Driven for the Disk: an alternate timeline about the Nintendo 64, 64DD, and the wider 5th generation of video gaming and the culture surrounding it

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anchorman2k3

anchorman2k3

Aah, the 5th generation of video games... arguably, the one that propulsed gaming back onto the mainstream. It's famous for a lot of reasons, including the meteoric rise of Sony in the gaming space, the disgraceful fall of Sega, the advent of 3D graphics... I could name a lot. But still, the main focus of this ATL will be about, of couse, Nintendo, Sega, Sony and their efforts during the 5th generation of gaming. Granted, Sony utterly destoryed Sega and had Nintendo cornered. And Nintendo was still king of the handheld space, however. But what if it wasn't the case? What if Nintendo and Sega put up a better fight? What if the Saturn lasted longer? What if the 64DD wasn't a flop and came out when it should have? What if the WonderSwan wasn't that big of a failure? This is basically the purpose of this ATL. This will also affect pop culture-related affairs. I hope this goes well.

@RySenkari and @Nivek have to be the biggest inspirations of course with Player Two Start (I won't try to copy too much, I promise! But there's definitively inspiration from your ATL.)

English isn't my native language, so feel free to correct me whenever I make mistakes.

WonderswanColor-1.jpg
394176-n64_disc_drive.jpg
1142464-sega_saturn.jpg
 
Before the drive...
  • Index
    • anchorman2k3

    anchorman2k3

    Nintendo and Sony were planning a CD add-on for the SNES in the early 90s... all was going smoothly, and prototypes were built, but Nintendo despised Sony's terms (such as them owning licensing rights for games made for the add-on), and backstabbed them, going with Phillips for the pheripheral isntead. This worked out oh so well IOTL... yeah. So this resulted in the PlayStation, which ended up selling 100 million units, and the CD-i games, which Nintendo pretends they don't exist to this day. Yikes. But they're still here to this day, and recovered in a great fashion. The Nintendo Switch's arguably the most popular video game system of the moment, beating the PS4 and PS5 by a margin.

    Sega, on the other hand, looked like they could actually stand out to Sony. But internal politics were terrible to say the very least. The Sega 32X happened, the Nomad happened and the Saturn ended up performing much, much worse than the Nintendo 64. The whole ordeal ended up booting them off of the video game hardware business, relegating them to third-party developer.

    Bandai, Apple, even SNK... they tried to enter the home console market, to various results. SNK already had the Neo Geo, and the NGPC, while niche, was considered a good system. The Wonderswan was slightly better off, but the Pippin was a fiasco that put all parties involved (especially Bandai) under condesirable financial stress.

    Sony was all-new, and a bit inexperienced, but they weren't stupid. They knew what worked and what didn't, and knew how to take risks.

    So that's what happened IOTL. However, ITTL, this won't be that way.

    For Nintendo, Project Reality is going strong. Nintendo of America assembled their own "Dream Team" of game developers, with reccomendations from the European branch. Likewise, NCL had their own all-star team, but it was kept to secrecy. As for the hardware side, they collaborated with SGI (which approached their rival, Sega, but it never went any further than phone calls and meetings) for a killer machine. A 64-bit CPU, four megabytes of memory RAM, among countless other additions, but the one that made most curious was doing away with cartridges. Nintendo initially stated pushback against moving away from cartridges. Their main arguments at the time were how CD-ROMs, despite having very low manufacture costs and much more data storage, had long load times and could be easy enough to copy. Cartridges, expensive to manufacture and having limited data storage, had very low load times and were hard to copy. So, they sought to use a stopgap: the floppy disk. Nintendo's IR&D division decided to produce the console with cartridges as the primary way to load games onto the console, with an external slot could fit add-ons such as a pheripheral using proprietary magnetic floppy disks. Online multiplaying (using a proprietary modem and Ethernet cable combo) is integrated via the help of Netscape. Other uses for internet were thought up, but NCL insisted on ones that would enhance gameplay first and foremost.

