Sonic Omens, a fan-made Sonic the Hedgehog fan game, is a remarkable project developed by BOLT and Ouroboros. The game has seven episodes and is available for download on GameJolt. The game features well-thought-out gameplay with impressive controls, music, and graphics. However, the story is mediocre and the voice acting is atrocious.
Sonic Omens was originally called Sonic 2020 and is based on the Sonic the Hedgehog video game series. It was developed by BOLTrtg and is available in an episodic format, with the final episodes set to release on August 10, 2022, on Gamejolt for Windows. The game is made in Unreal Engine.
The game has been praised for its well-done animation in cutscenes and its impressive completion. However, the story is mediocre and the voice acting is atrocious. The game has been rated 7.5/10 by HowLongToBeat, who encourages players to create a backlog, submit game times, and compete with their friends.
In summary, Sonic Omens is a well-thought-out Sonic fangame with impressive graphics, well-done cutscenes, and a well-crafted story. While it may not revolutionize the Sonic series, it is an impressive and well-crafted game that offers a unique experience for fans of the Sonic franchise.
📹 The Sonic Omens Controversy
If you remember a year ago I uploaded a video talking about the Problem With a Sonic Fan Game known as Sonic Omens, well …
How long to beat Sonic Omens?
The mean duration of a single-player, polled game is 34 hours and 10 minutes, with the inclusion of additional content extending the average play time to 36 hours and 15 minutes.
Who is the villain in Sonic Omens?
In Chapter 1 of the Sonic Omens fan game, the Exiled, a banished Metarex, is exiled by Dark Oak for disagreeing with his agenda. He was once befriended by Chris Thorndyke, who died of unknown cause. The Omens, monsters that protect emeralds, are involved in their fight. Sonic, Eggman, and Tails agree to stop the Omens and Exiled, and Shadow fights a hologram of Maria, who is actually Exiled. Sonic intervenes to stop Exiled from messing with the flow of space time, and Omens attack him with their super omen powers.
The Exiled dies, and the Emeralds are destroyed, causing the power to go into Chip’s bracelet. Sonic destroys the bracelet and saves the world, while Eggman, Tails look at the Exiled stronghold and give some last remarks.
Is Sonic Omens complete?
Sonic Omens, a 3D platformer video game developed by Ouroboros Studio, was released on March 14, 2020, and is set between Sonic Unleashed and Sonic Colors. The game is an episodic format, with the final episodes set to release on August 10, 2022, on Gamejolt for Windows. The game uses Unreal Engine 4, a modified version of Oban’s Infinity Engine framework, and aims to explain the discontinuation of the Chaos Emeralds in modern Sonic games and connect Sonic X with the main Sonic canon.
Was Sonic 3 confirmed?
Sonic the Hedgehog 3 is set to release on December 20, 2024, marking a return to the franchise after its successful first two quarter releases in 2020 and 2022. The cast includes Ben Schwartz as Sonic the Hedgehog, Colleen O’Shaughnessey as Miles “Tails” Prower, and Idris Elba as Knuckles the Echidna. Jim Carrey returns as Dr. Robotnik, despite his high-profile retirement. New cast members include Krysten Ritter as Director Rothwell, Cristo Fernández in an undisclosed role, James Wolk, Jorma Taccone, and Sofia Pernas, and Alyla Browne as Marie, Robotnik’s cousin. Shadow has been cast, with John Wick star Keanu Reeves stepping into the classic Sonic role.
How many episodes of Sonic Omens are there?
The original series Sonic Omens ran from August 15 to August 21, 2022, comprising seven episodes with a duration of 27 to 90 minutes each.
Is Sonic Omens a fan game?
For those seeking an alternative to the established Sonic franchise, Sonic Omens is available for download on the Gamejolt page. This fan-created game may be of interest to those who prefer to mute or skip cutscenes.
Is Sonic Omens worth it?
The author, a long-time Sonic fan, shares their love for the game from its early days in the PS2 port of Sonic Heroes to 2011’s Sonic Generations. They have tried to consume everything Sonic, including the TV series he was part of, like Sonic X. Despite the challenges of SEGA’s inconsistent treatment and a hostile fanbase, the author still takes moments to appreciate the old days.
Despite their love for Sonic, the author has never invested in the fangame scene. They have been aware of romhacks and mods but have never played full-fledged fangames or 3D fangames. They have only played one full-fledged game and have always been concerned about the complexity of these games. The soundtrack is also praised for its amazing quality.
In summary, the author shares their love for Sonic and their appreciation for the old days of fangames, despite the challenges of SEGA’s treatment and the complex nature of 3D fangames.
Why is there no Sonic 4 Episode 3?
Christian Whitehead, operating under the online alias “Christian Whitehead,” was briefly invited to contribute to episode 3, but was unable to divulge the reason for its cancellation.
Who is replacing Jim Carrey in Sonic 3?
Despite his initial intention to retire from acting, Jim Carrey has elected to resume his role as Dr. Robotnik in the forthcoming Sonic 3 film.
What is the longest Sonic game?
The Sonic game, which encompasses 16 The Sonic game, which is the longest in the series, features the iconic hedgehog, Sonic, as he traverses the open world to locate the Chaos Emeralds and vanquish a group of Titans.
Is Sonic.exe appropriate?
The video game Sonic, a Sonic Adventure, presents a challenging environment with background music that may evoke feelings of fear or anxiety in players, rendering it unsuitable for children.
