[crystallize]

Being at Yomacon comic book convention, Rogerregoroger, the author of "Sonic Dissected" video series, was lucky to interview Ken Pontac, the writer of Sonic Colors, Sonic Generations, and recent Sonic Lost World.

https://www.youtube....h?v=GZTPS1cxZ5A

This post has been edited by crystallize: 26 November 2013 - 11:30 AM

[qwertysonic]

I can't believe someone would come to a multimillion dollar franchise to work on a script and not even do a little research into what the successful parts of said franchise looked like. When he said he wasn't aware of what SA and SA2 were, I cried a little.

[Dark Sonic]

qwertysonic, on 02 December 2013 - 05:00 PM, said:

I can't believe someone would come to a multimillion dollar franchise to work on a script and not even do a little research into what the successful parts of said franchise looked like. When he said he wasn't aware of what SA and SA2 were, I cried a little.

I mean, Sega hired him for a reason. The old plots were bad and the characters had no, well, character to them, or very little anyway. So I say it was all for the best

[TimmiT]

Dark Sonic, on 02 December 2013 - 06:32 PM, said:

qwertysonic, on 02 December 2013 - 05:00 PM, said:

I can't believe someone would come to a multimillion dollar franchise to work on a script and not even do a little research into what the successful parts of said franchise looked like. When he said he wasn't aware of what SA and SA2 were, I cried a little.

I mean, Sega hired him for a reason. The old plots were bad and the characters had no, well, character to them, or very little anyway. So I say it was all for the best

Considering the recent games have barely any plot at all and instead have mediocre attempts at humor, I would only say that it's become somewhat less bad instead of good. The last two games before Ken Pontac and Warren Graff took over (Unleashed and Black Knight) may not have had great plots, but it at least felt like shit that mattered was going on. Colours, Generations and Lost World all lacked that and instead felt like a bad saturday morning cartoon.

[Dark Sonic]

TimmiT, on 02 December 2013 - 06:54 PM, said:

Dark Sonic, on 02 December 2013 - 06:32 PM, said:

qwertysonic, on 02 December 2013 - 05:00 PM, said:

I can't believe someone would come to a multimillion dollar franchise to work on a script and not even do a little research into what the successful parts of said franchise looked like. When he said he wasn't aware of what SA and SA2 were, I cried a little.

I mean, Sega hired him for a reason. The old plots were bad and the characters had no, well, character to them, or very little anyway. So I say it was all for the best

Considering the recent games have barely any plot at all and instead have mediocre attempts at humor, I would only say that it's become somewhat less bad instead of good. The last two games before Ken Pontac and Warren Graff took over (Unleashed and Black Knight) may not have had great plots, but it at least felt like shit that mattered was going on. Colours, Generations and Lost World all lacked that and instead felt like a bad saturday morning cartoon.

I thought Colors and Lost World had alright plots and they at least had well made cutscenes with no grim dark in them, since that belongs no where in Sonic ever. Generations on the other hand had a shit plot, I'll give you that, and that's the one instance where his lack of knowledge was a bad thing. That game should have had so many in plot references it would have made your head spin, but after the second cutscene there were none. In a game that should have poked fun or celebrated past games and plots, story wise it did very little of it and was a bear bones "Hey guys, this thing is wrecking shit up. Emeralds help. We're explaining what you already realized have fun."

I'll let Generations plot slide extremely though because of almost the same reason. It was a nostalgia fest, it had no need for a plot. I suppose though I'm part of the group that believes that plots in Sonic games don't matter too much, so I'm perfectly happy with the inconsequential plots of Colors and Lost World. It beats popping boils on a giant space lizard with a dildo cannon shoved up it's ass as a final boss.