    Sega... where to begin... the 32X? Butterflied. That was a mess. Sure, an entry-level 32-bit add-on to the Genesis might sound entiticing, but it means talent not working towards software for the Sega Saturn, not to forget what happened with the Sega CD. So, they ditch it and any planned games would go on the Saturn instead. The Sega Saturn's hardware itself had a bit of a story: initially, Sega of America went to SGI, but that was nixed by the Japanese brass. Likewise for a deal with Sony. So, Sega allied with Hitachi, a Japanese electronics leader, to concieve the console's hardware. The famous SuperH RISC Engine was a powerful yet cost-effective 32-bit CPU. The Saturn initially had one VDP, but when Sega executives heard about the PlayStation's specs, they ended up adding another one at the last second, just before the hardware was finalized. But most famously, aside of its use of CD-ROMs. A slot for RAM extension cartridges also lets developers expand the available Memory RAM.

    The market looked alluring to Apple... but they decided to stay within their lane.

    Bandai knows it's wiser to just stick making IP-based games for consoles rather than making their own home consoles. But they were witnessing the fallout between Nintendo and Gunpei Yokoi, thanks to the disaster that was the Virtual Boy. So, they pass a few phone calls, deals are set in motion, and a new wonder is set to shake the world of handheld gaming...
     
    Last edited:
  • Index
    • Otakuninja2006

    Otakuninja2006

    anchorman2k3 said:
    Aah, the 5th generation of video games... arguably, the one that propulsed gaming back onto the mainstream. It's famous for a lot of reasons, including the meteoric rise of Sony in the gaming space, the disgraceful fall of Sega, the advent of 3D graphics... I could name a lot. But still, the main focus of this ATL will be about, of couse, Nintendo, Sega, Sony and their efforts during the 5th generation of gaming. Granted, Sony utterly destoryed Sega and had Nintendo cornered. And Nintendo was still king of the handheld space, however. But what if it wasn't the case? What if Nintendo and Sega put up a better fight? What if the Saturn lasted longer? What if the 64DD wasn't a flop and came out when it should have? What if the WonderSwan wasn't that big of a failure? This is basically the purpose of this ATL. This will also affect pop culture-related affairs. I hope this goes well.

    @RySenkari and @Nivek have to be the biggest inspirations of course with Player Two Start (I won't try to copy too much, I promise! But there's definitively inspiration from your ATL.)

    English isn't my native language, so feel free to correct me whenever I make mistakes.

    View attachment 868932View attachment 868929View attachment 868930
    Click to expand...
    Cool! So the N64DD is a thing, the Wonderswan is actually successful and the Saturn isn't screwed over?
    anchorman2k3 said:
    Nintendo and Sony were planning a CD add-on for the SNES in the early 90s... all was going smoothly, and prototypes were built, but Nintendo despised Sony's terms (such as them owning licensing rights for games made for the add-on), and backstabbed them, going with Phillips for the pheripheral isntead. This worked out oh so well IOTL... yeah. So this resulted in the PlayStation, which ended up selling 100 million units, and the CD-i games, which Nintendo pretends they don't exist to this day. Yikes. But they're still here to this day, and recovered in a great fashion. The Nintendo Switch's arguably the most popular video game system of the moment, beating the PS4 and PS5 by a margin.

    Sega, on the other hand, looked like they could actually stand out to Sony. But internal politics were terrible to say the very least. The Sega 32X happened, the Nomad happened and the Saturn ended up performing much, much worse than the Nintendo 64. The whole ordeal ended up booting them off of the video game hardware business, relegating them to third-party developer.

    Bandai, Apple, even SNK... they tried to enter the home console market, to various results. SNK already had the Neo Geo, and the NGPC, while niche, was considered a good system. The Wonderswan was slightly better off, but the Pippin was a fiasco that put all parties involved (especially Bandai) under condesirable financial stress.

    Sony was all-new, and a bit inexperienced, but they weren't stupid. They knew what worked and what didn't, and knew how to take risks.

    So that's what happened IOTL. However, ITTL, this won't be that way.

