I feel like that's severely downplaying the multi-game character arc that Shadow had, but I also understand that a lot of fans hate him for that very reason. But its like...Shadow has been consistently one of the most popular characters in the entire franchise for over two decades now and that's generally because of the amount of effort they put into his development from villain to antihero. It's not perfect by any means and even I feel like a lot could have been improved upon it as well, but its like...one of the biggest complaints about him nowadays is how static and boring he is. Its a similar complaint Tails, Knuckles and Amy get too. They all had pretty solid arcs (or motivations in Knuckles' case) only for it to be swept under the rug because it was no longer convenient. And its not like every character needs to be Shadow and have multiple games worth of development. Sometimes one game is enough, nobody is really gonna complain about how Gamma's character was handled because he died in the same game he debuted in right? Its all in the execution and just requires somebody on the staff to give a damn. If the alternative to having dynamic characters who grow is having characters like the Deadly Six, who only serve as generic video game boss fodder, or Infinite, who may as well had not exist, then I'd rather just go back. At least there were characters I gave a damn about back then. Sonic always felt like it put a bit more effort than the usual platforming mascot in fleshing out its cast; it wasn't amazing by any means and it certainly wasn't always executed well either, but not even it doesn't even bother and we're just stuck in this limbo of nothingness. Hell, I'd even settle with just sticking the cast in new and unique situations that they have to react to. If that's the case, they should just stop pretending to have stories altogether and just stick to those animated shorts that they've been doing like with Origins.
Well, going back to alternatives I am glad they use different main villains at all. It would have been really easy to have Eggman suffer from Dr. Wily syndrome where no matter who the new antagonist is, he is actually secretly the main villain. One thing I rather liked about Forces was Infinite and how he was a strong threat/living weapon that helped Robotnik conquer the world and while way stronger than Robotnik was absolutely leathal combined with him and made for a compelling new antagonist for Sonic and Robotnik still felt like a threat even when Infinite was out of the way. Which since this is the unpopular opinions thread, it is worth saying Forces had a *good* plot. The main issue with it was the weird ass pacing. Like, if you were to make a plot outline for Forces it sounds freaking great, but the whiplash from things from Sonic being dead and most of the story happening in the background incidental to Tails's imaginary friend Classic Sonic (okay that imaginary friend part is more my headcanon) makes it all fall flat, but it still had cool moments in particular with the showdowns between Infinite and Sonic.
see but like...then the missile has his silly grinning face logo on it and fails to blow up, which even then makes it kind of slapstick-y in a S3&K way. could be argued that this theme then continues by having Chaos itself blow up Station Square outside of Eggman's control, and Eggman's next appearance is being infuriated that Perfect Chaos seemingly managed to actually do it. Like he's just ruined his game or something by actually taking what Eggman was saying seriously.
It's really why I kinda want more villains like the Deadly Six. Different takes of the series tend to conjure up different extremes of the heirarchy. In most games until recently, Eggman was kind of the bottom of the barrel of the rouges gallery, always the clownish patsy to some more sinister threat, while in stuff like the comics, it's the opposite, he's completely unopposed with most lowlier villains trying and failing miserably to usurp him. Depending on the take Eggman is either ALWAYS one step behind or ALWAYS one step ahead. The Deadly Six in Lost World however stuck out because they were basically cartoony equals to Eggman, both dangerous, opportunistic but ultimately fallible hubris driven bad guys. They both took turns dominating each other with neither quite playing with a full deck. Eggman found the conch and used it to oppress the Zeti, but then Sonic swooped in and ruined it all, so the Zeti beat Eggman up and stole all his toys, leading Eggman to use Sonic to sneak his way back in control. Demonstrated Eggman as both an arrogant blowhard who thought he was more in control than he actually was, but one still manipulative and scheming enough to conjure up back up plans to regain his throne. I like seeing two comedic assholes who THINK they are superior to the other but really just act like two shitstirring little schoolbullies wanting to be the kingpin of the playground. Better than just one sided rivalries ALL THE TIME which either decay Eggman horribly or make him feel too unstoppable depending on which side they support. The nearest to another example like this was Dr Quark from Adventures of Sonic, another funny rival, sometimes partner for Eggman who is too similar to him for their own good.
I honestly don't understand how you can look at the Deadly Six as "equals" to Eggman when literally everything the only reason they accomplish anything is because: A) Someone else fucked up (Sonic) or B) They steal someone else's entire plan. Nothing they do in Lost World is unique to them in any way and its part of the reason they feel so bland. They're so bland, their reasoning for turning against Sonic are practically non-existent.
With strong evidence, I firmly believe most youtube commentary vidsters do not form original opinions, but rather take an existing opinion and try pushing it to a further extreme for the sake of search optimization. Dislikes might be an ego-bruiser, but they never had any bearing on page ranking in the searches. Like any other form of controversy, "hawt taeks" are a much better way to get attention than insightful- albeit necessarily verbose- commentary. Were this not the case, Hard4Games would easily be one of the top 5 most-viewed gaming youtube channels. Most of those people don't even use their own gameplay footage. Hah! I apologize for such strong language as "butt-ugly", but I stand by my position that eyes are better with pupils.
I guess it's because the only reason Eggman himself didn't get kicked to the curb by them is because of that conch thing he didn't take very good care of (I'm guessing he didn't invent it since he never considered just making a backup so similar to Deadly Six he was just opportunistic with dumb luck). They both relied on Sonic's happenstance and being opportunistic with the other guy's machinations to schoolyard bully the other. Deadly Six's entire motivation was 'he used our power so we'll use HIS to screw with him', childish spite.....so right up Eggman's corner. :P I do definitely agree that the execution wasn't that great, but I guess I just kinda liked having one of those back and forth wars for once where both sides are rather petty and not in control, it was a change from the new guy just having Eggman under their thumb the whole time or vice versa.