📹 Sonic at its Worst… (Sonic Omens)
AMAZING THUMB ART: https://x.com/dokatzo =-=-=-=-= LINKS =-=-=-=-= Subscribe: …
While I don’t always agree with a lot of your opinions on different subjects, I do need to thank you for getting the facts straight. Most people kinda just bundle my work with the original Infinity Engine and my team gets caught up in the ripple effects of negativity. Thank you very much for putting in that extra effort. Also, side note: the stuff about the Eggflapper is not new information to us. We’ve known about this fact ever since Sonic 2020 first came out. I made the original tweet to make sure people were aware that the I+ team did not contribute to Omens financially in any way.
I’m very glad you made basically an “ultimate article” describing everything to know about, not just the document, but the controversy in general. It’s important for more people to know about this kinda stuff, especially people who don’t wanna read through those 25 pages. I had a tiny bit of involvement with the document (mostly improving the grammar for publication), so it’s awesome to see someone basically do it justice by making it more accessible for those people. Great article! 👍 It would’ve also been cool if you mentioned Farkle by name as well, since he did singlehandedly bring most of this to light. 🙂
The thing that pisses me off the most about Sonic Omens is that it completely stole the attention from an actually GOOD Sonic Fangame: Sonic Triple Trouble 16 bit(A really high quality remake of one of the Game Gear sonic games!) The highest viewed article I could find for TT16 had only around 170k views, meanwhile the highest I could find for Omens was over DOUBLE that.
Spark The Electric Jester is a great series for those into Sonic. They’re fast and fluid platformers, with the first game being 2D 16 bit, while 2 and 3 are more so modeled after the 3D games. The third game only recently released, and it’s gotten really good reviews so far. Freedom Planet is also great, though I do feel its story cutscenes do go on for a bit too long. If you’re in need of more 2D high speed action though, it’s a great choice.
In a weird way this actually makes me more hopeful for Frontiers. The Omens creators tried to posit their game like the future of Sonic, like the idea that there hasn’t been a good Sonic game since 1998, and failed in spectacular fashion. Whatever Frontiers throws at us, I have a hard time thinking it will be as rough, nonsensical or confusing as the choices made in Omens.
5:07 The whole thing with that scene becomes even funnier when you consider they got it right for the trailer but screwed it up for the actual final game! Maybe if they spent a little less time harassing people online, and focusing on their game, they wouldn’t have missed that. The whole thing with Omens with them stealing the character models from Sega’s games, taking someone else’s game engine and trying to pass it off as their own, all while trying to profit from it, really does remind a lot of Ian Malcom’s monologue from Jurassic Park Ian Malcolm: If I may, if I may. Uh, I’ll tell you the problem with the scientific power that you’re, that you’re using here. It didn’t require any discipline to attain it. You know, you read what others had done, and you, and you took the next step. You didn’t earn the knowledge for yourselves, so you don’t take any responsibility… for it. You stood on the shoulders of geniuses, uh, to accomplish something as fast as you could, and before you even knew it, you had, you’ve patented it, and packaged it, and slapped it on a plastic lunch box, and now (bangs the table) you’re selling it, you wanna sell it, well. Also, why is Shadow working with the Metarex? It makes no sense what so ever, because 1. Why would Shadow want to go back to the past to be with Maria? He’s let go and moved on. 2. Why would Shadow help the Metarex when in order to get what he wants? It would end up dooming the planet, which totally goes against the promise he made to her.
I hope Omens has taught everyone that just because its a fangame, that doesn’t make it good Splash listed a few great fangames at the end and those are GENUINELY great ones but at the end of the day just because a fangame is made by fans, that doesn’t mean it deserves praise always Criticism is open to anything
I don’t care if it’s an indie game, a AAA game, or a fangame: You, your team, and your game should have good qualities. The game should have a balance between gameplay, visuals, and story (while at times having them shine individually or together), and your game should be made out of love, not spite. And you also should credit your sources and not profit off of an existing IP. It’s wrong, it’s plagiarism, and it’s a lawsuit waiting to happen. But this game is necessary evil to shut the imbecilic, drooling mouths of the people who say, “SEGA should hire this person,” for the sake of good graphics. If you want someone talented to be hired by SEGA, they’ll do it themselves, and they will be in charge of their own projects (if they wish), like Christian Whitehead. Shoutout to anyone who says that we shouldn’t compare fangames to AAA, no matter how bad the game or their devs are. Imagine comparing this to Cyberpunk.
I have some things to say. 1. “Consider this your bad omen!” Has to be the single worst thing I’ve ever heard come out of Sonic’s mouth, and in a fangame no less. I’ve heard far less cringey lines in the official games. 2. Weight of the World is like… it’s awesome for a final boss(as tedious and bullshit as it is), but it doesn’t compare to Fly With Me at all.
As a Russian I gotta say, you have no idea how much we here are absolutely ashamed of the absolutely detestable cesspool that is the Omens dev team. Like damn, I sincerely wish that the head of the team could just lose every single cent they’ve ever made off this game and never gets a chance to achieve anything in their life. And, on a side note, I have nothing, but the most immense desire to beat the living hell out of their Shadow Voice actor, because, being an aspiring voice actor myself, I can attest to the fact that ENGLISH IS THE EASIEST LANGUAGE THERE IS TO LEARN HOW TO PRONOUNCE PROPERLY!