    For Nintendo, Project Reality is going strong. Nintendo of America assembled their own "Dream Team" of game developers, with reccomendations from the European branch. Likewise, NCL had their own all-star team, but it was kept to secrecy. As for the hardware side, they collaborated with SGI (which approached their rival, Sega, but it never went any further than phone calls and meetings) for a killer machine. A 64-bit CPU, four megabytes of memory RAM, among countless other additions, but the one that made most curious was doing away with cartridges. Nintendo initially stated pushback against moving away from cartridges. Their main arguments at the time were how CD-ROMs, despite having very low manufacture costs and much more data storage, had long load times and could be easy enough to copy. Cartridges, expensive to manufacture and having limited data storage, had very low load times and were hard to copy. So, they sought to use a stopgap: the floppy disk. Nintendo's IR&D division decided to produce the console with cartridges as the primary way to load games onto the console, with an external slot could fit add-ons such as a pheripheral using proprietary magnetic floppy disks. Online multiplaying (using a proprietary modem and Ethernet cable combo) is integrated via the help of Netscape. Other uses for internet were thought up, but NCL insisted on ones that would enhance gameplay first and foremost.

    Sega... where to begin... the 32X? Butterflied. That was a mess. Sure, an entry-level 32-bit add-on to the Genesis might sound entiticing, but it means talent not working towards software for the Sega Saturn, not to forget what happened with the Sega CD. So, they ditch it and any planned games would go on the Saturn instead. The Sega Saturn's hardware itself had a bit of a story: initially, Sega of America went to SGI, but that was nixed by the Japanese brass. Likewise for a deal with Sony. So, Sega allied with Hitachi, a Japanese electronics leader, to concieve the console's hardware. The famous SuperH RISC Engine was a powerful yet cost-effective 32-bit CPU. The Saturn initially had one VDP, but when Sega executives heard about the PlayStation's specs, they ended up adding another one at the last second, just before the hardware was finalized. But most famously, aside of its use of CD-ROMs. A slot for RAM extension cartridges also lets developers expand the available Memory RAM.

    The market looked alluring to Apple... but they decided to stay within their lane.

    Bandai knows it's wiser to just stick making IP-based games for consoles rather than making their own home consoles. But they were witnessing the fallout between Nintendo and Gunpei Yokoi, thanks to the disaster that was the Virtual Boy. So, they pass a few phone calls, deals are set in motion, and a new wonder is set to shake the world of handheld gaming...
    Click to expand...
    Cool! I can't wait to see what you come up with!
     
    Driving forward!
  • Index
    • anchorman2k3

    anchorman2k3

    1996 was a notable year. The SNES and the Sega Genesis saw their final major game releases, the PlayStation saw a deluge of them, the Saturn hanged on, the Virtual Boy passed on while the Nintendo 64 finally released. Oh, and swans.

    Nintendo decided to delay the Nintendo 64 and all related software and accessories; the hardware was ready, but the games were not. Nintendo had presented 12 N64 game demos to its Space World 1995 trade show, and everyone was wowed. Super Mario 64 especially looked like it was going to revolutionize gaming as a whole. To many's surprise, Nintendo felt the Nintendo 64 and its software weren't ready, so they went back to the kitchen, and focused on the remainder of SNES software they had in their pipeline. The Virtual Boy, you ask? Noboby cared for that. So they relaunched it, with some great games like Bound High! Zero Racers, Dragon Hopper, but the fact they were on the Virtual Boy didn't help, at all.

    So, for the marquee late SNES games:
    Star Fox 2 (or Starwing 2 in PAL regions), a rail shooting game pushing the absolute limits of the aging 16-bit hardware using the Super FX 2 chip. After being beaten, Andross returns, bigger and badder than before, loaded with warfare and manpower. It's up to Star Fox and their new arsenal of Arwings to save the Lylat System again! While reviews noted the hardware's age, this is still an excellent game, and many say it's much better than the first game, with free-roaming, robot walkers, a strategy system. It manages to sell a respectable million copies.

    Terranigma stars a... well I'll let you know people really liked this action RPG. Enix's American branch shut down, but Nintendo was interested into localizaing this game, believing it could be a worthy contender. It didn't win any awards, but it was good. Reception of its difficulty level was mixed though. This game sold 200k copies in Japan, but only did half of that in the rest of the world, combined. Nintendo of America didn't care, as the good reception was enough to ensure more collaboration with Enix on importing their titles.

    There would be other good games (Super Mario RPG, Megaman X3, Kirby Super Stars, Mortal Kombat Trilogy, Puzzle League, Killer Instinct 2), and the SNES would have a good way out. That last batch of 20 games or so was pretty decent all around.

    The Genesis on the other hand... yeah... a lot of... well they released Vectorman 2, Sonic 3D, Virtual Fighter Animation... not bad all around. But it arguably died a quicker death than the SNES.

    The Game Gear... let's skip that one. Yeah, it was already dead by mid-1996. There were exactly 21 games released in '96.

    The Game Boy was originally poised the same fate... until the February 1996 release of Pocket Monsters Red & Green. I don't need to tell you how it happened, and what happened after, but you could tell those monsters were here to stay. Nintendo decided to acquire Game Freak: those fellas needed direction. A lot of smart people, but they really needed direction. And besides, Pokémon made a lot of money. And it resurrected the aging Game Boy! Of course, an update fixing the most glaring errors of this game was sold through mail-order starting October 1996. It also spurred the development of a Color upgrade to the Game Boy. The Pocket could fill, you know, your pockets, but that was it. And Gunpei Yokoi wasn't exactly on good terms with Nintendo after the Virtual Boy's rushed development and failures. (Yes, failures in plural.)

    He eventually founded Koto with the help of numerous colleagues, and Bandai passed him a few phone calls. They had an electronic pet-raising device Aki Maita and Akihiro Yokoi were making, and asked if there were some improvements to be made before the device went to market. I'm not going to explain what's a Tamagotchi, but it became school teachers and TOMY's worst nightmares. 13 million copies sold out. This eventually lead to the creation of a boys-oriened alternative, Digital Monsters, partially because while Tamagotchi caught on like wildfire to girls, boys were a bit wary and preferred Pokémon. Yeah... Nintendo and Game Freak got some competition alright...


    So, about the Nintendo 64? I said it was delayed earlier because...no good games, according to Nintendo. Everyone thought otherwise, but when the console and the select launch titles eventually shipped come November 1996, they realized the Big N were right. Super Mario 64? 100/10. It had many game developers terrified. The Control Stick agremented perfectly Mario's new arsenal of moves, and let him run freely. The worlds were immersive and open-ended. The objectives were unique and imaginative. Hardly anything bad, aside of Luigi MIA. Mario Kart 64? 100/10. Perfect racing game. 16 thrill-filled tracks, 4-player action, multiple options. Pilotwings 64? 9/10. Killer Instinct Gold? 8/10. Shadows of the Empire? 8/10. A bit clunky, and nowhere near as polished as Nintendo's games, but LucasArts made an good third-persion action game, and the story was excellent. Cruis'n USA? Arguably the worst game of the lineup, but still fun nonthenless.

    The 64DD and its features were announced at the Space World 1996 event, with the following games: an untitled Super Mario 64 expansion/disk port, Mario Paint 64, Pocket Monsters Stadium, Mission: Impossible, an Orge Battle entry, SimCity 64, SimCopter 64, Jungle Emperor Leo, Derby Stallion 64, a Namco sports game, a Namco RPG, a project from Capcom, and a certain infamously-delayed game coming from the Brits at DMA.
    But a certain announcement made Enix and Nintendo's stocks soar tremendously: Dragon Quest VII. Enix was very confident the title felt at home on Nintendo's platform, and demonstrated you could make great titles with limited storage. Nintendo's proprietary magnetic floppy disk format was sizeable, but still not like a CD. The 64DD's expanded audio library fit Sugiyama's music like a glove. More on that later...

    The Saturn was hanging there. Magic Knight Rayearth, based on an anime airing on Kids'WB, was a rather easy action RPG. Previsously released in August 1995 in Japan, this July 1996 release stars Lucy, Marina and Anemone being whisked away into the land of Cephiro, to defend it from High Priest Zagato's minions. Cyber Sled Remix, from Namco Hometek and Climax Software, was a great port of an arcade car combat game, featuring a singleplayer story, more maps and more vehicles. Dungeons & Dragons: Tower of Doom and Street Fighter Alpha 2 showed that arcade-perfect conversions were going to be a standard on the platform. We of course can't forget games like Bedlam, Re-Loaded, Killing Time and Olympic Games, who did nothing but dampen the Saturn's reputation; the PlayStation had an endless stream of games and most of them were a lot better. But everything's alright, as Sega has an ace up their sleeve...
     
    Last edited:
  • Index
    • Otakuninja2006

    Otakuninja2006

    anchorman2k3 said:
    1996 was a notable year. The SNES and the Sega Genesis saw their final major game releases, the PlayStation saw a deluge of them, the Saturn hanged on, the Virtual Boy passed on while the Nintendo 64 finally released. Oh, and swans.

    Nintendo decided to delay the Nintendo 64 and all related software and accessories; the hardware was ready, but the games were not. Nintendo had presented 12 N64 game demos to its Space World 1995 trade show, and everyone was wowed. Super Mario 64 especially looked like it was going to revolutionize gaming as a whole. To many's surprise, Nintendo felt the Nintendo 64 and its software weren't ready, so they went back to the kitchen, and focused on the remainder of SNES software they had in their pipeline. The Virtual Boy, you ask? Noboby cared for that. So they relaunched it, with some great games like Bound High! Zero Racers, Dragon Hopper, but the fact they were on the Virtual Boy didn't help, at all.

    So, for the marquee late SNES games:
    Star Fox 2 (or Starwing 2 in PAL regions), a rail shooting game pushing the absolute limits of the aging 16-bit hardware using the Super FX 2 chip. After being beaten, Andross returns, bigger and badder than before, loaded with warfare and manpower. It's up to Star Fox and their new arsenal of Arwings to save the Lylat System again! While reviews noted the hardware's age, this is still an excellent game, and many say it's much better than the first game, with free-roaming, robot walkers, a strategy system. It manages to sell a respectable million copies.

    Terranigma stars a... well I'll let you know people really liked this action RPG. Enix's American branch shut down, but Nintendo was interested into localizaing this game, believing it could be a worthy contender. It didn't win any awards, but it was good. Reception of its difficulty level was mixed though. This game sold 200k copies in Japan, but only did half of that in the rest of the world, combined. Nintendo of America didn't care, as the good reception was enough to ensure more collaboration with Enix on importing their titles.

    There would be other good games (Super Mario RPG, Megaman X3, Kirby Super Stars, Mortal Kombat Trilogy, Puzzle League, Killer Instinct 2), and the SNES would have a good way out. That last batch of 20 games or so was pretty decent all around.

    The Genesis on the other hand... yeah... a lot of... well they released Vectorman 2, Sonic 3D, Virtual Fighter Animation... not bad all around. But it arguably died a quicker death than the SNES.

    The Game Gear... let's skip that one. Yeah, it was already dead by mid-1996. There were exactly 21 games released in '96.

    The Game Boy was originally poised the same fate... until the February 1996 release of Pocket Monsters Red & Green. I don't need to tell you how it happened, and what happened after, but you could tell those monsters were here to stay. Nintendo decided to acquire Game Freak: those fellas needed direction. A lot of smart people, but they really needed direction. And besides, Pokémon made a lot of money. And it resurrected the aging Game Boy! Of course, an update fixing the most glaring errors of this game was sold through mail-order starting October 1996. It also spurred the development of a Color upgrade to the Game Boy. The Pocket could fill, you know, your pockets, but that was it. And Gunpei Yokoi wasn't exactly on good terms with Nintendo after the Virtual Boy's rushed development and failures. (Yes, failures in plural.)

    He eventually founded Koto with the help of numerous colleagues, and Bandai passed him a few phone calls. They had an electronic pet-raising device Aki Maita and Akihiro Yokoi were making, and asked if there were some improvements to be made before the device went to market. I'm not going to explain what's a Tamagotchi, but it became school teachers and TOMY's worst nightmares. 13 million copies sold out. This eventually lead to the creation of a boys-oriened alternative, Digital Monsters, partially because while Tamagotchi caught on like wildfire to girls, boys were a bit wary and preferred Pokémon. Yeah... Nintendo and Game Freak got some competition alright...


    So, about the Nintendo 64? I said it was delayed earlier because...no good games, according to Nintendo. Everyone thought otherwise, but when the console and the select launch titles eventually shipped come November 1996, they realized the Big N were right. Super Mario 64? 100/10. It had many game developers terrified. The Control Stick agremented perfectly Mario's new arsenal of moves, and let him run freely. The worlds were immersive and open-ended. The objectives were unique and imaginative. Hardly anything bad, aside of Luigi MIA. Mario Kart 64? 100/10. Perfect racing game. 16 thrill-filled tracks, 4-player action, multiple options. Pilotwings 64? 9/10. Killer Instinct Gold? 8/10. Shadows of the Empire? 8/10. A bit clunky, and nowhere near as polished as Nintendo's games, but LucasArts made an good third-persion action game, and the story was excellent. Cruis'n USA? Arguably the worst game of the lineup, but still fun nonthenless.

    The 64DD and its features were announced at the Space World 1996 event, with the following games: an untitled Super Mario 64 expansion/disk port, Mario Paint 64, Pocket Monsters Stadium, Mission: Impossible, an Orge Battle entry, SimCity 64, SimCopter 64, Jungle Emperor Leo, Derby Stallion 64, a Namco sports game, a Namco RPG, a project from Capcom, and a certain infamously-delayed game coming from the Brits at DMA.
    But a certain announcement made Enix and Nintendo's stocks soar tremendously: Dragon Quest VII. Enix was very confident the title felt at home on Nintendo's platform, and demonstrated you could make great titles with limited storage. Nintendo's proprietary magnetic floppy disk format was sizeable, but still not like a CD. The 64DD's expanded audio library fit Sugiyama's music like a glove. More on that later...

    The Saturn was hanging there. Magic Knight Rayearth, based on an anime airing on Kids'WB, was a rather easy action RPG. Previsously released in August 1995 in Japan, this July 1996 release stars Lucy, Marina and Anemone being whisked away into the land of Cephiro, to defend it from High Priest Zagato's minions. Cyber Sled Remix, from Namco Hometek and Climax Software, was a great port of an arcade car combat game, featuring a singleplayer story, more maps and more vehicles. Dungeons & Dragons: Tower of Doom and Street Fighter Alpha 2 showed that arcade-perfect conversions were going to be a standard on the platform. We of course can't forget games like Bedlam, Re-Loaded, Killing Time and Olympic Games, who did nothing but dampen the Saturn's reputation; the PlayStation had an endless stream of games and most of them were a lot better. But everything's alright, as Sega has an ace up their sleeve...
    Click to expand...
    Great update, but how did Magic Knight Rayearth wind up on Kids' WB?
     
    Driven at supersonic speeds!
  • Index
    • anchorman2k3

    anchorman2k3

    Sega was aware the PlayStation and the Nintendo 64, especially the former, stole their thunder when it came to game releases. Sure, the Saturn initially sold better than the PlayStation, and the Nintendo 64 seemed to gain little interest in Japan, but all that looked like was short-lived. Games like Final Fantasy VII and Dragon Quest VII were announced for their respective platforms, and those games I just mentionned will be system sellers when they come out. They knew they were in trouble. Interest was also dwindling in North America and PAL regions; less and lesser-quality games were being released than on Sony's platform. Multiplatform third-party projects, especially ones running on 3D engines, seemed o run worse on Saturn. Internal fighting at the various branches of them company only seemed to get worse and worse. However, it wasn't the end of the world, as Sega announced a company-wide restructuring in early 1996, affecting Sega of Japan, Sega of America and their other branches, to a lesser but still important extent. A great focus would be placed on building meaningful relationships with developers and publishers and making quality software that met consumers' expectations. There's also a lot of other things involved, but I might wait before revealing that. If you ever wonder why ITTL, the Saturn is not a trainwreck, this is why.

    I know why you're reading this chapter, so let's get to it right now. As part of that plan, since Sonic Team was working on a new IP, they were uninterested in and unavailable for making a new Sonic title. Sega Technical Institute was working with Sega AM1 on a Die Hard arcade game, and while plans where laid out to develop new titles alongside that, including a Sonic title, they decided the workload would be too much, and focused on the Die Hard game instead. So, Sega CS3 was brought on to make a new Sonic game early on in 1994. Various prototypes were pitched, including one with a rubber-banding mechanic (dubbed Sonic Clackers), but as development went on the game became more traditional.

    Sonic Ringstars
    Released: November 1996 (various dates worldwide)
    Platforms: Sega Saturn

    A fairly tried-and-true Sonic title. The level graphics are rendered in three-dimensions, whereas characters, enemies and objects are pre-rendered 2D sprites. The game features seven three-act zones, themed similarily to other Sonic games, with a futuristic twist in terms of looks, filled with secret paths. The last act of each zones features Dr. Eggman fighting with one of his inventions. Some of the acts also have mid-level boss fights against various Badniks, opponents or creatures. Sonic, Tails and Knuckles are all playable, with their respective abilities from Sonic 3. Special Stages are similar to Sonic 2, however, they're rendered in in 3D and are substantially easier. As for the plot, this sees the return of Dr. Eggman (you guessed it) and Nack the Weasel, from Sonic Triple Trouble. Our furry thief finds a new island, which apparently was host to a long-extinct population. And of course, that means treasure. And he plans to sell whatever he finds for cash! Dr. Eggman, other other hand, learns about this and plans to harness the island's power for himself. Sonic, Tails and Knuckles have to prevent anyone from getting close to the lost artifact! Reception of the game was positive, with the tight controls, varied soundtrack, content and boss encounters receiving praise, but many said the game's level graphics, while colorful, look a bit underwhelming, and the pre-rendered sprites were said to be of inconsistent quality. The level design could get quite confusing at time, and many cheap deaths due to poor enemy placement.

    Sega made sure the public noticed this game, spending a sizeable amount in marketing (on-air commercials tie-in promotions and the like). SOJ couldn't care less about Sonic Ringstars, since their killer app of the year was Virtual Fighter 2. However, this game largely helped make sure the Saturn had a healthy year in the West. The game wound up selling a million copies in North America and a least 750K in PAL regions. In Japan, however, the game sold less, at 250K copies to the end of they year.

    Sonic 3D: Flickies' Island and Sonic Blast were tepid swan songs for the Sega Genesis and Game Gear, respectively. Both games, the former developed by Traveller's Tales and the latter, by Aspect, were technical showpieces, however, many agreed they were more about the graphics and presentation than the gameplay. Both Sonic 3D and the previously released Sonic Spinball use the GEMS sound driver, but Sonic 3D makes much better use of it.
     
    Last edited:
  • Index
    • Driving through media illiteracy...
  • Index
    • anchorman2k3

    anchorman2k3

    While I'm cooking up the early 1997 chapter, I've decided that it's pop culture time! These are really fun to do or read. This will cover 1995 and 1996.

    Let's start with movies. Toy Story was an enormous technical feat backed by a genuinely interesting story. It's also the highest-grossing movie domestically, and the second highest-grossing movie internationally. Clueless, Apollo 13, Friday, Jumanji, Seven, GoldenEye... a lot of good stuff came out that year. And then there's stuff like Judge Dredd and Batman Forever, Congo, and a host of other terrible flicks. Oh, and who can't forget Waterworld? But I want to talk about Pocahontas, Disney's crown jewel of the decade, and an historically important film concerning Native American representation.

