Sega and Bioware announce Sonic RPG
Today Sega-Europe and Sega of America, have announced plans for a new Sonic RPG exclusively for the Nintendo DS.
Sega will be partnering with Canada-based developement team Bioware, who are credited for some of the world’s best-selling titles including the Baldur’s Gate and Neverwinter Nights series for the PC, the 2003 Game of the Year, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, and the 2005 RPG of the Year, Jade Empire. BioWare is currently developing one of the most anticipated Xbox 360 titles of 2007, Mass Effect.
“BioWare is one of the hottest names in RPG development in the world,” said Simon Jeffery, President and COO, SEGA of America, Inc. “Everyone at SEGA has huge confidence that Sonic is in the safest of hands, and that BioWare can create the ultimate handheld RPG experience for gamers of all ages.”
“We’re thrilled to be working with SEGA on Sonic, one of the industry’s most enduring and compelling icons,” said Greg Zeschuk, president of BioWare. “As huge fans of Sonic ourselves, we’re committed to delivering a truly amazing story-driven experience within the Sonic universe, focusing on capturing the character’s broad appeal and placing him in a completely original adventure,” added Ray Muzyka, chief executive officer of BioWare.’
This new partnership with Bioware is yet another great step for Sega in trying to prove they are serious about developing games for the Western market. It’s also yet another big Western studio they are teaming up with, as well as the likes of; Bizarre Creations, Gas Powered Games, Monolith Productions, Obsidian Entertainment, Planet Moon Studios, Pseudo Interactive, Silicon Knights … (and more!).
Let’s just hope that Bioware can bring us the goods with an RPG-style Sonic game. It could be a risky venture, and I am very interested in seeing just how they will incorporate the RPG element to the game. I am sort of expecting something a little like Knights of the Old Republic, in my mind. Bioware had great success with the Xbox and PC titles, so they may try and do something similar with Sonic … could be interesting.
The game is scheduled for a 2008 release.
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POSTED IN: G, News, Nintendo DS, Sonic
5 opinions for Sega and Bioware announce Sonic RPG
Kijuna
Jun 21, 2007 at 11:37 am
And just when I was starting to complain about both a lack of good DS games and a lack of Sega news…
Chris
Jun 21, 2007 at 3:32 pm
I am actually pretty optimistic about this game. Everyone knows Bioware makes great RPGs. It’s a fact, and I think the Sonic universe has enough good characters to develop a decent RPG from.
Angelo
Jun 21, 2007 at 3:43 pm
I think it’d be more like Jade Empire in terms of the battle system–more action-centric. I can’t really see a Sonic RPG using anything even resembling a d20 system…
Silverslug
Jun 21, 2007 at 11:42 pm
almost all of Bioware games have averged 9> on gameranking, this is good news for Sega fans and Bioware fans
(I’m both)
CaptainUlt
Jul 4, 2007 at 4:35 pm
My idea on Sonic RPG:
The plot would be that Eggman has started a army of super-robots, and it’s up to Sonic, Tails and Knuckles to stop them.
The game would use 2 types of gameplay action, having the field as a platforming area to use special abilties, and the turn-based battle system to confront emenies.
The players usually controls a team of 3, and they are 3 teams to choose from:
Sonic + Tails + Knuckles, Amy + Cream + Big and Espio + Charmy + Vector.
Each team member has a special element: Speed, Flight and Power (silimar to Sonic Heroes). Speed characters have fast attacks and are not very powerful, Flight characters have good denfense and slow attacks, and Power characters have powerful attacks and weak denfense.
On the field, the touch screen displays the menu for character inventory, stats and items and the top screen displays actions. In battle, the touch screen shows the gameplay. Touching a emeny makes the character who is currently having “his turn” and the top screen displays HP and SP attacks.
And finally, the stats. Each characters has a different numbers of Stats Points, each one didived into 6 catagetories: HP, SP, Denfense, Power, Speed and Energy. The HP is the character’s current HP left. Once damaged in battle, the character attacked loses HP. If the character loses all his HP, the character “drops out” and can’t battle. SP is the characters Special Points for doing Special Attacks. Using Special Attacks drains SP points. Denfense is how hard a character gets damaged for an attack (Example: A character with 10 Denfense Points would take 16 damage from a attack, and a character with 60 Denfense Points would take 3 damage from a attack.) Power is how much an a character’s attack will damage the emeny (Example: An attack from a character with 10 Power Points would do 3 damage, and a attack from a character with 30 Power Points would do 12 damage). Speed points is how accurate the character’s attack will hit the emeny (Example: A attack from a character with 15 Speed Points has a 75% chance of missing the emeny, while a character with 27 Speed Points has a 30% chance of missing the emeny.)
And, finally, the Energy stat is a special stat for a special type of character for each type of character. Speed characters has Mana, Flight characters has Skill and Power characters has Stamina. Mana lets the character refill SP overtime during battle and boosts the characters own SP power. Skill lets the character perform some special effects (for example, an attack might freeze the emeny). Stamina is how powerful the attacks, and how long the character will stay in battle.
Sorry, if this was very long, but I have a very solid idea for this game.
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