Sonic's birthday & Sonic Forces info! Tomoya Ohtani’s Sound Column translated

News from 2017.06.23
Archived on 2017.06.25 on Tumblr

http://sonic.sega.jp/SonicChannel/soundcolumn/ohtani/20170623_001369/ 

Before you read the translation, visit the original article with lots of pictures!
And enjoy :)

Happy Birthday Sonic! / E3 / Avatar

Tomoya Ohtani – June 23rd

Hello everyone, here is Ohtani, Sound Director for ‘Sonic’ series.
I’m sorry for the irregular updates.

First of all,
Happy Birthday Sonic!

Since we didn’t have the Birthday Party this year, it was a pity that I couldn’t see everyone there… but in that time, I could concentrate on development and do a lot of fine adjustments! (be positive)

Well, for today being Sonic’s birthday, there were so many announcements made today. A quick sum up:

• The animation ‘Sonic Toon’ with Japanese voice will be aired at Netflix from Saturday, July 1st!
• To celebrate the Sonic 26th anniversary and the release of animation, official present campaign will be held on Twitter!
• The Café Selection music is now available on iTunes and Amazon MP3!
• Amazon’s ‘SEGAmono Shop’ holds Sonic goods fare!
• ‘ANIPPON. Sonic the Heddgehog MODEL’ can now be pre-ordered! Mars16 sells new T-shirts with Sonic designs!
• 2nd set of Sonic’s LINE stamps is obtainable!
• Sonic Lobby appears in ‘Phantasy Star Online 2’! Lobby is painted in Sonic color!

Full of news! I was waiting for the inland release of ‘Sonic Toon’. I will of course watch it!

[E3]

Now we come to the main topic. Last week, the largest game event E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo) was held in Los Angeles. There, many new information of ‘Sonic Forces’ were revealed!

I got pictures from Producer Nakamura who was at the event. He reported that he received many interviews every day, and that the reaction to the trial play of ‘Sonic Forces’ and trailers released online was huge.

There are topics to talk about on the sounds side, so let’s look at them one by one.

[Avatar]

Avatar’s introduction movie was released in Japan too!

In this work, a character will appear whom the users can freely customize. One creates own hero who will fight together with Sonic and allies by using a weapon called ‘Wispon’ which borrows the power of Wisps. A gameplay footage to ‘Park Avenue’, one of the action stages, has been released too.

One can enjoy the wire action and dynamic, high-speed action using ‘Wispon’.

Furthermore – I guess you caught it at the end of this movie – the Avatar’s stage music will have vocals!

New: Vocal will be on every music of Avatar’s stages!

New: Also, multiple singers, male and female, are participating!

On contrary to the rocky band sound of Modern Sonic’s stage music, the Avatar’s stage music has Drum’n Bass / EDM-based, dance music-like programmed sounds as its concept. With this, coolness and euphoria that are characteristic to dance music, which is different from live band sounds, can be expressed.

Since it is a customizable character, I thought a music that is structured by combining different parts would fit, and so I decided on this direction. Vocal part is not a full chorus, but adds in as fragments.

The impression you have on the music I would create for ‘Sonic series’ might be a fresh and high-speed pop or rock, for example ‘Endless Possibility’ or ‘Rooftop Run’. Since I created lots of such music in the last work ‘Sonic Runners’ too, so it’s no wonder.

However, I love Techno / House / Hip Hop / Drum’n Bass / Dubstep / EDM and Dance music, and I had been intensively creating such sounds for a very long time. I think all of the demo tapes I submit to SEGA as an assignment for new graduates employment included such music… Meaning, the sound track this time includes everything in my drawer!

On June 7th, stage music of ‘Park Avenue’ was revealed.

For the promotion of this game, we decided to release some of the music works alone beforehand. I got many reactions on Twitter from both Japanese and overseas fans. Thank you very much.

The Avatar is a resistance member who rose up from the general citizen, so this character is scared of going to a fight. Even then, one summons up own courage and stands up against the enemy – the lyrics describes such mind, and at the same time pushes the player’s back to cheer up.

Destiny

Lies before you

I believe

You have the power

Can you see 

Your horizon?

Victory’s

For the taking

[Stage music] 

The concept of stage music is different for each game. For example in ‘Sonic Lost World’, I concentrated on expressing the motives of background (grass field, desert, ocean, snow and so on) and the playful rhythm with the music. A light and casual music, you could say.

On the other hand, for ‘Sonic Forces’ I am composing while having the story’s flow and the characters’ minds in my thought. Overall, the music is finalized in heroic and dramatic, heavy and large-scaled tone.

Which music will be reveled in which form as next? I will make you enjoy the time until game release! *grin*

See you then!

http://sonic.sega.jp/SonicChannel/soundcolumn/ohtani/20170623_001369/ 

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