don't click here

The Sonic the Hedgehog Continuity Thread of Love and Timelines

Discussion in 'General Sonic Discussion' started by dredd, Jul 6, 2020.

  1. RDNexus

    RDNexus

    Member
    @BlackHole... Generations is already in the Iizuka Era.
    You complain about him to heck and back, but then use stuff from his era to back up you claims.
    If that's so, then you can't keep hating on Iizuka and SEGA's current decisions.

    Also, I deem Generations as a fan-pandering anniversary game, like Forces.
    Ever since Unleashed, all new games lost credibility to me due to disregarding the previous continuity for the sake of easy money.
     
  2. BlackHole

    BlackHole

    You're going to need MORE than help. Member
    5,645
    771
    93
    England
    Complaining
    Alright then, the Classic Robotnik design appears in Sonic Adventure.
    [​IMG]
    Why would he use this design if it never existed? And considering the model, it's an easy fix to the Adventure design if there wasn't any reason to use the old one.

    There's also Casinopolis, where the Classic Designs are used, but Casino levels are a peculiar lot in regards to their set up. I don't think Casino Night Zone set up signs saying Sonic and Miles as soon as they heard Sonic had a friend.
     
  3. RDNexus

    RDNexus

    Member
    You now grasping at straws? Fan-pandering stuff. Easy to explain.
    Why the need to change? It's secondary stuff, not plot-relevant.
     
  4. BlackHole

    BlackHole

    You're going to need MORE than help. Member
    5,645
    771
    93
    England
    Complaining
    What, you don't see Robotnik building a minigame featuring himself? The same Robotnik who build a carnival on Angel Island? Has a pool on the Egg Carrier? Whose bedroom looks like this:
    [​IMG]
    And I'm fairly certain there was a playroom with a spinning plane on that thing.
    And you think the minigame is fan-pandering instead of something the egocentric lunatic would do?
     
  5. RDNexus

    RDNexus

    Member
    Not everything in the games was made to make sense.
    There's more than enough evidence of that matter.

    I'll return to Spectator Mode now. Until I intervene again.
     
  6. BlackHole

    BlackHole

    You're going to need MORE than help. Member
    5,645
    771
    93
    England
    Complaining
    Not even the logos on the floor of his bedroom featuring, once again, the Classic Robotnik design?

    (Look beneath the grin and see the telltale points of his old design)
     
  7. Pengi

    Pengi

    Member
    1,891
    526
    93
    Satoshi Okano designed that logo. He said it was based on the classic Eggman because he’s a fan of Ohshima’s art and designs.
     
  8. BlackHole

    BlackHole

    You're going to need MORE than help. Member
    5,645
    771
    93
    England
    Complaining
    Still putting the Classic Design into Sonic Adventure, but hey, I doubt even official confirmation from Yuji Naka would convince some people here at this point.
     
  9. DigitalDuck

    DigitalDuck

    Arriving four years late. Member
    5,338
    412
    63
    Lincs, UK
    TurBoa, S1RL
    What does Sonic Colours having acts chopped up have to do with SEGA not deciding which universe the story takes place in? These are two entirely different things.

    Why? I play games for the gameplay. Remember that thing? The thing that makes a game a game, and not a movie? Why would I play a completely different game with completely different gameplay, just because SEGA disregarded one aspect of the story?

    Seriously, take a break. You have an unhealthy obsession with this, and it's not doing your mental state any good. Go outside, sniff some flowers, learn to juggle, just do something else. I'm worried about you.
     
  10. BlackHole

    BlackHole

    You're going to need MORE than help. Member
    5,645
    771
    93
    England
    Complaining
    Because when they begin disregarding one aspect of a game, it has indications of other aspects of the games. They decided to create two worlds which mucks around with all prior continuity, they decided to chop the acts into pieces. They decided to put Classic Sonic into Sonic Forces and set him as from an alternate dimension, I don't think I need to explain the state of half the gameplay of that game, especially.

    It's akin to that quote from Charlie Chaplin: “Judge a man not by how he treats his equals but by how he treats his inferiors.” The story and continuity is the 'inferior' to the gameplay here, and when they start lacking, it sets a tone for how they're going to be handling gameplay:
    • Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles's story is well done, a chase to reach the Death Egg before it can relaunch while dealing with the mysterious echidna Knuckles who is trying to fend you off the island, all done fairly carefully to build up the levels as one continuous adventure. I'm sure we can all agree this is one of the better Sonic the Hedgehog titles.
    • Sonic Adventure (on the Dreamcast) has a darker story, but it holds up. Echidna got hostile, Chaos attacked in response, then was sealed away and now it's a game of collecting the Emeralds first. Story's got some sloppy parts, gameplay has similarly sloppy parts. Big the Cat's story: why did Chaos lose a bit of himself? He never does get a tail as Chaos Zero, so what tail did Froggy get possessed by? Big the Cat's gameplay: similarly illogical for a Sonic game.
    • Sonic Adventure 2, the story holds so long as you don't look too closely at it, while the gameplay echoes this. You can remove Tails, Shadow and Rogue from the gameplay and nothing would be lost, as Sonic, Knuckles and Robotnik both cover those gameplay styles and are the ones driving the plot forward.
    • Sonic Heroes, basic story of chasing down Robotnik with a twist at the end, the gameplay is basic at best, with the team system gameplay as a twist on the standard formula.
    • Shadow the Hedgehog's story is a bit of a mess, while the game play feels slippy and they've tacked on requirements to progress, Kill X amount of enemies for example, which you have to do to beat the game via the Last Story.
    • Sonic the Hedgehog (2006), do I need to explain this one?
    To me, the story is an indication of passion on the project and how that project is going to go. Most people argue that the gameplay is important, that is accurate and should be the first port of call at all times. However, story is an integral part of games now, to the point that genres are built around it (RPGs and the like). As such, when you're passionate about your work you'll focus on all aspects of it, including the story and the world, because you want to make it a great game people can enjoy. When you're not passionate, when it's just another game to put out for the company, first thing to go down is the world and story, as that's the 'least important part' of a game.