    It initially began as an adaptation of Swan Lake, it eventually involved into a musical adventure set in Virgina, during the Age of Discovery. Mike Gabriel and Eric Goldberg, the film's directors, set out to make a grand tale about a Native American girl caught between her father and her people, and her love for the enemy. Current events at the time further pushed the movie out if its initial comedic setting, and into a commitment to retell Pocahontas' tale, as faithful and historically accurate as can be for a family-oriented animated feature. Executives were worried sickless that the movie's mature themes (including Pocahontas' age at the time she married settler John Smith) and its lack of mascot animals would lead it to fail at the box-office, but the directors pushed for treating the story with respect won them out. Numerous Native American historians and consultants were brought on to make sure Disney didn't sway too much off the story. While there were some liberties taken for obvious reasons, many of those consultants were satisfied with the final script. The movie didn't shy away from the main fact the Age of Discovery led to destruction, pillage and murder at the benefit of the white man. The cast would be largely identical to OTL's, as are the songs. Critically, the movie was divisive. Some people insisted the movie was dark for a family movie, and that accounts of colonization were toned down at school for a reason. But others said it was a beautiful and empowering movie. Some Native American critics, in particular those of the Powhatan Renape Nation, had many reservations concerning its historical accuracy, and wish Disney had done more to honor their culture in a tasteful way. Nonthenless, the movie ends up being as successful as it is IOTL.

    Let's move on to television, shall we? Specifically, anime. Why? 'Cause I like it and I'm biased as hell.
    Toei Animation's new magical girl anime, Sailor Moon, based on the comic of the same name by Naoko Takeuchi, was doing extremely well in Japan and began to receive European localizations, where it was becoming popular rapidly. So, they decided to auction the series' rights to various interested companies. However, what they were pitched was... less than desirable. Notably, A.D. Vision, Manga Entertainment and, more recently, ShoPro-owned Viz Communications began releasing anime, almost unedited, to great success, they thought it would be best to follow their footprints than whatever ToonMakers and DiC were going to do. They contacted their go-to distributor for Latin American markets, Cloverway, and tasked them to bring Sailor Moon in North America. The Ocean Group in Vancouver are tasked to provide voice acting and localization work for the show. Airing on FOX Kids, its ends up being quite the success and inspires girl shows to be more than just the stereotypical fare they are... to an extent.

    This inspired many other imports of the same vein. In particular, Magic Knight Rayearth. Tokyo Movie Shinsha was just back from near bankruptcy, being induced from the Little Nemo movie from 1989. However, they're doing much better thanks to the extremely lucrative Anpanman franchise, and numerous animation services for Western shows, particularly Warner Bros. Animation's work. They witnessed Sailor Moon's success and wanted to get into some of that action. Initially, Summit Media Group approached them about acquiring thirteen episodes, but TMS wasn't satisfied for unknown reasons. They ended up comissioning Ocean to produced a pilot episode to sell. IOTL, this is on Discotek's recent Rayearth set. They were approached by Lacey Entertainment, and the two quickly got to work, dubbing the first season. Some name changes were made (Hikaru became Lucy, Umi became Marina and Fuu became Anemone, etc.), but content editing was light. Surprisingly light. Anyways, when the show eventually aired in the Summer 1996, it did mediocre ratings-wise, however it found success in Canada and home video releases (which were unedited). The Magic Knight Rayearth video game (IOTL localized internally and much sooner unlike OTL) retains the dubisms this dub introduced.
     
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    • Nivek

    anchorman2k3 said:
    Disney relucantly premiered a new action show, Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers.
    Click to expand...
    I don't think they would,otl even if they did a fine job, Disney hated the show but abc loved it,here they don't even have ABC yet, that doesn't make sense that just give Disney fucking everything
     
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