Rawr

One more before bed and a copy paste description from tumblr 'cause I'm tired: "In theory this is how it would work - the character is able to summon up different weapons (the default being the two guns in the earlier pic). So up on the HUD there are 4 icons - the icons each represent a different weapon/power up. They would theoretically be able to be cycled through with L or R or something. Anyway the other three are in grey as they have no ammo. When you get a power up in the level to enable their use you can switch to them and the icon will shift to be orange. Whatever weapon’s icon is orange (aka: the one you selected) it will correspond with the orange bar underneath the green health bar telling you the ammo you have left in that power up. Default shot never runs out of ammo. I’m probably doing an awful job at explaining it. Anyway tossing around ideas for the different shots. So the default is a machine gun fire, the one beside it is like a heavier shot that can pierce through enemies. The third one is the classic spread shot and the last is a bomb/grenade type shot. I’m kicking around the idea of having each power up being a different weapon, or i’m gonna just have the default gun gain a new attachment by way of the hammerspace whenever you switch. Not 100% sure yet where I’m going with all these ideas yet but that’s why its still in a concept phase."

Please don't feel so bad, I don't wanna make anyone feel bad :< Also thanks guys for the compliments!

Sketch that went too far. Not that I'm gonna complain, I like the end result.

They have me with Marza doing animation. They lose me with Live Action. Strange that's how I feel in general with the series lately - one good thing I find is usually offset with something super crappy. Of course seeing as I have nothing to go on besides those two things right now I can't know for sure if it is going to be shit or not yet sooooo...I'll be keeping an eye on this.

Yeah I'm a huge Platinum fan (though sadly Wonderful 101 doesn't really interest me a ton), I'd really like to play Bayonetta 2 but I'm probably not going to buy a Wii U anytime soon. I've got PS4 next on my list, and then beyond that I have no idea if/when I'll get a Wii U. At the very least they have me saying "if" now because I'm really intrigued with that new Zelda game I just don't see a ton on there yet I want to make me drop 300 dollars on the system. Still if Zelda ends up being something not gimmicky and back to being a more traditional control scheme I might be on board and open with the idea of getting a Wii U.

Nexus City (Area 2)

I was pretty underwhelmed with the Nintendo conference myself, mostly because I'm not a fan of Dynasty Warriors games (So Hyrule Warriors is out) nor a fan of really any of the Mario properties anymore or Kirby - so really all that I had left to be excited about that was new was the new Zelda game. I haven't liked the last few Zelda games after Twilight Princess, including some handheld releases, and so I'm really pleased to see a nice big open world and the cel shade was cool. I wanna see it in action though and hope it isn't super gimmicky. As for the new IP they showed I didn't really care for it, though that mech game (Xenoblade Chronicles) with the composer from Kill La Kill made me kinda interested too. All in all it wasn't really my deal, was really hoping to see a Metroid or something, but I can see how a lot of hardcore Nintendo fans would really enjoy it - it just wasn't for me. I'd say all three had a decent showing this year all around anyway. Definitely was one of the better e3 events in recent years!

Revised that character from the last page. Also gonna give her two gigantic mega man styled machine guns (think something like these : (Mega Man ZXA is one of my fave games lol). ALSO just to keep plugging my music and stuff again remember to check out NEXUS CITY and THAT BOSS TRACK

Yeah I'm not much of a Nintendo guy but after Sony and MS both had some solid stuff going on I'm actually quite intrigued to see if Nintendo is gonna bring the same kinda surprise to me. I'm not 100% against getting a Wii U just there isn't much on the platform that interests me, but if they start showing off some stuff more along my interests I wouldn't be surprised if next year I bought one after I get a PS4! This e3 so far has been one of the better ones in a long time so now I'm optimistic that everyone is going to do really well.

I LOVED THE MS CONFERENCE. I WAS LUKEWARM ON THE SONY ONE. But holy crap, I am beyond hyped for all that Halo (I'M HUGE INTO THAT SERIES). Loved Sunset Overdrive - also a Platinum MS exclusive game that I -think- is gonna be a multiplayer title judging by the last bit of the trailer with the other dragons showing up with different colours on their tail (while sharing the same design as that weird main char). Also Ori and the Blind Forest looked REALLY rad and way up my alley. Crackdown had me grinning since I loved the original. Gonna have to look into this Phantom Dust game 'cause I never heard of the original. MS's indie montage I felt was better than Sony's too considering they showed a brief clip of Mighty No.9 and Sony didn't hahaha! Below looks rad too. Sony had some cool stuff too but I felt it felt a lot like the MS conference last year, a bit of games and then a lot of TV and stuff. Bloodborne looked really cool though. For more multiplatform type stuff I am really looking forward to the new Tomb Raider and some of the other titles I saw (4 player Assassin's Creed I'm in you got me). I'm also mega stoked for Destiny! So yeah while I worked today and missed the conferences I'm really excited for the future of both conferences all the same, but was really happy with Microsoft this year.

Okay I'm done with this game. After seeing that footage I am done and probably gonna stop posting in this topic because holy cow that looks awful. The writing/quips are incredibly painful to listen to and the game looks super janky. I'm inclined to say this looks worse/on par with 06 in my opinion that's how much I hate this haha.