Despite all the BS about Sonic Omens, I’d be lying if I were to say the presentation (mainly the cutscenes) of the game is bad. This is the direction I want for future official Sonic games. Things like Tails flying Sonic again, more animated expressions when characters talk, cooler dynamic scenes like at when Shadow rode on his bike & shot robos with his chaos spears or even at this part 10:23. Not to mention, it’s refreshing seeing the game’s graphics/visuals being ran on a different engine opposed to 10+ years of seeing official Sonic games being ran on the hedgehog engine since Unleashed. If everything was properly polished, it definitely would’ve been a fantastic fan game. Hate that something with such great potential was created in the hands of a collective of trash, toxic people.
I think what sucks about Omens is that underneath all the jank, ridiculousness, spite, and toxicity, I genuinely see the seeds of what could have been a pretty good game. The infinity engine is technically sound, the team just only needed to reel back their ego and actually try to learn from their mistakes so that they could make a better product.
In a sense i guess the best thing to come out of Omens is like you said, being a cautionary tale about how not to make a fangame. The Sonic fangame community is in my opinion one of the most inspiring and talented out there so to see some asshole trying to use it for nothing but money sorta helps show any upcoming developers what they shouldn’t do and especially how to not interact with the fanbase
When I looked at the cutscenes in isolation, it showed some level of promise, however it was disturbingly short for the scale the game was attempting to take (and absolutely fanfic-y but I had an easier time getting past that since other than that game I was coming off SEGA’s pretty risk-free official modern Sonic games such as Colors and Forces). I knew the game was controversial for some reason, but back then I saw how many nods there were and thought “oh they must like the series since they’re using plenty of things from it”, with most of these nods (minus Chris) being pretty frontloaded in the first few episodes… and then either not there or gravely misused in the latter ones (SONIC WHY DID YOU BREAK CHIP’S RING WHAT DID IT DO). However, it’s clear they were in the wrong mindset from the getgo. Not only did they try to profit off an IP they don’t own (which is already making it clear that if not everything is going to the game itself then they’re just making it for profit), but “we finished the game out of spite” is all you need to know to call this a massive waste, with the sexualization of Maria being the nastiest cherry on top I’ve ever seen. Things could’ve been so different if just three factors were different: if the whole team wasn’t thin-skinned af and actually listened to criticism and improved on it thus leading the project with passion and NOT spite, if the creator didn’t monetize it and instead spent his FREE time on it… and most importantly, if the modeller realized their “funny” joke was too out of context (doesn’t matter if all the girls in your locker rooms wore that, Maria likely never even knew what a locker room was!
I played the initial two releases. Before the game was completed. Back then, I had frustrations, but felt the game showed promise. I liked how they implemented Shadow’s Chaos powers, I liked how Chip’s bracelet was applied in both the story and gameplay. And just like Splash, I loved how they designed the opening level. I thought the game would improve as development progressed. Maybe iron out the flaws in the level design, fix the tornado controls, recast Shadow with someone who can actually sound like him. Had I known about the drama going on behind the scenes, I would’ve backed away and deleted the whole thing from my computer. My only consolation, is I saw this before I downloaded the completed game. It’s like the story opens with the promise of being good, and then suddenly, “Fooled you! This is a crappy Sonic X fanfic!”
I remember people saying like “wow some 3d sonic game better than sonic team games!”. Well, played a bit and i got frustrated with tails ship gameplay. After sometime, there was that thing with sega giving a copyright strike on the project, and seeing all the investiment from weird cg animation studios… Like… really strange. It was not a surprise to discover that sonic omens is not really a “good game”.
This is what happens when we put fangames on a pedestal and treat them like they’re the second coming of Christ. I would see hundreds of people praising this game under every omens article (one dude literally believe Tree Palace was the best stage) purely because the game had good graphics. Wonder how those people feel now.
Thank you splash dash. I’ve been telling EVERYONE not to praise this game cus on TikTok someone posted a article of it and I said and I quote “do not praise this game, it’s being promoted to make money and is genuinely terrible. Don’t give it the attention it is so desperately craving” and everyone just laughed at me saying “idc what beef u got with the creator…” like bruh it’s not beef it’s illegal
This game really is just one big fustercluck of a disaster. Like, the games creators using the game as a way to obtain money with an IP that’s not even theirs. The whole Maria thing is very sus, very out of place with the tone of the boss fight, and since Maria is dead……does that count as necrophilia? Oh god. What pisses me off the most is the fact that when Eggman’s VA in this game was streaming Omens with the games creators, he wasn’t having a good time. At all. The dude had a mental breakdown and they just laughed at him. That is beyond scummy, unfair and cruel. It goes to show how too much ambition can really such a detriment to a fan product. Fan games should be made with passion and love, not the opposite. Well, at least it serves to what not to do in a fan game, or a article game in general. There are other sonic fangames(Sonic Triple Trouble 16-bit) & sonic flash games (Sonic RPG) that are better, and Sonic Omens is definitely not one of them.
THANK YOU for talking about the hypocrisy of treating Sea3on like it’s on the same level as Omens. There’s an animator on Twitter that’s been spouting shit about it since the game came out, and I’m sick of it. Unlike Omens, Project Sea3on doesn’t create stretch goals that people had to reach if they wanted more content. Literally everything is going towards the actual development of the project without locking it behind a paywall.
