Sonic's character design and aesthetic

I'm not sure if I'd call the Colours/Generations aesthetics are really consistent with Unleashed. When it comes to the designs of the characters for sure, but the world in Unleashed is incredibly different. Colours went for more creative, colourful and out there worlds while Unleashed went for more realistic locations done in a Pixar-like style. That and they actually somewhat fleshed out the world in Unleashed. As in, it actually felt like a world and not just a series of video game levels like in Generations and Lost World. And that's not just because of there being a lot more characters/NPCs in Unleashed, though those certainly helped. But the locations also just look lived in and like a part of the same world.

Colours kinda did as well as it contextualized the worlds being so different as them being different planets, and it looks like it's possible for there to be more to the worlds than just the levels you go through. Generations meanwhile was just a white space with portals to levels from past games and Lost World's world doesn't really feel much like a world at all and more like environments made for video game levels.

 

First, I need to iterate that I see art style seperate from UI/graphic design. Anyways..

I feel like the Unleashed/Colors/Gens art style is worth salvaging, mostly because it did such a good job marrying the fantasy environments in the Genesis era and the more organic/realistic environments in the Adventure era by adding a pinch of that Pixar-esque cartoon flair into it.

Not only does it manage to make wildly imaginative places like Green Hill, Sky Sanctuary, Planet Wisp and Sweet Mountain seem like actual fleshed out and grounded locations that you can live and breathe in, but it makes more realistic areas like Spagonia, Chun-Nan or City Escape look much more fitting for cartoon bipedal animals and goofy robots to exist within. It opens up all kinds of possibilities on how Sonic's worlds can look because it doesn't sit too far on fantasy and neither does it sit too far on realism. It's a pretty choice blend.

Plus, in no previous style has human characters (despite Eggman) fit alongside the main cast. Unleashed goes out of it's way to introduce human designs that look somewhere between Pixar and that 'Man of the Year' short, and even makes more animal-like fantasy creatures such as Chip or that Gaia Phoenix that look in line with the Flicky animals and whatnot. Granted it's not perfect, but I believe it's a huge step in the right direction, and I honestly hope they haven't thrown it out starting with Lost World (which just seems like yet another regression for who knows why).

I'd say Colors' and Gens' art styles fit into Unleashed just fine, since I feel like I can look at all three games and see enough similarities in style to believe that they take place in the same universe. I'd mostly blame how game-y anything from those two feel on how the game treats how you approach said environments, but that's another kettle of fish.

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I apologize for any irritableness or tension from the last several posts, by the way. I too am just tired of the classic vs modern design discussion, and whenever people all tend to agree despite have varying opinions, it's hard to figure out what the general consensus is in the conversation. And I'm not short-sighted on this, not at all! I'm honestly very open to this series taking in ideas new and old, in fact the idea of sticking to only one way as the "real way" was what I spent my entire time arguing against.

 

See and I love that kinda stuff. It's rad as hell.

But I don't think it's a necessity for Sonic to go back to it, since the only games (outside of advertising and box art) that used that style were Sonic CD and Chaotix, and even those are often seen as outliers from the regular classic games due to their bizarre artsyness. I wouldn't call the style 'timeless' either, though that definitely doesn't mean it's bad; moreso that means that it's not gonna click with everyone.

I wouldn't mind if they took a few cues from it again though. Generations tried bringing back this sort of flair for it's menus, but I don't think their execution was perfect. If they're down for a second try though..!

 

I do. I really do want Sonic to be rad as hell again.

Please SEGA, the time has arrived.

 

I believe that for Sonic to regain its popularity it needs to be identifiable, it needs to be unique. I have always agreed that Sonic games are pretty, and this definitely includes the modern era. Here's an analogy, it's ok to enjoy McDonalds, and to me saying that you like Sonic aesthetic being similar to Pixar (or any production house for that matter) is like saying you like a cheeseburger because it tastes like McDonalds; people like McDonalds and therefore people will like this burger. However, I don't think it's enough in today's competitive marketplace to simply replicate what someone else is doing really well. Let Pixar be Pixar. How about Sonic finds "Sonic". The most memorable and best game franchises have unique artistic direction.

