Sega Announces New Sonic X Shadow Generations Manga, Here's A First Look

I think at some point you cross a line with the amount of emotional charge you can put in a little cartoon animal… or not, what do I know lol

Never been a fan Shadow. Would've liked a story based on Sonic CD featuring Metal and Amy who were before Shadow.

Awesome! I was just reading one of the latest CoroCoro magazines for the Splatoon and Mario-kun volumes. Stoked to see a proper Sonic manga finally!

DO NOT GOOGLE SONIC X SHADOW MANGA

@Zeebor15 TOO LATE

@Zeebor15

I’m sorry for you as I am for me.

You should make an article on how the OG generations is mostly getting scrubbed from the internet.

First Sonic the comic, and now Shadow the manga. Full circle!

@Overzeal Still on Steam for the moment.

@Bratwurst35 I don't mind Shadow but I will be annoyed if we only get Shadow in 'Sonic the Hedgehog 3' and not Amy 'cause Amy deserves to be in the movies too.

@Overzeal The OG version is still only going to be available with pre-existing bundles.

I'm sorry but what happened to the "ow the edge" mindset people had with Shadow as a character for like a decade? It seems like people are now forgiving him for being "Sonic but more emo/dark".

@G_and_Thomas "I'm sorry but what happened to the "ow the edge" mindset people had with Shadow as a character for like a decade?"
It started being recognized as irony poisoning, thanks in no small part to Marvel sabotaging the drama and stakes in their own movies. People can't stand not being sincere with their art these days.

A sonic manga? That’s a rarity.

oh boy. the only other sonic manga I can think of is the Nikki one.

@G_and_Thomas People started being sincere

@Zeebor15 oh how bad could it be....(one Google search later) intense internal screaming

Shadow is so cringey.

Great, Ow the Cringehog gets the spotlight.

@Samalik I do agree that too much irony and self awareness can be detrimental to any form of entertainment (although Sonic Boom handled it quite well in the show) but I'd still argue that a mascot platformer starring a fast blue hedgehog does not need to take itself too seriously. This is a reason why people got bored of "evil monster awakens and melodramatic sub-stories" in the franchise around Shadow and '06.

The Adventure games started this trend but at least the story was self contained and easy to skip but then people got bored of too many cutscenes and storytelling with previous games being mentioned (especially in Shadow).

A platformer should be about gameplay before anything else. Mario has proven it worked (despite being always about saving the princess).

@27celsius : "People started being sincere" You can be sincere without falling too much on the pathos nor taking itself too seriously.

I'd even argue that Kirby managed to do this perfectly in its games.

@G_and_Thomas "I'd still argue that a mascot platformer starring a fast blue hedgehog does not need to take itself too seriously"
Ya know, you can say that about anything just to dismiss its artistic efforts instead of trying to meet the work on it's own terms. That's the problem. That's a huge part of the reason as to why there was so much irony poisoning in media in the west. That. Bloody. Attitude. Towards everything that tried anything out of the box with sincerity and heart with it. And because of that, artists were afraid to make things differently. And because of that, people who tried looking for more sincere art looked eastward instead.

"The Adventure games started this trend but at least the story was self contained and easy to skip but then people got bored of too many cutscenes and storytelling with previous games being mentioned (especially in Shadow)."
How old are you? Serious question, because I'm getting the impression someone pushing 50 right now with that kind of response.
As for me, I'm the kid who grew up with everything from Adventure DX to Black Knight and i say that's why Sonic had a passionate fanbase and stood out for the better. You can get ENGAGED with these characters. They felt like they mattered, which is what Mario lacks outside of Mario Galaxy. Speaking of....

"A platformer should be about gameplay before anything else. Mario has proven it worked (despite being always about saving the princess)."
I'm not looking for games like Mario anymore. My game design tastes have already grown out of that. If you wanna stick with game design that belongs in a collage course of how to make a game, then be my guest, but I want something more exciting than Mario. I'm bored with him, but I'm not bored with Sonic yet. Let that sink in.

