Sonic X Shadow Generations announced, releases Autumn 2024

it's super weird the length some parents go to shelter their kids from anything remotely complex. I remember years and years ago at this point seeing some kid I went to school with in the store looking at games and all that and his mom looked at The Last Airbender movie game and denied it for... magic???? I don't know, heart's in the right place, but like, rather than actually researching things stuff just gets passed up on just at a glance and first impression.

I actually thought Common Sense Media would be a good example of a resource that does more explaining of actual elements and complexities of things like this, and interestingly enough they've started to do games now, but from something like their Sonic Frontiers review it's a lot more barebones than some descriptions I've read for shows suggesting things that could be conversation points instead of "No, I don't want you seeing this > : (" and actually misses some things I probably would've put in. Also they try to paywall reviews and don't notify you until you look at a second game so it turns out it's really not as great as a resource as I thought, about on the same level as the ESRB's own ratings descriptions.

 

I find the likes of common sense media a joke myself, even the use of the term makes my alarm bells go off LOL . Mario and Sonic Olympics is a 10+ so for Soic Frontiesbut Mario Kart 8 is 7+; A game which promotes reckless driving and shooting projectiles at your opponents: if one wants to think like some of these people opposed to all forms of violence

I rather commence sense of saying that any Mario or Sonic game is completely child friendly and no way would SEGA or NCL look to alter that. It also sadness me how little mums and dads used the brilliant child projection facilities on the likes of the Xbox to stop children from running up big bills or playing software above their age group.

 

ShTH is anything but "complex". But I get what you're saying. I grew up in a conservative Christian family with conservative Christian friends. I had several friends who weren't allowed to read Harry Potter because of witchcraft. And even some who weren't allowed to play Pokemon because of evolution. Now my parents thought that was pretty preposterous, but like I said, I had to convince them that Melee wasn't a super violent game and in my opinion wasn't worthy of the T rating.

I'm still a conservative Christian and now that I have young kids, I watch pokemon with them and the three year old has seen Harry Potter. I enjoy playing Sonic games with them, but I wouldn't play ShTH with them because of the language.

 

I haven't seen either Steven Universe or Owl House so I can't say for certain, but I want try to stay away from LGBTQ topics until they are old enough to have mature conversations about what God says in the Bible.

 

Now I really want Sonic X Shadow Generations to be the Sonadow yaoi game reddit keeps pretending it is.

 

Nice thread we're having here, I see...

 

Given the amount of sales for GTA V I would guess a lot of those are sold to people well below the 18 rating and we now live in the age of shopping online where it's next to impossible to check the age of the person actually ordering the game. I bet many teenage kids have asked and had their mum and dad buy them GTAV, so I can't see many parents caring if Sonic gets a teen rating.

I wonder how many independent shops actually enforce the war given how many school kids I see openly vaping, I doubt many bother for most stuff, never mind games.

The BBFC has always been a bit of a bugbare of mine too with their ridiculous ratings and cuts for films and games in the UK. Their original rating for the Made In Hong Kong Snake In Eagles Shadow and Drunken Master on VHS were a joke (18 Plus LOL) and it made me laugh how Duke Nukem 3D was rating 18 on the Saturn because of 2D sprite-based boobs, but one could happily watch a 15 film rated with real boobs and tons for swearing it in like in Trading Places.

The UK has always made me laugh because for many years a kid of any age could buy The Sun and see Page 3 boobs with no issue whatsoever, but if we have a videogame with boobs it either had to cut or be given a 18 rating. I've always found the video game rating system to a bit of a joke and sorry to go on a rant.

 

This whole discussion seems a bit weird to me. There are conservative parents who enforce age ratings for a fact. Not denying that. But I thought it was just universally accepted for decades that the majority of parents buy their twelve year old children 18 rating games unless they have sexual content and then it is a no go zone. When I was growing up literally everyone played Grand Theft Auto Vice City when I was twelve. So I don't think Shadow having a T Rating will affect sales in a significant way.

