And now…we have reached the infamous ‘Sonic
Boom: Rise of Lyric’ that took the internet by storm for all the wrong reasons back in
2014. Long ago, when I was coming up with plans
for a Sonic retrospective, I didn’t even think of including this one, obviously…I
changed my mind. But before we even get into it, I figured
I’d take this moment to say that my merch store has added some cool new items, including
a coffee mug, stickers, pins and we have dropped the prices on the existing items, just in
time for the holiday season. Since I know wearing my name in public is
everything you’ve ever wanted, I figured I’d highlight this for you all in the audience,
now back to your regularly, or not so regularly scheduled Sonic content. This game is pretty important in the history
of Sonic, despite it’s near forgotten reputation today. The reason why I had figured I wouldn’t
even bother covering this one was because I didn’t own a copy of it until recently…and
the reason for that is because of what happened when the game came out. To get into this video, it’s best to travel
back in time and tell the story from the beginning. If you watched my video on Sonic Team’s
version of Sonic Lost World, you’d know how we got to that point and how I felt about
that game. When it first released in 2013, I thought
it was bad, something I’ve become more neutral on since. So neutral that I feel no strong feelings
about Lost World one way or the other, it just exists to me. But going into 2014, I did not like the new
Sonic game, which was quite the change from the norm. In the fandom, Lost World sparked some fiery
debate because it’s mediocre critic scores suggested that Sonic might slide back into
a laughing stock after Sonic Colors and Sonic Generations brought so much good will back
to the name. So you had camps of people who really liked
Lost World, people who didn’t and people who were in the middle, but largely, I’d
say the community was still hopeful for the future of Sonic because of that goodwill I
just mentioned, myself included because Lost World was just the Mario rip off side game…surely
Sonic Team’s big PS4 game would save the day, right? So…pretty early on in 2014, we got word
on what was next for Sonic the Hedgehog. Not another game from Sonic Team, it was instead
the launch of an entirely different branch of the Sonic franchise called Sonic Boom. Back in the 2000s, the show ‘Sonic X’
on 4Kids brought a ton of new young fans into the series alongside the latest games releasing
on the major platforms. SEGA was hoping to recapture that magic in
the 2010s with a new cartoon show, merchandise and video games. Unlike Sonic X, Sonic Boom wasn’t going
to be based on the video games, instead being it’s own universe and story entirely. With that came altered character designs that
tried to put the character’s traits at the forefront of their design…Sonic with sports
tape, Tails wearing goggles and having a utility belt, and Knuckles…well…the difference
was most striking for him. The cartoon was set to air in late 2014 and
was going to be accompanied by two games, Sonic Boom: Shattered Crystal, a 2D adventure
on 3DS that we will talk about next week and the game of today’s video, Sonic Boom: Rise
of Lyric on Wii U. Upon announcement, weirdos online were losing their minds because different
equals ruined…but, the more rational Sonic fans felt even more trepidation about this
game than Lost World just one year prior. That game still was set in the main series
and was going to continue on with the same tone as the previous two games…so you had
something to anchor your expectations to. But this was a total wildcare from the day
it was announced as the game was being developed by the western studio ‘Big Red Button’,
something that hadn’t been the case for a big Sonic game since Sonic 2 and 3 were
made in the west back in the 90s, which even then, still had a lot of staff from Sonic
Team. The gameplay being…well…difficult to discern
since it didn’t look anything like the games that came before. And in a series as all over the map as Sonic,
that is saying something. To be honest, I don’t really remember what
I was thinking about in the lead up to Rise of Lyric, and in retrospect I think it’s
because I wasn’t thinking about it much at all. Instead focusing my video game attention on
getting into things I hadn’t played before like Zelda…or being hyped for Uncharted
4, which got announced the previous year. I think that’s because my interest in Sonic
was waning after Lost World and Rise of Lyric was going to have to be really good to hold
that attention, and in the days before it released, I actually became kind of interested