A well developed IP itself can directly translate into positive feedback. Take the overused example of Mario. Probably everyone can agree that the Mario series benefits from its continuity and heritage. If you took a game the exact same as Mario, but switched Mario to a blue squirrel, it simply would not review as well. This is in part because the blue squirrel does not have a heritage people can identify with. This holds true for Sonic as well. When you constantly switch up a series and never develop any unique identity for the brand you can't benefit from this feedback loop. Sonic is actually experiencing the exact opposite, where the series is probably receiving even lower reviews than it deserves (sans Boom).

I would be happier if the series would simply choose an identity and stick to it. But looking like Pixar sets the bar incredibly low, it only alludes to a level of polish but not any substance. It doesn't tell us anything about a specific film or its genre, or setting, etc. There are plenty of polished great looking movies that fail horribly because they lack substance, and the same is true of games.

It is true, my personal preference is a hybrid of Memphis-milano, art-deco, and diesel-punk (retro-futurism) and anime. To me these are the most fitting for the series. I don't say this simply because I want the game to stay in the 90s though. After all, art-deco is from the 1920-30's, diesel-punk is a hybrid of future techonology and 1920-50s, and Memphis-milano is from the 1980-90s. I choose these because they are elements the series was founded on, can be utilized to create something unique to the brand, and they are a perfect vehicle for the original narrative of the series (being man against nature, nature as a machine, a synthetic-natural world, etc). However, I ultimately would be happy if the series could stick to any defining art direction and become more than a capitalist-shell.

 

I think that Sonic's character design is more an issue than the design itself. One thing to say is that Sonic's design is usually at it's best (well received by the majority) when it has a balance between Japanese and Western art styles. My problem with the modern design is that he looks overly western. Like he belongs in a fruit snacks commercial rather than his video game. But before you get your pitch forks, let me explain. It's not exactly his design itself. Lately, the 3D artists at SEGA seem to model and animate as if they are robots. And it shows. The character models and animations have no personality what-so-ever, at least, in game. No good timing, no squash and stretch, just generic game-y animations. Unleashed seemed like the only one with a solid art style, and it's funny because during development they were like: "Make the lighting like Pixar!". It seems that "make it like Pixar" philosophy went past their lighting engine straight into the characters, and that certainly isn't timeless. Dreamworks and Pixar have been getting a lot of flak these days from the 3D community for making things ultra-generic. Everyone has the same eyes, made up of simple shapes, all to make sure they have proper topology and to make the rigger's job easier I guess. But nowadays you can't really watch a 3D movie and tell exactly who it was from without seeing the credits or opening scene. It's just been done so so much. Yet the modern 2D art still has some style to it. Concept art for Generations looks stylized; the game itself... Not exactly stellar. Stages seemed to be picked on which one is more popular as well as easier for the 3D artists to re-imagine. So now you get 3 hill-levels (known as the easiest type of Sonic stage to make) and 2 city levels (2nd easiest). Even during gameplay, Secret rings had a good thing going with animation when you're running really fast, slide a number of meters, then spring right up. The kind of stuff that's unscripted but looks fluid. Well, in Secret Ring's case, only when performed right... Anyway, I'll stop talking about animation and go back to art.
Is it me, or even in Sonic Colors, the colors look washed out? Go look at Tropical Resort for example, then Green Hill in Generations. In Unleashed there seemed to be a better grasp of what colors to use. Adabat looked lively and colorful, well, more so than the other stages! Unleashed always managed to look nice, given what PS360 were capable of. It's just that with Colors and Generations, it seems everything is suddenly sprinkled with dirt or something. Not only that, but Green Hill doesn't look like Green Hill at all. Yes, it's easier to put cliffs that block our view. Yes, it's easier to put an open sea over there. But why isn't there any decently well thought out land in the distance? Why doesn't it feel like I'm in a place that really exists in the Sonic universe at all, just a linear gamey level (let's not talk about gameplay here please). I just want to end my unorganized rant by saying I kind of agree with both sides of the argument. I'll also say modern Sonic's design can look good depending on whether or not the artists really want to give him a style. But as of yet, he really doesn't have much of a true identity in his art. This is also why you see so many artists drawing modern Sonic in so many different ways while still keeping his same design. In art the basic shapes and outlines are about 30% of what makes something look good. Lighting and colors hold the largest place. You can make garbage look good with good lighting and colors, but not the other way around. All bias aside, even Classic Sonic's average Japanese promotional art looks infinitely better and stylized than what we have now:

I can go on about this, but I feel that they didn't really care about this kind of stuff. I understand in 3D it's that much harder to give your work a personality, but if you can't do that, don't just continuously do the same generic mainstream stuff over and over. I mean, even Traveler's Tales gives Sonic a better personality in their 3D art than modern day Sonic team. You know, the shovelware LEGO game company.

