"aw yeah, this is happenin!" is a quotable line for a reason LMAO, I love my Too Radical goofball Sonic. I do think a good amount of any issues SA2 has with characterization or story comes down to the near-Google-Translate levels of translation used in the EN script, not to mention bad audio mixing and voice direction. I think Sonic escaping from a helicopter by jumping out, like a legend, still holds up.
Yeah, to be fair, SA2 has some cool scenes, not gonna lie. It's not like I think Sonic Adventure 2's story in general is bad, nah. I remember some people praised the Japanese script for it being "better". I at least remember I like the scene where Amy talk with Shadow in space. I thnk that's a good argument to want a remake, because stuff like this.
Just curious - Do you play the SA games with the localized scripts or the retranslated ones? Edit: Never mind. Should have scrolled all the way down before posting lol.
I actually like the punched-up SA1 dialogue in some ways. Sonic is very limited dialogue-wise in that game, he's mostly used for exposition or stock hero lines. Kanemaru's delivery sells stuff like the Knuckles teasing, but at least when translated it comes across very plain. I don't fawn over Maekawa the way some do, but SA2 is definitely the better script for its title character.
While watching episode eight of Prime I began wondering about the chances of Blaze popping up at some point and stumbled upon a notion that pains me to accept as a fan of Chaotix. Vector, Charmy, and Espio are solidly settled into the modern cast despite their far earlier debuts thanks to the wider availability and influence of a game I care not for. I finally accept just how lost Chaotix is to the younger majority of the fanbase, and how Espio and co's chances to appear in modern media trump the rest of the cast and savagely eclipses their chance of ever appearing in 2D again.
Well yes, but actually no. It's entirely possible to write thousands of new stories with static characters - Take a look at Simpsons, Family Guy, SpongeBob, or any other long-running show. It's just that the writers aren't interested in (or don't know how to) do that, even though that's the optimal path forward for a comic meant to be limited like this. The writers just came in with the same mindset they had from when they got to build their own universe with every tool they wanted, and even repurposed orphaned arcs from that world, in a context where it doesn't fit a whole lot. And the thing is, Sonic isn't even tied down to locations nearly as much as the shows I just mentioned. Something like Scrapnik Island should have just been a story in the main comic, but instead it was pushed to the side for more OC drama and Eggman's third evil shark-jumping plot since 2017. I don't think Lanolin, Belle, Tangle, Whisper, or Jewel have actually contributed to giving Sonic and friends new adventures to go on. Sonic would be at the center of Eggman's latest scheme with or without "The Restoration". At their best, they are okay one-offs, but they keep trying to push them as the main cast to the point their appearances OUTNUMBER many SEGA character appearances. It just doesn't make any sense.
I never got into the IDW comics—I don't like all the meme faces and cheesy references—but this line intrigues me. Can you go into more detail about this?
The Enerbeam from Sonic Boom was actually an amazing idea that I would love to see brought back for a main series game. Swinging around high objects like Spider-Man with it is just an incredibly good fit for fast 3D platforming, especially with the new open world direction, and being able to lasso enemies over to you is also a really cool idea for combat. Realistically, it'll probably never be brought back, but I think it just fits Sonic like a glove.
Tee Lopes created the worst Metal Sonic theme for Mania of all games. Instead funky song from original CD or cool rock from NA ost, we got clownacy with broken piano and random samples. If Christopher Lloyd doesn't play Eggman's granpa in movies or Knuckles series, this world will be the worst timeline possible. Wacky Workbench present in Sonic CD JP ost has most boring theme in game. I wanna hang myself when I hear Collisison Chaos in SCD NA ost, cuz it's too depressing.
By no means with this comment am I saying I dislike mania’s OST. I want to make it very clear I love it. However, the jazz, funk, and swing styles of music are super overdone in that game and it gets a bit repetitive after a while. The best songs are the ones completely unique like mirage saloon knux or metallic madness. Even then that’s mostly down to instrument choice.
