Whatever Happened To Vectorman?
In 1995, Sega was trying to find a solution to Donkey Kong Country on the SNES. The series on the SNES moved millions of systems off of the shelves and Sega of Japan was working full time on the Sega Saturn. Sega turned to their American subsidiaries to support the Genesis in the United States themselves. Here was Blue Sky with a series called Vectorman. Vectorman was a platform game that sported graphics that was great on the Genesis (although hardly comparable to Donkey Kong Country 2, which was in the works for the SNES only)
The gameplay was action like and also could be considered a good counter game of Nintendo and Intelligent Systems' Metroid series. Sega decided that Vectorman was going to be the game that they would use for Donkey Kong Country. Also they pretty much had no Sonic games to work with since Sonic Team really wasn't making Sonic games at the moment like they were a few years ago for the Genesis. Sega would also set aside millions of dollars for this game and this made the small company feel justified to be owned by Sega.
In October 1995, Vectorman came out in America first. Despite the Saturn, Sega spent most of its advertisement dollars on Vectorman instead of making the Sega Saturn well known out in the console arena. The advertisement was very effective and pretty much every magazine called it a classic Genesis game and that this is a good competitor for Donkey Kong Country 2, which was being released a short few weeks after the release of Vectorman. Although Donkey Kong Country 2 was more anticipated than Vectorman, many people wanted Vectorman also.
It seemed like after 1994, Genesis was no longer big, the system everybody was talking about. Maybe it was because there were no Sonic games for Genesis released in 1995 or maybe its that Genesis was growing old and dying off. Maybe and probably because it was the onslaught of SNES games coming out and Sega simply didn't have the games to compete because their Japanese division was making Saturn games and had to depend only on their American and European divisions to bring out the games for the Genesis. So Sega's games were reduced drastically and Vectorman seemed to be the Genesis game of 1995.
Vectorman sold very well but it wasn't a game without its complaints. Many pointed out that the graphics were not SNES level or SNES competition level like Sega and Blue Sky said and the action sometimes got too sparse. Regardless of the minor complaints, Vectorman sold very well, despite Donkey Kong Country 2 coming out a few weeks later. By the end of Christmas 1995, Vectorman sold over a million copies. Sega just said this, it is not known if Vectorman reached the two million mark but sales are estimated to be anywhere from 1.5 million to 2.5 million copies. The success of the game resulted in a sequel done by who else than Blue Sky.
Vectorman was considered to be the game that would gracefully end the Genesis. Vectorman 2 from the new batch of screens and information given was to be just a slightly graphically enhanced game fixing some of the complaints the owners of Vectorman had. It was surprising to see this game made on the Genesis as opposed to the Sega Saturn, which could use a big American franchise by then. It is not known whether Vectorman 2 was to compete with Donkey Kong Country 3, Super Mario 64 (even though Sonic 3D Blast on the Genesis and NiGHTS for the Saturn were to do that), or just because the original sold well. It didn't matter, it appeared that Blue Sky Software was going to make a better product the second time around.
Vectorman 2 was slated for a Fall 1996 release (in America first of course) and Sega again was setting aside millions of dollars in advertisements. The goal was for Vectorman 2 to grab a million sales total. Many figured that if Genesis was successful, Vectorman 3 would be made on the Saturn or the rumored Sega 64. Vectorman had some big plans ahead of it and many began to consider a second mascot to Sega (like Spyro the Dragon is to Crash Bandicoot) and could take them to a different way of gaming for Sega, providing high adrenaline, high speed action of Sonic and with the powerful action and some stealth aspects of Vectorman.
Vectorman 2 hit the magazines and the magazine reviewers loved it. Most of them felt that Vectorman 2 was a far more superior game to Vectorman. Sega was going to spend more money on advertising than Vectorman 1. Sega realized that it would be harder for Sega to grab the same amount of copies of Vectorman 2 than it did for Vectorman 1 since even the SNES was in its closing days to make room for the 32 and 64 bit machines that were slowly beginning to take the positions that SNES and Genesis games used to take up. Vectorman 2 was going to be big noneoftheless and was considered to be the last major Genesis release. Now the system can go for anywhere from $49 to $79 and most games went for under $30.
Vectorman 2 is a success when it came out. Sega's powerful advertising campaigns made sure everybody knew about the sequel to pretty much the only successful game that was released in 1995. In fact, nearly a million copies were sold in less than a week. This was a surprise and would end up finishing the Genesis of with some grace. Chances were good that Blue Sky was going to create a game even more successful than the first Vectorman. So by logic since the reason why they decided to develop Vectorman 2 because Vectorman was such a success, Vectorman 3 was coming out, it was assumed that Vectorman 3 would come out for the Sega Saturn. Here came where Vectorman was now going to rise but instead, fell.
Blue Sky announced that a Vectorman game was heading to the Sega Saturn. Whether or not this was Vectorman 3, or just an upgraded Vectorman 2, maybe even a collection of the first two Vectorman games but Blue Sky said that a Vectorman game was heading to the Sega Saturn. It was not sure about Vectorman 3 but Blue Sky announced that Vectorman was not only headed to the Sega Saturn, but to the big screen. Yes, Blue Sky said that a Vectorman movie is coming as well. With the mechanics of Vectorman, it would be easy for it to be an action, fast paced thriller for the Vectorman movie.
It was also revealed that both of these projects would be out by the end of 1997. This brought up a raised eyebrow about the movie. Seeing as how it takes at least a year to make a good movie, many critics and skeptics figured that the movie was just going to be a quick cash-in of the Vectorman series. Seeing as how Sega Saturn was difficult to program and the next Vectorman game was going to be Blue Sky's first Saturn effort, it was nearly impossible to think that either Vectorman product was going to be good. This was all in early 1997, where at least two million copies of Vectorman 2 was sold as the attention of this game died down. With the cancellation of Sonic X-Treme for Saturn, the Saturn future was grim. If Blue Sky put out a well done Vectorman 3, this probably still would not save the Sega Saturn.
In later 1997, Blue Sky was dead. Unfortunately, details were little to none about how Blue Sky was dissolved. Many theories were provided. One theory is that Vectorman 3 was very costly to make and after some dissatisfaction by Sega or Blue Sky themselves, they no longer had enough money to put the game out. Another theory is that Sega dissolved Blue Sky after Sega was receiving financial trouble from the unsuccessful Sega Saturn. Either the employees were formed into Sega of America development teams, left and worked for a different developer, or maybe even a little bit of both.
Naturally without Blue Sky around, the Vectorman movie was cancelled, the status of the movie production was never revealed. Perhaps the movie was cancelled but was never announced until Blue Sky was dead. Vectorman on Saturn was cancelled without anybody (who did not work outside of Sega and the former Blue Sky team) knowing what the game could have been. Anyway, Vectorman would be no more for good.
Would Sega of America or Sega of Japan themselves be able to produce Vectorman 3 without the supervision of the producer, who would know best what Vectorman would be like in 2D or even 3D? This is always an issue whenever a game is being done in the works by a complete different producer or worse, a different development team? Vectorman 3 is one of the more demanded sequels that Sega fans want on their Sega systems. Perhaps the Sega Smash Pack's popularity may end up resulting in enough demand for Vectorman 3 along with some highly anticipated sequels to be made.
I personally loved the Vectorman series, namely Vectorman 2. The idea of a Metroid game but without one giant level (Planet Zebes) and more action with graphics that were some of the best that was on the Sega Genesis. Vectorman 3 would make my day but I also know some sequels will never arrive like a new Panzer Dragoon Saga or Dragon Force. I guess we will have to enjoy these games on the Genesis, where the games have been out for at least four years after their releases (well, five years for Vectorman on Genesis)
-Shin Egg Robo