in it as it’s art direction was akin to the Jak and Daxter games that I love, and
just did videos on, go watch them…both that series and this game having the same art director. But of course, if you are a Sonic fan, you
know how the story turned out once the game was released on November 11th of 2014. Like I said at the start, this game swept the internet
back when it came out, for all the wrong reasons. The critics, both professional and on YouTube
were slamming Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric for it’s utter lack of quality control and it’s
boring sub standard gameplay. The worst part about it would be that…Sonic
is no stranger to crappy games. I am not talking about some obscure game gear
title here, I am obviously referring to Sonic 06 on PS360. That was a game that only 8 years prior had
shocked the critics and fanbase with it’s…lack of quality control and for blatantly unfinished
and sold for full price. This was the disaster that Colors and Generations
had almost entirely recovered the franchise from. But here we have Sonic Boom eight years later
showing that SEGA had learned nothing and still had zero regard for their audience,
thinking they could get away with another game that was blatantly unfinished, poorly
optimized and just not good. The writing was on the wall early on, as people
who played the demo at E3 2014 said the game wasn’t that good, but…it really couldn’t
have prepared people for the lengthy slog players were dumped with once the game finally
released. I can tell you, I was in that camp. To repeat, I really didn’t have much to
say about this before it finally came out. But I got it around launch and I played it
for about 2 hours and…I thought it was absolutely atrocious! No two ways about it, it was boring, it was
repetitive and it was the last straw for me. I knew this game was terrible pretty early
on in it’s runtime. So after I got past this time travel stage…I
just stopped playing and decided to trade the game in…back when you were 14 and didn’t
have money so you had to trade games in for chump change…but I figured I’d trade it
while it was new to get whatever I could out of it. I watched all the YouTubers cover this mess
and that was good enough for me, I didn’t need to play the rest of it. And I didn’t for years afterwards. You can see my original save file right there. I picked this copy up a while ago knowing
I’d be doing this review and here we are. The larger point I am making is…Rise of
Lyric convinced me that I had simply grown out of Sonic. Think about it, I loved every Sonic game as
a kid. Come 2010 and I'm watching YouTubers and I
learn that most of these games I like aren’t very good like Heroes, Shadow, 06 and the
Storybook games. I accept this fact and then go on to enjoy
Colors and Generations just like everyone else. Sonic has a meh game in 2012, in 2013 you
get Lost World, which I hated and then in 2014 you get Rise of Lyric which was even
worse. So, yeah I traded it in. I had my sights set on games like The Last
of Us Remastered on PS4 which became my favorite game of all time, and also getting into great
retro games like Mega Man X, which also became a personal favorite. While Sonic produced garbage like Rise of
Lyric. I was convinced that I was done. Sonic just wasn’t for me anymore. Obviously, I have walked this back considerably. But the years after RoL certainly helped cement
the idea in my mind. The story of how I got back into caring about
Sonic again can wait for the videos on Sonic Mania and Sonic Forces, but for now, my point
is made. For me, the Colors and Generations good will
was gone, because SEGA let another disaster release less than a decade after their last
one! Which is how a lot of people felt as Sonic
was back to being a punchline. Which might lead an uninformed audience member
to wonder…what did the game do specifically that was so awful? I mean, that’s the interesting thing. I feel like the game’s mechanics don’t
really have much to offer, so there isn’t that much to talk about with them. The issue isn’t the abundance of flaws like
Sonic 06, the game is just bad, for reasons I will tell you now that I’ve suffered through
it’s lengthy campaign. But still, instead of it’s flaws being the
biggest takeaway, it’s more about the absence of good qualities. Although, in fairness…it does have some
good qualities. So I figured I’d go over them before diving
into the issues. The area Rise of Lyric received unanimous
appreciation for was it’s cutscene animation. Characters moving in a really natural way,
while still looking cartoony, showing a variety of facial expressions. The cutscenes slow the pace down whenever
