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Soft Reboots and Sonic the Hedgehog.

Discussion in 'General Sonic Discussion' started by Sonic5993, May 13, 2021.

  1. BlackHole

    BlackHole

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    So I guess Sonic Colours is a soft reboot since they decided to shoehorn in that crap with two worlds and basically ignore everything storywise but retain the actual characters while bastardising them. Lookin' at you, Shadow. I'm almost tempted to genuinely start calling him Edgy the Hedgy to differentiate him from the pre-Iizuka Shadow, who had an actual personality beyond "Fite me m8!"...

    Indeed. I don't want Sonic Adventure: Second Coming, I want a game that expands and evolves on those elements, brings in much better momentum physics and explorative and platforming gameplay. While I'd like the cast to have actual depth and personality to them, the gameplay needs to be handled first. Story, eh, not bothered about the darker aspects as the series was always had a rather dark streak in the background: the mystery of the ancient civilization that was wiped out as early as Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (MD), for instance, and the whole "Robotnik has built the Death Egg" and the Death Egg apparently having Death Star-esque capabilities, if Lava Reef Zone is any indication...
     
  2. No matter how much people are mad about the direction of the series from Sonic Colors onward, it's not a soft reboot.
     
  3. Frostav

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    Frankly, these "soft reboots" are often so wishy-washy and flimsy they only serve to make things even more confusing.

    Okay, so like with Unleashed Sonic team wanted to cut back from the trainwreck the Adventure era eventually derailed into. The only characters returning were Sonic, Amy, Tails, and Eggman. Okay, that's fine I guess. Then in colors, it's basically just Sonic, Tails, and Eggman. I haven't played Lost World, but Knuckles shows up in that game too, right? Still, the cast is very small. Generations had a lot of the cast, but in extremely minor roles and really just as nostalgic fanservice.

    ...and then in Forces the ENTIRE FUCKING ADVENTURE CAST SANS BLAZE AND CREAM just returns out of literally goddamn nowhere. There is no build-up to this, no easing in, nope, ERRYONE IS HERE like they never even left. It's like Sonic Team refuses to commit to anything. I'm glad they're back, but...it's like they just pretend that they didn't spend nearly a decade actively burying these characters under the rug and in the broom closet and then just threw them out there in this game with zero build-up. They are not even introduced throughout the story and fleshed out for newcomers. They're just there, and if I were a person who started in the boost era and didn't explore the previous games much I would be absolutely baffled and going "WHO ARE THESE ANIMALS" to this. Except they do nothing so it's not like I would really care to begin with. They're so minor to the plot that fans of them wouldn't be satisfied and new fans would have no idea who the hell they were and still wouldn't know at the end.

    It's like Sonic Team circa-Unleashed was like "shit let's just dump 95% of the cast to make people like us again" and then a decade later they went "oh shit all the kids who played SA2B still like it and the cast, THROW EM IN". They are so uncommital with their reboots that it causes strange things like to happen.
     
  4. Dek Rollins

    Dek Rollins

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    People generally refer to a soft reboot as something that, while still a sequel in the same continuity as its predecessors, acts intentionally as a new starting point to attract or welcome the newest consumers, usually including retcons or inconsistencies for the sake of telling a new story, or at the very least certain things in previous installments are ignored. Of course a hard reboot is usually used for the same basic purpose, but the difference is that one stays in and adds to the original continuity, while the other does not.

    I feel like some people in this thread are confusing soft reboots with hard reboots.

    Sonic Colors could be considered a soft reboot. It specifically was trying to reach a new audience, and includes some changes and retcons. It remains in the same continuity as everything before it, but it went in a new direction in some respects.

    Sonic '06 was seemingly also meant to be a soft reboot, but I think that can also be debated.

    A good point about Sonic is that most games since '06/Unleashed have more or less completely ignored the previous games, which then begs the question whether another "soft reboot" would actually change the status quo for the series in any noticeable way.
     
  5. Wraith

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    A "soft reboot" is such a poorly defined term that of course people are going to have their own definitions of it and thus their own takes on when the series did it. It's a very poor foundation to build a topic around since nobody is going to be on the same page.
     
  6. Wildcat

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    Lost World could have definitely been considered a soft reboot...a new environment with Genesis era badniks. The Deadly 6, a new group of villains to team up with Robotnik. No boost, control relies on your own input. Stages are somewhat open ended.

    I personally enjoyed the game and I’m sure many others did too it just didn’t catch on but it proves that any level of reboot accomplishes nothing. Just make a good game and that’s it. I’ve never thought of any 3D game as a soft reboot. I’m only using LW as an example.

    I think some people are waaaay to critical of the current state of the games. They should be more “grand” similar to the Adventures and Unleashed. Like bigger in scale/scope. Some people are just trashing everything though. Only a few games have actually been legitimately disappointing imo. Even Forces was good on the surface. It just need to offer more.
     
  7. RDNexus

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    By that definition, I'd wanna see a hard reboot of the franchise ^^"
    Still, not that it may ever happen, from what's been given to us so far...
     
    Last edited: May 16, 2021
  8. BlackHole

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    I mean... not really? It needed to be better designed all around, not just offer more hallway levels, quick time events and incredibly poor 'classic' gameplay that I'm not sure how they managed to mess up when they had both Sonic Generations before it and Sonic Mania to outright compare.

    Honestly, the franchise could use it and be a bit more tightly designed after, but I don't expect it to happen. It'll either be more of what we've had or the series being outright cancellation and ending.
     
    Last edited: May 16, 2021
  9. I think we all generally agree that the direction of the franchise has been constantly changing at the very least. Whether that counts as a soft reboot or not is another matter. That's the gist of the topic really, to talk about the changing of direction the franchise has gone through.
     
  10. Wraith

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    I feel like I've spoken enough on that for one lifetime so I'll just bow out here.
     
  11. Aerosol

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    Sonic (?): Coming summer of 2055...?
    Let's move away from arguing over what is and isn't a reboot, soft or otherwise. Instead, let's move towards discussing the benefits of the next Sonic game being a fresh take on the gameplay of the series that serves as a statement on what the series actually is, or the lack thereof.

    And let's try and stay on topic?
     
  12. Taylor

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    No idea why people got hung up in arguing over the definition of reboot when OP gave one to use... =P

    Momentum-based 3D platformers are still a very unexplored genre. There's definitely room for Sonic to innovate while still feeling authentic to its roots. Will this happen? I don't think so. SEGA hasn't been cutting edge in a very long time, Someone brought up Mario Odyssey but Nintendo made that to sell the Switch, they had a huge incentive to push the platformer genre forward. SEGA doesn't have that fire under their ass since they went third-party.
     
  13. Frostav

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    One would assume that owning one of the most iconic video game characters of all time would be that fire, but well :V

    (on another note, it's telling what kind of fan I am that I assumed this thread would be about story and characters but it's actually mostly about gameplay XD)
     
  14. Overlord

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    Putting aside the obligatory "it's a video game, of course the gameplay is the important part", this IS Retro and not say one of the other Sonic boards. Of course there'd be a gameplay focus over story =P
     
  15. I mean to be fair, story is easier to talk about than gameplay. Story, you just have to talk about what you like or don't like.

    Gameplay, you need to get into the nitty gritty of it.
     
  16. Forte

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    Sonic Mania Adventures felt like a soft reboot for me. A classic universe, with cool, non speaking Sonic, having fun adventures.

    I would love the series to just... Go that way, instead of re-inventing itself ever so often.
     
  17. Xiao Hayes

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    Maybe a more focused one, but this thread feels like another bunch of circling arguments. Not just the term, everything about this "soft reboot" thing feels so abstract it's just pure fog. I don't know what Sonic needs, but we need whatever new title they decide to launch to have a reference on what needs fixing right now. Personally speaking, I would consider every new game since Sonic Adventure (this game included) as a soft reboot, because they do whatever they want every time even when sticking to an ongoing narrative or setting; I've reached a point where I feel I'm just playing games that share a trademark and, sometimes, only sometimes, share something else. I guess what the franchise needs is another full fangame: fans doing something instead of just bitching about what Sega does, and feeling not that different from official games since cases like forces itself feel quite like fangames in terms of quality and assets reuse.
     
  18. Taylor

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    If it's any consolation, story in Sonic is just a mild curiosity to me and I assumed the same as you. I always associate "reboot" with the writing aspect :P

    In a way I think Sonic's popularity is what allows SEGA to rest on the laurels, since they can just pump stuff out and profit from it as buying a new game isn't as big of an investment as buying a new game and a new console to go with it. Sonic 06 lives on a meme but even that sold enough to get the "Greatest Hits" title. Unleashed sold even better so its not like 06 financially damaged the brand.
     
  19. nineko

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    As someone who wanted to see Spider-Man 4 and Fantastic Four 3, I say amen to that.

    But yeah, there are exceptions to this rule. To keep with my own example above, I wasn't happy when Amazing replaced Sam Raimi, but I was happy when Marvel replaced Amazing in return. Hopefully that will be true for the Fantastic Four, too.

    Also am I the only one who liked the female Ghostbusters movie?
     
  20. David The Lurker

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    I mean.

    The reverse can also be true.