What's bugged me is characters with monoeye. One big eye with two pupils. This has always bugged me no matter where it's used, Sonic or otherwise.
My headcanon is that it is two giant eyes touching each other, with a small enough to be invisible gap between the two. But there is one theory out there to the design that is gaining steam.
Oh man! Those stupid people at DiC! Don't they know that the entire white part is his eyes? Well...
*image snip*
*image snip*
Looks like they were on to something. The white part is really white fur, and he has small beady eyes.
Of course in the original games and modern games the white parts are indeed part of his giant alien eyes. But still, something to think about, eh?
The mono-eye was actually taken from classic Mickey Mouse, which later became a hair-line when they re-designed him for Fantasia.
You can see here that there's a line drawn to indicate where eyes end and the "forehead"/hairline begins.
would you rather him look [something] like this (I've posted it before, but I thought it was appropriate to re-post :p)?
TheKazeblade, on 28 October 2012 - 04:30 AM, said:
It's like when you remember a really good time with your friend, and it's your defining memory of your friendship, but when you bring it up, they act non-chalant about it and are all like "Oh yea, I guess that happened."
There's a lot of things that I could rant on about in Sonic, but in Sonic Generations, this was one of them... for every stage Sonic revisited. Especially Crisis City. I'd be okay with the normal cutscenes on the handheld if they stuck to handheld levels like Sonic Advance, Rush, and Rivals cuz those stages, while memorable, weren't so plot-focused like the consoles.
The whole Crisis City issue. Sega told us to completely forget about 06, then they pull this off. Also, not only did they not visit it at any point in the timeline, it shouldn't even EXIST, because there is no Iblis to ruin the future. (I've never played 06, but I'm pretty sure that's what happens.) And plus, they didn't even make a reference to how they don't remember it, which would have been tolerable for me if they did.
And that moon. I'm just trying to convince myself that in the later games, the side of the moon that wasn't facing us was still gone. The multiple storylines in ShTH, too. How do you fit that in canon?
Also, how the hell does Knuckles get up to Angel Island? No way he can glide that high. And why did Angel Island drop the second time in SA1...? That wasn't ever explained.
I know some of these might be too nitpicky, but I'm not raging over them. They just bother me. *shrugs*
GREEN EYES! ...I'm sorry, I thought that was the appropriate joke.
Anyway, you know what REALLY bothers me? Sonic Team's fascination with the phrase "Long time, no see!" Why? Just why? Do they consider it a "radical" 90s term? Well, it's not. I don't know if it's just bad translation, but it just bothers me. Does anybody else feel this way?
It always bugged me if Sonic truly is the fasting thing alive, or is it just his sneakers. Just the thought that anyone can pick up Sonic's shoes and run like him kind of kills the character for me a little.
Some manuals say something along the lines of "with the power of his shoes, he goes at super sonic speeds". Then there's Sonic Unleashed where one of the NPC's backstory is that he heard an urban legend about sneakers that make you go at blistering speeds, but then you have things like the last cutscene of Generations where Classic Sonic shows Modern Sonic he's learning the Boost, which would imply his speed is natural or else he would've just activated the boost since Sonic 1. Idk, it's kinda confusing haha.
My main gripe has always been, and will always be, the change between the emerald shrine in Sonic 3 & Knuckles and Sonic Adventure.
I can accept the idea that the entirety of that hub world segment in the Mystic Ruins is Angel Island (as opposed to just the shrine island), but come on - we go from having a beautiful Hidden Palace for the housing of the Master Emerald to a crappy Mayan-looking shrine.
This. I could never figure out the logic of moving the Emerald Shrine from the inner bowels of the island, to leaving THE THING THAT KEEPS THE ISLAND AFLOAT out in the open like that. Retcon or not, it was a dumb decision and it makes very little sense to me other than making the emerald shrine easily accessible. Although a simple warp that sent you to Hidden Palace could've easily solved that.
Generally what bugs me is the focus on small details by people in general. The issue is that Sonic games are made by hundreds of different people all running off of different scripts all catered to different eras. You can't really expect consistency when the team that makes Game A is entirely different from Game B's team and is separated by 10-20 years. They just don't have the time to research the details like fans do, and have no concept of hiring a sort of "Canon/Lore Director" to ensure the nitpicks are dealt with. As a result, while it might be interesting to list the bloopers...
...It's kind of a pointless endeavor. Games rise or fall by their overall quality. Not random silly nitpicks. :p
This. I don't mind fan theories and the like. But the way some people talk it's almost as if they believe there is a grand design behind the whole franchise. That somehow Sonic 1 to Generations has a grand continuity. It does not. I just hope that everyone making up theories realize it. Sometimes I get the impression they don't. I think a lot of the blame can be placed on the comic Archie and Fleetway. Probably more so Archie who attempts to keep such continuity, as many comics do. But Sonic games are games not epic stories.
Quote
This. I could never figure out the logic of moving the Emerald Shrine from the inner bowels of the island, to leaving THE THING THAT KEEPS THE ISLAND AFLOAT out in the open like that. Retcon or not, it was a dumb decision and it makes very little sense to me other than making the emerald shrine easily accessible. Although a simple warp that sent you to Hidden Palace could've easily solved that.
This is sort of what I'm talking about. There is no story logic. The decision was most likely made by a concept artist and a modeler based on the aesthetic needs of the game. There are lots more examples in this thread. It seems everyone should understand this. But it sounds as if they don't. Maybe I'm perceiving something that doesn't exist.
That's not to say that grand stories are a bad fit for Sonic. Satam, Sonic X, OVA, even Archie at times has had great takes on the character. But you can't look for a grand design between all the games it doesn't exist.
This post has been edited by Overbound: 11 March 2013 - 11:58 AM
Generally what bugs me is the focus on small details by people in general. The issue is that Sonic games are made by hundreds of different people all running off of different scripts all catered to different eras. You can't really expect consistency when the team that makes Game A is entirely different from Game B's team and is separated by 10-20 years. They just don't have the time to research the details like fans do, and have no concept of hiring a sort of "Canon/Lore Director" to ensure the nitpicks are dealt with. As a result, while it might be interesting to list the bloopers...
...It's kind of a pointless endeavor. Games rise or fall by their overall quality. Not random silly nitpicks. :p
This. I don't mind fan theories and the like. But the way some people talk it's almost as if they believe there is a grand design behind the whole franchise. That somehow Sonic 1 to Generations has a grand continuity. It does not. I just hope that everyone making up theories realize it. Sometimes I get the impression they don't. I think a lot of the blame can be placed on the comic Archie and Fleetway. Probably more so Archie who attempts to keep such continuity, as many comics do. But Sonic games are games not epic stories.
Quote
This. I could never figure out the logic of moving the Emerald Shrine from the inner bowels of the island, to leaving THE THING THAT KEEPS THE ISLAND AFLOAT out in the open like that. Retcon or not, it was a dumb decision and it makes very little sense to me other than making the emerald shrine easily accessible. Although a simple warp that sent you to Hidden Palace could've easily solved that.
This is sort of what I'm talking about. There is no story logic. The decision was most likely made by a concept artist and a modeler based on the aesthetic needs of the game. There are lots more examples in this thread. It seems everyone should understand this. But it sounds as if they don't. Maybe I'm perceiving something that doesn't exist.
That's not to say that grand stories are a bad fit for Sonic. Satam, Sonic X, OVA, even Archie at times has had great takes on the character. But you can't look for a grand design between all the games it doesn't exist.
"A grand design between all the games doesn't exist"...
This is exactly what bothers me, "there is no story logic", "decision[s]... made most likely by a concept artist...on the needs of the game".
This is not to say that there never was a logic. In fact, I would argue the logic of Sonic is pretty simple and timeless (gander my signature)...
Maybe my scope is too large here, but what bugs me is the loss of the original archetypal narrative. It was once all bound up together in a cohesive unit.
The Story:
I mean, Sonic was a classic nature v. mankind story. However, there was an irony in that what was natural about Sonic's world was only vaguely so. It was a synthetic world of nature, against one man's synthetic vision of progress. But then, Sonic and his gang enter the world of humans and it dilutes this narrative. Then Tails graduates from his classic biplane, and becomes a technology mastermind seemingly on par with Robotnik. Now we aren'y fighting Robonik and science, we are fighting water monsters and time eaters, and other magical and paranormal figures which further serve to water down the Sonic brand and narrative (at this point were talking bland iced tea)...
The Graphics:
To this similar end we witness the abandonment of that crystalline-geometric-ultramodern, “Sonic The Hedgehog” aesthetic. I suppose one of the reasons Sonic Zones ended up looking the way they did was an attempt to upscale the graphical capabilities of the Genesis, I would argue in similar fashion to Donkey Kong Country for the Snes. Then, perhaps for the same reason, they abandoned it all in an attempt at realism (not that the zones themselves are realistic of course).
AND I don't wanna hear this was unavoidable in the transition from 2D to 3D, or platformer to racetrack, etc. Consider Sonic Advance, it's 2D, similar classic style platformer, limited graphical capability, and yet they too lack the design aesthetic which defined Sonic from his conception (I had MANY examples for this comparison). And, Sonic Generations and Sonic 4 have also proven to varying degrees that it is possible to return to these classic design elements.
Classic Sonic beauty...
Wow, so realistic and bland... What's the blurry blue thing in the middle?
I guess this is what Sonic would have looked like if first released on the Super Nintendo...
Perhaps a sidestep with momentum in the right direction...
The Music:
Furthermore, this was done with everything. Consider the music, and we can clearly see how the abandonment of classic design aesthetic merely to take advantage of new hardware capability does not equate with a better or more memorable product. Consider Rusty Ruin Zone Act 1, Genesis vs. Saturn. The same game, released same year, same zone, and yet the Genesis version is an unforgettable masterpiece (in my opinion), while the Saturn version is indistinguishable and ultimately neuters Sonic 3D Blast's only redeeming feature, its soundtrack.
By this point the series has lost its roots. No more anime influence, no more nature vs. mankind and technology narrative, no more irony of a synthetic natural world, or any definitive aesthetic style. We are left with... basically a glass of warm cheap scotch, when all the ice cubes melt, and probably the ice cubes were freezer burnt and sat too long beside a frozen garlic meatloaf.
This post has been edited by Panopticonic: 12 March 2013 - 02:53 AM
I went a long time with preferring the Saturn version of Rusty Ruin over the Genesis version. These days I do prefer the Genesis version of Act 1, but the Saturn version of Act 2. In general I hold both versions' soundtrack on the same pedestal.
This post has been edited by Skyler: 12 March 2013 - 04:19 AM
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Kail, on 29 October 2012 - 12:30 AM, said:
