Welcome back to the Wire Weekly, where I, Ben “E-102 ℽ made me cry when I was six and you know what he still does” Fruzzetti, run through the week’s assortment of Nintendo news with what could charitably be referred to as wit, sarcasm, and personality.
It was a pretty big week in the video game world — not because of actual video games, mind you, but rather video game movies. Ah, yes, cinematic adaptations of video games -0 the epitome of two great tastes that do not traditionally go well together. When the best examples of the practice are generally regarded as mediocrely positive, you know that the genre is lacking. Still, in spite of the literal months of preparations for it, including rumors that proved to be 100% accurate, I don’t think anybody was prepared for the Sonic the Hedgehog movie trailer.
T̶̴re̛͝m̨b̕͢l̸͝ę̴,͜ ̕͏m͘o̸r͏t̀ąl̷͏s̶͘͢.̨҉
Now, I know you all expect me to be Mr. Snark here. But what can I say? What can I do but weep before such an abomination, a profound and wasteful monument to all of corporatism’s sins? Hollywood executives approved of this crime against God’s providence, and then they put it to Coolio’s “Gangsta’s Paradise” for no explicable reason. They somehow took the already mangled public image of Sonic the Hedgehog and bludgeoned it further. Hasn’t he suffered enough? How many times must the Blue Blur be desecrated before the powers that be are satisfied?
At the top is “three unanimously praised Sonic games in a row”
Now, it’s not as if everything in the trailer is offensive (Jim Carrey is just being Jim Carrey — he seems kinda fun at least), but it sure doesn’t raise hopes for a good movie. The backlash was so severe that they’re changing the Sonic design before release — which just makes me think of the overworked and underpaid animators who probably were vying against the design in the first place. Some conspiracy theorists even think this was an intentional ploy to get publicity, which an idea almost as crazy as whatever addled brain came up with this Sonic design in the first place.
The Sonic design we deserve.
But here’s a conspiracy: What if the timing of this trailer was to make the other upcoming CGI video game movie look better? Detective Pikachu is on the horizon, and the press tour has kicked into high gear, with cast interviews, trailers, and promos to set our collected Poké-imaginations on fire. Early reviews from the movie have started trickling in, and they’re pretty mixed — but it seems primed for box office success either way. I mean, do they know how much the millennials love Pokémon? They could slap together an hour and a half of Bulbasaur footage and it’d make millions. Heck, I’d go see it five times.
Look! At! Him!
Was there any actual video game news? Not a ton, though a couple things worth remarking upon. Nintendo has started bi-daily tweeting about Fire Emblem: Three Houses characters, drip-feeding us info that will hopefully continue up to release. Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night has gotten both a release date and a graphical overhaul, sharpening an already promising game into one of the most hotly anticipated Metroidvanias of the year. And the excellent VA-11 Hall-A dropped onto Switch — definitely pick it up if you’re into visual novels, cyberpunk, anime, bartending or all of the above.
Pictured: the greatest fictional character.
That’s all for this week! Tune in next time, where there will be presumably 50% less CGI furries. Until then!
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Written by Amelia Fruzzetti
A writer and Nintendo fan based in Seattle, Washington. When not working for NinWire, she can be found eating pasta, writing stories, and wondering about when Mother 3 is finally going to get an official localization.
