Sonic Omens

About

Sonic Omens is a fangame based on the Sonic the Hedgehog series produced by Ouroboros Studio. The game began production in 2020 and was completed in August 2022. Sonic Omens received mixed reviews after its release and sparked controversy throughout its production and after its final release for numerous reasons, including locking demos for the game behind paywalls and using remixed music from the Cars 2 video game.

History

On February 13th, 2020, the launch trailer for Sonic Omens was released by YouTuber^[1] and the game's creator BOLT, showcasing the game's first "episode," taking place in a zone called "White Jungle," garnering over 113,000 views in two years (shown below, left). At the time, the project was called Sonic 2020. The zone was released for download on the game's Game Jolt^[2] page the next day. On February 15th, BOLT posted a video to YouTube^[3] showing all the cutscenes from the episode, garnering over 18,800 views in two years (shown below, right).

In July 2020, the second episode, "Shadow of Water" was released. On May 2nd, 2021, the next two episodes, "The Breakthrough" and "Temple of Sands" were released along with a trailer for them on YouTube,^[4] garnering over 85,000 views in a year (shown below).

On May 28th, 2022, Twitter^[5] user @JOH61031937, a friend of BOLT, released a statement regarding complaints from some fans of the project that previews of the game were being provided only to people who donated to a Patreon account. These fans saw it as unfair and potentially illegal to hide previews for a game based on a Sega IP behind a paywall.

On August 10th, the final episodes of Sonic Omens were released for download. BOLT announced the release on Twitter,^[6] garnering over 11,000 likes and 2,600 retweets in five days. A trailer was also posted to YouTube,^[7] gaining over 31,600 views in the same span of time (shown below).

Post-Release Controversy

On August 12th, 2022, Twitter^[8] user @SonicOmens (not the official page for Sonic Omens) published a Google Docs^[9] document by someone named Farkle titled "Ouroboros Downfall." In the document, Farkle provides evidence that Ouroboros Studio continued to provide beta tests of the project behind paywalls, including on a Russian site called Boosty. The writer also finds fault with the Game Jolt page containing ads, allowing the company to further monetize the fan game. In one section of the document, Farkle claims BOLT fired the original voice actor for Shadow without telling them after discovering their microphone was not of high enough quality.

In another section, Farkle claims that one of the game's music producers, John R1se, stole and remixed a song, "Unknown Race," from the Cars 2 video game soundtrack and used it in the game, writing, "In the past, John has copyright struck people for reuploading his music or making remixes and mashups." One of the latter sections of the document reveals that the character Maria, a 12-year-old girl, has an underwear texture printed with "bad girl," accusing the devs of sexualizing her. At the end of the document, Farkle writes:

Just… don’t support their game. Don’t even play their game or support their projects. Support other fangame projects such as Sonic and the Fallen Star, Sonic Triple Trouble 16-bit, Sonic GT and S&K NEWTROGIC PANIC. Tell your favourite SonicTubers to not play Sonic Omens. Making fangames should be about passion and should not be for monetary gain. If you really care about earning money on an IP you don’t even own, it really shows how much of a greedy scumbag you really are.

Online Presence / Reception

On August 11th, 2022, YouTuber Sonic Overtime posted a full playthrough video of Sonic Omens, garnering over 80,000 views in four days (shown below).

The game received mixed reception from players, particularly after the release of Farkle's document. Some criticized the game's level design and story. Some Twitter^[10][11] users shared memes comparing Omens to other Sonic fan games using the #omenssweep hashtag (examples shown below).

#OMENSSWEEP

Following the game's final release and Farkle's document, the hashtag "#OMENSSWEEP," a reference to the Morbius Sweep memes, started to circulate as a way of sharing critical memes about the game. On August 10th, 2022, Twitter^[12][13] user @SNick_WT posted several critical tweets about the game to the hashtag, including a tweet criticizing the boss fight with Maria and the in-game death of Chris Thorndyke, some garnering thousands of likes within a week (shown below, left and right).

On August 13th, Twitter^[14] user @Cars2Gamer posted a video showcasing how the game uses a remix of "Unknown Race," showing the original next to the song in the game, garnering over 5,400 likes in two days (shown below).

Hi. Yeah. So, I took the Area 99 Sonic Omens song and compared it to the DS Oil Rig and added pop ups for when which song is playing. Be sure to listen to the Cars 2: The Video Game OST in its entirety for me. I'd appreciate it :D #OMENSSWEEP pic.twitter.com/U1B9Qg6PCc

— XPool (@Cars2Gamer) August 13, 2022

Some of the memes are derivative of the Morbin' Time meme and feature Sonic using the term "omen" in the same way (examples shown below).

Search Interest

External References