I was shocked by the amount of toxicity behind Omens. I’ve never been a big fan of the project, but I remember wishing the developers well when the title was called Sonic 2020, hoping that that at worst they would make a subpar fan game and move on. I honestly thought that the worst they were doing was just using patreon to monetize a shitty game, but nah the people behind this are just weird
I haven’t played the game and honestly I think I like the love of it from the surface. You pointing out the details have most certainly cracked my view of the game heavily but it reminds me of 06 and despite all of that games flaws, I adored the story and design and that’s just something personal. I am glad this wasn’t a mainstream game but wished that sets took control and polished it so it would shine. As far as shadow, I’d they drop the accent a bit I love him a word better than the current official guy, otherwise the Maria fight was selling it a bit too much.
Rebranding is a powerful tool. Simply putting on a different costume can dupe the people that don’t follow your every move. Lots of internet personalities that should not be on the internet do this all the time. The downside of this tactic is the internet never forgets and word will eventually get out, so they have to constantly rebrand to keep the heat away.
What makes a good game? 1. It’s gotta be fun. 2. Not have too many glitches that’ll ruin the fun. 3. Have a reason to play it again. 4. No make profit out of people if it’s a fan game. 5. If you’re hiring voice actors, they better be good. 6. Let them get a new mic. 7. Don’t replace them. 8. Don’t be a D. 9. Don’t hire creeps. 10. Don’t have them hide content that proves they are a creep. 11. Don’t hate on people if they don’t like your game. 12. Make Sonic Omens.
Give Sonic ’06 this, at least it was made out of passion and wanting to take Sonic to a new era. It just didn’t get the chance to achieve it. I don’t see a good product being made purely out of spite. Since you lack the passion to help make it the best it can possibly be. If you want a true quality Sonic fan game. Check out Sonic Robo Blast 2 Sonic GT Sonic Project Hero Sonic Time Twisted Sonic Galactic Hell, Sonic Triple Trouble 16-bit and Sonic and the Fallen Star came after a few week earlier than Omens. Why not check those games and along with some of the cool stuff that’s coming to SAGE 2022
I’m late to the party, but here’s something else i noticed. I listen to a lot of sonic music and artists who’ve worked on sonic previously on spotify one of which is Bentley Jones (aka Lee brotheron who sang silver’s 06 theme) I put him on shuffle only to find that he was on one of the vocal themes for Omens. Idk why they got him.
When I played Sonic Omens for the first time (back when only the first 4 episodes were out), I’m not gonna lie: I loved it, but the more I played it, the more I saw of people’s articles on the game and the more I started to see of all the sh*tty stuff behind it’s development, release and reception, once the full game was released I played it again and said out loud: WHAT THE EVER LIVING F*CK WAS I THINKING?! Kinda reminds me of another Sonic game that I played for the first time, liked it, saw more about it’s development history and as the years passed, I ended up hating it. (Hint: it’s official and it was supposed to be a “return to form after so much criticism over the years”)
…so, gonna play devil’s advocate here, but there are some cool ideas in the game. -The graphics are OK some of the time. -I can kinda see how the Maria boss fight was meant to be meaningful to Shadow. Seen enough tropes in anime to see where it was trying to go. -Don’t really have the collective hate boner people have with Chris Thorndike. I liked his inclusion and the metarex. A nice callback if anything. Yeah, I was a Sonic X fan, Sue me. And I thought the “Bad omen” thing was alright. Sonic is definitely no stranger to cheezy one liners. Fucking “Super power of teamwork” …But those are about the only graces I’ll give the game. Only a few dollaps of gold in a veritable mountain of shit. And I don’t feel like digging.
Ah yes,the chaos that is this game. As a Russian,I remember I found out about it exactly from that good review from Eggman’s VA. I thought it was good,as it looked good. Then I checked another review saying that the game was bad. I was left confused as what to think of this game and as a result I pretty much forgot about it’s existence. No,I didn’t know about Patreon and all that stuff. And then I remember accidentally stumbling upon that document on Twitter and I was like “Wow,there was a lot of shitty decisions made for this game.” Also,I’m kind of nitpicking at a translation,but at 10:36 it says “underwear”,not “cowards”
The Metarex were pretty cool villains essentially being an army of cyborg plant people that want to wipe out all animal life in the galaxy sort of like an inverse of the whole nature vs technology theme found in most Sonic media. Sucks they got referenced in a crap fan game with Russian Chills voicing Shadow.
What’s ironic about this fangame is that it was suppose to explain why the Chaos Emeralds and Master Emerald weren’t used in the Meta Era(Aside from Generations) and also mention the two worlds theory. But then Sega decides to make the Chaos Emeralds important in Sonic Frontiers and also used the Master Emerald in the Sonic Forces prequel comic, and Tailstube debunking the two worlds theory.
This explains that screenshot of Chris Thorndyke I saw on Twitter getting mocked and blowing up lol. Also Sonic just trying to namedrop their game in the final battle is so dumb and cheesy, not opposed to it but it was badly written. So many people need to stop praising fan games mindlessly jus because they look pretty, just because something is slapped together in UE4 doesn’t mean they’re better than any official games. I can kinda respect the ideas they had but this whole affair is just so messy to say the least. Mass blocking on Twitter and being thin skinned is really pathetic, and NSFW of Maria being in game hidden is pretty fucking sus of them to say the least.
Oh god, now the morbid part of me that wants to play ’06 and Rise of Lyric wants me to experience this terribleness for myself. I don’t have access to my PC because I’m on holiday, but I guess that gives me plenty of time to decide on what to drink beforehand. Until then, I’ve got the Sonic Advance Trilogy to play through. If I can say anything good about it from what I’ve seen so far, it does prove why the mandates are important.
