This is a pretty interesting take on the current status of Sonic the Hedgehog

It was a fine thought experiment but I disagree with most of what he said, and I found his Sonic's new design pretty ugly.

And, I thought it was particularly funny that he advocated for the end of 2 Sonics because it allegedly keeps dividing the fanbase, but argued there should be 4 different gameplay styles.

 

Ya I understand what the guy is saying (I watched the entire video and the previous one he mentioned plus it’s been discussed) but any kind of reboot is completely unnecessary. I think it’s perfectly fine the way it is.

I agree that “classic” characters should appear in the “modern” games...just give Ray, Mighty, Fang and Trip a Modern look so they match up with everyone. I actually think they’ll do this at some point. They did it for Espio, Vector and Charmy.

Having “modern” characters that were introduced post Adventure appear in “classic” games would not work in-continuity. I know some people hate that and don’t care but having 1 continuity across the games is a good thing. That’s what the guy wants but with a reboot of sorts.

I loved Superstars and ya it’s tone is way different from stuff like Frontiers but that’s something I really like. That the characters have such a unique life and past with on going lore. We all have different experiences. Our life is not 1 way/tone the whole time.

He said Frontier’s references don’t fit. Telling Sonic that wasn’t you...but why not? He can’t believe they’re the same characters from S3&K and 30 years later they’re in a different situation?

He said each game doesn’t connect with previous ones enough but they need they’re own storylines. References, callbacks, reoccurring characters and locations are plenty to tie everything together.

As I’ve been playing Superstars I’ve thought about how it’s in the past and that in the “modern” games they remember that adventure even though it’s not explicitly stated.

 

Well shoot, I actually liked his redesigns. I think he did a good job merging the two sides together as one.

 

Mighty is involved. Instant 10/10.

In all seriousness, I'm not really keen on completely axing the classic brand. I think the classic side should be treated more as a spin-off. About the redesigns, I think they're appealing for the most part, but I think Shadow's backspines should be turned upside down and have highlights, and I also think that Amy's eyes should be more like her classic design's. Also, some of the mobian characters' foreheads are slightly too large for me.

 

On the subject of classic designs, I wish they'd go back to Classic Vector. I hate his Sonic Heroes onward look, he looks like they squashed the model. He looks so stocky and short, when he was the exact opposite before. I wish we had the old, tall, lanky Vector back, he seemed way cooler. Especially his little dancing animation as he'd jam out to his headphones. Main thing I hate about modern vector is the lack of a neck or shoulders, so his body just merges into his head. He looks like a thumb. The old vector didn't necessarily have a neck, but you could very clearly see a separation from his body and his head, and his shoulders used to hide or imply that a neck was there. Modern vector lacks shoulders, so the slope of his back to his head is noticeable.

 

Continuity for a multigenerational fanbase spanning different consoles exclusives is stupid.

 

Yeah it sucks that Sonic the Hedgehog is the only franchise ever to have continuity over multiple generations and console exclusives.

 

No, but Sonic just sucks at it.

 

Uhh… there really aren’t any problems with having modern and classic Sonic’s. Many game characters have multiple versions. There’s Mario, Paper Mario, Mario & Luigi Mario, Link, Toon Link, Young Link, BotW Link, Rockman, Rockman X, Rockman.EXE….

why it’s always Sonic, that people focus on? Each one of them is dearly beloved to some fans.

The problem is within how the franchise was (is) handled itself. Generations did a good job with crossing over the two worlds, but that should be a one time thing. A culmination, perhaps.
Instead, they made a mess with different dimensions, Forces, etc.

Also, I don’t like his design.
If I had to choose, I’d stick with Uekawa Sonic and Unleashed 3D model for games. His more recent style has toned down a bit, but still retains that „edginess”, which is important in this series. Heck, he should be the main character art director for each game.





And for gods sake, let that man create 2D cover art for the games.

 

Literally all I want continuity wise is to cut the two worlds/multiple timelines/two planets or whatever the fuck thing, that is way too confusing for no reason, and make classic sonic young sonic again with zero doubt about it. Cut whatever fluff doesn’t fit and get back on track story wise.
Just because a game gets cut from canon doesn’t mean it’s less important or relevant, and I haven’t really been liking the clusterfuck of everything is canon that we’ve been getting.

 

the "two worlds" thing has already been cut, I believe both Hesse and Flynn confirmed that, and I believe the current stance of Modern/Classic Sonic is that it's just the same characters but younger. It's why we have that hilarious weird flashback to Sonic 3 in Frontiers, and I feel in the IDW comics, when they do specials focusing on the Classic cast, they're written as though it's the later characters but younger.

I'm guessing that framing Classic Sonic as "from another dimension" was just a thing Forces did to not confuse people with Mania - they want Classic Sonic there to be directly referencing Sonic Mania, and if they frame Classic Sonic as "from the past", then the worry is that it doesn't frame Mania as a recent game that just came out and that players of Forces should check out and see the connection. I would guess that's the reasoning.

I get the impulse to be like "ah they should make it all make complete sense and have a unified aesthetic" that leads to these redesigns, but it's not exciting for someone who's not a longtime franchise fan, it's not enticing. I mentioned this on another thread but the thing that bothers me *most* about the modern designs is that they don't feel "modern" enough with how their accessories are still rendered in a very simplistic way for high-definition, and it makes them look toy-ish. A slight redesign that addresses that and some other issues with the current 3D models (huge hands with thick sausage fingers, make them be able to be more expressive, etc) is what I would like to see, slight enough to be more akin to the Unleashed redesigns, and less like a huge thing like Classic Sonic -> Sonic Adventure.

 

I believe you're late to the party, because the two worlds/multiple timelines/two planets are already cut, and classic sonic is already young sonic again.

 

The two-worlds thing was (soft?) retconned into being a metaphorical thing, with the animal people and human people mostly living separate from eachother but being on the same planet.

 

Though I still think the split timeline after Generations was a better idea than the unique timeline we have now.

It would help solve the Mania/Forces conundrum, and would make it easy to create classic games (in the past) without worrying about "is this thing we're creating contradicting the modern games somehow?".

 

I'm pretty sure the Generations timeline is what they're using now. The description of Classic Sonic in Sonic Racing Apple Arcade describes him as being from the past, and the Superstars Twitter Takeover describes the events of Superstars as taking place in the past.


I haven't seen much of the revised Generations cutscenes.

 

That's the thing, it's a unique timeline. Mania, Superstars, the Game Gear games, everything happened in the past.
The split timeline after Generations was an idea that some classic Games (and the new ones) would happen in a parallel timeline, created due to time travel shenanigans in Generations. That is long dead, though to me it was a good enough idea to prevent plot holes.

 

Ah, I see what you're sayin' now. I misinterpreted your message. Sorry.

 

That's just over-complicating things worse than they already were. The solution to the dumb retcon in Forces was just undoing it as quickly as possible.

 

That isn't fully done yet. It's not officially explained why nobody during Forces remembers the Phantom Ruby from Mania, despite Mania had happened in the past.
And the contradictions between the Game Gear games and the Genesis games could also be solved by putting them in a different timeline. Now what they are going to do is to rewrite the plot of the Game Gear games (heavily, as it seems). This is also over-complicating things.

EDIT: I'm not really sure if putting the Game Gear games in a split timeline after Generations would solve anything, but that's beside the point.