How would you redesign Sonic the Hedgehog?

Heh, well scratch that then. We got Colors instead, which didn't turn out too badly outside of the case of 3D gameplay and some parts of the writing. That's another thread, though.

 

The problem is that people seem to think you need to have some sort of dark undertone to deliver a serious story. This could work for anything else, but I honestly always found that concept laughable in regards to Sonic The Hedgehog. Sonic 3 and Knuckles honestly had one of the best plots out of the games, and that was told without any dialogue or 5 minute cutscenes. It started off as a simple investigation and it ended up uncovering another. Hell there was even character development in the damn thing with Sonic and Knuckles.

You can have your drama with Sonic and have a decent story out of it just as long as you don't have the soap opera melodrama in it. It's really unnecessary considering the source material.

 

A friend of mine, Fontes, from deviantART, did this:

 

Nice. Looks like a serious anime take on Sonic the Hedgehog.

 

Looks more to me like the adventures of Cave Sonic and Stone Age Knuckles.

 

That too.

Forgot to reply to this part of Volpino's post a page back:

So ... you don't like Chip because he's A) an appropriately light-hearted cartoon, and B) he's a better sidekick than Tails.



Kidding. No, I get the frustration. It should be Tails that's the peppy adorable sidekick of Sonic's, rather than the ex-fieldman engineering bookworm straight-man, right? He should get the attention of good character writing AND good character development with Sonic, not some FNG. I agree with Tails being a better written, better animated character, but not at the exclusion of new characters like Chip. I found him charming, amusing, and an effectively subtle and funny distraction from many parts of the plot until his role unfolds later on. He wasn't necessarily interesting before or after that role is revealed, but then he never needed to be. He was just a really well-written and well-animated character, and a good companion to Sonic. He does ham it up sometimes, not unlike how Sonic hams up his jokes in Colors, and his obsession with food at that point was unnecessarily overplayed, so I'll give you that. He's not entirely un-annoying, but he's far from being particularly bad, despite public opinion.

Sometimes the slapstick goofiness of things like AoStH and some of the dialogue in Colors go a few steps too far in trying to be funny and amusing without actually being funny and amusing. Most times it's just stupid and cringeworthy. I'm against failed attempts at humor and overplaying even good jokes, much less bad ones, and I'd like to see some cartoony charm as well as clever entertainment. Something that I can "get", laugh at, and keep moving with the game without feeling like I'm being treated like a 5-year old or like I'm watching a bad cartoon. AoStH isn't a great cartoon—it's pretty bad—but it had at least three decent characters in Sonic, Tails, and Robotnik, and a well-written relationship between all three that managed to be entertaining for it's overall light-heartedness and slapstick. Mainstream Sonic could go for that, provided some more improvement in the writing and animation departments, but it doesn't need to. It could also go the way of something like Sonic Adventure without the laughably bad voice direction and animation. It could also even have dark overtones and dramatically tense events of conflict and whatnot, like in Sonic SatAM, and pull it off well given good writing and art direction. It's all in the hands of the people behind the products.

 

I just wanted to say I really like his expression here.



I really like when his brow is raised since it emphasizes the lack of separation between them, which IMO is Sonic's most unique design feature. Also seen on the left here.

 

This image really stands out to me. Why? His grin is perfect. Hell, his whole face is perfect in this shot. His grin doesn't look painted on and doesn't have that awful fake-lip thing going on, and the blue part in between his pupils doesn't have that odd line separating it.

EDIT: And in terms of personality he looks great here too. He doesn't look like a jerk like usual, he looks... genuine.

 

A bit unrelated, but that picture inspired me to make this.

 

This is absolutely beautiful. You know how long I've waited for someone to make a sprite like that? =3

 

Sonic Adventure wasn't all about being lighthearted either, certainly not to the extreme everyone is talking about. Sonic Adventure wasn't as dark as SatAM, but Sonic Adventure wasn't as off-the-wall crazy as Night of the Warehog.