I saw Sonic Omens when it was first announced, and it piqued my interest, but decided to wait till it was finished to play it. Then I promptly forgot about it, only to have all these controversy articles bring it back to my attention. So naturally, I had to play it. And its one of those experiences that I had to take a step back and just ask myself… what game did everyone else play? I mean, the voice acting is certainly bad, but there is nothing in the game that isn’t done regularly worse in official Sega games. Story? Not great, but on par with what should be expected. Its less edgy then Shadow, and still generally better told then 06. It draws remarkably heavily from Sonic X, which is a weird choice, but it does so in a way that was stunningly faithful. Gameplay is, if you ask me, great. Gameplay feels kind of like Adventure 2, which has several gameplay styles. Some are… better then others, but the traditional boost stages feel amazing, second only to Unleashed itself for actually being fun. Boss fights are kinda weird, and certainly drawn out, but otherwise enjoyable. The Maria boss fight that everyone seems up in arms about is… really quite good, both narratively and mechanically. Which is weird to me, because everyone seems to be lasering in on it for some reason or another. I’m not going to defend the devs actions, but to say they finished the game out of spite for the people against them… well, I can’t help but agree.
I’ve played the game completely through and there aren’t many bugs (that I have seen.) that are “game breaking”. And the patreon is probably for the people who really enjoyed the game and wanna support the developers of the game. And since the Sonic Infinity Engine is open source Idk why you would wanna hate on the game so much. From my experience with it it’s been more fun to play than almost all of the other Sonic games I have played. I do agree with you on the forest level though. That was a pain in the butt to platform through, but every game can’t be perfect.
7:33 Its really sad for me that the composer is such a shithead. I really liked his songs for the game, if they are even his. As a composer myself, it really stings harder. edit: I dont, myself, beleve in seperating the art from the artist. If someone is admiring a persons work, and that work is being used for, or alongside, maliciousness or harm, it is bad art. No matter how good it sounds or looks.
This is one of those games that either deserves to be forgotten about, or used as a prime example of what NOT to do when making a fan game project. Trying to monetize it, not being patient & hiring the wrong people, blocking out any and all criticism towards the game, harassing other members of your team, other creepy illegal stuff… Just a horrible situation that I think everyone can learn from and know that this is everything to NOT do when making a fan game project. So that’s the only real plus out of this situation. Oh yeah, and the game is dogshit too. I played through the whole thing and I never wanna play it again, the final boss actually drove me insane lmao.
Why is it that for every decently great looking fan projects I encountered during the past few months, or years of my life, is always hiding painful truths, and pedophiles? This sucks… Now that I’m informed, and know the true story, and intentions behind the creators of Sonic Omens, I will now avoid supporting their work in any form, even through their disguises.
So what i understand from this: The creators are insanely greedy, the game itself is cringy, weird and unpolished, and they take full credit for making the game themselves even though its hard carried by the infinity engine. Does this make the game bad, or does it make the developers bad? Because if i’m being honest the game looks beautiful and i’m pretty impressed they were able to make something like that despite all the controversy.
If I was these people…. I’d keep the game as a passion project. Like. Keep to my current job of making other games, or whatever other job, and work on the game in my spare time, even if it took 10 years. At the end, I’d have a patreon and donation link, but they’d both be for my own games if the people liked the fan game and wanted to support me. Theoretical situation, but still would be better than…. This.
It’s incredible how fool I was when I first knew about this game! I’m just a novice on the Sonic fandom, and I love when people make fan games of the blur! I was praising this without knowing the truth(Ok, I knew a bit about it! But I wanted more context)! As I said before, I’m a novice on the fandom! But I’d like to thank you, Splash Dash, for giving me more context about the story behind this game! All of this leads me to a conclusion: Those guys need to be jailed! The fangames are projects made with passion, love, dedication and experience! It’s incredible that this isn’t the case! Somebody report this to the police!
I knew something was up with this game. I played an early Beta build and kept messing up. all while thinking that there’s no way I can be this bad at a Sonic game. And since I never actively followed development of this game. Save for perusal a few early gameplay articles. I wasn’t really aware of the controversy surrounding it. no I did question why they chose that voice actor to do shadow. However, now that I’ve done a little research on the games development. it’s a lot worse than I thought.
I just really want people to stop praising fangames like Jesus when they’re first announced, like wait until the fucking full game is released, and what a worse is because when you criticise it’s unfinished state for its bugs and bad level design people say you can’t judge it because it’s a fangame, which is dumb because that’s saying I can’t have my own opinion and I just have to say it’s good, which isn’t good for the creators who need criticism so they’re future games can be better. Like if I made a Sonic fangame and it was very glitchy or had a lot of issues and yet people never pointed them out and just said it’s amazing because of the graphics and because it’s a fangame I’d be fucking pissed
So, there are two mistakes in this article I’d like to correct. 1. They aren’t locking Sonic Omens behind the paywall anymore. They stopped doing that after those famous Shadow related beta builds were found out. However, they still hide Sonic Omens related content behind the paywall. This is specified in the doc itself. 2. The process of them blocking VK groups is described slightly wrong. Can’t blame you though, the original doc contains that same mistake. In reality they blocked every user from groups they didn’t like and not because there were users in those groups they didn’t like. They also blocked people associated with someone they didn’t like (Basically people in friend lists of those they didn’t like) if they felt specific enough. Also the doc is going to be updated to correct some mistakes, make it flow nicer and to add some important things that were unearthed after its release so that people wouldn’t spread things from that doc that are slightly wrong or are just plain false.
