SA1 is not the first modern Sonic game, it is the last classic game

SA1 may have seemed like a big departure in style at the time, but in retrospect, it seems more like the last hurrah of the classic games than it does some kind of new beginning. This was the last game that Sonic Team proper worked on, when the key members were still together. It was Oshima's last involvement in the series. Though Naka still stuck around for a while, he had less and less to do with the games (apparently he only learned of how bad 06 was late in its development).

Everything feels at home with the classic games. The music consisted of a lot of remixes from the earlier games, and even its original tracks would not feel remotely out of place in the Genesis titles (except for the Crush 40 stuff, perhaps). The visuals were still very colorful, the tone and atmosphere had a carefree feel. Hell, even the character designs were more like classic for most of its development, they only made further revisions toward the end.

SA2 is more of where the series took a true turn. They went all "dark and edgy", it felt like the plot took itself too seriously, they focused on stuff that had no precedent (GUN, etc). It had themes more in common with spy thrillers than Sonic. The gameplay focused on the new mechanics (homing attack, etc), SA1 had that stuff, but the level design wasn't built around it at every turn. The music went full-on Crush 40 style in most places. The non-rock stuff didn't feel poppy anymore.

Does anyone else feel this way?

 

The mechanics might've been very different, but the core gameplay design really wasn't that different. The homing attack was a definite change, but you weren't going around constantly grinding on rails, nor were the levels chock full of areas that required the homing attack. Besides, it's not like it has to follow the classic formula to a T to be more in the ballpark of it than SA2 was.

Not a legit relevant complaint, as far as I'm concerned. They botched the localization, it's not a reflection on how the game itself was actually developed.

The English voice cast not only seemed to be a bit inexperienced, but they were given extremely bad direction. A very, very large part of the awkwardness was due to them being told to match the lip movements of the existing animations. SA2 was a huge improvement here, as they were told to just get the length of the line right and ignore the lip sync. If lip sync was that important, why didn't they redo the animations to match newly recorded dialogue?

I can't help but feel the translators didn't do a good job with the script itself, either. Having a bad script rendered through bad performances did not help matters.

I can't speak, read, write, or understand Japanese, but it seems like the performance was better. Can't comprehend a word that they're saying, but their tone of voice seems a lot more natural.

This one makes it closer to the classic games than later iterations, actually. These themes were heavily hinted at in earlier entries, but never fully explored until SA1. And then they just dropped the whole "ancient horror" concept from the franchise entirely after that.

The backstory on the emeralds is that they're very powerful, and ancient civilizations abused them, leading to the apocalyptic downfall of their societies. This is going clear back to the Japanese Sonic 2 manual. That's not even mentioning the entire S3K plot. Tell me again how SA1 was even remotely a departure from this? The fact that they never revisited this core concept is what makes later games less like the classics.

Everything in Sonic Adventure 1 seemed to be a culmination of all they were building up to. Ideas they had about the world but never got a chance to really delve into until granted the ability to do a game of that scope.

Right, the characters also weren't grossly distorted into having exaggerated personalities inconsistent with what came before. I mean, yeah, Sonic is a snark, but he's not a douche. SA2 really feels like it tried to be edgy in an early 00's style, and it has not aged well in this regard.

They did a better job than in SA2/Heroes, for sure, but I think they could've done a much better job. Sonic 3D Blast, bland as that game is, had an excellent adaptation of the physics in 3D.

Oh, more than just visually. Notice how they kept even the sound effects cartoony in SA1, but in SA2 they went all "realistic" with it? No more do you hear "whhooOOOP!" when you jump, instead you get an uninspired "whoosh!".

 

As a point of discussion, I'd like to remind everyone that the DX version of the game excessively changed the visuals to be more in the style of SA2.

The Dreamcast original is cosmetically far more in line with the classic games than the ruination from DX.

Sure, the surface elements are different, but the tone, atmosphere, music, sound effects, character design, world design, story, etc have strong roots in the classic games.

