As one of the men that people used to say that SEGA should hire, this whole situation has been endlessly cathartic for me. Sonic fangames should be made with love, passion and heart. Not with spite and egotism.

“Consider this your bad Omen!” Not even Morbius could beat this masterpiece. Truly the game of all time.

I see this game as a necessary evil. We needed something as bad as this to humble everyone a bit, because i can't stand how every fangame concept is INSTANTLY praised like the second coming of Christ, even when it's clearly unfinished.

As a wise man on Twitter once said... "Sonic Omens is the game Arin Hanson thinks he's playing every time he plays a Sonic Game."

This is literally everything that can go wrong making a Fangame

Proving that just because you're a fan, doesn't mean you always know what's best for the series.

"Conisder THIS your bad omen" has the same energy as "It's Morbin' Time"

Not sure if this matters, but I had the pleasure of editing this video and I decided to play through Omens for all the footage. The game is dreadful, and the fact that there are people out there who genuinely think it is better than even SEGA's worst offerings scares me.

Fan games are always a fickle thing. The best you can hope for is that it gets finished, it’s good, and that it stays accessible even if it gets C&D’d. Lots of projects fail to meet any of these.

“SEGA hire this man” -said some random twitter account that didn’t even play the game

While I don't always agree with a lot of your opinions on different subjects, I do need to thank you for getting the facts straight. Most people kinda just bundle my work with the original Infinity Engine and my team gets caught up in the ripple effects of negativity. Thank you very much for putting in that extra effort. Also, side note: the stuff about the Eggflapper is not new information to us. We've known about this fact ever since Sonic 2020 first came out. I made the original tweet to make sure people were aware that the I+ team did not contribute to Omens financially in any way.

The thing that pisses me off the most about Sonic Omens is that it completely stole the attention from an actually GOOD Sonic Fangame: Sonic Triple Trouble 16 bit(A really high quality remake of one of the Game Gear sonic games!) The highest viewed video I could find for TT16 had only around 170k views, meanwhile the highest I could find for Omens was over DOUBLE that.

I had the unfortunate displeasure of playing this thing all the way to the final boss, not knowing all the nastiness behind the scenes. I can safely say, this disaster does not reflect the creative and amazing side of the Sonic fangame community.

It's extraordinarily tone-deaf and weird how they made the decision to have Metarex in the game, but choose to include Chris in the script over Cosmo or anyone that'd actually give the addition of those story elements actual weight. Like why is it Chris and the Metarex over Cosmo and the Metarex?

Whenever any fandom ever says something like "they should hire this guy within the fandom", I can now make a reference why that's not inheritably a good idea.

5:08 Ok, that is LITERALLY the "it's Morbin' time" of Sonic Omens.

Truly one of the fangames of all time. Specially love 5:09 in the video when Sonic says "it's omening time", I really felt that

I'm very glad you made basically an "ultimate video" describing everything to know about, not just the document, but the controversy in general. It's important for more people to know about this kinda stuff, especially people who don't wanna read through those 25 pages. I had a tiny bit of involvement with the document (mostly improving the grammar for publication), so it's awesome to see someone basically do it justice by making it more accessible for those people. Great video! 👍 It would've also been cool if you mentioned Farkle by name as well, since he did singlehandedly bring most of this to light. :)

I don't like how Sonic's irises always glowing brightly, it's eery

5:02 I mean to be fair, Chris has ALWAYS looked like Sora.

I hope SEGA doesn't ever end up like Nintendo. But people are proving that it is a sure possibility for sure.

Splash Dash is gonna be laughing at everyone that unironically said “HiRe tHiS mAn!1!1!1” this is the man you wanted hired?

To this day I never understood the praise this game got, from the tons of gameplay it looked like a "decent" at best for a sonic game yet the community did that hole "sega hire this man" thing.

