Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric

Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric (ソニックトゥーン 太古の秘宝) is a 2014 action-adventure platform video game developed by Big Red Button and published by Sega for the Wii U. Along with Sonic Boom: Shattered Crystal for the Nintendo 3DS, it is a spin-off of Sega's Sonic the Hedgehog series and is a part of the Sonic Boom franchise, which also consists of an animated television series (whose games serve as a prequel), a comic series by Archie Comics, and a toyline by Tomy. The storyline follows Sonic, Tails, Knuckles and Amy, who must stop Lyric the Last Ancient from acquiring the Chaos Crystals by powering up a robot army and wiping out all organic life, after Sonic accidentally awakens Lyric from a thousand year rest, while escaping Doctor Eggman.

Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric began development under the tentative title Sonic Origins in 2011, initially intending to be a Jak and Daxter-style game (later retitled Sonic Synergy) and would have focused around four-player concept; intended for release on PC and other consoles, it moved development to the under powered Wii U as part of a three-game exclusivity deal Sega had signed with Nintendo. Since the game's engine (CryEngine) was not intended to run on the Wii U, many of the gameplay concepts were hastily removed or simplified, while the story was rewritten due to Sega gaining full control over the television series. Richard Jacques, who was the lead composer for Sonic 3D Blast and Sonic R, returned to write the soundtrack.

Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric released in North America, Europe and Australia in November 2014, and the following month in Japan as Sonic Toon. Sega did not provide reviewers with advance copies; it received overwhelmingly negative reviews from critics for its controls, camera system, combat, story, gameplay, dialogue, and numerous bugs and technical issues. Some described it as both one of the worst games of 2014, and one of the worst Sonic games ever made. The game was also a commercial failure, with the combined sales of Rise of Lyric and Shattered Crystal totaling 620,000 copies by March 31, 2015, making them among the worst-selling games in the franchise. Following the failure of Rise of Lyric, Big Red Button had nearly considered shutting down.

Gameplay
Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric is an action-adventure game with a stronger emphasis on exploration and combat compared to previous Sonic the Hedgehog installments, featuring four main characters whom players control: Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, and Amy. Gameplay is divided into four main styles: speedy platforming stages similar to the main series Sonic games, high-speed tracks in which players need to dodge obstacles quickly, slower stages with a bigger emphasis on exploration, and boss battles. All characters are able to execute various fighting actions, as well as collect up to 100 rings  and scrap metal to upgrade various stats.

Each character has their own unique abilities and gameplay mechanics: Sonic can use his speed and homing attacks, Tails can fly and use various gadgets, Knuckles can burrow underground and climb on walls, and Amy can use her hammer to swing on poles. Each character also possesses a whip-like weapon called the Enerbeam, which allows them to perform various actions such as hanging from speeding rails, removing enemy shields, and solving puzzles. Throughout the game, players are able to switch between all four characters, although not all of them are available at all times. The game supports local two player co-operative play, as well as several mini games with up to four players at once.

Plot
Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, and Amy pursue Doctor Eggman until they encounter an ancient tomb with carvings of Sonic and Tails on the entrance. Sonic is stopped twice by Amy from opening the door, but when Metal Sonic ambushes the group, Sonic opens the door and the group escape. Inside, they meet Lyric, an armored rattlesnake that was the last member of the Ancients. Lyric recognises Sonic from events transpiring one thousand years ago and captures the group, but Tails deactivates their restraints and turns them into beams named Enerbeams for the group to use.

After meeting Cliff, the group discovers that Lyric planned to power an army of robots with the Chaos Crystals to create a world of twisted metal and robots, but was imprisoned by The Ancients when they discovered the plan; the group then set out to retrieve the Chaos Crystals before Lyric. At an abandoned research facility, they meet MAIA, a robot who rebelled against Lyric, who assists them by creating a portal, allowing Sonic and Tails to go one thousand years back in time to retrieve a map showing the location of the Chaos Crystals. Sonic and Tails are then attacked by Shadow, but defeat him, enter the portal, successfully retrieve the map from inside Lyric's weapon facility and trap him inside for future imprisonment by The Ancients.

