Heaven Saga (2023 Video Game)
Developer: Ages Team
Publisher: @Papichi05
Director: Daisy; a.k.a. @Wolfi-Girl128
Series: N/A
Platform(s): Gamejolt, itch.io
Release: August 16th, 2023
Genre(s): Platform, Action, Anime
Heaven Saga (2023) is a 2023 religious Sonic fan game developed by Ages Team and published by 𝓟𝓪𝓹𝓲𝓬𝓱𝓲05 on GameJolt. It is built exclusively with TurboWarp, and it is a remake of the old Heaven Saga version, which includes various of new elements and features. And for the first time ever out of any Ages Team games, Heaven Saga has over 15 custom extensions installed.
After the old Heaven Saga (v1.0.0.0) was released, development quickly dropped out due to lack or organization and excessive silliness. Daisy (a.k.a. Wolfi-Girl128) grew dissatisfied with Ages Team’s drastic skill improvement and Heaven Saga continues to keep the assets outdated from the latest standards. She demands to cancel the development and request for a rebuild. After a few months of working, Ages Team has successfully redone the project and Papichi05 releases it on August 16th, 2023.
Plot
For thousands of years, all existing time, the souls of Heaven fulfill their jobs by guarding and guiding mortals towards their good lives, known as Angel Guardians. One specific Angel, who was special and serves the 10th sector, named Lailah, was called by Heaven’s main son, assigning her to meet up with Sonic, who was beaten up and wounded, and attacked by demons. She fearlessly accepts and flies down.
Meanwhile, the demons defeated by Sonic were unable to tolerate his victory and continues to attack him. With Sonic defeating every threat he encounters; he became very tired and doubts he can go on fighting forever. But just in time, Lailah has arrived at Earth, landing in front of Sonic and gives him an offer to sleep in Heaven for eternal recovery. In hesitation, Sonic accepts the offer, and Lailah sends him upwards.
Just as Sonic arrived, Lailah takes Sonic to an apartment where she put him in bed. Before Sonic sleeps, Lailah brings up a conversation about how she watches over him for quite a while and Sonic reminds her about his missing friends disappeared in a bright flash. As Lailah finishes, she left, and Sonic began his 2-week sleeping period.
During Sonic sleep, the demons process a revenge of invading the entire Earth instead of just Sonic. Enraged, they released a new group of furious demons, and sends them out to find the 7 sacred Chaos Emeralds.
2 weeks has passed, and Sonic’s sleeping period has ended and woke up in a better state. He wonders around surfing across Heaven, then encounters a playful Angel named “Taramano”, and she starts a color-code ball-sphere game with Sonic. As the game ended, Sonic talks to Taramano as she kindly confesses her intention and welcomes Sonic for the temporary wings, she gave him. Sonic thanked her and she returns to her family. Sonic rests one more time with Lailah, as he slowly started to have feelings with her.
Just then, Lailah looks down at the demon’s invasion. Sonic then shows up and wanted to help to fight alongside with other Angels. Lailah warns Sonic about the demons’ strength and they both proceed to return to Earth.
As Sonic lands at a dark, empty area of Earth, he lost his wings, and dashes off, only to encounter a demon named “Tshinderamaro”. She threatens Sonic, but they both got into disagreements and got into a fight, with Tshinderamaro having one Chaos Emerald in her hand. Despite the emerald giving her power and speed, Sonic defeats her, and Tshinderamaro progresses to choke Sonic to death, but before she can even do so, she was backed off by Nezuko (who was also a demon but unlike any other) and Tshinderamaro escapes in hesitation.
Nezuko kindly joined Sonic’s side, as she stated that she is also a demon, but she defeats any evil that indicates as a threat, and she sleeps instead of eating to recover.
Now with Lailah and Nezuko on Sonic’s side, they all 3 dashes off to continue their journey of defeating demons and securing the Chaos Emeralds, as well as protecting the Earth and all Lord’s creations at all costs.
Gameplay
Similar to its predecessor and most Sonic fan games, the game uses simple platformer controls. A to jump, down arrow + A to spindash, and arrow keys to move. But unlike most of Sonic fan games (particularly made in Scratch or other Scratch-mod editors), the game has over 15 custom extensions installed, which allows the game to perform beyond than what Scratch already offers, such as Camera shaking, external internet access, GameJolt API, sprite stretching, stage effects, etc. As the game is also built exclusively for GameJolt, the game uses the GameJolt API extension, which allows players to earn trophies, upload scores, and data to the cloud.
Peaceful Glance Zone no longer features demons as boss fights. Instead, it was treated as a special stage similar to Sonic 3 & Knuckles; Sonic has to collect blue spheres and avoid red spheres. A new green sphere is featured on the special stage where Sonic has to send it back to an Angel named "Taramano", both tagging her with it and throwing it like volleyball.
The game also introduces new elements, such as Stormy Precinct Zone - Act 2, where Sonic stands on a wood board and the zone became an auto-scroller.
The boss fights were similar, though at Void Domain Zone, the "Tshinderamaro" boss can possess the Choas Emerald to gain more power and speed. And each boss that holds a Choas Emerald will be collected by Sonic after defeating them.
Development
After the old Heaven Saga (v1.0.0.0) was released, development quickly dropped out due to lack or organization and excessive silliness. Daisy (a.k.a. Wolfi-Girl128) grew dissatisfied with Ages Team’s drastic skill improvement and Heaven Saga continues to keep the assets outdated from the latest standards. She demands to cancel the development and request for a rebuild. Kevin (a.k.a. 𝓟𝓪𝓹𝓲𝓬𝓱𝓲05) also criticized the concept of having demons in Heaven as he claimed that it was supposed to be peaceful as it said in the zone name.
About the time when custom extensions were installed, Kevin began to program the GameJolt API system with Leo. Leo claimed it to be a stressful day, but Kevin encourages him to not give up at any time. Some of the girls at Ages Team gotten a bit overwhelmed with the fact that custom extensions were changing up several things and fear that it might break the project and lose all of its progress, according to TurboWarp's new custom extension security prompt. As custom extensions were more stable, it now has the ability to run unsandboxed, which can make extensions a lot more powerful but can also introduce security risks. They were later somewhat relived as all extensions used in a project were installed from a TurboWarp's own site, which is considered as a trusted source. Gabriella, Maduka, Noleon, and a few others struggled with the Clones + extension when developing the catch-sphere game at Peaceful Glance - Act 2. Once Peaceful Glance Zone is finished, the rest of the team finished the project as normal, as Kevin and Maduka worked on another character design for the boss.
Kevin, Daisy, and Victor finish off the options menu as well as naming all soundtracks of where they are originated from. After a few runs of the whole Heaven Saga build, Daisy confirmed that it is ready, and requests a trailer for Kevin's YouTube channel.
Reception
Reception for Heaven Saga (2023) has been received better than its predecesor by a couple of players, praising its new and impressive graphics, and the use of custom extensions, as well as its attempt to reinvent the story and art style into a more modern and mature plot.
Some criticism was aimed at its level rendering issue and some bugs present in the gameplay.