I believe it was some time in February this year (2011) that we got those strange hints from Sega where they highlighted certain letters in two separate messages on two separate days. The messages as I recall were “Berlin” and “Green Eyes is Back.” These are most likely referring to upcoming Sonic games seeing as 2011 will mark the 20th anniversary of Sonic on June 23. But what does this all mean? Tell you the truth I have no idea. I’ve tried searching around but for once Sega and Sonic Team are actually doing a good job on keeping the 2011 games under wraps. We do know several games that should be released this year. As of March 1 they are “Sonic Anniversary” “Sonic 3DS” (which may be the 3DS version or port of “Sonic Anniversary”) “Sonic 4: Episode 2″ and “Untitled Mario and Sonic Game.” All of those are tentative (except for may be Sonic 4: Episode 4). From what I can guess either both of these messages relate to Sonic 4 Episode 2 or Berlin relates to Sonic 4 Ep 2 and Green Eyes is back relates to Sonic Anniversary. But I could be wrong so I’m just going to go through everything as I did with my Sonic 4 Episode 1 posts from 2009 and 2010.
Berlin Refers to Sonic 4 Episode 2
From what I’ve seen most people seem to agree on that “Berlin” refers to “The Hedgehog and the Fox” by Isaiah Berlin I’m sure I’ll get flame mail for stating that but screw you. Sonic 4 Episode 1 LEVEL WISE was basically a revamp of Sonic 1 (Splash Hill=Green Hill, Lost Labyrinth=Labyrinth) and Sonic 2 (Casino Street=Casino Night, Mad Gear=Metropolis, Egg Station=Death Egg). From this we can assume that Episode 2 will be a revamp of Sonic 2 & 3 Levels and what did Sonic have in 2 & 3? Oh yeah a sidekick! Who was this sidekick? Miles “Tails” Prower. Who is a what? Two tailed fox! Especially that now in Episode 2 Sonic has a second threat to Eggman *SPOILER ALERT* Metal Sonic! who else to bring in but his sidekick? It also seems they’re going for a nostalgia feel. So Episode 1 (Needlemouse remember that? yet another reason to think Berlin is Episode 2) is just Sonic, Episode 2 will probably have Tails, and Episode 3 will probably have Knuckles. It’s a safe bet they’ll do 4 Episodes, the 4th being the climax or they’ll add in Shadow or someone else.
Berlin Refers to Sonic Anniversary
Remember all of you flamers that’s a tentative title. If you don’t know what tentative means don’t even bother flaming me as I’ll just refer you to your local book store where you can by a dictionary that is of course if you know how to read. With that said and insults behind, it is possible that Berlin and thus “The Hedgehog and the Fox” refers to this upcoming title. Sonic Team seems to do something interesting with it’s storylines:
Sonic 1-4: Sonic 1 start of the storyline loose connection with rest of story, Sonic 2 begins main storyline, Sonic 3 direct sequel to previous game, Sonic & Knuckles direct sequel to the direct sequel and seemingly ends the storyline, Sonic 4 loosely based on preceding storyline serves more as a follow up.
Sonic Adventure-Sonic The Hedgehog : Sonic Adventure start of the storyline loose connection with rest of story, Sonic Adventure 2 begins main storyline, Sonic Heroes direct sequel to previous game, Shadow the Hedgehog direct sequel to the direct sequel and seemingly ends the storyline, Sonic The Hedgehog loosely based on preceding storyline serves more as a follow up.
This would mean that Sonic Unleashed, Sonic Colors, and Sonic Anniversary are the next batch of storlyines for us. Really you can kind of see the Sonic 1 and Sonic 2 connection with Unleashed and Colors. Unleashed was kind of the experiment like Sonic 1 was while Sonic 2 is the game. Now I’m not comparing Unleashed to Sonic 1 or saying they are on part with each other IN MY OPINION (opinion is another word flamers and trolls need to look up) Sonic 1 is way better than Unleashed but I also think Sonic 2 is way better than Sonic 1 which I see the comparison with Unleashed and Colors (this is a possible future blog the storyline connections).
In the main series we haven’t been able to play as Tails since I Sonic The Hedgehog. Though he was present in Unleashed and Colors he wasn’t playable. Now it is possible that in Anniversary they’re going to bring back this option to play as Tails (or with Tails) as seen in Sonic 2, but it’s also possible they’re going to give us this option in Sonic 4 Episode 2.
Green Eyes is Back Refers to Sonic 4 Episode 2
Seeing as this was mentioned very soon after Berlin it is highly possible that they are related and thus referring to the same game.
Green Eyes is Back Refers to Sonic Anniversary
It’s been a rough couple years for Sonic Games. Only speaking of the main/console series they really haven’t been getting that good reviews since Sonic Adventure 2. The handhelds are another story but the console games have been pretty negative:
Sonic Adventure 2 81% B-
Sonic Heroes 69% D+
Sonic The Hedgehog 45% F-
Sonic Unleashed 62% D-
Sonic 4 Episode 1 76% C
Sonic Colors 79% C+
(I arrived at these ratings by averaging all of the Metacritic reviews of each version of each above game)
So we have a good game in 2001 followed by crap for 8 years then all of a sudden 2010 hits and we get 2 average games. All right average is an improvement from below average (Unleashed & Heroes) and Failure (Unleashed). We can now take this “Green Eyes is back” comment as just meaning “oh hey sorry for the bad games we just gave you 2 better ones now this year you’re getting a better one” que Sonic Anniverary.
Or at least we hope Sonic Anniversary is a good game.
Berlin and Green Eyes Refer to Something Totally Different
Leave it to Sonic Team to shatter our dreams. Berlin could be a new character or Sonic goes fight the Nazis or something in an upcoming game. As for Green Eyes I wouldn’t put it past Sonic Team to give Amy or Jet their own games this year. I guess we’ll just have to wait but hey SIRF and ASSC Studios will keep you updating so check them every so often only at www.asscstudios.net
Tags: sonic & knuckles, sonic 2, sonic 3, Sonic 4, Sonic 4 Episode 1, Sonic 4 Episode 2, Sonic Adventure, Sonic Adventure 2, sonic anniversary, sonic colors, sonic game previews, Sonic Heroes, sonic the hedgehog, sonic unleashed