The stupid thing about this controversy…. Is people are STILL DEFENDING THEM??!?!?!! They’re an absolute ass, and their game still hasn’t become “Incredibly amazing” like some think. It’s still under the level of Sonic Teams own games, which is saying something cuz their games don’t have much bugs, but can sometimes be boring (cough, Forces) Level design is hard especially with how tough Sonic games in general are to make right.
I (kind of) like Sonic Omens, doesn’t mean I like the creators. I didn’t even know about all these issues until recently, after already playing Sonic Omens (not the final build). I mean, I knew about some issues like bad level designs and Shadow’s voice actor, but wow…this stuff is messed up to say the least. I’d rather play fan games that are basically just test rooms that let you test out a new Sonic engine. I’m so glad that there are still amazing fan games, though.
TLDR: Fucking sucks that this game turned out like this. I think there’s a lot of cool concepts that should at least be salvaged from this dumpster fire rather than leaving this game and everything about it to rot. I’m sad that such an initially promising fangame had to have so much bullshit surrounding it and ultimately fail. This poor beaten franchise doesn’t deserve another massive L like this but I guess that’s just how it is. And here’s the comment I typed initially that explains a bit more but I thought was confusing as shit to read lol. Honestly feel really bad about this. I wasn’t aware of this controversy until now and remembered really enjoying the release before the final release. It’s a massive shame that it ended up this way cause there were parts of the game that were really fun and it was, in my opinion, the best utilization of the Infinity Engine that I’ve seen. Also some of the concepts were cool imo. Namely the main idea of the game being a follow up to Unleashed and explaining why the Emeralds aren’t used anymore. Also using Chip’s ring which neither the main series nor enough fan games do. Basically my point is that even though the people behind the game suck and there’s a lot of issues with the game itself, I think there’s some stuff here that is genuinely very good and I kinda feel like this article undersells the good ideas. The Maria shit and Chris Thorndike coming out of absolutely fucking nowhere is obviously stupid. And I wanna make it clear I’m not really trying to defend the game overall.
OKAY WHAT THE FUCK- Just to see THAT mentioned on the VERY FIRST MINUTE about Sonic Omens is…well, damn. I had watched another article that mentioned how there were a lot of skeletons uncovered through that document and some disturbing content, but as I hadn’t read the document, I didn’t imagine some shit like that :l and no I never played this, probably couldn’t run it first time I heard of it, now I have a bit of a better computer…but this is clearly not worth trying out at all, I’d even take Sonic R over it 🙂
I’m glad You helped me convince AfroSenju to not really get involved with this game, I was doing a rough job as I knew Afro had enough clout to make people think it’s actually good. When we have so many more good games out there that cost nothing. It’s a shame the first Graphics game with the adventure feeling beside P-06 had to be This. As honestly I really didn’t want to ruin his fun but 1’s fun out weighs the many who would of fallen prey as the general consumers. If only omens actually tried to be better instead of just being a bad game that had ignorant people when they genuinely criticized them.
4:40 I mean to be fair, people seem to be turning around on 06 in that regard, at least for Shadow’s story. Which you know is kinda vindicating for me considering I actually thought the game was (mostly) well written, and now I can see actual discussion and criticism that goes beyond “Lol the lady kiss the heghog” when thats 5 seconds you could remove and nothing changes. Though yes the funny hedgehog kiss is very stupid, even as someone who thinks 06 is good I will admit that.
Honestly, a fight Shadow against Maria isn’t such a bad idea. But it has to be executed correctly. For exemple, it could be a fight inside Shadow’s mind, his doubts and remorse taking the form of Maria, without technically being her (kinda like Inner Agent 3 in Splatoon 2), and defeating this boss could be a way for Shadow to overcome the pain he feels for losing Maria.
it sucks because the main theme song ¨weight of the world” is a banger and the concepts are actually good. but the story is lackluster and is missing a lot of needed world building and the gameplay gets dragged down by the big and chaotic level design. The voice acting for sonic and tails is……. decent but for everyone else its really bad ( chips voice sounds nothing like him). The final boss is cool, very wasted potential for it to be stuck in this game
Sonic Omens really could’ve been a decent enough fan game had the person behind it not been…. Well you know. When i first saw this game, as Sonic 2020, i thought it looked really neat and i was impressed that a fan made game could have animated cutscenes and full voice acting. The voice acting wasn’t good, but still i was impressed. I had forgotten about it for a while and It wasn’t until it became Sonic Omens that it came back into my head like “oh yeah this was a thing”. Before you ask, no I haven’t played the game, i dont have the software nor any actual means nor playing it or any kind of fan game. Still it really looked like the next possible step in fan made Sonic…….. then the game actually came out and once i heard Shadow’s new voice actor, thats when everything fell apart. The more footage of the game i saw, the more i began seeing cracks. From the disappointing story, to the bad voice acting, the gameplay i was seeing. It just looked like a complete mess. The story was especially disappointing, for me personally, i feel it had all the right pieces to be good, and bringing back a Metarex from the anime Sonic X was a neat idea, and his design was pretty cool. Its just a shame that the writing, dialogue, and voice acting took out any enjoyment I could’ve had. ESPECIALLY Shadow’s voice. I understand that english was not this guy’s first language, but like you said he really should’ve just waited those two days for the original actor to get his mic. No matter which way you look at it, Sonic Omens is just a mess.
