Sonic Boom released last year on the Wii U to very mediocre reviews. While the team at Big Red Button have been working to relieve some of the issues experienced at launch via several patches, the stigma of a bad game has turned many off from experiencing the new Sonic reboot. Despite that, producer Stephen Frost says the reboot of the franchise has been a success in Sega’s eyes, thanks to the tie-in merchandise and the cartoon show.
According to Frost, the main reason for the reboot was to get more people interested in Sonic as a character, rather than the one-dimensional level runner from his early days as the Genesis mascot. While there are plenty of die-hard Sonic fans who are displeased with the reboot, Frost says the new people that are being reached thanks to the reboot means it’s a success despite some displeased fans.
The goal of Sonic Boom, as I’ve said over the last year or so, is to reach a larger audience with Sonic – to make him relevant again. There’s a very loyal Sonic fanbase [out there], no doubt. But there’s no arguing that every year [the audience] gets smaller and smaller.
According to him, Sonic Boom merchandise has been highly popular as people embrace the cartoon and seek out characters from it in the form of toys. He even mentions that Toys R Us had trouble keeping stock of Sonic Boom toys, as they sold out within 24 hours of being available in some locations.
I think from that standpoint it was a success. The audience for the cartoon is [healthy], the toys are selling really well. I remember hearing reports that in the early days, Sonic Boom toys at Toys R Us were selling out in 24 hours – that wasn’t just [sales] from fans, it was from people who were looking for something new.
But what about the game? There’s no denying it was buggy and downright broken in some areas on release. Frost isn’t shy about admitting the games could have been better, but he takes everything in stride and says the team is dedicated to their job and they’re really only guilty of being too ambitious when it comes to re-creating what people enjoy about the Sonic franchise.
In a relatively short amount of time we had to teach new teams what Sonic is all about. But not only that — if I was to say to a team, ‘make a speed-based Sonic game’, they’d have to start from zero and catch up to 24 years of experience in one [development cycle]. Now imagine asking them to reinvent Sonic, to try something different – still capture the speed but also be different enough that when people look at it they know it’s a new experience. It’s really tough!
Frost goes on to mention that the team’s ambition may have held the game back in adding too many mechanics, but overall he seems pleased with what the team was able to pull off. Either way, it looks like the reboot for Sonic is here to stay, whether you like it or not.
