The Sonic suit seems to be unique. Compare it to the Japanese launch event (which had a much better suit). I could swear there was also a Sonic suit used for the American launch, but all I can find photos of are celebrities for that one (like Melissa Joan Hart playing it).
The last few episodes uploaded have Christmas decorations, show off children's gift ideas and feature costumed guests (so far, Barney, Elmo and Leapfrog). I've got a good feeling about this...
Sonic Speed Simulator is a Sonic the Hedgehog game built in the Roblox engine. It's made by Gamefam under official license from SEGA. It's a sort of 3D platformer akin to the Sonic Adventure games, though the levels, called "worlds," are open-ended with no end goal, with the next world instead being unlocked by meeting certain conditions. It also has no real overarching story, just a bunch of small "excuse plots" to follow in order to unlock things. There was a paid beta period starting on March 30, 2022 before the official free-to-play launch on April 16. It was totally revamped on February 10, 2023 as Sonic Speed Simulator: Reborn. This revamp wiped all players' save data and they had to start over from scratch. The Reborn subtitle was dropped soon afterward, but the game currently runs identically to it.
What's lost here, besides the pre-Reborn player save data? Pre-Reborneverything. All the Worlds and Quests from the beta and Legacy versions of the game were removed. There are some Worlds in the Reborn version that have the same names as Worlds from the Beta and Legacy versions (Green Hill, for example), but they don't use the same maps; they're built from scratch.
I see little hope of this stuff ever seeing the light of day again. I never played this game until after the Reborn relaunch, so I don't even have personal experience with any of the lost content.
Do you have any relevant links?
There's a Sonic Speed Simulator Wiki with a category for Legacy content. It's Fandom, which is not always reliable, but it can be corroborated by YouTube videos and stuff like that. Here is a video comparing Lost Valley between the two versions. It's very different. For example, in the Legacy version, you can actually walk on the broken Death Egg Robot, apparently. In the current version, it's way off in the distance out of bounds. The pyramid is also much, much smaller in the Legacy version and can't be entered.
Last Edit: Apr 15, 2024 4:58:43 GMT by teridaxxd001
Sonic Speed Simulator is a Sonic the Hedgehog game built in the Roblox engine. It's made by Gamefam under official license from SEGA. It's a sort of 3D platformer akin to the Sonic Adventure games, though the levels, called "worlds," are open-ended with no end goal, with the next world instead being unlocked by meeting certain conditions. It also has no real overarching story, just a bunch of small "excuse plots" to follow in order to unlock things. There was a paid beta period starting on March 30, 2022 before the official free-to-play launch on April 16. It was totally revamped on February 10, 2023 as Sonic Speed Simulator: Reborn. This revamp wiped all players' save data and they had to start over from scratch. The Reborn subtitle was dropped soon afterward, but the game currently runs identically to it.
What's lost here, besides the pre-Reborn player save data? Pre-Reborneverything. All the Worlds and Quests from the beta and Legacy versions of the game were removed. There are some Worlds in the Reborn version that have the same names as Worlds from the Beta and Legacy versions (Green Hill, for example), but they don't use the exact same maps; they're built mostly from scratch (some assets are reused and the layouts of certain areas are similar, but they're not the same). A gameplay feature that was lost completely is the "Obbies" (short for "obstacle courses"). An Obby, whose portal could be unlocked upon leveling up to a specific number, was sort of a short, transitional stage that needed to cleared in order to reach the next World, which in turn had its in portal at the end of its Obby. In the current version, each has a portal leading directly to every other World, and these portals are unlocked by completing a Quest specific to each one (certain Worlds are unlocked by default, without needing to complete a Quest).
I see little hope of this stuff ever seeing the light of day again. I never played this game until after the Reborn relaunch, so I don't even have personal experience with any of the lost content.
Last Edit: Apr 15, 2024 5:10:45 GMT by teridaxxd001
Sonic Adventure is my favorite game and unearthing any promotional material is a good thing. Are we sure it's from 1998? The English version wasn't released until 1999. I know it was delayed a couple times in 1998, but that was only for the Japanese version, which Ryan Drummond was not involved with.
It says December 23, 1998, which is not so coincidentally the game's exact release date in Japan. At this point, development on the localization had not started yet (source). It's possible Ryan Drummond had already been hired, but I have no idea at what point casting took place.
I say the IMDb broadcast gate is a guess based on the Japanese release date, especially since the episode number is "unknown" and so is the season. It's happened before: IMDb has an entry for the American Pokémon Red and Blue commercial, with a release year of 1996, which is laughable, since they weren't even selected for localization at that point (unlike Sonic, it was a brand new franchise and the anime and TCG, which further cemented its success and were both packaged into the international premiere virtually simultaneously, hadn't even begun in Japan at yet). I once tried to correct this, but they rejected my correction with "hurr durr you have no proof hurr durr," so whatever, if they wanna be wrong, they can be wrong, I guess.
On a more positive note, Rosie O'Donnell's official YouTube channel seems to be uploading full episodes of her show in more-or-less broadcast quality (emphasis on "broadcast" since the TV-G bug is in the upper-left-hand corner after fade-ins) at a rate of about one episode per day, and, as of 15 hours ago, is somewhere in 1999. If I'm correct about the date being a mistake, we may soon be getting this episode.
Last Edit: Apr 6, 2024 7:23:25 GMT by teridaxxd001
The Nightmare Before Christmas had something like this when it was re-released in 3D when I was in high school. It was a countdown to the movie starting with the pumpkin jack-in-the-box winding up and then popping out toward the audience.
Pokémon the Movie: The Story of Us also had exclusive Who's That Pokémon? segments and a short documentary...which I actually made my own recording of. There's all kinds of stuff like this that's lost. I also distinctly remember one of those messages that plays before movies asking you to turn off cell phones and pagers, except it was one of the robots from I, Robot (which I never saw, so it was playing before other movies too, and I think think was before that movie was actually released, making it part of a buildup ad campaign). He said something like "As much as I enjoy modern technology, please turn off all cell phones before the movie starts." I've never been able to find it, and now it's over 20 years old.
Three of them are public domain, theoretically meaning anyone could sell them without legal repercussion, but one of the three, All This and Rabbit Stew, stars Bugs Bunny, who is still protected under copyright, throwing the notion of anyone other than Warner Bros. selling it into questionable territory. They don't own the film anymore, but they may try to block a release because they own a character appearing in it.
True, though many public domain VHS and DVD releases did contain the short, I actually used to own one of them as a kid.
Come to think of it, I have this tape in my basement somewhere, which for some bizarre reason has the similarly controversial Bugs Bunny cartoon Fresh Hare at the end, completely uncut (I know the ending is racist, but it's also kind of hilarious in the sense that it's a completely ridiculous non sequitur). I've also seen public domain compilation videos that have Porky Pig or Daffy Duck on the front cover, but they always look kinda...off. I wonder if Disney will show any restraint to similar situations now that Steamboat Willie is PD (I kind of doubt it).
Last Edit: Feb 9, 2024 8:30:17 GMT by teridaxxd001
Three of them are public domain, theoretically meaning anyone could sell them without legal repercussion, but one of the three, All This and Rabbit Stew, stars Bugs Bunny, who is still protected under copyright, throwing the notion of anyone other than Warner Bros. selling it into questionable territory. They don't own the film anymore, but they may try to block a release because they own a character appearing in it.
Ah, yes. Nintendo of Europe's sites being excluded from the Wayback Machine has hindered my other projects several times, like documenting PAL Virtual Console releases. It's incredibly annoying, considering the American and Japanese branches seem to have no problem with being archived. What's the big deal? It's usually sites with illegal or legally grey content that are excluded. Are they hiding something?
The 1953 broadcast of The Three Railway Engines. The chances it were simultaneously recorded are basically zero. Also, the full version of Beowulf is highly unlikely to ever be preserved, I'd gather.
Sonic Adventure is my favorite game and unearthing any promotional material is a good thing. Are we sure it's from 1998? The English version wasn't released until 1999. I know it was delayed a couple times in 1998, but that was only for the Japanese version, which Ryan Drummond was not involved with.