Was the “Bad Girl” image in Maria’s textures a drawing/render or an actual photo though. That is an EXTREMELY important distinction and clarity on statements like that is crucial, knowing whether it’s a “weird inappropriate unused texture” or a “HOLY SH*T AN ACTUAL CHILD PREDATOR” situation is necessary as there’s a huge difference in severity between “Dragon Maid” and “Cuties”. But yeah, this fangame really crashed and burned, hope this finally drills into people’s head that Flashy Visuals =/= Good Game
8:57 Sumochkin made 3 reviews of the Omens, two of which were made before he was casted as Eggman. And none of those 2 were negative. In the first review he was happy with the game even with it’s flaws. Almost the same situation was with his second review where he basically wasn’t satisfied with the gameplay alone but enjoyed the rest of the game, he also said that even though the game had it’s flaws he was going to keep support the developers. And the third review wasn’t absolutely positive as some might think, as he showed positive and negative sides of the game as before. So his impression of the game was mostly the same
You know splash dash I have been very unimpressed with your content, a lot of it feels rather immature and childish (Your Frontiers article makes me cringe a lot). However, this article is legitimately great, kudos. I hope to see more of these kinds of research type of content rather than timely rant articles.
When I heard Sonic say, “You’re a bad omen!”, I was like, “What?!” I don’t think even Colors era Sonic, flanderized as he was, would have ever said something that… stupid. Edit: Now I know he said it was “Consider this your bad omen!” I was listening and not perusal the first time I heard it. The fact that I made a mistake like that based on listening alone really shows the quality of voice acting in this game.
I LOVE that people’s Omens articles keep getting marked as gameplay of Sonic ’06/Shadow the Hedgehog. It’s got some great comedic irony considering quite a lot of people blindly say the game’s story is incredible, despite… everything. Also, YES. Spark is an underrated franchise. The recently-released Spark 3 beats out Sonic Omens by a long shot!
Apparently the devs actually just released a counter document addressing the controversy and in it, contains multiple screenshots/images of evidence disproving most of everything Farkle claimed. While I myself have not read the document yet, I just felt this should be shared. I think it wise to see both sides of the stories and evidence they have before picking a side.
This is why I’m glad I have a brain and use it instead of mindlessly turning it off like most of the Sonic community. Like I understand there has been a lack of games but don’t let something made by a fan automatically erase your critiques you have against Sega. Games/fan games without feedback will end up like the 2K NBA series. This game is more broken compared to Sonic 06 and that’s extremely sad. I’d rather play that or even Sonic Forces, at least I know those games are in ALOT more stable condition than Omens ever hoped to be PS. Great work, also I HATED that tree level
no one will probably read this, but it is reasonable to ask what rules there are for monetization for a fan project. People are making up their own rules to defend SATAM season 3 or spreading misinformation (like they got SEGA’s approval). The project is still paywalling content and SEGA IS interested in having Sonic be successful in cartoons. SATAM Season 3 has basically allowed Sonic Kickstarters to exist. In fact a Kickstarter could be more transparent as it would actually need the budget planned out rather than just continuously being able to raise money for the project.
I always got weird vibes perusal that game. It totally makes sense someone stole it and turned it into something evil. Fan games should NEVER be profiting off the fans and that Maria wearing panties bit…. really irked me in the wrong way. Like that dude should be on a watchlist or smth yeesh ~~~~~
I still don’t really get why peeps are okay with non-game fan projects making money but not okay with fangames doing it. like, Sonic isn’t just a article game franchise anymore, heck, really there’s really only like a year when it _was_. cartoons, comics, movies, merch, etc. this has pretty much always been a part of the franchise. a fan cartoon really isn’t any less of a threat to their IP than a game.
There’s almost no nuance in the Sonic community and no one seems to realize that, although many developers in the fangame community are wildly talented, they’re not all seasoned developers in the way someone like Takashi Iizuka is. There is a large difference in being a talented indie developer who’s certainly capable of going places in the industry, and an industry veteran who once spent a month crunching half to death just to finish the level design for a game a few months on the way to being released because his coworker called out sick for the month. You can complement someone for their work, but putting them on a pedestal like this proclaiming “see sonic team? THIS is how you make a sonic game” is just disingenuous and helps no one, most especially not the developer. What are they supposed to do with that? It doesn’t help their creative process and it just throws stones when it isn’t necessary. It’s a ridiculous sentiment that has to stop sooner rather than later, otherwise we get more dog water like this made by narcissists who are incapable of taking criticism and charge fans money for even a tiny playable look at their work. I feel like games like Sonic Omens only further poison the well for anyone trying to use sonic’s framework and design to enhance their skills in game development, which already wasn’t easy when they were being hounded by fans to put in unnecessary and difficult to develop features, or having their work compared to official work in order to scrutinize the latter.
While the game itself isn’t really that good the whole patreon controversy is just really dumb. If sega chooses to crack down on all sonic fan games because one person wanted to make money of his labor (which regardless of the quality of the game obviously a lot of work went into this) that would be SEGAS decision. If this happened your anger should be focused on sega for actually doing the bad thing not a handful of fans who “forced segas hand.” The whole ideal is bullshit because it wouldn’t force sega to do anything the existence of fan projects like this with patreons doesn’t massively effect the bottom line of a massive tech company, no one’s going to be homeless because of sonic omens, sega could should and at least so far has chosen to see sonic omens shrug their shoulders and do nothing at no cost to the company or it’s image.