I mean this is small fry anyway. I'm a teacher and kids are vaping and smoking weed at twelve years old. 20% are accessing pornographic content on their phones at primary school. This is something most parents probably wouldn't approve of, although I know some who buy their fourteen year old children alcohol for parties. So accessing high age rating games is largely a low concern for most parents.

 

If Sonic X Shadow Generations is successful do y’all think we could get a new standalone Shadow game? If so what would you want in a new Shadow title? I personally don’t want guns to come back (unless you can play as Omega in this hypothetical title). I’d prefer for projectiles to be chaos-related attacks.

I also think it would be cool for Shadow to carry on the boost formula since the mainline sonic games are moving towards open zone. A Shadow spinoff would be the perfect opportunity to have a stylized art style that would make the creation of boost level assets manageable. This could be especially cool if we get a Shadow game in space with each level being a different alien planet. By moving Shadow off world there’s the opportunity to give him his own supporting cast. My hope is that getting him away from Sonic and co would give writers more freedom when writing Shadow.

Anyways, I’m prob jumping the gun here but I’d love to hear everyones thoughts on what they’d like in a new Shadow title.

 

I wouldn't expect a new standalone Shadow game, but I could maybe see Shadow being folded back into the main cast and appearing more regularly in mainline games again, rather than being strangely absent for certain stories you'd really expect him to be doing something in (like Unleashed).

 

I'd be happy to see a spinoff continuity for Shadow and whatever weird experiments the crew wants to cook up (hell, stick whatever old cartoon and comic concepts the main series isn't interested in there), but there could never be an extensive Shadow series within the main timeline without getting really weird with the timeline of events and trying to fit games between each other. With the right artstyle and music presentation, you can make a Shadow AU that's basically "Sonic but goth" and you'd get a lot of people onboard. I honestly think having an aggressive and over-the-top mood without actually taking the plot itself in a darker direction is a good idea, but again, you'd have to keep it in its own universe where whatever weird ideas float up don't mess with regular Sonic too much.

As for the gameplay, I dunno. Maybe some kind of movement shooter, like a lot of the throwback FPS games we've been seeing in recent years, but a third person shooter? But ehhh, shooting. I don't hate all of Shadow the game's mechanics on paper, but I feel like almost anything they could do to differentiate it from Sonic would be a misstep. I only like the guns in Shadow the Game because they're way easier and more efficient than trying to fight the stupid spongey enemy health bars with physical attacks, but I'd rather those simply not be there in the first place. I guess you could take it in more of a spectacle fighter direction, but the problem is that's already where main series Sonic is headed. Lean more into the guns of Bayonetta or Devil May Cry, I guess? I'd certainly like to see Platinum Games take on the Sonic IP in some form...or I would have, if they hadn't kinda turned to shit in the last few years.

 

I believe in world peace, and this is how we'll get it

 

For another standalone Shadow game I'd like the proposed Maekawa plot where it's basically Megaman Zero but with Shadow. (Hell, if it's in the distant future, throw in Silver!)

 

I feel like a standalone Shadow series was the logical conclusion of his character, but yea, the continuity thing would be an issue, but its not like you can't just frame it as Shadow and co doing his own thing around the world away from Sonic.

 

Interesting. I don't think I've heard of this. Do you know where I can read about it?

 

I find the rating system with Sonic so silly and where 'common sense' goes out the window. Look at Mario and Sonic at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics it's rated a 10, yet there was no actual age limit on the LIVE TV broadcasts of the even or for people going to the actual events, yet a video game gets an age limit of 10.

 

Wouldn't be that hard to make Shadow into his own franchise because Shadow could stay with the humans like he's supposed to... but I just know people who don't actually like Sonic would freak out about it.

I remember an offhand (?) remark from him proposing the idea that Shadow's future is willingly sealing himself in stasis waiting for someone in desperation to unseal him. The only source I can seem to find in a quick glance is in the trivia section of the Sonic News Network article for him that also only links to images of text instead of where the text is supposed to originate from.

 

I find it kind of hilarious how right now, the younger parts of the fanbase are hostile to the idea of Shadow still being motivated by Maria because they think it's a regression from his character arc in his own game and 06, and here we have the writer of that arc being like "yeah no he does that until he gets really bored and then fucks off".