    Sonic's stories are becoming lacklustre, the continuity is pretty much dead in the water. The last two Sonic Team Sonic games were Sonic Lost World, with boring enemies that people are debating if they should be dropped entirely elsewhere here and gameplay that can be incredibly confusing and buggy (I still have no idea how the hell to do parkour properly), and Sonic Forces, where the entire continuity collapse starts coming into play, meanwhile we have the poorly made Classic Sonic sections and once again the Boost Formula on levels that have been broken up akin to Sonic Colours, only less fun.

    I think the best example of passion affecting story and gameplay would be Metal Gear Solid. Kojima would give the series all his passion, even if he was tired of it: you can shoot an ice bucket in Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty and watch them melt realistically, that's how versatile they made the game engine, and it told a story about the censoring of information from the world which holds up today in regards to politicians trying the same thing. Metal Gear Survive was released after Kojima left Konami and you can tell it's a cash-grab on story alone, while gameplay wise... yeah, not a fun game.

    To put it basically for those not wanting to read all of that: I think Story and World Development is the baseline for how well-made a game will be because it's so unimportant. It's what will suffer most when the developer doesn't care, and that lack of care will echo up into other developments, level design and the like.
     
  11. RDNexus

    RDNexus

    Member
    @BlackHole, have you ever tried to bring up stuff like that to folks like Iizuka or Webber?
     
  12. BlackHole

    BlackHole

    You're going to need MORE than help. Member
    5,645
    771
    93
    England
    Complaining
    I'm sorry, I'm not sure if this is rhetorical or not, could you please specify if this was a legitimate inquiry or otherwise? Sorry again and thank you.
     
  13. big smile

    big smile

    Oldbie
    1,023
    117
    43
    I actually do think that the reason Iizuka went for human/Sonic's world and Modern/Classic Sonic dimension was to put a stop to all the fan questions he kept on getting about discrepancies.
     
  14. RDNexus

    RDNexus

    Member
    I'm not joking, being serious here. You seem quite dedicated to fixing the whole thing up.
    Addressing it all to relevant people could do something. Or maybe (most likely) nothing at all.
    But at least, you could say you tried.

    If it was so, then it was a shitty move. They heard no proper thing from fans.
     
  15. Powpuck

    Powpuck

    Member
    350
    65
    28
    I hate to quote myself, but I've a retropsective itch that I seemingly just parroted BlackHole with this statement.

    What I meant by this, is that I think there could be a level of metafiction going on. That the literal games exist in the "human world". Like the kid in Station Square has a Mega Drive with compatible Sonic the Hedgehog cartridges. In other words, they view Sonic primarily from the lens of his Classic depiction, and his sojourns to their world are the occasional real-world events.

    Itch scratched, proceed as normal.
     
  16. BlackHole

    BlackHole

    You're going to need MORE than help. Member
    5,645
    771
    93
    England
    Complaining
    Honestly, it just makes everything even more confusing and requires more questions answered, so it's a major backfire if such is the case.

    Honestly, it's because I'm well aware it's likely to do nothing at all. What am I going to do, show them the timeline I worked hard on and say "look at how dedicated I am, you should listen to me!"

    I'd absolutely love to fix the whole thing up. I've got plenty of ideas on how to, but I've don't exactly have a reputation for doing so in the first place.

    Also, looks like someone at Sumo Digital didn't get the separate worlds memo:
    [​IMG]

    Hi South America!
     
    • Informative Informative x 1
    • List
  17. Pengi

    Pengi

    Member
    1,891
    526
    93
    In the years before Sonic Colours, it was a popular sentiment in both the gaming press and general gaming fandom that Sonic games shouldn't be in a "real" world with humans, there were too many playable characters and Sonic doesn't work in 3D. I think Iizuka and Sonic Team took all of this to heart. (This was also around the time the main games became "Sonic only" and started mixing 2D and 3D elements.)

    I think that backlash was something that escalated over time, fueled by Chris taking too much of the limelight in Sonic X and the story tone and art direction of the Shadow the Hedgehog and Sonic 2006 games.
     
  18. raphael_fc

    raphael_fc

    Overthinking Sonic timelines. Member
    When did this scene happen?
     
  19. BlackHole

    BlackHole

    You're going to need MORE than help. Member
    5,645
    771
    93
    England
    Complaining
    Team Sonic Racing, it's when they first meet Dodon Pa and he takes them up to Planet Wisp.


    About 2:14 in.
     
  20. raphael_fc

    raphael_fc

    Overthinking Sonic timelines. Member
    Maybe Sonic's world looks exactly like Earth but it is not Earth? And the planet shown in Forces was messed up because of Eggman's world domination? :rolleyes: