Sonic Boom 2014 has come and gone, celebrating all things Sonic.
And it’s appropriate that Sonic Boom would release a new trailer for, well, Sonic Boom.
It won’t be long now until the new take on the franchise arrives, but that’s still
plenty of time to take a closer look at the new trailer thanks to the old Analysis Machine.
Of course, be sure to watch our previous analyses on Sonic Boom as we’ll only be noting the
new stuff here.
With that said, let’s get to it.
The biggest and most obvious thing to note about this new trailer is how it shows off
both Metal Sonic and Shadow.
While we still don’t know their exact roles, there are plenty of clues to how Sonic and
the others will be dealing with them.
First up is Shadow where we get to see what looks like a boss battle against the mysterious
hedgehog.
Sonic and Tails are just wailing on him which makes it difficult to say how the battle will
actually work.
All we can glean from this is that the fight takes place in a rocky circular arena.
The fight leads directly into the following cinematic where Sonic kicks Shadow into some
kind of portal.
There’s no indication as to what this portal could really be, but it could tie into our
previous theory that time travel could be involved.
Maybe Shadow is an ancient warrior from the time of Lyric, and the portals are his way
to the present.
Though that doesn’t explain how that portal is just waiting there for Shadow to be kicked
through.
That’s not the end of Shadow though.
Later in the trailer we see him interacting with Sonic and Tails again.
It’s unclear what they’re talking about, but it seems Shadow has his own goals as he
just runs past the two this time.
It’s very likely that as the game goes on, Shadow will become an ally.
And there’s even evidence of this as Shadow can be seen just casually hanging out with
Sonic’s entire team.
If we had to guess, Shadow might attack Sonic initially because he released Lyric and thinks
the blue hedgehog is an ally of the ancient evil.
Gradually the two must team up in order to take down the bigger threat.
We can’t say for sure of course, but the last we see of Shadow is during a rival race
against Sonic in the 3DS version of Sonic Boom.
We already know that Shattered Crystals takes place after Rise of Lyric so it seems the
two hedgehogs will likely settle into their friendly rivalry like the main games eventually.
The same can’t be said for Metal Sonic who looks to stay a constant threat to Sonic.
There seems to be several encounters with the doppelganger throughout the game.
During Metal Sonic’s first appearance in the trailer, he’s chasing Sonic and Tails
through a forested area.
Even down to his introduction, it’s vaguely reminiscent of past encounters with Metal.
But we don’t actually see how this fight goes.
Instead, the scene shifts to a new area and now Knuckles and Amy are there.
This battle seems to have two phases: one where the camera faces Sonic and Metal comes
flying in from behind complete with massive winds and a series of explosions, and another
where Metal throws balls at Sonic.
But rather than using them to homing attack toward Metal, Sonic instead spins into a ball
lying on the track to send it at Metal.
We can also see that Sonic is also able to quick-change lanes in order to avoid Metal
Sonic’s attacks.
We still don’t know when these confrontations will happen though.
All we know is that Metal Sonic seems to be a constant presence in the game.
During the cutscene where Sonic is about to grab the green Chaos Crystal, Metal flies
in to stop him.
By this point, all of the characters know Metal, but it doesn’t look like he’ll
be gone after the events of Rise of Lyric.
Once again, we can see that Metal Sonic will be one of the rival races in Shattered Crystals.
There’s nothing else new about this race though.
But that doesn’t mean there isn’t more to see in the new trailer.
Several new areas could be seen, some of which seem to be hub worlds.
One is in the middle of a lake that seems to be in the center of a valley.
Several houses on sticks can be seen and there’s little evidence of actual hazards, giving
further proof that it’s a new hub.
There’s another as well that’s based around a dock.
It’s not the same body of water either as the surrounding area makes it look more like
a canyon and the trees are now all pine.
The buildings even feel like a town since one building looks to be a restaurant, complete
with a fish skeleton sign next to the door.
Beyond the hubs, we also see a small snippet of a new platforming section for Amy.
There’s not much else to see, but the next scene does show off a simple puzzle.
Knuckles has to punch apart large blocks including the one that looks to be blocking a laser.
Destroying it will likely allow the laser to hit the panel on the other side.
This will probably activate some kind of platform that will allow Amy, who’s partnered with
Knuckles here, to cross the nearby rails.
There’s even a new boss battle shown though the boss is actually the same worm that was
shown off at the end of the Sonic Boom reveal trailer.
Here we can see that Sonic and the others were somehow able to daze it.
All of them grab it with their Enerbeams and will likely slam it into something else in
order to really damage it.
But the most interesting new gameplay scene comes toward the end of the trailer.
Sonic and Amy can be seen piloting some kind of underwater vehicle, blowing up mines in
one scene while trying to avoid robotic octopi in the next.
This is the first we’ve seen anything of this gameplay style in the Wii U version,
and we wonder if it will appear throughout the game in different circumstances.
What we do know is that this sequence likely comes after the E3 demo level featuring Sonic
and Amy.
In that, they were running from a robot just like this.
We can’t quite place what that glowing yellow box in the background is though.
It may be some kind of collectible or maybe something that will power up the vehicles
weapons.
We’re really not sure.
The trailer ends by showing off the confrontations against Lyric in both the Wii U and 3DS versions.
We still don’t know if this battle is the final one in Rise of Lyric, but we’re positive
that the fight against him in Shattered Crystals is toward the beginning of the game.
After all, every one of Sonic’s friends is still captured in the background of this
fight, and we know that he starts off alone in the game.
Okay, we’re almost done here, but there is one last scene we want to highlight.
In it, the team is riding on Tails’ new plane, but they actually have one extra passenger.
This is Cliff who is described as being well-versed in the history of Lyric’s people.
Maybe he’s actually joining the others in order to help them find out more about the
new villain.
Or it could be that they’re helping Cliff find something he’s been looking for since
his profile on the Sega blog lists this trait as well.
But what strikes us as the most odd is that everyone stands up while on the plane, including
Tails.
So does this mean that he’s not the pilot?
There’s still a lot of mystery surrounding the Sonic Boom games.
It’s a new take on Sonic that may or may not pay off, but it has enough elements that
we’re definitely curious.
Of course, if we missed anything, be sure to let us know in the comments.
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