Saturn's Sonic X-treme

[ShenmueFan]

I know this topic has probably been done before but I'd like to hear some of your thoughts.

I'm not sure if many of you know this but earlier in 2006 one of the guys involved with the creation of the cancelled 3D Sonic for the Saturn uploaded a lot of content to a site (http://www.senntient.com/projects/xtreme/sxc/) - I recently only stumbled across it and actually saw videos of what the game was going to look like...

...and I gotta say...the game looks absolutely amazing. I mean, you have to remember that it was going to be released in '96 - only a couple months after Mario 64 and Crash Bandicoot came out.

I read about how the conflicts between SoJ and SoA and main programmer's illness ended the project altogether but what do YOU think about the game? Given that it had such awesome graphics and started to really utilize the Saturn's dual processors, do you think it could have made a significant impact on the Saturn that year in North America?

I just think it looks amazing and I wish it would have been finished.

[Nebagram]

It's a Sonic game and Sonic games shifted Sega consoles- the Saturn was undoubtedly hurt by not launching with one (arguably samr thing could be said for the Gamecube and no Mario game). Either way, it'd have to have been better than simply porting Sonic 3D.

[cyberfluxor]

Sonic 3D was alright but lacked in controls and felt a bit slow. This game looks similar to Gex level layouts and doesn't appear to have a smooth and fast paced level design. I liked the Sonic Adventure games on the DC just as I liked the Genesis ones, very fast. Now, if they wanted to make it feel like a Mario game then they can get away with it, but of course these are just brainstorms that are posted, not a polished product and I'm sure it would have been designed to playout like the first Sonic games after seeing the complains on Sonic 3D.

[Corner Shop Puppet]

To be honest I think the game would have rocked down the house. Unfortunately Sega must have disagreed and my opinion doesn't count. :)

Someone should take all they have of it and FINISH it. With Sonic Xtreme out on that site you know someone has the info.

Bring it to DS or something.

[diskoboy]

This game is another prime example of SoJ's bad management, and why SoA and SoJ should be seperate entities. Sonic Xtreme definitely would've helped the Saturn, here in America. That's what most of us were waiting for - a real Sonic game. Not some crappy kart game or pinball hybrid...

I don't know the exact details of why the game got thrown out the window, but I know most of the developers were mostly American. Sega really had no excuse for not releasing this.

Honestly - not releasing this was the first real sign that Sega was in serious trouble.

[theshizzle3000]

This was the first I have heard of the game, but it sure does seem interesting.

[Nebagram]

I was actually hoping for a demo of it to be included with Sonic Mega or Gems Collection- that would have made it a real selling point IMO, as opposed to Sonic the Fighters. Let's be fair though, pretty much the only people who bought Gems collection were those who didn't own a Sega/Mega CD.

Still, Sega are bound to bundle the two Sonic Adventure games together for the 360/PS3/Wii soon enough, maybe we'll see it surface then...?

[Steven]

Sonic Jam had a 1 level preview of what a 3D Sonic game might be like. I admit, I played that little demo A LOT. Who knows what would have happened if a real 3D Sonic title was released from the get-go?

[ShenmueFan]

This game is another prime example of SoJ's bad management, and why SoA and SoJ should be seperate entities. Sonic Xtreme definitely would've helped the Saturn, here in America.


I don't know much about this - how close are Soj and SoA connected? Does SoA simply act as a translation service/one-domestic-game-a-year operation or does it have enough say and pull on its own to stand up and say, "Hey, we need to bring back this franchise or do this game or invest in this system..." and so on?

I just can't imagine why SoA pulled the plug on the Saturn or Dreamcast here domestically so fast.

[Borman]

Chris worked on the PC version, not the Saturn. The fisheye was never running (smoothly, or possibly at all) on the Saturn, and those videos are from the PC

[MarioMania]

I can't get the video's to run

[Borman]

They are up on my site:
http://www.ptop.aborman.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=84&Itemid=29

Flash format, no hassles.

[Sweater Fish Deluxe]

I just can't imagine why SoA pulled the plug on the Saturn or Dreamcast here domestically so fast.
Well, it wasn't Sega Of America's decision to axe the Dreamcast. It was Sega Of Japan that made that decision and they made it because they were facing total bankrupcy, but had to option to stay in business if they released games for other consoles. I suppose they could have kept supporting the Dreamcast even once they were releasing games for other systems, but the exlusivity contracts they signed especially with Microsoft were a major source of revenues for them--more so than actual sales revenue from most of those exclusive games.

I don't know whether Sega Of America was told by Sega Of Japan that they had to stop supporting the Dreamcast as well or whether they just realized that they had no chance of keeping the system alive themselves (as they had more or less done with the Genesis), but either way I don't think they played a very active roll in that decision.

Now, the Saturn, Sega Of America does seem to have actively dropped support for that one. Though I actually wasn't playing current video games much around then, so I don't really know whether it's accurate to say that that Sega pulled the plug on it or whether that's some sort of revisionist thing. It seems to me like there were plenty of games, though certainly not a whole flood. It could really just be the same story as with any console that's not doing well in the marketl those systems don't generally see a lot of releases regardless of how much the company is behind them. However, in Japan, the Saturn got tons of support even up to and after the Dreamcast's release, so if someone "pulled the plug" on the Saturn it wasn't SoJ


...word is bondage...

[ShenmueFan]

Chris worked on the PC version, not the Saturn. The fisheye was never running (smoothly, or possibly at all) on the Saturn, and those videos are from the PC

Hmmm, I know the videos show the PC version (only because I thought maybe Chris didn't have a Saturn Dev unit to capture videos from when collecting all this data) but the fisheye effect had to work on the Saturn. I'm sure it wasn't running at 60fps (probably 20-30) but it was the game's main selling point to make it stand out from other 3d games.

Do you have a source article I can read on what you mentioned above?

[PapaStu]

Your right.

We have gone thru this before... in a few different manners

Earlier talk of the protos and other good/related talk (http://www.digitpress.com/forum/showthread.php?t=84924)

Character Design stuff (http://www.digitpress.com/forum/showthread.php?t=76256)

*Duplication lockerooni*