Lyric reluctantly forms an alliance with Eggman, but after no success, Lyric turns on Eggman by programming Metal against him. The group defeat Metal and Eggman and retrieve the final Chaos Crystal, but Sonic is then surrounded by Lyric and his robots. Lyric demands the Crystals; Sonic refuses to give them up, but Tails, Knuckles and Amy agree to do so. Sonic is then attacked by Lyric's robots and buried under rubble, but recovers and the group set out to Lyric's lair to stop him. During the battle, Lyric reprogrammes the Enerbeams to ensnare the group, but before he can take advantage of the situation, Eggman ambushes Lyric and frees them. Sonic then ties up Lyric with assistance from his friends and removes Lyric's technopathy device to incapacitate him; Knuckles discards it. The group celebrate, but Eggman recovers the device and uses it to revive Metal.

Development
Los Angeles-based studio Big Red Button developed the game under supervision by Sonic Team and long-time Sonic game designer Takashi Iizuka. The game was built on CryEngine and is centered on "combat and exploration". Sega outsourced the game to Western developers in order to increase the game's appeal in Western markets, culminating in a separate westernized Sonic franchise. The video game concept came after the television series plan. Big Red Button was chosen due to the studio's adventure game portfolio and leader, Bob Rafei of the Crash Bandicoot, Uncharted, and Jak and Daxter series. Portions of the game were co-developed by IllFonic, who assisted with some of the game's level design, art assets, and code. Chris Senn worked as a level designer, his second Sonic project after having previously worked on the cancelled Sonic X-treme, initially planned for release in 1996.

Sonic Boom started development in 2011 as Sonic Origins, intended to be a Jak and Daxter-style game focused around four-player co-op multiplayer. The plotline for the game would have explained the origins of Sonic, with him and Doctor Eggman once being friends, only for Eggman to break their friendship after an incident related to time travel causes them both to have a feud. One of the "pillars" for the game was to create a more "organic and natural world" with a cartoonish art style, something a former developer for the game admitted to fan site Sonic Paradise isn't as apparent in the final game. Eventually, the development studio created a vertical slice over the course of two years to show to Sega of Japan, intended to be released on Steam, with releases on the PlayStation Store and Xbox Live if it sold well enough. The vertical slice was titled Sonic Synergy. At around the time of Synergy, Sega had signed an exclusivity contract with Nintendo in which three Sonic games would be developed exclusively for Nintendo consoles, particularly the Wii U and Nintendo 3DS due to them just being released. This included both Sonic Lost World and Mario & Sonic at the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games, which both released in 2013 after the announcement of the deal. In late 2012, Sega showcased the Synergy demo to Nintendo, who agreed to include it as part of the deal. Sega later announced the decision to switch to the Wii U in 2013, as well as mandating a 3DS port of the game; the 3DS port eventually became Sonic Boom: Shattered Crystal, developed by Sanzaru Games. Sega of Japan also forced several changes, including altering the character designs to be closer to the originals, increasing the speed, and rejecting the origin storyline.

Further issues came when the game was being ported to the Wii U due to Cry Engine 3 not being designed to run on the system, resulting in Big Red Button receiving help from Crytek to get it working. Several gameplay elements were also simplified; the four-player aspect was reworked into a two-player game, while levels became much linear than designed. At the same time, a separate Sonic television series was being produced, however eight months before release, Sega gained full control over the series and forced the developers to make further changes to the world; Knuckles was made more dimwitted, many filler cutscenes were added in an attempt to explain the story, and the Ancient's role in the story was reduced greatly.

Other elements removed from the game included Chao, a ring-banking system, and a biplane segment between Sky Citadel and Lyric's Lair. The game was renamed to Sonic Boom due to Sega wanting to make the brand global, and Synergy losing its original meaning by the end of development. Bob Rafei later stated that they had added too many mechanics early on into development and that it led to its later development difficulties, something Sega of America producer Stephen Frost agreed with. British composer Richard Jacques composed the music. Jacques was selected for his experience with Sonic games including Sonic 3D Blast, Sonic R, and Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed.

Release and marketing
After footage was shown off at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2013, Sega officially announced Sonic Boom on February 6, 2014. The franchise was designed for Western audiences and serves as a prequel to the television series. Sega of America's marketing director Marchello Churchill explained that the new franchise was not designed to "replace modern Sonic". The Western developer's CEO explained that Sonic Boom Sonic is "very different ... both in tone and art direction", and that it is a separate continuity to the main series. Customers who had pre-ordered the game through Amazon.com in the U.S. or UK would receive special lighting suits for the playable characters, with UK players additionally receiving a T-shirt if it was pre-ordered on Nintendo's online store.

Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric released in North America on November 11, 2014, and in Europe on November 21. Although not initially intended to be released in Japan, it was later revealed that it would release on December 18, 2014, as Sonic Toon: Ancient Treasure. On the first day of the U.S. release, a glitch was discovered that allowed players to jump to infinite heights by pausing the game during Knuckles' jump, which could be used to bypass most of the game. Speedrunners managed to beat the game in under an hour using the glitch; one of the writers of the television series referenced an edited episode clip mocking the bug. In January 2015, a one gigabyte patch was released to fix a few problems with the game, including the "Knuckles Jump" glitch.

Pre-release
Pre-release demos featured at E3 2014 received mostly negative reception from journalists. Destructoid nominated Rise of Lyric for "Best Platformer" and "Best Nintendo Exclusive" for their "Best of E3" awards. In contrast, GameCentral wrote, "the very worst game in the line-up was Sega's Sonic Boom, which was so unspeakably awful we couldn't even force ourselves to play through the whole demo".

Shortly after the end of development in July 2014, many employees began leaving the company due to the poor work experience, leading to concerns about its quality.

Post-release
Unlike previous games, Sega did not provide reviewers with advance copies of either Shattered Crystal or Rise of Lyric; they could only begin reviewing once the game was set for sale. Upon release, Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric received overwhelmingly negative reviews from critics. It has a Metacritic score of 32/100 and a GameRankings score of 33.15%, making them the lowest-scoring Sonic games on either site.

Reviewers near-universally criticized the numerous technical issues. Don Saas of GameSpot called the world "more bug-ridden than the tunnel from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom", highlighting sound effects not playing most of the time, being able to clip through various environments, and the game once crashing his Wii U. IGN was less negative, writing "Rise of Lyric isn't fundamentally broken or unplayable; it's just thoroughly disappointing and unpolished." The Independent also noted frame drops, regarding the whole game as rushed and unpolished. The gameplay was similarly poorly received for its "tedious" combat and low difficulty, although some praised the multiplayer minigames.

Reviewers also panned the overall presentation. IGN felt that the characters were well animated, but that the game as a whole was "further dragged down by nearly every aspect of its presentation", particularly the overuse of the same character quotes for basic actions. Tim Turi of Game Informer was similarly critical stating "These guys won't shut up about how much they love rings. Dr. Eggman even spouts out groan-inducing, poorly-aged meme references, like 'Nailed it!' or 'That. Just. Happened.'" Destructoid felt that the characters and indoor environments looked good, but that the outdoor environments were half-finished.

David Jenkins from GameCentral considered Sonic Boom the worst game of 2014, sarcastically saying that one of the few positives was that "it proves previews do give a relatively accurate impression of a game's final quality". Game Informer and Yahoo! listed Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric as among the worst games of 2014, while Nintendo Life listed it as the worst Sonic game in the series' history. Sega announced that both Sonic Boom games had sold a combined 620,000 copies as of March 31, 2015, making them one of the lowest-selling in the franchise.