necessary to give the characters personality defining moments. This was a real breath of fresh air for the
series since the cutscenes in Colors and Generations felt a lot more stock in comparison to the
more dynamic, action oriented scenes in Sonic Unleashed. Sonic Lost World was a step forward from those
games I mentioned, but Rise of Lyric in terms of the animation and cutscene pacing achieves
what I want from Sonic, although I guess I’d want more action scenes thrown into the mix,
but you get what I am saying. The voices of the characters are still the
same ones we’ve had since Sonic Colors and Free Riders…well, except Tails, he got recast
in Boom, now being played by Colleen O'shaughnessey, who has continued playing Tails to this day,
even in the second Sonic movie, but as I was saying… I feel like these voices fit the Boom rendition
of the characters more than the game versions. Probably because they were designed with these
voices in mind. Boom Sonic being a lot more cynical, so Roger’s
snarkier Sonic feels pretty at home in the Boom franchise. But that’s genuinely the only positives
I can give out to this game. Even the presentation has problems. For example, the transitions between cutscenes
and gameplay are incredibly amateurish, as you will hit the trigger for a cutscene and
it will just abruptly start playing, even if there was still dialogue going on in the
gameplay, and once the scene is over it will just abruptly cut back to gameplay where the
previously interrupted dialogue will just resume. It really takes you right out of the game. The voice acting in the cutscenes might be
nice, but in game, I have issues. The quality of the audio sounds pretty off…like
it came right from the recording studio and into the game. This sounds weird to say because all audio
in games do that, but there’s something about the delivery of the in-game lines that
I can’t unhear. The characters will be running at warp speed
or be pulling down a giant worm and when they talk…which they do a lot, it just sounds
like they are recording a line with no enthusiasm in a booth, just listen to it. I am not saying it had to be Spider-Man PS4
where they recorded a ‘active’ version of all Peter’s lines and a ‘standing version’
but I am just saying, you’d hope they’d direct the lines better to make it fit where
it’s going to be used. Something I think previous Sonic games have
done just fine with it. But that’s nothing compared to the sheer
volume of in game dialogue. Rise of Lyric puts Sonic Heroes to shame with
it’s unrelenting assault on your ears with repeated audio samples. Almost every time you hit a bounce pad, the
character will feel the need to say that you touched a bouncepad. But that’s not all. Get ready to hear “It’s like these tracks
were built for me! Can’t collect too many rings! I love these boost rings!” At almost every turn. The player does have the ability to turn the
voices volume down to zero, but I didn’t, since I figured it was the kind of universal
slider that would also affect cutscenes that I didn’t want to miss. So during the gameplay, I had no choice but
to listen to the same quips again and again, or characters having dull sounding reactions
to a giant monster chasing them…that you must listen to everytime you die like say…this
shooting mini game I died at 3 times, spending a total of ten minutes on. But that’s only scratching the surface with
the problems here. To put it nicely, this game runs like garbage. Somehow, Sonic 06 with it’s 30 second load
screen and frequent slow down manages to win out between these two as that game targeted
and usually hit 60 frames per second. Rise of Lyric barely managing 30fps while
struggling to load in the most basic of environments. Shadow effects and textures popping in frequently,
the game lagging almost constantly in combat and especially in speed sections, making dodging
obstacles and getting the right timing on collectibles borderline impossible here. All for graphics which don’t even look that
good. Sonic Lost World was 60fps with much higher
fidelity, as were other Wii U exclusives like Mario 3D World and Super Smash Bros. This game’s areas almost all look bland
artistically, but then the textures and models look…like a high end PS2 game, for something
that dropped in 2014. A shameful showing compared to what else the
console was putting out. It’s also buggy as all get out. This being the main thing people were ripping
into at launch. For me, I hit this one weird glitch where
after a speed section, I noticed I had only three characters on the screen. So I switched to who was missing, only for
them to still be on the track and running at the default speed, and clipping through
the ground and towards their doom. Besides that, I didn’t run into any major
glitches. Probably because this was the 1.1.0 version
that came out after launch that tried fixing that sort of thing. So my main issue was just how it ran. Apparently, the patch reduced the frame drops
and lag…so…I can only imagine what playing the game at launch was like. In reality, how this game handles was something
no amount of patches was ever going to fix. Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric was the only Wii
U game to run on the CryEngine, a game engine that has been used across multiple consoles
and titles, but evidently, getting the thing to run on the Wii U was an absolute nightmare. This being one of the leading causes for Rise
of Lyric turning out the way it did. That begs the question: ‘If the engine was
not compatible with the Wii U…why was this a Wii U exclusive?’ Well, I am glad you asked, viewer of this
video, because I am going to tell you why. In 2013, it was announced that SEGA and Nintendo
had signed an exclusivity deal making it so that the next three Sonic games would be exclusive
to their hardware. Sonic Lost World was game 1, Mario and Sonic
at the 2014 Sochi Olympics was game 2, and Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric was game 3. The reason they did this goes back years. When SEGA officially stopped making consoles
in the early 2000s, Sonic went multi-platform and reached new audiences. Sonic Adventure 2 on the Dreamcast being one
his weakest games in terms of sales because of how bad the console was doing by that point,
but Sonic Adventure 2: Battle on Nintendo’s GameCube had sold over a million. They rushed Sonic Heroes out the door to get
as much money as possible, which also paid off. Sonic’s lineup on the GameBoy Advance sold
really well, as did his games on the Nintendo DS. But then on the Wii, every game was a mega
hit. Secret Rings, Unleashed, The Olympic Games,
Black Knight and Sonic Colors all sold millions. Sonic was right at home on it’s former rivals
console. So then you get the Wii U and now SEGA locks
themselves into a deal with Nintendo to release three Sonic exclusives for the console in
the hopes of making as much bank as humanly possible. This completely blew up in SEGA’s face. The Wii U did not just…sell less than it’s
predecessors, it was a commercial flop. The Wii U is Nintendo’s lowest selling home
console of all time. Even lower than the Gamecube back in the 2000s,
which was already kind of meh by Nintendo standards. It just did not have the kind of marketing
power that the Wii did. You can analyze the failure of the Wii U in
multiple ways, in fact some great videos have been done on the subject here on YouTube. But the point is, the Wii U was a disaster. From it’s mixed messaging on if it was a
hardcore console or another family oriented device like the Wii. Whether or not it even was a new console,
or an add-on to the Wii. It was underpowered, not reaching the same
heights as the Xbox 360 which was, at this point both 8 years old and a previous generation
console as the PS4 and Xbox One came out a year after the Wii U and smoked it. The Wii U was also difficult to develop for,
because of how developers had to divide resources between the console and the Wii U’s gamepad
gimmick. Even Nintendo’s big IPs couldn’t save
this one. The Switch releasing and replacing the thing
in 2017. I think the failure of the Wii U is pretty
sad all things considered. I have always liked it, in spite of it’s
fundamental flaws. It had a nice interface and a massive library
of downloadable retro games. This being how I first got into the Mega Man
series, for example. I always thought the gamepad was cumbersome,
but that’s what the pro controller was for. However, Lost World and Rise of Lyric required
players to use the Pad, which sucked. I haven’t used the Wii U regularly in years
though, I had to drag out of a box for this video, and the one on Sonic Lost World from
a few months back, and damn it was dusty. Point is, the thing was a flop, despite how
many good games were on it. But this brings us back to Sonic. Rise of Lyric was initially not being developed
for the Wii U. This project was in the works for years prior
to 2014, but when SEGA decided to do a new cartoon show, this game, Sonic Synergy, was
reworked significantly to become Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric. And it had to be on Wii U because of SEGA’s
exclusivity deal with Nintendo, even though the CryEngine was not going to work with the
Wii U, as the game was being made for the PS360. SEGA fully knew this game was destined to