I think this is mostly a Sonic Team problem though - other long running franchises have gotten away with radical changes with wide acceptance of it. I mean the Mega Man franchise has so many different iterations and designs and styles, but all of them have been done with a lot of consistency and care which ends up pleasing most fans. I mean granted the core of the gameplay generally doesn't change much aside from Battle Network etc, but the style shift into Zero back when it happened was huge! They took a really bulky character design and slimmed it down with a much more modern anime aesthetic going on, but still somehow keeping it feeling rather gritty and different in tone from the rest of the series up until that point. It's a highly regarded series though and the redesign is loved by a lot of people. Even before that too they took a cutesy franchise and then turned it into Mega Man X which was this super dark game in comparison yet X is one of the best games in the series. Battle Network even has a loyal fanbase and it's drastically different from the rest of the series as well and even redesigned a huge chunk of the old robot masters. Let's not forget the Legends series too which again is a huge switch up and has a cult following basically. I'm sure there were people who really hated the different changes but at least you knew at the time that if you were getting one of those games it was generally going to be really good. I think when it comes to Sonic you are right that SEGA doesn't really know what they are doing and always seem to half ass it and that is the problem. It does create a sense of distrust, I know for myself personally after Lost World and now seeing this game I'm kinda falling into a state of heavy skepticism. They should have learned to take a page from Capcom's old mentality with Mega Man and continue to innovate/improve upon the core formula each time around. It's a series that despite a billion fucking entries has spinoffs out the wazoo that mostly all work and I hate to bring this up but Mario is the same way (even if I personally don't care for that franchise much). Granted I liked Unleashed, I liked Generations, but nothing in the series has really given me that same feeling as when I played the original games. What I am at least hoping for with Boom is it's just something they're releasing to buy Sonic Team actual time to really re-evaluate what they are doing and release something super polished and fun. I'd say 'do it right' but I have no idea what 'right' is for this franchise anymore other than just not half-assing the damn game haha.

music : Nexus City

To be fair though, I'm like this regarding designs/aesthetics in more than just games - cartoons, comics - pretty much anything with a huge visual component I put a lot of emphasis on the visual design a lot of the time unless I find the core experience super satisfying, so this isn't just a Sonic series thing for me.

I know that I personally care a lot about the visual design/art direction in a lot of different games, depending on the genre and the aim of it I guess. For me Sonic used to have a really nice and distinct style that has kinda felt really half-assed as of late. I get that for a lot of people the visual stuff doesn't really matter but I consider it a part of the package. I mean I'm not so petty to complain about his mouth (tho the blue arms thing really bothers me for some reason haha!) I still think the series used to have a really nice identity that has gotten super muddy and gross lately. It's kinda superficial in a way that depending on the series I'm bound to give it shit if I don't like the aesthetics being changed up in a way that aren't on par with the quality of what first drew me in. It's like listening to a band that made really awesome rock music that started making low grade pop tracks a kid in his basement could make in fruity loops. But yeah even if it had the most amazing art style it wouldn't make the game any less boring, but it'd be at least one less thing I'd have to complain about haha.

The fact that it has multiple playable characters doesn't automatically make it the best though. Flip side to that is that Sonic only games are also not automatically indicative of good quality. It's actually just based on whether or not the game itself is good. I mean we've all noticed the lack of other characters but considering SEGA can't even figure out what to do with Sonic by himself even, the lack of other characters lately was probably for the best. The thing is this game doesn't really seem well put together so far judging from the gameplay videos and I'm kinda surprised people are hyped up for it despite the fact that it has a lot of beat 'em up styled combat that actually appears worse than the werehog. The thing is, while generic, at least the werehog was competently done in some regards - this looks like it needs a lot more work. I've been hearing the comparison of 'epic mickey but with sonic characters' and I'm not really sure I like the sounds of that. Also snake villain guy is incredibly boring. I'm not really a fan of the designs they're coming up with for this game, original or not (aside from Sticks, its too bad I hate everything else about her). Speaking of designs again too: Someone on facebook posted up that picture and the more I see all the designs side by side the more it just highlights to me how much I absolutely cannot stand the boom designs. The characters have lost a LOT of charm and are no longer really appealing to me. I'm personally quite fond of the original designs at the top, but the modern ones in row two I don't have anything against either 'cause I don't hate modern Sonic haha. But I'll be damned if I ever warm up to the strange human like proportions of the last set.

no logo: just a wip of a book cover for an art book I wanna compile over the course of this year. I dug into the characters I’ve made over the last few years for the cover here - a lot of BDB representation in the bottom left corner. Also characters from the 30 day challenge I failed at I threw in (Marina, Reiner, Techno Grandma and Karma). Ladybug girl I haven’t named from a concept a little while ago - Pyro and Simon from Wonderland (Priscilla wouldn’t fit). Aysel and Dmitri are also in the bottom and then the Eyelian that I did recently is in there as well. Nima is my ‘mascot’ so to speak so she is front and center. Poor Karma gets covered by the logo there, but I figure I’ll have the illustration on the inside as well without the logo. Thinking the art book will be composed of some comic stuff, some illustrations, and concepts/designs. It’s a lot easier than me committing to one huge project right now so by doing small pieces of multiple ones I can pool them together to make something big. Most of it is ‘cause I don’t have the time to properly dedicate to the bigger ideas in my head right now. I am gonna really try to stay productive on my art and get that flame going again. edit: Oh and in case anyone missed it I finished that boss theme.

I really think this game looks more and more awful the more I see of it :/.