The New Sonic Game Looks Goofy as Sh**… and Then the Dubstep Happens

Let the trailer for the new Sonic the Hedgehog reboot, Sonic Boom for the Wii U, leave you feeling like a confused old person. The new character designs are really weird looking in 3D, and Knuckles looks like some kind of `roided out fan art. Then the dubstep kicks in. You can almost hear Sega begging the younger generation to get on board.

I’m legitimately having trouble telling if the trailer is an overly cheesy attempt to make Sonic cool and relevant again, or if I’m just an old guy now. It’s probably some unfortunate mix of the two. Setting prejudice against this kind of reboot aside, the character designs, which look pretty good when hand drawn, look pretty bad in the game. Here they are for comparison:

I don’t know if it’s because they look like they’re made out of plastic or if it’s because Sonic’s brow and forehead look like they come from Cro-Magnon man and his face is too small for his head, but this is by far my least favorite version of Sonic. The other characters look pretty good after getting over the initial shock of Knuckles now being giant, but it’s hard to make a case that they’re new and improved.

It looks like Sega wants to do just that, though, as you can see in the tweet above that the new look is getting its own new TV show and toys, which you can read all about on their blog (they’ve got some more concept art over there that’s pretty good, too). To be fair, I’m now afraid to ever watch the old Sonic TV shows again, because they were probably aimed at my generation just as awkwardly.

(via Polygon, image SegaAmerica via YouTube)

Meanwhile in related links

• Drown your sorrows in Sonic 2 for your phone
• Sonic: The Lost World had some dark dialogue
• First person Sonic is a disorienting experience

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Dan Van Winkle

Dan Van Winkle (he) is an editor and manager who has been working in digital media since 2013, first at now-defunct Geekosystem (RIP), and then at The Mary Sue starting in 2014, specializing in gaming, science, and technology. Outside of his professional experience, he has been active in video game modding and development as a hobby for many years. He lives in North Carolina with Lisa Brown (his wife) and Liz Lemon (their dog), both of whom are the best, and you will regret challenging him at Smash Bros.

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