It's about not going in the direction of the other extreme. Seriously, Sonic 3 didn't have stretch-and-squash BS as much as it didn't have a lot of drama.

I like how whenever someone points out that really light and cartoony doesn't suit Sonic, everyone instantly thinks "OH GOD NO NOT SOAP OPERA IN MY SAWNIK!" I think in these cases, people are only thinking on one two sides of the extreme.

This, I like. They're a bit tall though.

BioWare tried to do justice to the series and the result was miserable...

I agree with this, the problem I have with Chip is that they had to focus more on a character that was just added to the games, and was never shown again, than existing characters. He makes them look bad. Chip is a perfect example of the cancer that is killing Sonic to me, they've been doing this kind of shit for years. Shadow was more fleshed-out than Sonic in SA2 and I felt he overshadowed him at points because of the attention he got. The difference was that he was both seen again and that compared to his later appearances, he wasn't nearly as annoying with it as he was in SA2. This type of treatment isn't even exclusive to the story. Cream has been brought up in other threads, she outshined Tails in Advance 2 and she took Amy's role in the same game, and the only time I felt like she actually belonged in the series was when she played sidekick to Amy in Heroes where I thought that was most appropriate. The problem with Heroes was that it was another example where SEGA didn't focus at all on existing characters. Team Dark got most of the attention in terms of story development and forSHADOWing (Pun intended) while Team Chaotix was just there for comic relief, a complete waste of what their potential could be for a reunion with Knuckles or something.

I agree with this as well, it can be done in moderation, and it can be done well, but the vibe I get from the thread is that people would rather it be done mostly all of the time, to the goofy extreme, and that is something I'm against.

 

The stretching-and-squashing ridiculous cartooniness you're referring to, when overdone, does come off too strongly. That's the impression I got from most of Colors' cutscenes and pretty much all of AoStH. However, something like Night of the Werehog managed to have both the pleasantly refreshing cartoony aesthetic while not having an utterly ridiculous insistence on jokes and slapstick. I get the gist of what you're saying, but when you're specifically complaining about stuff like stretch-and-squash cartoony animation, I think it aids your point less than talking about the actual content of the cutscenes and expositions.

Ratchet & Clank made great use of stretch and squash animation to give Ratchet a very likable range of expressions without making him crack stupid jokes all the time or act like Mr. Superhero. It was less over-the-top and much more subdued. The same might be said of how the story progressed in Sonic Adventure, ignoring the bad line deliveries/script and even worse facial animations. The overall content of the scenes were meaningful and the presentation wasn't over the top. It was simple. There were no orchestras playing these cartoony melodies to accentuate each and every action being taken by the characters therein, there was just either silence, an ambient track, or an occasional theme song when appropriate.

I think we're wasting time with this discussion, though. In the end, we can nitpick about discrete elements like what kind of animation is used or what kind of mood each scene sets, but what it all comes down to is the artist's vision and the resources he or she has at their disposal. It's the artist's skill, their expertise, their vision, and their openness to criticism and how they deal with suggestions that make or break the presentation of a game and the characters and worlds in the game. I think what's more important for Sonic is to have much more focus invested in a solid, rich, expansive, and innovative game design that gives everyone a taste of what Sonic can and should really do in 3D. Looking good also helps, and I feel that some kind of subtle or ambitious visual redesign is in order for Sonic sometime in the future. Something to help inaugurate a new string of games that really make him competitive again in 3D gaming. I find Uekawa's design getting very stale and in need of some newness.

 

I agree. I mean, look at Pixar. Their movies are decidedly aimed at kids, but there's a lot of appeal for adults as well. And lets face it, Pixar movies know how to punch you in the gut. UP and Toy Story 3 were super powerful films, while having plenty of goofiness and humor. I think this is something Sonic Adventure came close to doing, but didn't fully grasp; case in point, the light-heartedness of Sonic's story contrasted against the melencholy nature of Gamma's. But again, SA wasn't able to quite nail it. But its the direction I wish they would go.