I think Sonic Rush Adventure is one of the most underrated games in the series. It gives you a ton of stuff to do with the watercraft levels and islands to explore, and replaying the stages to gather materials works well since levels were made to be replayed over and over anyway. The soundtrack and bosses were great, although said bosses had the tendency to drag on a bit. It also expanded Blaze's world, even if her world happened to be occupied solely by koalas. (?) It might've been the first game in the series to have some genuinely good English dialogue; there was a lot of it but I happened to enjoy reading it, since it was quite nicely written compared to the first game. I also happen to like Marine! I'd 100%'d that game at least three times and I'd always feel satisfied with it.
While we're on subject of Rush Adventure, I always thought its soundtrack was vastly superior to Rush's. Rush's ost is...fine, I suppose? Never really got into it despite its massive popularity in the fanbase.
It's not even close. Not only because Rush Adventure's soundtrack is fantastic, but also because -- unpopular opinion incoming -- Rush's OST is horrible.
I've always preferred the first one, although Rush Adventure's is definitely more diverse and melodic. Rush's soundtrack is pretty much batshit insanity and that's understandably not everyone's thing.
I wouldn't call it horrible personally, it's just really samey and most of the tracks blend together for me. When I think of "Sonic Rush's Soundtrack" in my head, I just picture one singular mash of awkward sampling and bit-crushed melodies. Couldn't hum you most of the Zones' respective themes for the life of me lol
Having played maybe 20 hours of Sonic Origins at this point, I've come to a new opinion that may be unpopular: The collision differences in the Retro Engine are borderline* unacceptable for remakes. As soon as it was known how significantly different this was, Taxman honestly should have focused on fixing that, even started over from scratch if necessary, back before the remake of CD was ever pitched. It's one thing in Mania, a new game. But in old games, being crushed where one wouldn't have originally is annoying. Not being able to make a jump you could once make, by what seems like a single pixel is beyond annoying; doubly so when playing as Knuckles, who has a lower jump in general. Every time this happens, it takes me out of the game. I begin second guessing if that's how it always was and I'm just not remembering fully, or if it's a result of the new engine. At least once so far I've set Origins down to emulate the original just to check (not being able to jump up to the room containing the last Giant Ring in Hydrocity Act 2; it was the result of the new engine). The level geometry is the way it is with the original engines in mind. If you're going to change the engine such that it can't interact the same way with the geometry, then change the geometry to compensate. Move platforms and rooms down a little bit, or make them taller with lower floors. Now, I know that CD was made a long time ago so Taxman might not have realized the full ramifications of the engine's quirks. I know that 3K (where this is the most grating to me) is a different game, and wasn't even made by Taxman. I also know that Origins was developed in a rush, which would explain some amount of the issues it has. But are the quirks of the Retro Engine sufficiently explained by that? It's possible with a proper amount of dev time they might have been able to fix the engine, or adjust the level design to compensate, or something else. I don't know, I'm not a programmer, I don't know what is and isn't within the realm of possibility, here. All I know is this manages to take me out of the game at times even when I've accepted it and know to expect it from time to time. *: "Borderline" is the key word here. I'm still enjoying Origins, warts and all. But this thought wouldn't leave my head while playing as Knuckles last night, and needed to vent.
Has this special stage ring in Hydrocity Act 2 been rendered impossible to get by Sonic alone? I tried and tried but eventually used Tails’ flight assist. If it has been made impossible, that is pretty annoying.
I've never liked Sonic X's art style. I see people praise it all the time but I just don't get the hype, the humans are the most generic anime people that have just never looked all that appealing, and the Sonic characters are just soulless feeling imitations of Yuji Uekawa's artwork from the time. Dr Eggman just looks plain gross in the show, he just doesn't mesh well with the other humans at all, which has always been a problem to be fair, but it sticks out the most in this show in my opinion. Also, this is a nitpick but it's always kinda annoyed me how Sonic never shows more than three head spines at a time in the show, no matter the angle. It creates this almost pseudo mohawk look, even though the design of the character in the show should theoretically have the normal 6 head spikes. It's like a weird imitation of the thing that Mickey Mouse does with his ears, but it just comes off as strange.
Hilariously, that reminds me of a thread we had here once upon a time, where pretty much everyone agreed that Sonic's design in X was much better than the then-recent games, mostly because it was closer to Sonic's original design. I even made an MS-Paint edit of some official X artwork to restore his "correct" eye color, just to see what it'd look like. xD Spoiler i dunno, i still like it *shark week'd*
That's so bad, I love it. I can't believe there was a time where people unironically cared about Sonic's eye color. Although that piece of official artwork definitely demonstrates why I don't really like the X art style. It's trying to replicate the Uekawa artwork of the time, again, but the posing just seems so unnatural and stiff to me, nothing like the fluidity that makes the style work. And the Mickey ears syndrome strikes again with quill positioning that makes absolutely 0 sense.
While I agree it's silly, there are still people who unironically care about Sonic's eye color. You just can't hear us over the people who care about the length of his spines these days. And while it might not make a lot of sense, it is a standby in 2D animation. Goku's hair looks pretty much the same regardless of how far he turns, y'know?
It works fine for Goku's hair and many other features on different characters, but in my opinion it just looks really off on the modern appearance of Sonic, especially considering he was literally built to appear in 3D model form.