@Samalik Sonic is a successful Poochie. A game that features anthropomorphic animals as the star shouldn't be riddled with cheap melodrama. Every time they try to inject more 'edge' into Sonic, it makes the property actively worse and less popular.

@Samalik WTF is Made in Abyss? I've never even heard of it. And something tells me from how unstable you sound, I don't want to know.

Also, VGChartz says Sonic Frontiers only sold 3.5 million copies. Sonic 2 way back in 1992 sold 6 million.

Edit- Check your facts, dude. Sonic Frontiers is the best-selling 3D Sonic game: https://gamerant.com/sonic-frontiers-best-seller-3d-games-record-milestone/

Also, compare that to ANY 3D Mario game. Odyssey sold 27 million units. 64 and Galaxy sold 12 million units each. Galaxy 2 sold 7 million units. Hell, Sunshine, yes, SUNSHINE sold over 5 million units.

@Samalik : It does not matter if artistic efforts were made, it's the end product that does (and video games are entertainment products, if it fails at being one then it's a bad game regardless of the story or artistic efforts.)

I'd rather take a game with a light-hearted story that does not take itself seriously but manages to have a good gameplay than the other way around.

Irony poisoning is a thing but let's not ignore that in the 90's and early to mid 00's we got a ton of overly edgy and grimdark reboots/sequels for many series because they thought that it would sell more (the "Shadow the Hedgehog syndrome" where everybody wanted to give a mascot a gun because it was "cool" and what "kids wanted" and I'm glad Nintendo didn't fall for that).

The thing is that to be able to "think outside the box" you also need enough talent already before you can properly to that or else it'll come of as being arrogant and wanting to do things differently only for the sake of being different ends up with something dry and without anything to hold on (being different =/= being better).

Nintendo could think outside the box because they know games well enough, Sega on the other hand lacked in this aspect.

Actually, even the Sonic Team was just following the trends with Shadow and '06 (the era that saw Bomberman Act:Zero and other edgier versions of older franchises) so they didn't even think outside that box.

I like sincerity in my stories but when you are getting too melodramatic and edgy you also get the same effect as irony poisoning.

>How old are you? Serious question, because I'm getting the impression someone pushing 50 right now with that kind of response.
As for me, I'm the kid who grew up with everything from Adventure DX to Black Knight and i say that's why Sonic had a passionate fanbase and stood out for the better. You can get ENGAGED with these characters. They felt like they mattered, which is what Mario lacks outside of Mario Galaxy. Speaking of....

Old enough to have known Sega when they were actually great.

SADX is a buggier version of an already janky game (sorry but as much as the intent was understandable it's still a rushed Sega Saturn game that was released for the Dreamcast's release and had alternative gameplay styles that had no place in a Sonic game at the end of the day) and Black Knight is yet another motion control video game that the Wii was plagued with (Nintendo managed it better with their games imo) and I don't like the weird fan-fic esque Storybook games that tried too hard to make Sonic fit other universes.

Mario can feel engaging because of the gameplay, video games aren't about just story (in the same way people were engaged with DooM despite its simple story).

Yet Nintendo's game design is a masterclass in term of innovation and mastering of the already existing ones.

So you prefer a dubiously experimental game like Sonic Frontiers whereas Mario 64 is still a school study case in term of game design that are still being replicated by modern 3D video games (same with Ocarina of Time)?

Yes, it's like a college course of how to make a good game but there's a good reason why most platformers follow the same rules as Mario Bros or why 3D games haven't been good until Mario 64 came out.

@G_and_Thomas "I'd rather take a game with a light-hearted story that does not take itself seriously"
Good for you. I'd rather take a game that actually tries at what it intended to do and judge it on those merits so to be fair to it (and keep my horizons open). I might not always be consistent but I do try. I ain't gonna say a work is bad just because I didn't like it. That's not fair criticism. So I'm not one to say lighthearted is the only way to tell a story in a game. That comes off as reductive. Even I enjoyed my somber moments in games like Devil May Cry 5 on it's first playthrough. Not every game fits that light hearted mold, and you end up with a bigger disaster when it's clear it wasn't supposed to be lighthearted
Sonic is clearly trying to be a shounen action. That is what fans of his stories consider his best stories to come from

"Irony poisoning is a thing but let's not ignore in the 90's and early to mid 00's we got a ton of...."
Well, lets do ignore it for a sec cuz I'm gonna give you a reality check then. We are not in the 90s or 2000s now. We are almost 40 years removed from that. Shadow and 06 are almost 20 years old now, out of other, what...15 other narrative Sonic games that came out during that decade? Everyone who doesn't play Sonic games always points to those two. But do you know what is considered the best Sonic stories these days? Unleashed and Black Knight, especially for how they best expressed Sonic as a character. And fans were mostly satisfied that Frontiers was following in those footsteps (and going beyond in some areas.) It's the 2020s and Sonic fans are wanting stories they can take seriously.

"SADX is a buggier version of an already janky game"
Well if you deliberately trying to break the game like a lot of 2010 youtubers were doing, then yeah, yeah it's gonna appear buggier.
"Black Knight is yet another motion control video game that the Wii was plagued with"
Well, Black Knight isn't even played with Motion Controls these days (and good luck trying to get that set up through Dolphin). And without it, as a game, it shot up to being a cult classic that people want a proper re-release of. Because man that game is a satisfying rush as long as you know to keep moving and slicing

"Mario can feel engaging because of the gameplay, video games aren't about just story (in the same way people were engaged with DooM despite its simple story)."
Well we're not in the porn movie era anymore that Carmack described. Even Doom is starting to have more fleshed out narratives, trying to present the badassery of a heavy metal fantasy. Mario might keep you engaged through his gameplay. But do you like Mario himself? I assure you, you couldn't care if he fell off a cliff. Hell, his brother Luigi gets more personality than him. While I love myself some arcade games and still want a Pac-Champ 3, I'd rather have a game that does both character/story and gameplay well or interestingly, with the atmosphere or vibe to back it up.

"Yet Nintendo's game design is a masterclass in term of innovation and mastering of the already existing ones."
Look, I got Wii U. Love the thing to death and defend it tooth and nail. But even I know that Nintendo's innovations bite them in the as$ just as much as any other japanese company. People always wanna talk about the successes, never the failures, of their favorite companies

@G_and_Thomas (Forgive the second part, I reached a character limit)

"So you prefer a dubious experimental game like Sonic Frontiers whereas Mario 64 is still a school study case in term of game design that are still being replicated by modern 3D video games (same with Ocarina of Time)?"
I prefer a game that makes me feel something. It doesn't have to be in your Last of Us kind of way (and I have my criticisms towards what ND did to modern Playstation). Barring Galaxy, I really don't feel much out of Mario. His series is "video game the video game" and that's fine on paper, but I'm not gonna constantly revisit that or gush over how amazing it was in most cases. In comparison, Sonic Frontiers made me feel zen, before feeling an absolute rush. Funny enough, even the game's album was titled "Stillness & Motion" so that was most likely intentional.
And no, I don't think highly of OoT either, especially after playing Twilight Princess before hand as a kid. I can still strongly remember some of the most horrifying elements of that game. And the combat was probably the best in the series before Breath of the Wild allowed more creativity options. In comparison, OoT feels like a beta test. Still a good game, but the hype is clearly generational, obviously talking through nostalgia.

Yes, it's like a college course of how to make a good game but there's a good reason why most platformers follow the same rules as Mario Bros or why 3D games haven't been good until Mario 64 came out."