And I find it funny that as bad a game as Sonic R was, it felt more Sonic than what we have now. I'm not saying this because of nostalgia, I only beat Sonic R on Gamecube about a year ago. And I'm not saying to make it 90's. I'm saying to put an effort into giving him an actual style. Unleashed got SOMEWHERE, but certainly not anywhere permanent. It doesn't help from an artistic standpoint that Colors and Generations look even worse. I won't really talk about Lost World. That was clearly the result of a small dev team/ small budget. As in, we're talking indie dev team budget.

 

Exactly. They handle Sonic like a cereal mascot more than a real character. They seem to think they can get away with the same kind of face value marketing crap with Sonic as Apple Jacks can with their sentient apple or McDonalds with their... happy meal box with a face. Sonic Boom is even worse in this regard, it seems they created the Sonic Boom sub franchise with the intent to push Sonic even more in this direction, to have an image to market to death that they can stick on or next to anything and "promote brand awareness" and such shit. They have to stop treating Sonic this way, stop using him in the same manner as a corporate mascot to sell a product. Cereal can get away with that, it works for that. It does not work for Sonic. That does not mean a company cannot promote a game character's image for brand awareness. The problem is that this is as deep as Sonic goes as far as Sega is concerned. Beyond the marketed image, Sega doesn't care. The product doesn't matter. Even Sonic's image can be terrible or grossly inconsistent as long as it's marketable.

God I thought I was the only one to notice this. It's as if no one is actually inspired by Sonic to make Sonic the most Sonic he can be. It's more like some boss said "here's a list of animations to make" and an animator said "okay I will make these animations" and made generic animations to meet the quota. A lot of things in the series now feel this way. Probably because the series is being handled as described above. It's almost like Sega has to begrudgingly accept that Sonic is a video game series, so therefore Sonic needs games. So they tell a team to just make some game with Sonic in it so they can say they're selling Sonic video games.

Damn, thank you times a thousand. It's hard to convey this because people generally don't seem to see the major difference in care and style.

That's not much of an excuse as far as I'm concerned. Money does not cause people to care or understand about the series they're working with. Many touches and design choices require little to no additional time or effort to do, and are simply a matter of thoughtfulness and passion. The whole direction for the game could be something entirely different with the same project scope and budget.

 

^ Someone that agrees with me? That never happens!
Anyway, you're right with the last one, didn't think of it that way. Interviews kind of show Lost World was Iizuka's idea to make a Mario Galaxy type game to appeal to Mario fans. Trying to stay away from gameplay discussion as I may, it doesn't even succeed in that. I mean, we can obviously tell Lost World wasn't exactly a passion project or anything, it was clearly filler.

 

One thing I think lost world did right (or at least better) was given more life to Sonic's animations. Not perfect mind you, but there's more movement and motion, and at least they finally gave sonic a standing pose again. That hasn't had personality or style since Sonic 3.

All things considered though I do still consider the modern model we have now to be the best modern model so far. And personally I thought generations looked great. Some things were faded but I think that was a wise move, as they were given the unfortunate task of finding visual cohesion in a series that hadnt had any in 16 years up to that point. So Green Hill isn't as vibrant and Sky Sanctuary isn't blocks of cheese leading to the Death Star, but it works in the same world as speed highway and the more modern levels

 

Agreed with everything Dark Sonic said.

Also, I think the biggest problem with modern Sonic's presentation is more so how every render of him is made to accentuate his cool factor as much as possible, even if the in-game animations don't have it cranked up to nearly that extreme.

Which, might I add, is nothing new. We've been having that problem since the classic days on western promotional material. It's just Sega's whole thing with thinking Sonic needs to be as rad as possible on promo art.. kinda like Angry Kirby but not borderline self aware.

 

If I may throw in two cents on the Kirby angle, I think a good part of Kirby's broad and consistent appeal is that he is capable of pulling off both "Hardcore Kirby" and "Innocent Kirby" attitudes without having to make concessions to either side.

Yeah, he's innocent, and naive, and childish, but he's also powerful, and skilled, and determined. He can be badass, and still be adorable at the same time. He can be silly and happy, while still kicking butt. All these elements play an important part of who Kirby is, and he can display all of these emotions and characteristics without seeming out of character. Kirby isn't just "Japanese Kirby" He's not just "American Kirby" He's just Kirby, and different facets of his personality are used to more successfully market in different cultures. This even shines through the gameplay, which contrasts relatively easy core gameplay, with surprising challenge when you get deeper in, and the design aesthetics, where Dreamland/Popstar is a happy-go-lucky sugar bowl that contrasts with the dark, intimidating antagonists. The range of feelings that Kirby can cover is key to his identity.

What is Sonic's current identity? He's cool, he's fast, and he's full of himself. That's not a lot of range for a protagonist. His attitude is always "I'm in control, I've got this. Even when I don't got this, everything is going to turn out okay, because I always win." If you look at the style of the older Sonic games, there were a lot of ups and downs in how the levels played out. Sometimes you'd go blistering through at top speed, other times you'd have to slow down to make some jumps, or ride/power an elevator. Sonic's animations had him be cool and cocky, sure, but he also had his edge animations and hurt animations showing panic and fear. Cutscenes in S3&K had him be blindsided by Knuckles, or unable to stop Eggman in time for him to get away with phase 1. The levels had contrast, going from bright, colorful stages of varying degrees, to dingy, darker-palleted, mechanical zones where Eggman was winning.

Older Sonic games were, if I may be a tad obvious, a roller coaster in their execution. They had ups and downs, and the downs made you appreciate the ups even more.

When I look at modern Sonic games, I get the feeling that Sega is following a philosophy of Lucy from Peanuts: "I don't want any Downs! I Just want Ups and Ups and Ups and Ups!"

Sonic games become all about fast. Boosting, tearing through things as quickly as possible. Utterly demolishing anything that's in your path without even trying. Enemies become mere decorations, or platforms for homing attacks, completely powerless against you. Bosses are jokes. Sonic is always self assured and in charge. Even whenever he does fail, his friends come in and go "No, Sonic, you ARE that good!" and then Sonic is that good again, like the failure never happened. There's no momentum. There's no flow. There's just Sonic being the best at everything. The atmosphere changes at the drop of a hat. Instead of gradually building to a grand finale, it dances all over the place before dropping a final climax in your lap with minimal buildup.

Then, when they do try to give Sonic depth, like in Lost World when they tried to show Sonic being reckless and tearing through everything without thinking wasn't a good thing, It comes off as insincere. Especially since the design philosophy of "Just tear through everything and ask questions later" still holds true for the most part.

If Classic Sonic games had the feeling of roller coasters, Modern Sonic games are bullet trains. Fast, and exhilarating, but straight to the point, and lacking depth and character.

 

Good points all around.

I believe Sonic's personality at it's most well rounded includes elements of kindness, determination, wanderlust, and occasional laziness and irritability; all of which are elements shown a lot in Adventure (and even in the Sonic OVA), and at least lightly played with in Unleashed and those gosh-dang Storybook games (heck even Sonic X of all things dabbles into it a tad).

He's got room to be a much more fleshed-out and interesting character, but so few games in the series seem to take advantage of it, leaving him as the one-note overconfident cool dude and the overall tone of the games as not having very high stakes or emotional connection with the events that happen throughout them.

Lost World in particular suffers from this characterization and style of storywriting, as said moments where sad events and stakes rising feel fake when the game goes out of it's way to break the tension altogether by the very next cutscene, only to add salt on the wound when it stumbles everything into the status quo and then wraps it all up with a jokey "We beat Eggman cuz bad guys always lose!" "I'll get you next time, Sonic!!" etc etc ending. It's such a poorly handled plot..

 

Couldn't agree more. There was a much greater deal of diversity and subtlety with how the classics were handled. It's funny how the writing and presentation analogously equate to the gameplay between both classic and modern series, that was a very good point.

So, coming up is a bit of an early reveal for something I'm working on, but it makes a point.
I want to bring up the monitors, staple object of the series. This makes an example of how they're not really paying attention to the material they're working with, or don't really care. Could be wrong, but it really suggests that, as it would be a strange deliberate decision.