There's a little saying of mine i always keep in mind: "It doesn't matter how good a game looks, if a game plays like shit, the game *is* shit"

7:29, the moment I was waiting for: This is actually the game’s writer Alexander Zhokhov, and yes; he was talking smack at us both. Would it be funny if somebody made a comedy sketch out of this.

It's Spider-Man Lotus before Spider-Man Lotus, a fanmade project created out of spite and failing at it

I had no idea what Sonic Omens was until really recently and it’s the funniest clusterfuck in a while to the point that hey… it feels like a Modern Sonic Sega product alright.

I love having an actual reason to hate this fangame after the underserved praised it got 2 years ago.

It’s always the saddest to me when I hear a new Sonic fan game is being hyped up only to find out it’s someone else “recycling” the Infinity Engine again.

I loved when Sonic said “It’s Omens time.” Sonic Omens is the most fan game that I have never played and never will play.

This is basically the exact same situation as Spider Man Lotus, but with less racism

5:07 The whole thing with that scene becomes even funnier when you consider they got it right for the trailer but screwed it up for the actual final game! Maybe if they spent a little less time harassing people online, and focusing on their game, they wouldn't have missed that. The whole thing with Omens with them stealing the character models from Sega's games, taking someone else's game engine and trying to pass it off as their own, all while trying to profit from it, really does remind a lot of Ian Malcom's monologue from Jurassic Park Ian Malcolm: If I may, if I may. Uh, I'll tell you the problem with the scientific power that you're, that you're using here. It didn't require any discipline to attain it. You know, you read what others had done, and you, and you took the next step. You didn't earn the knowledge for yourselves, so you don't take any responsibility... for it. You stood on the shoulders of geniuses, uh, to accomplish something as fast as you could, and before you even knew it, you had, you've patented it, and packaged it, and slapped it on a plastic lunch box, and now (bangs the table) you're selling it, you wanna sell it, well. Also, why is Shadow working with the Metarex? It makes no sense what so ever, because 1. Why would Shadow want to go back to the past to be with Maria? He's let go and moved on. 2. Why would Shadow help the Metarex when in order to get what he wants? It would end up dooming the planet, which totally goes against the promise he made to her. 3. Why would Shadow help the Metarex in the first place!? The Metarex saga happened in the Omens' universe. Did he just forget they were the bad guys? Same story for Chris, which makes it seem more like "character acts stupid so to let the plot happen." Plus there's the thing with Sonic still being able to go Super - despite the Chaos Emeralds being completely destroyed - it makes you wonder, do these devs/writers even know the series!?

Not gonna lie, these creators really remind me of the author of the original Sonic.exe story, who had a very similar reaction when it was taken down.

This makes 06 look like an absolute masterpiece.

I just love how everyone is obsessed with making Chris Thorndyke look more like Sora from Kingdom Hearts. 😂😓

Thanks for the summary, I legit couldn't be bothered to read through all of the Twitter nonsense. This whole thing is such a massive shitshow that I'm starting to appreciate the official games more, despite their flaws.

Aside from the shitstorm that is Omen, I think what this entire experience has shown me is that alot of Sonic Fans don't know what a good game is, and will defend anything as long as it's flashy and has Sonic in it.

i was saying man you called this a year ago

Spark The Electric Jester is a great series for those into Sonic. They're fast and fluid platformers, with the first game being 2D 16 bit, while 2 and 3 are more so modeled after the 3D games. The third game only recently released, and it's gotten really good reviews so far. Freedom Planet is also great, though I do feel its story cutscenes do go on for a bit too long. If you're in need of more 2D high speed action though, it's a great choice.

my favorite thing regarding this game is rightfully criticizing it and people responding with "stop being so harsh on it, it's just a fan game" and "sonic fans can never be happy"

11:04 should have said goodbye "Sonic Omens and thanks for all those bad Omens you gave us"

10:49 Just a little reminder to everyone that not only is Spark the Electric Jester 3 already out now, but Freedom Planet 2 is coming out in September.