be unfinished well before release, and forced it onto Wii U nonetheless. And yes, SEGA knew this game sucked. They didn’t send out review copies of this
game, not before launch, not even at launch. IGN reported on launch day that they went
out and bought copies of it. SEGA was really squeezing every last dollar
out of the game to the point where the people whose job it was to inform consumers about
how bad it was had to buy the game first. I don’t blame Big Red Button for this mess. I blame SEGA. Because the amount of negligence and utter
disregard for the consumers it took to get to this point was entirely on them. They signed that deal with Nintendo, they
knew RoL wasn’t going to work, and instead of delaying it to hopefully get it running
properly, or just make some other Wii U game…they forced this one out, knowing consumers were
being given a poor product, showing they had learned absolutely nothing from Sonic 06’s
poor reception. And honestly, that’s my biggest takeaway
from this game and the state it was released in. I almost don’t care about the game itself
because what matters is that SEGA tried pulling on another fast one on consumers…something
they’d…never do now, except…yeah they do. This is the most important thing about Rise
of Lyric, this “Wii U Deal” for lack of a better phrase, and the game’s being doomed
from the moment it was forced onto the Wii U. This is the critical moment in Sonic’s history
I was talking about, as the result of both were cataclysmic. We’ve been going on for almost 20 minutes
now and haven’t even talked about the gameplay, and that’s because…as established, there
is almost nothing to talk about. Have you ever played a LEGO game? If so, you can understand Rise of Lyric, it’s
the most basic, bland kid’s game you will ever play. You run around areas following icons to destinations
and in levels you beat up enemies and *clears throat* “solve puzzles''. What makes LEGO games fun for the whole family
is that they have a lot of charm, especially adapting decades old properties in fun new
ways for people who have seen them for decades, or perhaps a new generation that never has
before. I loved playing Lego Star Wars or Indiana
Jones back on the Xbox 360. Rise of Lyric is like a Lego game in that
it’s mechanically simplistic and the game has opportunities for co-op, however it’s
unlike LEGO games in that it’s completely bottom of the barrel gameplay that goes for
8 hours and has none of the charm. In fact, it has…anti charm with it’s obnoxious
verbal diarrhea. I just said that you “solve puzzles'' in
this game, but that is stretching the phrase to it’s absolute limit. The most recurring puzzles in this game are
pulling on switches to make something happen, hitting a button to make something happen,
or following a path on the ground in sequence where there is no punishment for stepping
on the wrong one, or just getting off the path entirely. Although this is harder than it seems because
the ground control in this is shockingly awful, despite the slow run speed, and believe…it
is a slow run speed, going in a straight line is difficult because the controls are super
slippery. It’s just supremely unpleasant to play. If that wasn’t bad enough, you also get
copious amounts of combat throughout the campaign. This might be one of the worst combat systems
I have ever played, if you can even call it that. Hours and hours and just beating up the same
enemies, mashing the Y button like there’s no tomorrow. All four characters don’t seem to have much
benefit in combat from one another either. Just keep hitting the same buttons again and
again, doing the same combo over and over. You get the illusion of making it faster with
Sonic’s three hit homing attack or with each character’s charge attack, but this
is combat with…no depth, whatsoever. The attempts at variety like the enerbeam
pulling enemy shields away and random item drops that have limited use only further highlights
how little really is going on with this game. It’s completely mind numbing and yet it
takes up most of the game. But I would like to use this opportunity to
talk about button mashing combat in a more general sense. I think the phrase gets demonized a lot, since
naturally we’d want more complexity in our mechanics, but a simpler combat system is
fine by me. It’s not the amount of combos and mechanics
that matters, it’s the usage of them. For example, in the infamous Devil May Cry
2, Dante has 8 combos with Rebellion, combine that with your various gun tactics and wall
running and DMC2 can be a game that you play like this, if you feel so inclined. This is still a terrible combat system because
it teaches you none of this, is clunky and slow, provides minimal satisfaction and is
