What Happened to Sonic CGI?

[@lucas.n.carvalho.artist]

I think the fact that the main two CGI studios behind the Sonic games, Marza Animation Planet and Blur Studio, are now the ones responsible for the CGI in the Sonic movies is so freaking cool!

[@roux6715]

I love what blur studios have done in game cinematics H2A cutscenes look perfect

[@RameNoodls]

@@roux6715I prefer marza

[@roux6715]

@@RameNoodls that’s fair lol I just mainly like blur for their cutscenes in shadow the hedgehog and halo 2/ halo wars 2

[@RameNoodls]

@@roux6715 I like marza bc colors and unleashed openings

[@roux6715]

@@RameNoodls based

[@SuperSM2013]

If only school essays were this interesting….

[@memezabelle]

1 hour sonic rant 🤑 30 second math lesson 😴

[@kninjalite6356]

Scratch that, imagine if we were told to write essays based on our favourite games

[@RaiginAnimator]

Facts

[@MintyBoi8]

I made school essay about Bubsy 3D.

[@PiegiXD_2319]

For real, they never let us do any interesting topics, if they let us write about something we care about, maybe we wouldn’t hate it so much. 😔

[@TycerKirk]

Unleashed is top, but the opening for Sonic06 was surprisingly good. they show sonic's real speed and power, and also have Jason Griffith so i cant complain XD

[@memezabelle]

dude if you showed that cutscene to any little kid they'd would instantly be a sonic fan source: me

[@zigzagintrusion]

Sonic 06’s opening rocks. After that… :,)

[@ShiftShido]

Final Fantasy characters tho

[@5hyper7form94]

​@@zigzagintrusion If you liked 06 despite itself... Try Project 06 by ChaosX. It's 06's potential realised

[@ar7hur06]

Ah yes, the sonic that sounds bewildered at everything. Peak voice acting.

[@BlustreakG]

1:22 This cutscene, everytime gives me that "useless backflip" vibe from spiderman meme

[@bomberman9296]

The exaggerated swagger if a blue hedgehog

[@KperaOfficial]

The last cgi intro that a sonic game got was supposed to be fontiers but they didn't use it to avoid spoilers (in other words, the intro showed too much and at the time, they didn't want to show what the game was actually about in the trailers) and they only used some scenes for marketing.

[@zigzagintrusion]

You mean they made an intro and only used some of its clips for marketing? Or they only made some CGI for marketing? Either way, kinda sad there wasn’t one now. :,(

[@KperaOfficial]

@@zigzagintrusion they made one for the main game but decided not to, so they reused for marketing (there's about 4 minutes of cgi that people found ONLY from the TRAILERS. They probably alread used all scenes but out of order so I wouldn't say they are lost media

[@christopherford39]

​@KperaOfficial can you tell me the source

[@christopherford39]

​@KperaOfficial where did you get this info from, I want to look more into this

[@masterreece1098]

Im honestly just glad sega has started to experiment with sonic a lot more over the years, animation wise

[@sausum_real]

I'm so glad someone finally made a video about this topic. Marza's work on Sonic is some of my favorite animation every. It makes a lot of sense that Blur studios were the ones to train Marza, because Marza is the only studio I've seen live up to them. Hope we get more.

[@Keanine]

We dont need CGI cutscenes anymore with todays graphics, however Sonic Team need to outsource their cutscene animation so they can have the dynamism of the old CGI cutscenes

[@finnjpeg]

Absolutely, I'm getting tired of the same old standing around and talking cutscenes

[@VCofdaG]

I hate this mentality. Yes we do fucking need them. In-game rendering always fucking sucks.

[@Sone01TheFirst]

@@VCofdaG Ew, terrible take. I don't even like those "This is why in game cutscenes are superior" videos but this is still just a garbage take.

[@VCofdaG]

@@Sone01TheFirst Go chew glass, bitch ass

[@therealdatenshi]

The way the poses just linearly tween from one pose to another in the original SXSG trailer is so funny to me

[@stephaniejohnson5361]

We're at most going to just get Tyson Hesse animated intros from now on for lighthearted and classic games. I don't think they want to spend extra money on in game CGI when the pre rendered cutscenes aren't bad anymore compared to before

[@ataladin87]

Pre-rendered cutscenes are HORRENDOUSLY BORING now. What are you smoking. Frontiers and Forces are prime examples of lifeless pre-rendered cutcsenes.

[@AAlex-wg8ml]

@@ataladin87 Yeah , I agree, but shadow generations (and Superstars to an extent) seems to be changing that I'll guess we have to wait and see in the titles after that

[@Mazher94]

​@ataladin87 that's mostly because sega rushed frontiers late in development to meet the deadline (like always) so the pre rendered cutscenes were gonna look choppy and unfinished. Hopefully, frontiers 2 will fix that now that sonic x shadow generations seems to be hinting that they are improving and spending more on pre rendered cutscenes.

[@76o90]

@@Mazher94 There’s going to be a frontiers 2??

[@ataladin87]

@@76o90 NOOOOOO NOT MORE MID STORIES!!!!

[@powerbricks_1]

yall remember that sonic riders zero gravity CGI opening?

[@SanicBoi]

Yeah that thing went crazy. I would have talked about it but I felt like sticking to mainline games when I was talking about the 2010s

[@powerbricks_1]

@@SanicBoi yeahh i feel u on that, i was just playing it so it had crossed my mind 😎

[@CaptainF123]

I'm attributing it to changing eras. What I mean is that in the gaming industry many games had CGI throughout the 6th and 7th Generation of consoles due to graphical limitations. However, with the beginning of the 8th generation consoles were able to produce graphics that could either rival CGI or render it pointless. The reason we've really noticed the lack of CGI is due to the subpar animation from games Post Unleashed. Anyways, whilst CGI would be cool to have and I would prefer it to return to it's Unleashed glory and beyond, it shouldn't be necessary.

[@haha_hollie]

has anyone in the comments mentioned that dark beginnings is CGI? it’s literally stylized 3d, and i’m not seeing anyone bring it up here

[@SanicBoi]

@@haha_hollie yeah someone else brought it up. But I didn’t want to focus on it for the video

[@gamedestroyer112]

I miss when we had this amount of detail... now it's kinda flat.

[@duduvec5971]

I hate CGI ingame only because it extracts too much from the game's budget. That way they can set apart the game budget and the advertisement budget.

[@VCofdaG]

I've been waiting for another CGI sequence in the level of Unleashed's opening ever since Unleashed came out.

[@kaltheursaring4860]

Instead with the new game that's coming out they are giving us a 3 episode shadow ANIME!!!! WHAAAAT!

[@ZEPHYR_YT4]

I want an entire sonic show or movie using the animation from sonic unleashed

[@americachinapee]

Sega would become bankrupt😂

[@bluedealer]

You "forgot" a point, we are getting 2D animated series for each games on KZbin since Team Sonic Racing, and Shadow Generations too, with Dark Begginings, so Sega is pointing at using 2D animation + better ingame animations than CGI

[@SanicBoi]

I didn’t “forget”. Just for the sake of time I didn’t want to include them. Maybe I’ll do that in a future video.

[@bluedealer]

@@SanicBoi thats why i put the "-" between forgot, bc you did mention the 2D animations, but you also didnt mention all of them 💅

[@Crow_Rising]

If Frontiers is any indication, their plan moving forward seems to be to take advantage of technological advancements for the in-engine cutscenes in-game to eventually be of CGI quality. They weren't quite there in Frontiers as evidenced by comparing the actual cutscenes in-game to the CGI marketing material, but they are getting closer. If I were to guess, this would be the plan for two primary reasons: 1. Video files can be quite large and will quickly bloat the filesize of a game. By not including pre-rendered cutscenes and instead using the existing assets in-game they can trim down unnecessary bloat. 2. Having the cutscenes not be pre-rendered can be a form of future-proofing. Powerful enough devices running the game in the future will be able to run these cutscenes at higher resolutions without frame drops, somewhat eliminating the need for a remaster. Compare this to pre-rendered cutscenes which look noticeably blurry on screens with resolutions higher than intended. Additionally, pre-rendered scenes run at a fixed framerate due to being video files while in-engine scenes need not be framerate locked, allowing them to be viewed at much higher framerates in the future when hardware is sufficient to handle it. Effectively, it's a built-in remaster dependent only on the power of the machine running the game and the number of pixels on the screen.

[@superdrifter-1773]

I feel like the more confident they are for the game and quality we’d get more cgi cutscenes. sonic unleashed and sonic Frontiers is prime example of having so much faith they created more than 1 cgi scenes

[@dbzfan6900]

That team Sonic racing intro is my second favorite intro in the franchise

[@dojindori]

I think probably one reason is that back when Sonic used CGI, it was more visually stunning than it is today. Don't get me wrong, the CGI still looks beautiful, but now those graphics can be achieved in game. Watching an action packed cutscene is great, but I'd prefer to play through that action

[@chasebarnes3607]

Why are the shadow generations animated cutscenes so good and have the feel of ralph sonic

[@DandyDNA]

This is an industry trend broadly and not merely limited to Sonic-and really, it began at the turn of the century where 6th gen games had far fewer FMV's than the previous generation. There's two main reasons why this has been occurring: 1. As technology improves, more and more of the rendering techniques used in the pre-rendered videos of old become feasible in-engine 2. Higher resolution games demand higher resolution FMV's, which require more storage; modern games eat up enough HDD space WITHOUT hours of 4K FMV's

[@Farkonso]

I think it's worth acknowledging that we're getting the epilogue animations for Shadow generations that will link directly to the games story.

[@ChadMorningWood]

I just want to say how amazed I am with the CG cutscenes for both Shadow the Hedgehog and Sonic 06. Almost two decades later and they still hold up

[@ShadowZabre]

It took One Month for this to get Cooked by Sonic X Shadow Generations Dark Beginnings to come out. It is animated by Studio Giggex, but it is partial 2D and CGI animation in the same style as Dragon Ball Super: SuperHero. Except these little 4-5 minute animations are so ridiculously beautiful, I kind of hope that Giggex just gives the assets over to Studio Trigger for the Anime they're making.

[@SanicBoi]

@@ShadowZabre yeah but I was more so talking about marketing outside those prologue animations

[@Kevykev2007]

I'm really happy that Sega are focusing on making the actual animations in game look the best they can instead of putting that effort into a trailer made just for marketing the game

[@thealandude9146]

my man looks like megaman in that beanie

[@jovani6044]

These topics are underrated and should be talked about more within the franchise community

[@ItsAubreeyy]

9:42 in Unleashed, SEGA actually set out with the Hedgehog Engine to make their animations and gameplay LOOK like a Pixar movie, and years later it seems like it actually is paying off, to the point they don't need full CG cutscenes.

[@RuriGokouMadoMura]

An interesting lesser-known piece of information about some of the newer CGI promotional material which may not look as expressive/dynamic as the older CGI in Sonic games: For some years now, Marza Animation Planet (responsible for much of the older CGI) has not been the main studio in charge of the animation in the trailers. Most of Frontiers' promotional material (except for the first teaser trailer, which was by Marza) were done by a Japanese animation studio called Shirogumi, supervised by Marza, and I assume the initial Sonic X Shadow Generations trailer is probably done by them as well. Just thought it might be relevant to mention that here.

[@kevinmickens6825]

Sonic Forces and Frontiers were pretty badass, same for Sonic X Shadow Generations

[@valtheemokid4005]

I love how Frontiers cgi promotions look because how clean they look. I kinda prefer them over Unleashed because of it especially on the shot of Sonic destroying Spider and the Giganto battle. As much as I would kill for a game in the style of Jet Set Radio but I wouldn't mind a Sonic game looking like that

[@Kiezly]

CGI cinematics wouldn’t be needed if they just used Unreal Engine 5 instead of Hedgehog Engine 2 for the games. They could make the ingame graphics on par and even better than the unleashed opening so that way all the marketing can just use in game footage only and it would look just as good as CGI.

[@Vantoxify]

cool video man, I will say I loved the CGI for Frontiers marketing but it's unfortunate that there was no CGI opening and some of the cutscenes in the game were lacking in animation while others looked pretty good

[@CrazehGaming]

Shadow in that trailer for SxS generations reminds me of his silky hair in Sonic Heroes

[@SuperSonicWarrior93]

They should definitely add more CG cutscenes in the games again. I miss those. Along with CG intros.

[@gonebons]

Finally someone covers this topic😭

[@Somegreenblock]

"I AM ALL OF ME" ahh moment

[@UnderTheHood78]

I think that shadow generations definitely doesn't need it,the animation is going crazy so far

[@stefanssmellsvictory105]

It is great to see one of your videos getting much more traction. I've just subscribed, and will now binge through your entire video history! Well done, and thanks for the video.

[@SanicBoi]

@@stefanssmellsvictory105 thanks man! I really appreciate it

[@OrangeToadGamer]

*I still hope that one day Sega locks in and gives us a movie or series fully animated by Marza Studios!* *also great video btw, definitely subscribing!*

[@chedsmanchannel9556]

I was able to find the real rigs for the sonic superstar models and there actually really hard to animate

[@KylesGameRoom]

I remember when generations had no CGI, I was like, huh, why?

[@AlphaRaptor08]

I think the better question is what happens to cgi cutscenes in Sonic games. They were such a treat to get in between levels.

[@comicfan1324]

To be fair, as much as I love the CGI, as long as the in-game cutscenes look decent, I don’t mind them being excluded. For example, although at the point of me writing this comment, the game hasn’t released yet, Shadow Generations looks like it’s gonna have some amazing in game cinematics. so in that case, I actually don’t mind there being a lack of CGI. I also think since sonic games are pushing for cosmetics, having the cutscenes be in game could potentially allow you to keep your unique look during the story mode. Which, at least to me adds a bit of personal flare to the experience. (this also means mod users can have their ideal sonic model on even in the cut scenes). Although with all that being said, I don’t think CGI should be completely excluded. Even if the main story of the game doesn’t have CGI I think there should still be some short animation at the title screen that plays to get you hyped up. This can either play if you don’t touch the controller for long enough or it can automatically play when you boot up the game and then it’s a skippable cut scene if you want to just get right into the action. That would be my compromise anyway

[@Br1ckCulture]

I actually disagree with this take. While yes, the animation in game is better than ever now, i dont think that explains the lack of cgi. We need to remember that forces onward have cosmetics, which is impossible to put into cgi cutscenes. I think the lack of cgi is so the cosmetics could show up in the cutscenes to better keep the players immersion. Would be kinda jarring to play as sonic in a santa outfit for example, only for it to go into a cutscene where sonic has his default skin.

[@SanicBoi]

@@Br1ckCulture definitely.

[@ClassicSonic-pe1sz]

Okay so fun fact when Tyson Hesse showed his animation to me and SEGA (and Christian WhiteHead) I was more shocked at how just one designer could make something so great especially for a game that was created by a fan no less and also worked with SEGA which we all know what happened before with all the games before Sonic Mania

[@Coolgamergabriel_2025]

I feel like all the budget went towards sonic prime💀💀💀

[@dancingvalkyrie]

Honestly if they were to ditch the cgi for 2D animated intros with Tyson Hesse's designs, I would be happy

[@supersmashmaster43]

As a kid in the 2000s, I used to always look forward to the CGI openings and cutscenes because they always looked so good compared to the graphics and always showed Sonic and the rest doing cool shit lol. Sonic Adventure was my first Sonic game and first exposure to Sonic CGI with the opening, and that got me hooked onto the CGI and games moving forward. Then I played heroes and all the cutscenes in that game were nearly CGI which I loved. Even the spin off games like Riders had CGI openings, it was like a staple that every Sonic game at the time had CGI openings so it was something I was expecting and looked forward to. When Unleashed came out and I first saw that opening, I had the biggest dumb smile on my face the whole time. That was peak Sonic CGI period. I sat through that every time, it was glorious. Once the 2010s rolled around, it was sad to see that the CGI openings basically disappeared, and the CGI cutscenes became less and less. I guess since a lot of the 2010s Sonic games became more simpler in plot, there was no need for some cool backstory cutscene. Also maybe cause they spent a huge budget on unleashed, and the game was sadly received poorly at the time, they felt like had to strip back on CGI and focus more on the core game itself, the budget didn't cut it for both the game and cgi, etc. If the CGI really is fazing out moving forward, I will truly miss it.

[@NsPlayz-games]

If they made the Sonic movie using the same cgi as the one in unleashed. Imp it would have been the best graphics in animated movie history

[@TheNQS]

2005 - 2008 was the best of Sonic CGI. Sonic Riders' CGI was beautiful.

[@Optimus_Bull]

I personally don't mind SEGA and Sonic Team going more away from CGI to focus more on providing expressive animations for in-game cutscenes and gameplay. As that have been sorely lacking for a long time now until finally being more highlighted in Sonic X Shadow Generations.

[@fishnim1927]

I just wish someone would point out the weird quill in classic in SxSg

[@kevinm.5951]

Sonkc team always had a huge art department for all their games. I don't knkw the ins and outs of japanese game development but I do knkw artists are talented and some may understand the principkes of animation. They had a large amount of character aninatirs in frontiers and while the cutscenes lack anination, many of frontiers enemies have solod anination, and the titan parrys and finishing moves are all ani.ated wonderfully. I think SxSG is the natural evolution. Sonic team asking themselves how can they do better after frontiers

[@elopezdfo]

The cgi from the shadow game is beautiful, i hope they bring cgi back

[@AnglesSol]

The Unleashed opening cutscene is the best without a doubt. I think the one to come even close is funny enough 06. I do think using 2D animation is better for Sonic, and seeing that SXSG Dark Beginnings is a 2D-3D hybrid, it makes me so excited.

[@holomonster]

I actually found this video, because I looked at the year, thought about when unleashed was made, and was gonna go and make the comment "sonic cgi hasn't looked this good in nearly 20 years" like...how?

[@SanicBoi]

@@holomonster it is unanimously agreed upon that sonic unleashed’s opening cutscene was the peak of sonic CGI. While nothing we’ve gotten past that was bad, it just doesn’t have that same amount of quality.

[@Litegamer3xv]

as long as the animation and gameplay is good i dont mind AND ALSO THE STORY AND CHARACTER WRITING

[@Themasktrooper]

We have to wait and see what happens in the future

[@3p1cyt]

For mania and origins not having CGI makes sense but superstars it's 3d

[@LeanVHS]

so thats why shadow generations looks that good thanks god

[@luislebronaponte2737]

"They are never coming back." Never say never. If they somehow remake/remaster SA1 and SA2, those games literally have opening cutscenes before going into the "Press Start" menu. Those could be CGI and would look amazing.

[@SanicBoi]

@@luislebronaponte2737 I’m kidding of course, but yeah that’d be sick

[@ZedEyeEyeEnOh]

I'm gonna be fully honest, I'm not mad at all at the fact that we're not getting CGI cutscenes in game. If anything, the games now moving to fully in game cutscenes is a LOT better and says a lot more about Sonic Team's mindset for the future. They want to show that they can create cutscenes that rival CGI and they proved that with SXSG. The game looks fucking incredible and I even thought that what we saw WAS CGI, and was shocked when they confirmed it was ingame.

[@SolarMothOfficial]

Frontiers has such amazing animations we need to talk about it more it surpasses sonic 06's cgi

[@ryozaki96]

Sonic Riders series has the best CGI cutscenes ever

[@brisklloydavator]

the use of the word "CGI" in this really bugs me, CGI is just "computer generated imagery" meaning any computer generate images, including game graphics. you're SPECIFICALLY talking about "pre-rendered cutscenes"

[@SanicBoi]

@@brisklloydavator I’m not going to play semantics with you because we both know very well what I and MANY others mean when saying Sonic CGI.

[@sumandark8600]

CGI in general in games has been on the decline for a while and for good reason: CGI cutscenes take up a LOT of file size, and those file sizes obviously get bigger as resolution increases (CGI cutscenes are basically videos included in the game files) To prevent file sizes from being unmanageable, it's nesseccary to use less CGI in games. Plus, as game graphics improve, there's also less of a need for them and eventually we'll get to a point where technology is powerful enough that games can render in engine cutscnese in real time at the same fidelity as CGI cutscenes like the Sonic Unleashed opening cinematic. Another thing that CGI cutscenes can't do is change how certain things look based on in game visual customisation (like visual equipment/clothes a character is wearing etc), so it's just preferable overall to try and make in game cutscenes improve in quality as much as possible than it is to keep relying on CGI cinematics.

[@gradient5319]

Games released on Switch... That's a huge limitation for many games, since they have to make the games occupy as little as possible in terms of storage space, because of the Switch's limited storage. Also to make the cartridges cheaper, probably.

[@localdude2979]

I cannot wait for December!!! God!! Omg lesgoo

[@ShiftShido]

Sega finally realized their 2d rubberhose-like characters don't look good in 3d when using motion capture animations. The fact that Sonic Boom is arguably still the best animated game so far says a lot

[@n3mits]

Idk CGI used to look like an award for your skills and abilities that let you go through the game and unlock wonderful scenes. Now everything is like "flatter" than in those times. I'd prefer good scenes that are exactly meant to be absolutely detailed, because you're not supposed to do any other thing that just watch it, while the game just needs to look good enough to be playable and you'll enjoy it anyways

[@DuckTapeman1233]

there were more CGI cutscenes in sonic x shadow generations

[@SanicBoi]

@@DuckTapeman1233 which ones?

[@itsninjaplayz9188]

in the shadow campaign

[@SanicBoi]

@@itsninjaplayz9188 there were literally none

[@sirbabbles]

I remember seeing somewhere that the Nintendo Switch is Sonic's main player base, and since the switch is relatively underpowered (at least somewhat compared to other consoles), we stopped getting cg cutscenes. I mean it does line up with Sonic Lost World being the last game with them. It may or may not be true, but it may also be a factor, idk.

[@chaosenforcerdhm969]

That doesn’t seem true the cutscene this video is talking about are pre rendered so not that impactful on performance Plus the switch is stronger than the 360 and that had unleashed

[@sirbabbles]

@@chaosenforcerdhm969 that is true, the timing is still rather weird though, especially considering the apparent Sonic Frontiers Beta, which looked a lot bigger than the actual game (Kronos, Ouranos and I think Rhea were supposed to be connected). But I suppose it's just a theory.

[@Winkyhehe]

The reason sega stop using cgi cutscenes back then because the games graphics weren’t good as time moved the graphics got better to the point they don’t need cgi cutscenes

[@HyperbloomBM]

Pretty sure the "Sonic Animation" video by New Frame Plus gave a HUGE Slap in the face to Sonic Team.

[@SanicBoi]

@@HyperbloomBM lol fr. That video was peak so I’m glad they listened

[@adamtaylorgaming1348]

In my opinion, no one has to agree but I think it can be a good step foward and a bad one. They’re showing that they don’t need cgi cutscenes and can make nice look cutscene animations in game which is good which can make the game look like it had more depth to the gameplay and scenery. But yeah I can understand why people miss cutscenes but at least the new in game scenes look good too. Maybe one day they can do both

[@averagemug]

I'm happy we finally got out of the Wii exclusive era of Sonic games, but the loss of CGI primarily from that era sucks. Sonic '06 was my technical first Sonic game, and personally my second favorite behind Adventure 1 and part of that reason is it's really good looking CGI cutscenes which improved the already amazing character designs and realistic environments like Kingdom Valley. Sure, Sonic Forces looks great and personally isn't as bad as people say, but the lack of CGI cutscenes is jarring since fans have loved them since Shadow and Riders.

[@gamedestroyer112]

9:43 this needs to be how all cgi is done.

[@needlemouse39]

Perfect timing for this video

[@Colekole]

If there was a sonic unleashed 2 with sonic unleashed 1 cgi I would pay so much as unleashed is my favourite sonic game

[@MD-se8ft]

Cgi looked good, but it gives me whiplash when it switch to ingame graphics, it makes a beautiful looking game look worse cuz u have something to compare it to.

[@FlamingFoxProd]

In regards to SxSG, you're forgetting about the Dark Beginnings animation (which yes, despite how it looks is CGI, just utilizing cel-shading, outlines, and other NPR effects to make it look 2D)

[@SanicBoi]

Yeah but I mostly wanted to focus on the actual game marketing and in game CGI. Not things like prologue animations. (This video would be way longer lol)

[@FlamingFoxProd]

@SanicBoi Do any of the other prologue animations even use CGI? From what I remember they've all been 2D animation.

[@CrazehGaming]

I could make a list of the BEST cgi for Sonic. I think most would agree.

[@Rhodochrone]

bro's outfit jumpscared me

[@SanicBoi]

@@Rhodochrone bro what about it?

[@Mecha_Madness]

Honestly, SXSG doesn’t need CGI, it already almost looks like CGI in the cutscenes

[@Miwjoseph16]

Honestly as much as Sonic CGI is great, animated cutscenes are way easier to modify

[@thedontpanic]

It is a shame that ever since 06 SEGA began to run out of patience with CGI for Sonic games. It was mostly their fault for all the awful business decisions they made that affected Sonic as a series, mainly by pushing the release dates for these games sooner than they were ready, and splitting the teams to make more games. Don't get me started on their mismanagement of Sonic Boom. This series was supposed to be their golden goose, but I guess they had to cut it open to get the eggs quicker. For a while now SEGA seems to be more interested in investing in CGI for marketing since it's a '"safer" choice but if anything it just makes the games stand out as worse and erodes trust the broader consumer has in the brand when the game itself isn't even close to the quality presented. It's especially true when there is no CGI present in the game at all. Granted, investing in the game's animation and polish is probably the best choice possible even above bringing more CGI back because then the whole game becomes a better experience rather than having a handful of really nice cutscenes. Though what would be even better is if they could just do both, but Sonic Team's projects have been on a leash when it comes to time and resources for almost two decades so I guess we have to wait until the corporate overlords think it's worth it to invest that much in a Sonic release again.

[@davidandradeoliv]

If we keep getting the quality Shadow Generations seems to have in cutscenes I don't really care for CGI tbh.

[@Isaiah_gachas]

I'm pretty sure Sonic Frontiers hadone scene of cgi, in the final horizon update and when Sonic goes though the end ans gets hurt when he has dirt or blood on him and was in space that was a little bit of cgi because he looks different from all the other super sonic scenes.

[@SanicBoi]

@@Isaiah_gachas that was a texture swap for the super sonic model to add a little bit of battle damage on him. Not CGI unfortunately

[@Isaiah_gachas]

@@SanicBoi ah, I thought it was cgi because his whole model looked high quality. Edit: (I replayed the part and yeah it was a texture swap, very unfortunate.)

[@funniestthingiveeverheard2792]

So Its been a few months now Thoughts on the launch trailer?

[@SanicBoi]

@@funniestthingiveeverheard2792 honestly I think it might be the worst thing we’ve seen from Marza. It’s not bad, far from it, however I think there is an uncanniness to it that really holds it back.

[@SonicPowerofficialyt]

I wouldn’t mind if we just get 2d animation its where sonic characters look there best

[@jpuc5568]

it died like the 2000s

[@xiao4408]

saying that frontiers have "boring" animations and boring CGI is a good reason for me to dislike the video already and hit the "do not reccomend" option...just kidding, i'm not that type of guy but besides that, i have to agree that nowdays sonic CGI is kinda missing, but i wouldn't say that i miss them, it's more like we don't need them for the time being since Sega is putting their budget in the animations and all stuff, they were cool but nowdays we don't need too much of them, maybe a few here and there for marketing but for ingame i think it's unecessary for the time being, sure they could do it and fuck it, everyone will like it (including me)

[@SanicBoi]

@@xiao4408 frontiers’ CGI was objectively great. However by comparison to the best (the unleashed CGI), it wasn’t as good. It really was a small point and I don’t know why that would warrant all of that, but hey that’s your opinion and I can’t stop ya. Thanks for the comment tho

[@xiao4408]

@SanicBoi this is mostly because i'm fed up with everyone saying that sonic frontiers it's a bad game or the worst sonic game, usualy people will use arguments like "the animation is bad" or "the gameplay is bad" and stuff like that without even playing the game to say such thing (the classic "i played via KZbin videos" argument that doesn't even count as an argument) Also, i'm just joking (which i should've explained there, sorry), i really liked the video and all stuff, keep up the work my man

[@SanicBoi]

@@xiao4408 nah you’re fine. But yeah frontiers is one of my favorite sonic games I don’t think much about the animation but when the time comes for the conversation to come up I gotta share my opinions

[@NickDVD]

I'm meeting weird al tomorrow and I'm getting him to sign my copy of Sonic 06 😄

[@SanicBoi]

@@NickDVD nice 👍

[@hitbyatank]

sonic boom is funny and ill die on that hill

[@SanicBoi]

@@hitbyatank yeah it’s the best Sonic show

[@ghostofshadow8631]

TLDW: There is no more sonic cgi.

[@SanicBoi]

It’s so funny how people think ten minutes is a long time lol

[@WaitingToBeAGhost]

Hey man I just discovered your channel this is my first video watch of yours, wanted to say you have refreshing insights and commentary and hope you feel better soon. Much love lil bro💛 +1 Subscriber Edit: thought you had a cold In this video not sure why 😅

[@SanicBoi]

First of all thanks! Second, that might just be my speech patterns. I’ve really developed certain habits that make my words sound weird