I forgot about that, Forces' avatar does have that grapple hook. It slipped my mind since it's never really used in any interesting ways, but the idea is definitely there. I do wish that grapple hook actually maintained momentum out of a swing though, Boom didn't do that but it was fine there since it was a slower paced platformer, Forces doesn't have that luxury so it just feels stilted. You can say that about most of the game's controls/abilities though lmfao. I was thinking a grapple hook/enerbeam would be best utilized in a Frontiers or Adventure like environment though. Again, Spider-Man PS4 comparisons swing to mind.
It's just the facts of how the comic was put out. Instead of just putting out one comic (or running two at the same time like Sonic Universe) they'll sometimes do 4-issue miniseries. Previously, those have been restricted to stuff like Tangle and Whisper, or "Bad Guys" which was a story following Starline and a few of the other original series villians (and Zavok), or Imposter Syndrome which was the origin of Surge and Kit, so historically it's been what comic-original characters were doing as setup for appearances in the main comic, but the most recent one was a seemingly standalone story about Sonic and Tails being stranded on an island of abandoned Eggman robots, while the main story is about Tangle and Whisper being angry with each other and also here's Lanolin and a Sonic VS Eggman plot is happening in the background. (Seriously, it feels like that's the side story and panels are missing from the climax of that fight...) Once again I will spread my "Sonic should be more like Fortnite" propoganda: (but also it should be more like Insomniac's Spider-Man)
On this topic, Sonic 4: Episode 2 has the best Metal Sonic theme and I hate that it didn't become his actual theme.
So never? Because that's called "never". If you think that, then you fundamentally do not understand the differences between these characters, comics and creators, or the reason people feel the way they do about any of them.
Those three series you mentioned are all very fast and loose with "canon" though. Sure, they've had plenty of status quo changes (particularly deaths) which have stuck, but they aren't continuous stories and you can just tune into any episode and enjoy them. Serialised comics just aren't that, so unlike those shows, it's a lot more difficult to throw stuff at the wall in experimentation with the fallback that it won't matter in the next story. Scrapnik Island was written by Daniel Barnes, almost a "guest" writer (in the sense that he's not charting the overall direction of the book the same way Evan Stanley and Ian Flynn are), and released at a seasonally appropriate time concurrently with an ongoing story arc, which is what these miniseries are for. I can't fathom how it can be seen as being "pushed to the side" when it has the same quantity of content that 4 issues of the main book have and certainly didn't suffer a lack of promotion, having been lauded by many as the best Sonic thing of 2022. Hell, that it was given its own mini-series is a testament to the fact that SEGA and IDW valued this story enough to give it its own mini and the promotion that entails even as the main book was reaching a climax. Also, you're simultaneously complaining about the presence of OCs in the book AND successive arcs focusing on the threat of Eggman??? I mean Sonic would be at the centre of Eggman's latest scheme with or without Tails, Knuckles, Amy, Shadow, etc., I don't really get what the point is here. And, branching off from your previous point, it's telling that Starline, Surge and Kit aren't mentioned here when they've, uh, just enabled a new adventure that wouldn't have been possible to do authentically with Eggman alone. The distinction there is just the classic "villains act, heroes react". I'm not about to re-download every issue for the sake of tallying Tangle's and Whisper's appearances against the rest of the cast, but even if you're right it's almost certainly not going to be by a drastic amount. And to be frank, they're just popular. That's why the Tangle and Whisper mini happened, that's why they keep popping up. Why would you want that? It's not even a comparable scenario, given a lot of the bile towards Penders' work exists as a reaction Penders himself being a shitty dude and how his OCs reflected the self-aggrandising and controlling mindset he displayed while working on Sonic. The IDW OCs just don't have that kind of context. And, to be clear, I don't need you to like them - if they're simply not to your tastes than whatever, that's fine by me, but wanting other people to hate them too (for what, validation?) is just...weird.
Um, yikes, sweetie. Jumble the Tanglepus is literally the most innovative and important character the series has ever seen. Get used to it.