just nothing like the other Devil May Cry games. You can also just shoot everything anyway. This is a terribly designed combat system
from top to bottom. But it does have combos in it. By comparison, the fan made, Project Sonic
06 is an awesome combat system which yes, has button mashing like the original Sonic
06, but making it faster and less janky alone is an instant improvement. When you add in satisfying sound and visual
effects on say, Shadow’s chaos snap, you have something inherently satisfying to do
as you zip between enemies mashing the buttons faster to hit them faster. Leveling up the chaos snap to gain extra attacks. There is more I can say about P-06 combat
but…I am just gonna wait for that Silver release video first. This is a combat system with not much in terms
of sheer variety, but in it’s usage, it’s fun. Rise of Lyric is a game where button mashing
combat sucks because the enemies are lame and predictable, death has no threat because
you respawn right where you died, there is no variety in your attacks throughout the
entire lengthy game and so you are just bored out of your mind by the 30 minute mark, and
when you’ve reached that…you still have over 7 hours left. Time where the complexity does not rise in
the slightest bit. There really is nothing to say about the mechanics. I mean, the speed sections are almost all
automated, but when you do have to react it’s a nightmare because of the framerate. The bosses are all predictable rubbish of
tossing things at them with the enerbeam. The platforming is extremely basic and obvious,
the collectibles and “upgrades” provide zero practical use, the side quests are so
lame that Ratchet and Clank Quest for Booty would scoff at them and the story…while
it has more going on than Colors-Lost World, it still feels like a lot is missing here. Such as Sonic having this character arc where
he needs to trust that his friends are capable of protecting themselves, when this was the
debut of Boom Sonic, so we really have no history of these characters. Lyric as a villain offering little other someone
to fight as the game does bupkis with him being from the ancient past and Sonic traveling
back to seal him away for when they found him at the start…unlike 06, actually. Eggman has become a full comic relief character,
as has Knuckles and then Shadow appears out of nowhere for all of two scenes where he
acts like a playground bully and then appears at the end of the game to do nothing again. The point of this game’s story was to setup
the plot of the show, but that doesn’t work for reasons I can explain in the next video,
and besides that, the show has no story so really the only thing that vaguely matters
from this game is the heroes landing on this island and meeting Sticks, who is a regularly
member of their crew in the show, but is a side character NPC in Rise of Lyric, no different
than anyone else. You could say it’s this biplane that is
found in the game and destroyed in the first episode of Boom, but…the plane gets busted
at the end of the game too. Maybe it was fixed, who knows? All I know is, by the end, you feel absolutely
hollow as the final battle with Lyric is the same mundane and predictable combat and platforming
you’ve been doing all game long…but hey, at least you feel relieved that this piece
of crap has finally ended. Roll the E Tier music from Mega Man X7. Sonic Boom Rise Of Lyric, now that I have
finished it for the first time, is absolutely one of the worst Sonic games I’ve ever played. Now, it’s not the worst, that still goes
to Free Riders, which I covered back in May. But that does not leave Rise of Lyric with
many points. This game is just a husk…of nothing. I’ve used the word nothing like 10 times
in this script and that’s because there really aren’t many other words that come
close to describing it. Like I said way earlier, this game is a much
different beast from Sonic 06. That was a game that became so infamous because
of many ways it found to be shockingly awful, from it’s abysmal performance, poor optimization,
janky collision detection, it’s buggy and unfinished nature, it’s wholly unsatisfying
mechanics that kept finding new ways to hit the bottom of the barrel, combined with a
story that left people scratching their heads more than anything else. That’s 06, but in Rise of Lyric…it’s
really just because there is absolutely nothing good about it. It’s the same dull trite for 8 hours that
can barely function without making you think the Wii U’s about to explode. For me, that’s worse. Despite my obviously thinking 06 is a terrible
game, I do have fondness for it that I spent 2 hours detailing in my video from 2020. When comparing Rise of Lyric to 06, I just