 

If people want Sonic to be more serious, then I'm in favor of a seriousness at the OVAs level, with the Metal Sonic hidden plan and all:


(Japan makes some weird ass poses, but the image kind of illustrates what I mean; Sonic and Tails don't take things too seriously, but it's still actiony, cool, funny, and has a good plot at the same time)

 

Nope. Here's why. The designs feel unbalanced. They're made up of so many angles that I'd be hard pressed to draw them in a pose that looks strong. Same goes for other designs where Sonic's quills are multiplied or scraggly for no damn reason other than a surface detail fetish.

Sonic's fast. To suggest that, his design needs to be as sleek, bold, and simple as possible. He's also prone to action, so his design needs to look loose and flowing at just about any angle you draw him. I'll show my design again just as an example...



Because of my thinking above, it led me to make the design decisions that I made. His quills stick out, they don't droop as much, even less than the current CGI design for him. But rather then have them stick out all over the damn place, I made sure that your eye can imagine a line that curves along his back and through to the bottom of his lower quill. I think there shouldn't be any tiny details that would break his silhouette. Since he runs a lot, I made the emphasis his legs by giving him long feet. His hands are also big, but I tried making them so they wouldn't compete with what's already emphasized. No parallel lines, it will kill the dimensions of the design. His legs thicken ever so slightly as it gets down to where his "ankles" are. I give him a long nose as it looks good in profile, especially when he's speeding along. Lastly, I decide to make him tall, if not taller than his current in-game look because of two reasons. The first is that with the emphasis on a certain part of his body, the proportions don't even out, making a bland design. The other reason is that it's easier to accentuate his speed and just about any dramatic pose you can imagine. Because he's taller now, that gave me the motivation to change the shape of his pupils to long slits, to suggest a constant alertness to his surroundings, like he's always ready for action.

That's about as good as I explain my sensibilities for a good Sonic design, example and all.

 

Good explanation and examples, but it comes out to an aesthetic I simply don't like. Pasta-limp limbs & a tall, lanky frame need not ideally describe a "fast" character, Sonic or not. He reminds me more of a goofy character like Luigi or, uh, Goofy. What I liked about the previous designs was simply the attitudes and the clean angles forming striking shapes with smoothed, yet distinct edges. That's what I associate Sonic with: attitude that exudes descriptors like, punk, wily, sarcastic, clever, and even chaotic. It's very cool, as long as it stays away from lame gangsta lyrics and 90s skateboarding gangsta rap culture in general. Then it would get lame and dorky fast.

By the way, I'm in full agreement with both TheKazeBlade and Sparks. Imagine a Sonic Adventure where Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, and Robotnik behaved like they did in the OVA. Between the better script, (relatively) better vocal performance, and excellent overall animation, the story and characters would've been at least more competent if not entertaining.

 

Probably as long as I have.

 

Striking shapes? The designs barely have any form. Look at their eyes. They're barely even functional, they can't be expressive in hardly any way. How can you have attitude if you've got those blank eyes? Knuckle's head almost works, but Sonic's certainly does not. Also, the hands are also clunky. There's many ways to get that edge that you want, I guarantee you that this is like one of the cheapest, worst ways to do it with those designs.

 

Well Sonic himself doesn't need to act serious for other aspects of his world to be serious. I loved the animation in the OVA but I'm a total weaboo for animu. It's a shame the OVA wasn't expounded on, or was as short as it was. I think if you mix that with what Adventure had going for it, you have a pretty good example of what Sonic can be.

Sonic definitely needs to find a new thing to do in 3D, whatever he's doing right now isn't working. (Basically, being 2D with 3D renders from what I gather from 3/4ths of Colors.) I don't see why, if Sonic's world was full of loops and corkscrews in 2D, why those shapes can't be redone in 3D segments, and to suit a less linear style of gameplay. Imagine a section of a level that's just a basin in the shape of a bowl that you could gain some serious air off of just by spindashing off one of its sides. That alone leaves some room for inventing an interesting level segment (or a few) based on two very simple things established on the Genesis. (Sonic's spindash and his world forming unnaturally.)