Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric
Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric is a 2014 action-adventure platform video game developed by Big Red Button and published by Sega for the Wii U. Along with Sonic Boom: Shattered Crystal for the Nintendo 3DS, it is a spin-off of Sega's Sonic the Hedgehog series and is a part of the Sonic Boom franchise, which also consists of an animated television series, a comic series by Archie Comics, and a toyline by Tomy. The storyline follows Sonic, Tails, Knuckles and Amy, who must stop Lyric the Last Ancient from acquiring the Chaos Crystals by powering up a robot army and wiping out all organic life, after Sonic accidentally awakens Lyric from a thousand year rest, while escaping Doctor Eggman.
North American cover art
An example of gameplay in Rise of Lyric.
A screenshot of the game from the Sonic Synergy phase of development; following the switch to the Wii U, the graphics would be significantly scaled back due to hardware limitations
Sonic the Hedgehog is a video game series and media franchise created by the Japanese developers Yuji Naka, Naoto Ohshima, and Hirokazu Yasuhara for Sega. The franchise follows Sonic, an anthropomorphic blue hedgehog who battles the evil Doctor Eggman, a mad scientist. The main Sonic the Hedgehog games are platformers mostly developed by Sonic Team; other games, developed by various studios, include spin-offs in the racing, fighting, party and sports genres. The franchise also incorporates printed media, animations, feature films, and merchandise.
Sonic the Hedgehog co-creators: programmer Yuji Naka (left) and artist Naoto Ohshima (right) with a costume of the titular character (center)
The original Sonic the Hedgehog was released on June 23, 1991, for the Sega Genesis, boosting Genesis sales dramatically.
Hirokazu Yasuhara (pictured in 2018) designed most of the Genesis Sonic games.
Few Sonic games were released for the Saturn. The cancellation of Sonic X-treme is considered a significant factor in the Saturn's commercial failure.