think 06 is more interesting as a piece of media that tried to be something grand that
failed spectacularly, versus this awful kids game. Moreover, I see more potential in the final
product of 06. Project 06 goes to show that the level design
and structure of 06 was an intelligent mix of Sonic Adventure 1’s approach, and Sonic
Adventure 2’s. This was just buried by 06’s crap factor. But with an overhaul to it’s mechanics,
it can really shine. In Rise of Lyric’s case…whatever grandiose
adventure Sonic Synergy was trying to be…was long gone by the time the game was in the
hands of the players. To do justice to some…Jak and Daxter level
adventure game starring Sonic and Friends, like Sonic Synergy was trying to be, you’d
have to start completely from scratch because nothing in this game is anything like that
besides the art design. Which again, just leaves Rise of Lyric as
an empty shell of a game. One that I’d like to just forget, but we
can’t. Rise of Lyric is, today, nowhere near as infamous
as Sonic 06. I think that’s partially because 06 was
the first time SEGA truly stunned the masses with a game that lacked quality control to
such a degree. So it really had an effect on people’s perception
of the series, still being an easy target to this day. Rise of Lyric, comparatively, offers little
to make fun of besides the word bounce-pad. But I also think there is an even larger reason
as to why this is the way it is. Sonic 06 was also a game played by over a
million people, launching on the PS3 and Xbox 360…Rise of Lyric…being a Wii U exclusive. Ah, it all comes full circle now. The Wii U’s failure proved cataclysmic for
corporate SEGA’s diabolical scheme. They put a lot of money into the Sonic Boom
launch, and the returns were abysmal as Rise of Lyric was not only the worst reviewed Sonic
game, but also the lowest selling. Giving the Sonic series some actual financial
punishment for releasing an unfinished product, something that did not happen back in 2006. In general, they took every wrong step they
could’ve when doing Sonic Boom. I mean, the show itself, regardless of it’s
quality on it’s own…just feels misguided from it’s inception. Really dialing in on the humor people liked
in Sonic Colors, turning it into a slower paced Sonic sitcom, more or less…that was
meant to appeal to the toy playing aged boys? It wasn’t a good action show, nor did it
have the colors and energy of Teen Titans Go to entertain the really little kids. Combine that with super early airing times
and thus, the Boom show didn’t last past a 2nd season. That last point was out of SEGA’s hand,
but still, I am just saying it wasn’t a success. And the merchandise, where most of the funding
for these kinds of shows comes from, also sold incredibly poorly…when, speaking from
personal experience, Sonic stuff was a hot commodity in toy store aisles back in the
2000s and early 2010s. And then you have the games, which as I said,
also didn’t sell well because of extremely poor word of mouth and the fact that one of
them was a Wii U game, tainting the entire Sonic Boom brand right out of the gate. A multi million dollar disaster, Sonic Boom
was. Resulting in massive layoffs and a couple
of years without a proper new Sonic game. I feel really bad for the people who lost
work because of this, because it was nobody’s fault, besides the suits who, as I said, made
every wrong decision here and tanked their entire project. Only hurting the people who work the everyday
jobs. This is why I think Rise of Lyric had a worse
overall effect on the series from an internal perspective compared to 06. 06 sold well, so we bounced back with Unleashed
just two years later. Colors and Generations moving us in a direction
where 06 could just be a thing of the past. But…Rise of Lyric’s utter failure killed
all that good will, and left a financial hole in the series that you can still feel the
effects of to this day. Which I think is a natural point to end this
video on. I am not quite done with the Sonic Boom brand,
as next week we are going to tackle the handheld Sonic Boom games and discuss how they played
a role in this mess and how my interest in Sonic being killed by Rise of Lyric affected
those games for me. But of course, there’s more. Right after that, we will discuss the beloved
come back game, Sonic Mania…and then, finally, right before the release of Frontiers, we
will circle back to the game that kicked off this entire Sonic Retrospective…Sonic Forces. So stay tuned, a lot of exciting stuff is
coming up on the channel. But until then, I will say what I always do. Thanks everyone for watching, and I will see
you next time.