Nah, I can kinda get behind their reasonings. It’s a sort-of 2000’s FPS dev vibe. How is the dev humoring someone being bad at their game a bad thing? Aside from two or three valid criticisms, the entire article reeks of “You can say I like pancakes and some twitter user will misinterpret that as hating waffles.”
I’m gonna throw this out for everybody. Theres a new game called Spark the Electric Jester 3 which is a really fun sonic adventure styled 3D platformer. Spark I feel like that’s how you can make and profit off of a sonic styled game. It has its own original characters and world while it’s still taking elements from Sonic.
I 100% agree that the creator of the game is an Ahole ( if he actually did the things you mentioned in the article) but you cant tell ne the game is bad this was one of the best sonic experiences i have ever had i dont care what the creator did because i never supported him and no one should but i just got an amazing sonic game for free i wanna say this game rivals the quality of official sonic games its just how i see it but if you didnt like the game i still respect your opinion
Nothing is changed – tree levels is actually beateable cause you can see the switched and know where they are now, a bunch of bullshit like winds in plane levels nerfed etc. The game is alright, you are just bad. Was more fun than Fallen Star with it’s braindead design. The game is isanely fun to speedrun precisely because they totally understand how to make ifinity engine levels. Shadow is a bunch of custom code, same for sonic’s light hookshot and all the bosses and most of the gimmicks – that’s a lotta coding. And all of it flows with Infinity’s core loop of endless jumps too. The game has fucking Bentley Jones in it, that dude is def not doing it for free. If the song was stolen – Dysney would have knocked on the John’s door the same day. The development is still not over, the game is released then polished instead of the usual fangame’s routine of being stuck in development hell remaking the first level over and over. New Shadow VA is easier to work with due to being russian “Suddenly” russian reviewer makes a good article… after playing Chao Paradies episode instead of the one with fucking tree level. HMMM I WONDER WHY. They did ackowledge the texture miltiple times and even posted the response of the model’s creator saying that she and her friends did wear stuff like that as kids and it’s a fun pun in the context of the game. You are also way past the age of not getting such an obvious joke or finding dark humour creepy, grow up. And of course the guy behind the doc appropriadly calling himself Fickle who was harassing devs ever since the first demo remains unnamed GT has worse bosses and story, gameruining level worse TBH.
5:41 You say that like every other Sonic fan game (INCLUDING Robo Blast 2) doesn’t have a patreon page, or a GameJolt page or some game-unrelated way of making money. Ouroboros literally is working with SEGA whilst making the fan game, and you treat it like SEGA gives two shits. Besides, you don’t get any game benefits from donating to them. This is JUST to support the team, not the game. Even to THAT extent, they still make barely anything close to the money you make off of this article. Edit: Before you automatically block me for “spreading hate”, just read the whole 25-page doc and understand it before deciding to criticize them.
I acctualy started the game today and loved very much. I thought the voice acting was okay and some even good (but shadow does suck) And I love the sound track. The level design was okay and maybe even good imo. And I don’t mind the Patreon IF THEY JUST ASKED NICELY AT THE END OF THE CREDITS AND NOTHING MORE I had alot of fun playing this game even if the story for some whatever reason involved sonic X. Basically what I love about the game is mostly everything except shadow voice acting (and maybe sonic too) and the sonic X things (WHY IS SONIC X HERE?! WHY IS CHRIS DEAD?! WTF) Fuck the creators fuck the lore. Good gameplay tho (except for the tree level but every game has that level)
Whew this is very questionable. Just a lot of stuff around a fangame hah?… I’ll say this, if you want any personal donation or anything, that should be possible in any medium, as long as it is not something people have to feel forced to do! I am sure if the game shows promise then some money will come in! But to say it is needed and to push so hard?…. Geez that isn’t right! You are taking from a series to make money off of it. Do you want to consider yourself like one of those bootlegging products, like off brand plushes? When you mentioned uhh Ped stuff, I thought someone did something in discord or DMs again at the least. Honestly what happened is strange and very questionable, but I am glad no one has any serious drama to deal with.
MARIAAAAA!!!! 1:04 me tomorrow 4:57 that section where you have to kill everything? Yeah I skipped a lot of my footage from that, I got so incredibly angry because the ships kept respawning which didn’t make sense, cause like you said tails said we had to kill them all, but yeah had the EXACT SAME frustration even me who catches on quickly thought I was TWEAKING 😭 8:01 it was wind, I didn’t know it either and got so angry when I was off center. 11:19 FACTS Oh yeah somehow I got S rank on this and weeping rift on my first try 😭 12:49 Sonic CD ahhhhh design 13:28 wish I would’ve known this 😭 14:39 Werehog? 🥲 Fr
3:50 I think what I would have complimented this a little bit more is if they put a beginner, intermediate, in advance stage for the tornado sections. It kind of went from 0 to 100 so i agree the difficulty spike here is insane and I’ve told them this. 9:09 lol it’s just wind effects 🤣🤣🤣 15:48 I don’t blame anybody for not liking this section of the game. Cool ideas but bad execution The only thing I really enjoyed was hiding from the bird. Maria…… Not my cup of tea probably the lowest point of the game. I do hope you enjoy the final stage I personally did in the final boss. Pro tip L3 for the free cam for that boss.