It is a direct continuation of what came before, despite the stylistic shift. SA2 was an utter abandonment of what came before (including the game it alleges itself to be a sequel to). I think SA1 is something of a black sheep of the classic series, but is very much a part of it (and its end).

Fair enough, but I think that goes without saying. Of course I have no way of knowing whether the performances are good or not. However, I think tone of voice is something that is more universally able to be understood.

Actually, there are a good number of people here who have studied Japanese. I'd like to hear their opinion of the Japanese SA1 VA, would certainly be a better analysis than my "gut feeling".

I do want an actual conversation, or else I would not have created this thread. I'm not zealously defending anything, just explaining in further detail why I feel the way I do. I'm open-minded, my opinions are not concrete and am more than willing to change my mind if proven wrong. And while I have the tendency to be snarky and direct with people, I'm not dissing anyone.

I can see how "not legit" can be misinterpreted as a slight, I should be more careful with how I pick my words. I did not mean that his opinion was invalid at all, I just meant that I personally didn't find it to be a relevant point, and I followed up with why I felt that way. I feel that complaining about the English cast is irrelevant because it doesn't have any bearing on the "canon" cast that the game was developed with. It was a thing done as a necessity for bringing the game overseas, it's safe to say that they botched it, if for nothing else; the insane direction to slavishly match the existing lipsync.

And who knows how closely the original Japanese script was translated, if the intended tone was lost? There are so many fan-retranslations of games for this exact reason. Final Fantasy 1 comes to mind as an example.

No. More like "I know that I have no reason to feel this way, but here is why I have a certain gut feeling". I was not asserting myself. If I'm trying to assert myself, I say as much.

That's not what I meant at all. SA1 scripted loops and such in just the same way. I was referring to the way the character smoothly turned (a necessity on a dpad, but still nice to have regardless), the way he accelerated, the way there was proper slope resistance, the way that he bounced off of walls depending on the angle you hit it at when spinning, etc. SA1 either didn't have these things or did them worse.

When I say physics, I mean in a more general sense; the mechanics of movement in general, not necessarily things like taking loops or wallrunning into account.

 

It was definitely a transitional piece, but I suspect it wasn't meant to be - SA2's direction was probably decided upon during that game's preproduction, and not earlier. Keep in mind, SA1 is a game originating in 1997. 1997. It was first released in '98, sure, but commercial games (at least of this nature) tend to be developed in about a year. By late '97, I'm sure the design we see now was mostly in place, even if the game itself was probably still in alpha and may have seen further (perhaps even significant) changes.

The only reason they went with redesigned characters and a slightly more realistic aesthetic (emphasis on the "slightly" part) was to be all like "this is the new generation of technology! it's a new day!". They weren't trying to reinvent anything, that was just the choice they made to show off the Dreamcast, perhaps fearing that keeping in a completely cartoony style might not have showcased the hardware as well as they wanted to for their new console's flagship title. In retrospect, this was probably a mistake, but it wasn't a terrible decision either, and they handled it in a balanced and tasteful way. DX shat all over the "tasteful and balanced" part, but the less said about that travesty of a rerelease, the better.

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I'm not really sure you can say it was a "new world". I think it was just the world that they already had in mind for years, just parts of it they never explored in detail due to the smaller scope of the games that came before.

The Egg Carrier was a lot like the Wing Fortress in concept. Ancient ruins with a mysterious past were definitely a trope. Classic Sonic already had cities with people in them. You never saw the people in-game, but then what are all those city levels populated by? Humans are definitely a thing in the Sonic universe, just look at Eggman. As for Sonic being in the city proper (not just the highways) and interacting with people, I direct you to the Man of the Year short cartoon.

Though not strictly Sonic related, even the Chao have a basis in this era in the form of the a-life creatures in Nights into Dreams.

There is literally nothing I can think of in SA1 that, while presented in a new style, doesn't have some direct basis in the previous games or media surrounding them. I can't say the same for SA2.

I can't even say the same for later titles where they moved back in tone, as they still went with brand new concepts, largely ignoring a lot of these oft-forgotten, less explored elements of the classic world.