third not only didn't come out in 2013, it wasn't even announced and it is still up in the air as to just what the game even is. For this to come from an official source just makes it even more embarrassing. But even this doesn't come close to the second "headline"...

Sonic Thunderstorm Showcased By Mainstream Gaming Media Sites - I'm sorry, and this heavily contradicts my "no hating" rule when it comes to articles on here so I apologize for my hypocritical rant, but my god this is the dumbest stunt I ever saw get pulled in the gaming news media this year. No amount of words could express the sheer facepalms I had when I found out about this. For a teenager to get so much publicity and fame just for a strange and completely irrelevent fan fiction he was able to pass off as a new Sonic game rumor is just a slap in the face to the people who worked their hearts out to make it to where they are today. It's a slap in the face to the Sonic community as well. Because we knew who this guy was and what he had already done leading up to this. We knew it was fake. And this whole circus act paints us poorly. It sheds Sonic fans in such a wrong way. I still cannot believe how the gaming media got this gullible. I really can't. For a troll to get the attention he shouldn't have gotten was one thing. That alone didn't make me decide that this needed to be brought up here. The fact that the mainstream gaming media sites picked up on this, made articles on it, and made it as if it was a trustworthy source was inexcusable. I do not understand it and I never will.
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2013 REVIEW FOR THE SONIC FRANCHISE

So just how did 2013 go, at least in my opinion? Was it a good year for Sega, Sonic, and their fanbases? Sales have been sluggish. Feedback was decent with the exception of the reactions to Sonic Lost World, bar none a game that has created the most division in the fanbase in a long time. Promotion was somewhat lacking. I don't think any of them had a particularly good year, a huge turn around from the wonderful 2012 that occurred for them.

March - Sonic Dash (iOS)
CRITICAL RECEPTION: Positive

May - Sonic 1 Remastered (iOS)
CRITICAL RECEPTION: Positive

October - Sonic Lost World
CRITICAL RECEPTION: Mixed

November - Mario & Sonic at the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games
CRITICAL RECEPTION: Slightly Positive

December - Sonic 2 Remastered (iOS)
CRITICAL RECEPTION: Positive

SEGA'S REPORT CARD: D
- Aliens: Colonial Marines scandal hurt Sega's reputation
- More layoffs and closures of Sega divisions took place
- Lawsuits plauged the year
- Sonic Boom was decent
- Game sales were sluggish and weren't as high as hoped
- Only Sonic Lost World receieved any kind of acceptable promotion, other games recieved little to none at all
- Critical reception to Sonic Lost World not as well recieved as expected despite positive feedback from other games

FANBASE'S REPORT CARD: F
- Petitions run wild
- Loads of drama took place on sites such as Facebook and Twitter
- Overreaction to Sonic Lost World and its Yoshi DLC occurred
- Sonic Thunderstorm circus act creates more nasty tastes in people's mouths
- Any optimism seen in 2012 vanished with Sonic Lost World's announcement
- The Sonic Fan Film, in my opinion, was overall an over hyped disappointment
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WHAT TO EXPECT IN 2014...

Now comes the comedic part of the article. That point where our segment covering what was concludes and we now take a look at what we hope will be. A brand new year is upon us and it's time to check out the predictions I made from last year to see just how well I did. 2012's predictions went horribly for me. How did 2013's go? Let us see!

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Sega: Sega has already stated that several digital Sonic games and one retail Sonic game will be released in 2013. As for what they will be, it's uncertain. I think one may be Sonic 4: Episode 3 while the other two end up being HD re-releases. The retail Sonic game should be a regular, full blown Sonic game and I think it may be the last true Sonic game released on the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 before Sony and Microsoft's next home consoles are announced and released. More than likely, that game will be 2013's dominating story. E3 will be rather lackluster for Sega. Most importantly, I think Sega will recover a little bit from their financial and employment slump that plagued them this year. The negative news on that matter had since stopped and their stocks have slightly increased, along with new partnerships. However I don't think it will be a complete recovery. It may take another year, if not two years, for Sega to get back on track for good. It's a big question mark on what will happen but make sure you tune in as the pieces to the puzzle start to fill in.


Lots to discuss about this one! Indeed, I think Sega stayed true to their plans and released several digital Sonic games and one retail Sonic game. We didn't get any hints at what Sega plans for 2014, however, so there's not as much to base on for this year's predictions. Sonic 4: Episode III never happened. We did get two HD re-releases though! Sonic 1 and Sonic 2 were both remastered for mobile devices. I also got the prediction of their being a fullblown Sonic game being the retail Spnic game right (Sonic Lost World). However nothing Sonic related came out on the 360 and Playstation 3. The next Sony and Microsoft consoles were announced and released, however, and the Xbox One and Playstation 4 did indeed dominate the year. E3 ended up being a lackluster year for Sega after all. As for their financial and employment slump, I think there was a slight recovery but only slight. There were still layoffs and division closures. Fortunately it wasn't as bad as 2012's. That doesn't make what layoffs and closures happened this year any better, however. It's never something you want to see. I certainly hope those that were laid off have found new jobs. All the best to them. Good luck!

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Sonic's Fanbase: Same old, same old but I'm hoping that this time they end up being a step below their usual antics like I said last year. I do expect a positive reaction to the majority of the games that Sega releases in 2013. Whether they'll have another moment of union remains to be seen.


I was so off on this and it's both hilarious and sobering at the same time. The fanbase's antics left me speechless after this year. I never expected such a horrible reaction to Sonic Lost World. It's felt like the game was cursed with the fanbase's anger and dismissal the moment the game was announced and the moment that Sega and Nintendo announced their alliance the nostalgic 1990s kids in them couldn't accept that, whether you like it or not, the 90s ended when the Dreamcast ceased production and that Sega and Nintendo have technically been friends for years now. This, along with various other disasters like the whole Sonic Thunderstorm fiasco, really hurt their credibility in my opinion.

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Sonic Paradox: Nothing else can be said that I haven't covered already. Volume 8 is still up in the air but I do expect various projects like Sonic F, Paradox Power Plays, and more to continue. What happens with Summer of Sonic, as I said, is a large uncertainty. Still the site as you guys know it will continue!


What I "covered already" was the following: "I can't say anything on what's to come for the site or even whether Sonic Paradox will have any involvement in Summer of Sonic, if it happens, next year. However I will say this much. Expect SP to continue being SP, Sonic F to continue being Sonic F, and much more." I wasn't kidding. At the time I wrote this we were brainstorming for Summer of Sonic ideas but we knew, at least, that we would have Sonic Shorts Volume 8 be shown by this time. That's the only plans for 2013 we had. It wasn't until after the new year that we started getting an idea of what we'd do. And I'll tell you this much, we never expected the amount of productivity we'd create in 2013. Sonic Shorts Volume 8's grand release and Metropolis Mayhem at this year's Summer of Sonic, our giant Youmacon meet up, the beginning of work on Sega Shorts Volume 1, and much much more. I'll speak of what we can say we have planned for 2014 later in the article.

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SonicNews: The SonicNews Show will have its Season 4 Premiere on January 6th. As you guys have seen, things have changed and you guys will now be able to comment on articles, see pictures again, and even catch any new articles I have on the front page of Sonic Paradox to your own heart's content! My show will have a revamped intro and a new ending, hopefully by the time it turns 2 in February. I also hope to permanently migrate over to XSplit soon. I'll be turning 21 in April (totally irrelevent but still!) and my title as Sonic Paradox's news reporter turns THREE this coming October! Wow! As for an increase in articles again, I intend on doing that still. I just have to....you know...do it. XD


My show took longer to premiere for the year than I expected and there's been no revamping that has occurred. This is mainly due to personal issues and the new laptop I recieved. I didn't count on this happening. I'm still in the process of getting used to XSplit. On a postive note article activity has finally increased from 2012!

If I could grade how I did, think I got a B. Much better than last year's that's for sure! With that there's only one thing remaining. My predictions for 2014. What do I think will happen? Well let's see!

Sega: Sonic 4: Episode III will likely be held off from a release until mid 2015. As a result we'll probably get a spinoff Sonic game that will dominate the year while Sonic Lost World's fate is decided upon. I do not think it will be a storybook game, though. E3 2014 will be another lackluster year and I do feel like this year shouldn't see any lawsuits being such a thorn in the company's side. The DLC train for All Stars Racing Transformed will pick up through the course of the year and we'll probably get Ryo Hazuki in January. I think the Zelda DLC for Sonic Lost World will be released sometime in early to mid February. Overall I think 2014 will be the year Sega takes a step back for a bit and lets ASRT and Sonic Lost World chug along while the next Sonic game is cooked up. I think more characters will be announced and added to Sonic Dash too. I think Smash Bros. 4 will get delayed to later on in 2014, meaning it may not be until late summer or early fall until people can play as Sonic in that game. There's many many questions on how well 2014 will go but please keep tabs on here at Sonic Paradox and my Twitter, @SSF1991, as we see how things go. It's going to be a wild ride, I'm sure!

Sonic's Fanbase: The exact same if not worse, unfortunately, than the fiasco and facepalm worthy moments we saw this year. I certainly hope I get proven wrong, though. Eddie Labron's Sonic Fan Film was, in my opinion, executed poorly and overhyped too much. There are no fan films to welcome us into 2014 so we'll see how things go. I think SAGE's two "acts" that were announced last month will go smoothly. Sonic Hacking Contest 2014 should go well along with it. We'll see how this plays out!

Sonic Paradox: While Summer of Sonic 2014 is up in the air I can honestly tell you that we have some things currently set for 2014 releases. Hedgehog Holiday Hits 2, hopefully in the next month, is happening. The next Sonic Heroes musical, Casino Calamity, is moving along well and we hope to have it out later in the year. As for Sega Shorts Volume 1 it's making good progress and it, too, should be out in 2014. Our spin off series Dangan Ronpa: The Misrepresentation should get formally underway and start putting out episodes soon. The spin off collab we announced and showed a preview of at Youmacon, Vector's Knickers, could be out in 2014 as well. Don't be surprised if we have other Sonic remix albums created from folks like Dr. Mack Foxx and more during the year to boot! The only other thing I can mention is a nice Paradox Power Plays event that I think will get announced within the next week or two, of which I will be a part of! No there will not be any meet ups on the scale that we had for Youmacon. Despite this we will be turning the age of 9 in December 2014. Yes, one step closer to the big 10! We're getting close! And the productivity we had throughout the year isn't done yet even as 2014 takes over! As always, expect us to be ourselves. Because we're Sonic Heroes!

SonicNews: I hope to have the show on a more frequent basis starting in January and for the article production to pick up even more through the course of the year. There will be an interesting announcement coming from me in either January or February. Only one hint: I won't be the only one to announce this. Another party is involved. I also have a few other plans for certain events later in the year, one of which I can't say at this time. In any case The SonicNews Show turns 3 in February and my time on SP hits 4 years old in October! I hope you guys are excited for things to come! =)

And that's all! My fingers hurt from typing so much....heh! With that, I thank all of you for a wonderful 2013. We at Sonic Paradox put our time and souls into the various projects we released over the months and we hope all of you enjoyed the results! This was the most productive year we ever had at SP. Thank you all for helping with keeping us strong and alive during these past 12 months and we hope your 2014 is as great as you want it to be. From all of us at Sonic Paradox thank you, and Happy New Year. See you in 2014!

~~SSF1991, Sonic Paradox News Reporter & Ambassdador
See this hand I'm holding in front of my face? Is it handsome? Is it clean? Good, because I'm married to it.

Don't tell it that I had an affair with my left foot, though.

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I agree that 2013 was a year of surprises, definitely: from Sonic Boom to the Nintendo partnership, SEGA have made a lot of unexpected move this past year.

It's very interesting to read your predictions from 2012 and how SEGA just crushed some of them, but I have to ask -- why do keep predicting S4:EIII? Other than that, I'm just glad a the layoffs have started to dwindle.

A very nice retrospective article, SSF, I enjoyed it. Thanks for taking the time to write it up.
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Because I feel like Sonic 4: Episode III still has a chance of happening. Storywise it's not finished and Sega never said they were done making episodes.

And thanks!
See this hand I'm holding in front of my face? Is it handsome? Is it clean? Good, because I'm married to it.

Don't tell it that I had an affair with my left foot, though.

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