First, the original monitor sprite.



At a glance, it seems like there isn't much to go on for interpretation. It's a kinda vague front view sprite, with no references for other angles.

The Generations version interprets it as a cube.




Now, this isn't bad, it's okay. But it's a very face value 3d interpretation of just the sprite.
But if you put a little thought into it, and look a little deeper, this isn't all that fair of an interpretation.

They're called monitors. That's the first clue. Think about the time and scenario in which these were conceived. Early 90s developers working with oldschool computers; chances are the inspiration for the item came right from their office.
With that in mind, these can be interpreted as the front view of an oldschool CRT computer monitor, which makes a lot more sense.




This is further supported by the S3&K monitors, which are noticeably inspired by another variant.






It's things like this which indicate to me that they're negligent with the series. Many details they don't seem to really think about and just work from the most immediate glances at what things are based on. Again, maybe I'm wrong and it's deliberate, but that's pretty odd, or at least not a good way to go the way I see it.

So, here's my version of a 3d monitor.




This takes inspiration from oldschool computer CRT monitors, and looks similar to the sprite from a front view. I believe this is what they were intending with the concept.

 

I think you look too deep into it, fam

 

That was made by another team mind you.
And maybe I am, but it's still one of many things worth examining.

 

As far as I remember, Monitors were always represented like this when shown in 3D. No matter if in the games, artwork or the comics. But I see what you mean. When I try to bring Sonic 8Bit graphics up to 16bit niveau, I usually try to imagine, what the original designers wanted to show and what they actually were able to. Going from this, one should work in new details to bring it closer to the original vision, without strying to far from it. In this regard, Generations did a great job.

Another thing one should consider, is that Sonic's heyday were also generally the era of "Blue-Skies Sega" with games like Virtua Fighter or Daytona, which , even though they followed completely (usually more realistic) different themes and designs, they kinda convey a similiar feeling and atmophere to me, the same way that, for example Sonic CD, R or Fighters do. In short, I think this boils down mostly due to the combination of highly saturated colors and the use of pretty upbeat soundtracks (usually heavy on O-Hits and dance-pianos)

As for the interface design issues TheKazeblade brought up, I totally agree. Genearations' menus and stuff could look sooo much better if it weren't for this lousy font. No Arial derivate should exist in any game.
With Adventure I assume they felt they needed to upgrade it, to fit with the new art direction. How good they succeeded with it, is another question, but at least I see the reasoning behind it.^^'
The GBA games are much worse offenders in the overall art direction.
Before that, you knew you had Sonic tiles when you saw them, but here they just looked like generic SNES graphics. SA1 tried at least a bit to harken back to the Mega Drive games with the goalsigns or the final bosses, but 2 and 3 strayed even further away, from those.

One case I like to bring up though, is Sonic Heroes.
We all know about the many things that game got wrong, but for once, lets talk about the one thing it actually nailed down pretty hard: It's atmosphere and aesthetics.
After the way more realistic approaches of Adventure 1 and 2, the stages in Heroes actually looked and felt like they deserved the word Zone behind it's name. The environements looked inspired and colorful again (at least if you don't play on a PS2), harkening back to the older games without straight copying them like 4 did. Robotnik's Egg Pawns and his boss machines also were much better looking than any of those generic GUN robots. Even the menus tried to take a more classic look, even if the SA2(?) font probably wasn't the best choice either. But you can feel that the designers at least put some thought into it and remembered how the games once looked, and that they tried to modernize. For me it's still the only modern game which stages hit that classic Sonic look til Colors and Generations came along.

Oh, one last thing.... Edgy Mario? Why has noone brought this up yet?


Yeah, he looks edgy and he looks angry, and yet it doesn't trigger the same urge to hit something, as Modern Sonic's plastic grin does. Though I have no idea what exactly causes this ^^"

 

At least for me, it's easy to point out modern'style flaws but classic Sonic games didn't have perfect aesthetics 100% of the time. That overused "Sonic/Miles" tiling, Sonic 3's title screen render/checkered banner, Sonic 1's title cards/font choices, and the derpy looking life icons. Plus all those games used generic fonts for menus and things like that. System limitations aside, those things could have been improved IMO

 

Probably because that's just promotional artwork.
Actual ingame Mario looks like an overdesigned midget who struggles to even walk cause of all the stuff put on him.