I think what sucks about Omens is that underneath all the jank, ridiculousness, spite, and toxicity, I genuinely see the seeds of what could have been a pretty good game. The infinity engine is technically sound, the team just only needed to reel back their ego and actually try to learn from their mistakes so that they could make a better product.

In a weird way this actually makes me more hopeful for Frontiers. The Omens creators tried to posit their game like the future of Sonic, like the idea that there hasn’t been a good Sonic game since 1998, and failed in spectacular fashion. Whatever Frontiers throws at us, I have a hard time thinking it will be as rough, nonsensical or confusing as the choices made in Omens.

"They keep creating new ways to celebrate mediocrity" So SEGA/Sonic Team AND fans can BOTH make bad games, and yet the fangames are still praised for their mediocrity while SEGA/ Sonic Team aren't? I tell ya, this fanbase is something else. Also screw this guy for all this BS.

“Consider this your bad omen!” This combined with the over dramatic music that puts 06 to shame made me shed a tear.

You know, I always had a bad feeling about this game as soon as I heard the name Sonic Omens. Sounds like something you'd see in a bad religious game that's trying way too hard to be pretentious and serious...which in a way perfectly describes this game.

I love how this game went from being praised to high heavens, to bashed into the ground 🤣

My favorite part is when Sonic says "It's Omenin' time!" and then he Omened all over Chris Thorndyke.

Hopefully we can start becoming more critical with sonic fan games from here on out instead of just calling it the best thing ever and saying “SEGA HIRE THIS MAN!!” unironically

I hope Omens has taught everyone that just because its a fangame, that doesn't make it good Splash listed a few great fangames at the end and those are GENUINELY great ones but at the end of the day just because a fangame is made by fans, that doesn't mean it deserves praise always Criticism is open to anything

“Consider this your bad omen” is almost as masterful as the phrase “it’s morbin time” uttered by Dr Michael Morbius in the hit movie Morbius

Spider-man 🤝 Sonic That one fan material than everyone thougth was gonna be epic but ended up being controversial garbage

I don't care if it's an indie game, a AAA game, or a fangame: You, your team, and your game should have good qualities. The game should have a balance between gameplay, visuals, and story (while at times having them shine individually or together), and your game should be made out of love, not spite. And you also should credit your sources and not profit off of an existing IP. It's wrong, it's plagiarism, and it's a lawsuit waiting to happen. But this game is necessary evil to shut the imbecilic, drooling mouths of the people who say, "SEGA should hire this person," for the sake of good graphics. If you want someone talented to be hired by SEGA, they'll do it themselves, and they will be in charge of their own projects (if they wish), like Christian Whitehead. Shoutout to anyone who says that we shouldn't compare fangames to AAA, no matter how bad the game or their devs are. Imagine comparing this to Cyberpunk.

Sonic Omens to the Sonic franchise is what Hunt Down the Freeman is to Half-Life.

I'm not sure of how true this is, but I also remember hearing about the devs making fun of the original shadow VA for being trans after they were upset about being replaced Which just makes me despise these devs even more than I already did

My favourite part was when Sonic Omens said "Consider this your bad omen" and then omen'd over all those guys. This was truly one of the games of all time.

Sega, DON'T hire this man

I played through it all. The only good thing I have to say is that I still listen to the final boss theme “Weight of the World” occasionally

"Made this out of spite" Bro is not spiderman lotus 💀💀💀

I hate that people assume that fancy lighting and good grafics makes a game better.

I saw this fan game explode seeing videos of it wondering what it was or why it was it was just there and then it was gone all of it just faded out of existence like it never existed in the first place 💀

Anything. Literally anything: exists Pedophilia: may I introduce myself?

In a sense i guess the best thing to come out of Omens is like you said, being a cautionary tale about how not to make a fangame. The Sonic fangame community is in my opinion one of the most inspiring and talented out there so to see some asshole trying to use it for nothing but money sorta helps show any upcoming developers what they shouldn’t do and especially how to not interact with the fanbase

Sonic fans when Omens was being made: *OMG THIS IS BETTER THAN ALL SONIC GAMES OMGGG HIRE THIS GUY* Sonic fans after Omens came out: *This shit is ass* Yeah, "hire this man" my ass. Man, this Omens crap was through the roof. Glad it's all over, now

Ladies, gentlemen, we've won against the fools. I heard about this last week, and was not surprised at all about the sheer degeneracy. It's to be expected of a guy who trash talks P06 (an actually good game) by saying that he has supposed 'better control'. Mate, it ain't even your controls.

When I looked at the cutscenes in isolation, it showed some level of promise, however it *was* disturbingly short for the scale the game was attempting to take (and absolutely fanfic-y but I had an easier time getting past that since other than that game I was coming off SEGA's pretty risk-free official modern Sonic games such as Colors and Forces). I knew the game was controversial for some reason, but back then I saw how many nods there were and thought "oh they must like the series since they're using plenty of things from it", with most of these nods (minus Chris) being pretty frontloaded in the first few episodes... and then either not there or gravely misused in the latter ones (SONIC WHY DID YOU BREAK CHIP'S RING WHAT DID IT DO). However, it's clear they were in the wrong mindset from the getgo. Not only did they try to profit off an IP they don't own (which is already making it clear that if not everything is going to the game itself then they're just making it for profit), but "we finished the game out of spite" is all you need to know to call this a massive waste, with the sexualization of Maria being the nastiest cherry on top I've ever seen. Things could've been so different if just three factors were different: if the whole team wasn't thin-skinned af and actually listened to criticism and improved on it thus leading the project with passion and NOT spite, if the creator didn't monetize it and instead spent his FREE time on it... and most importantly, if the modeller realized their "funny" joke was too out of context (doesn't matter if all the girls in your locker rooms wore that, Maria likely never even knew what a locker room was!) and straightup didn't add it at all knowing it'd just come across as indecent. As is, it's a massive waste of ressources that was rushed for the wrong reasons. If you don't love your game, don't make them.

I think a sonic fan game should parody sonic omens by having a QR code in a level but it leads to Sonic rickrolling you instead of a Patreon link

Despite all the BS about Sonic Omens, I'd be lying if I were to say the presentation (mainly the cutscenes) of the game is bad. This is the direction I want for future official Sonic games. Things like Tails flying Sonic again, more animated expressions when characters talk, cooler dynamic scenes like at when Shadow rode on his bike & shot robos with his chaos spears or even at this part 10:23. Not to mention, it's refreshing seeing the game's graphics/visuals being ran on a different engine opposed to 10+ years of seeing official Sonic games being ran on the hedgehog engine since Unleashed. If everything was properly polished, it definitely would've been a fantastic fan game. Hate that something with such great potential was created in the hands of a collective of trash, toxic people.

I got crap from Omens fans for saying the devs shouldn’t have opened a Patreon for a game using someone else’s copyrighted characters. The failure of this project is amazing

I take a fat L for being as defensive over Sonic Omens as I was. This whole thing is just pooey.

Bad omen is kinda redundant. Omens are generally considered bad by default

I played the initial two releases. Before the game was completed. Back then, I had frustrations, but felt the game showed promise. I liked how they implemented Shadow’s Chaos powers, I liked how Chip’s bracelet was applied in both the story and gameplay. And just like Splash, I loved how they designed the opening level. I thought the game would improve as development progressed. Maybe iron out the flaws in the level design, fix the tornado controls, recast Shadow with someone who can actually sound like him. Had I known about the drama going on behind the scenes, I would’ve backed away and deleted the whole thing from my computer. My only consolation, is I saw this before I downloaded the completed game. It’s like the story opens with the promise of being good, and then suddenly, “Fooled you! This is a crappy Sonic X fanfic!”

So this is like the Spider-Man lotus of sonic fan games?

9:44 Happy to make a cameo! :) Not happy with my eyes though after seeing it...

I get that something's fishy with behind the scenes over this fangame, but this is just plain ridiculous. If anything, this makes me even more excited for Sonic Frontiers, even if the end product may not be great as we hoped it would be.

I have some things to say. 1. “Consider this your bad omen!” Has to be the single worst thing I’ve ever heard come out of Sonic’s mouth, and in a fangame no less. I’ve heard far less cringey lines in the official games. 2. Weight of the World is like… it’s awesome for a final boss(as tedious and bullshit as it is), but it doesn’t compare to Fly With Me at all.

every day i thank god im not on twitter, specially since videos like these still allow me to take a look into the horrors also so fucking funny how i had just finished watching the 3D blast DX cut video when i got the notification for this, man what a contrast

5:01 : To be fair...even in Sonic X, his design already looked kinda similar to Sora, lel.

7:52 sounds like a cross between Movie Knuckles and Modern Shadow.

I hope people can finally stop saying “SONIC FRONTIERS NEEDS TO BE LIKE THIS” or “SONIC FANS MAKING BETTER GAMES THAN SEGA”

Hunt Down The Freeman, Fallout The Frontier, and now Sonic Omens…I wonder what should we call this genre?

This and fallout frontier go to show we've let modders' heads get too big. They all heard the meme of "they fix the games FOR the companies!" And now they think they walk on water and deserve to be rich, instead of just being passionate people doing passion projects.

5:03 pretty funny how Chris looks like Sora

Happy to see you mentioning Spark the Electric Jester, we need to spread the word since Spark 3 came out and it deservers all the attention it can get

The fact that Cars 2 The Video Game is now associated with this game is hilarious to me.

I actually still think the game itself is decent. The controls were actually tweaked. That being said, the devs have NO EXCUSE for behaving that way and the fact they made it out of spite sours the whole thing.

When Sonic said “Consider this your Bad Omen” I was pissed off because he should’ve said “It’s Omen Time!”

I remember people saying like "wow some 3d sonic game better than sonic team games!". Well, played a bit and i got frustrated with tails ship gameplay. After sometime, there was that thing with sega giving a copyright strike on the project, and seeing all the investiment from weird cg animation studios... Like... really strange. It was not a surprise to discover that sonic omens is not really a "good game".

They fuckin stole music from cars 2

2:32 "Standing over" *Sonic literally being in front of the grave* Oh sure! He's standing OVER the grave!

5:13 it basically means your bad luck that's what he means when he says "you're bad omen"

Rebranding is a powerful tool. Simply putting on a different costume can dupe the people that don't follow your every move. Lots of internet personalities that should not be on the internet do this all the time. The downside of this tactic is the internet never forgets and word will eventually get out, so they have to constantly rebrand to keep the heat away.

I'll always be annoyed with people just giving fan game creators heaps of praise just for making something slightly competent. Just because it didn't come from a big company and looks nice doesn't make it an instant masterpiece

I love how Sonic sounds like he's trying (and failing) to do an English Junichi Kanemaru impression with a poor "roll credits" quip.

Jesus fucking christ, I never expected to see Sonic standing over the grave of Chris Thorndyke. That's given me the biggest laugh I've had in *YEARS.*

Splash Dash is my favorite SonicTuber, so it's always good to see him post a video.

Watching this after the Spider-Man Lotus controvery makes we hope people start questioning what they're throwing their money at

This is what happens when we put fangames on a pedestal and treat them like they’re the second coming of Christ. I would see hundreds of people praising this game under every omens video (one dude literally believe Tree Palace was the best stage) purely because the game had good graphics. Wonder how those people feel now.

I was shocked by the amount of toxicity behind Omens. I've never been a big fan of the project, but I remember wishing the developers well when the title was called Sonic 2020, hoping that that at worst they would make a subpar fan game and move on. I honestly thought that the worst they were doing was just using patreon to monetize a shitty game, but nah the people behind this are just weird