Jumping Flash came out before Mario 64 and people still regard that as pretty good for a 3D platformer of the era. If you wanna talk faux 3D, Doom and Wolfenstein already had that down pat.
I'm not here to play college lessons. And with the kind of game I would make, it wouldn't play anywhere close to Mario, but closer to Capcom vs game in 3D or just a style action game in general. Hell, I'm even trying to contemplate how to give Valkyria Chronicles a more action turn-based edge while staying true to itself as of late due to playing so much Blue Archive. But alas I got no coding skills so that's just for me to think through for myself or maybe put in a memory bank for if I ever do get coding skills.

@Maulbert That's because I was unstable because I didn't get any sleep. Sorry if it came off as harsh, but the essence of what I said there is still true.

If you're gonna try to compare something to poochie, then do it right. As i tried saying, Bubsy the Bobcat and other lame as hell mascots were better examples of Poochie, since they tried being super marketable to kids while looking down on them. Sonic just moved with the rest of Japanese and east asian culture as he kept going, culminating in Sonic Adventure.

But going so far to act like an entire aspect of human storytelling, being the humanization of everything, existing since the beginning of civilization should be manhandled to only one way of being told? I will apologize for the harsh over-the-top words, but I will not apologize for saying that was really dumb and reductive and over all dismissive because you don't like the Sonic series. wth

You were saying "Every time they try to inject more 'edge' into Sonic, it makes the property actively worse and less popular."
Only to mention the sales data of nearly 4M units sold. Dunno about you, but for a mascot platformer in the 2020s, that's not a number to scoff at. That's the popular JRPG sales number. That just defeats your own already questionable argument. C'mon!

I'm not here to have a mario vs sonic debate with you. Nintendo is staking Mario to their hardware sales as well. Of course he's gonna sell that much because "free game with my expensive system that I bought for my kid." And nintendo likely doesn't have to pay licencing fees compared to a 3rd party bundle.

@Samalik
Mario 64: not a pack in game.
Mario Sunshine: not a pack in game.
Mario Galaxy: not a pack in game.
Mario Galaxy 2: not a pack in game.
Mario Odyssey: not a pack in game.

The only Mario pack in games since the SNES years have been either NSMB or Mario Kart games, which both reflect that by having far higher sales numbers than the 3D Mario games. Mario Kart Wii sold 37 million copies and MK8 has sold 62 million. New Super Mario Bros. Wii has sold 30 million. I might add, Sonic being multi-platform should be an advantage, which it just isn't.

Also, we're not talking in terms of money. We're talking about units sold.

@Samalik I don't want to flood that comment section but I am really curious how Mario being "Video game the video game" an issue when the franchise is still highly regarded with almost always quality games (even when people got bored of NSMB being the same thing with 2 and U they were still generally better platformers than the Sonic games of the same epoch like Sonic 4, Lost World and Boom).

Mario is still to this day the face of video gaming as a whole (like Mickey for western animation and Astro Boy for japanese animation) as well as having many various spin-offs that all work (whereas Sonic struggled having relevant spin-off series that stayed alive, Riders was good but got canned because of the third entry).

Sorry but Sonic was sometimes seen as "the snarky rival that tried too much to look radicool for his own good" despite the cool games on the genesis.

Also no, Shonen has flaws and Sonic works well as a simple Saturday morning cartoon with a self contained story (heck, I even prefer early Dragon Ball where there was humour and a sense of adventure instead of inconsistent power creeping and energy ball spamming instead of being about "martial experts" like the manga said in its humble beginnings).

Sonic Colors is entirely fine as a standalone story with barely any characters because it's better than shoehorning side characters for the sake of having them on the screen.

"Jumping Flash came out before Mario 64 and people still regard that as pretty good for a 3D platformer of the era. If you wanna talk faux 3D, Doom and Wolfenstein already had that down pat."

Jumping Flash is a nice game but still more of a FPS than a platformer, apple and oranges (also it has 1/10 of the gameplay and game design depth of Mario 64).

Quake was the first polygonal 3D FPS and no, it is good with rocket jumping and bhopping but it's less complex than Mario 64.