This post has been edited by Dark Sonic: 02 December 2013 - 07:03 PM

[Tiller]

Well I guess I can't say it doesn't show. Sometimes you need some talent from folks that aren't familiar with a property, especially when Sonic and friends were all over the place through this gen and last. The whole Saturday morning cartoon vibe would be fantastic if it didn't fall so flat on its face all the time. Instead we have Sonic the idiot and Tails who is completely useless but somehow has a tech powerlevel bigger than Eggman himself. Going by Lost World, Knuckles is the comic relief lug head and Amy is just as insufferable. I guess the Deadly Six were actually decent but entirely one dimensional. Zavok is the evil guy, Zik is old wise guy, Zomzom is the fat guy, Zazz is crazy guy, Zor is emo guy, Zeena is "btw im a grill" guy. Not even an attempt at making them anything more than just their looks. I guess Eggman's endured, but you have to fuck up pretty bad if Eggman isn't awesome.

Spoiler

I would just stick Flynn in there and call it a day. At least we would get some good character banter from someone who is fluent in both the good and bad of the series and could connect the dots between things for fun.

[Dark Sonic]

Tiller, on 02 December 2013 - 11:14 PM, said:

Spoiler

I would just stick Flynn in there and call it a day. At least we would get some good character banter from someone who is fluent in both the good and bad of the series and could connect the dots between things for fun.

Very yes. I would 100% support Flynn being the games's writer.

[Jason]

I know the recent games aren't going to win writing awards, but I'll take mildly-entertaining humor over mediocre melodrama plots any day. Some of the Lost World cutscenes were fairly good at melodrama as well, like this'n:

This post has been edited by Jason: 03 December 2013 - 12:01 AM

[Guess Who]

Did they ask him how hard it was to write "I'm supposed to be the fastest, but I was too slow to save my buddy" with a straight face

[Mykonos]

Lost World's biggest problem is trying to inject something beyond a paper-thin story into a very typically-structured platforming game. Colors skillfully recognized that it was nothing more than a very arcade-y action platformer, and the story was just a simple excuse to muck around cool places, with a hint of emotional depth in Asteroid Coaster. Hate the cheesy jokes or not, for the type of game Colors was anything deeper would have just been...well, Lost World. I love the way Lost World handled the characters to death, but all the sappy stuff really just doesn't work with the way the game is set up. I don't think this is Pontac or Graff's fault, of course, but hopefully next game the way story and game structure go together can be taken into account.

Guess Who, on 03 December 2013 - 12:54 AM, said:

Did they ask him how hard it was to write "I'm supposed to be the fastest, but I was too slow to save my buddy" with a straight face

This really was an amazing line

This post has been edited by Mykonos: 03 December 2013 - 01:45 AM

[ICEknight]

I'll quote something I've just read in the Lost World topic, since it sums up pretty much what I think:

corneliab, on 02 December 2013 - 11:35 PM, said:

I really hope that future games just ditch this Colors-style storytelling. Cutscenes are consistently really cringeworthy with the only silver lining being classic Sonic's mannerisms in Generations. Voices can't really be helped at this point, but it would be nice to have a Sonic game where I didn't want to mute it every time someone talks that isn't Eggman.

Imagine a genuinely witty Sonic. Pipe dream, I know. Hell, something unvoiced like Night of the Werehog would work too.

[Lanzer]

ICEknight, on 03 December 2013 - 09:23 AM, said:

I'll quote something I've just read in the Lost World topic, since it sums up pretty much what I think:

corneliab, on 02 December 2013 - 11:35 PM, said:

I really hope that future games just ditch this Colors-style storytelling. Cutscenes are consistently really cringeworthy with the only silver lining being classic Sonic's mannerisms in Generations. Voices can't really be helped at this point, but it would be nice to have a Sonic game where I didn't want to mute it every time someone talks that isn't Eggman.

Imagine a genuinely witty Sonic. Pipe dream, I know. Hell, something unvoiced like Night of the Werehog would work too.

Sorry man, other then Sonic 4 voice acting is here to stay. all you can hope for is that the writing and voice direction can be improved upon.

Speaking of which and this is offtopic but Chris Welch (Voice of AOSTH Tails) Died, how sad.

[Mercury]

Lanzer, on 03 December 2013 - 12:32 PM, said:

Speaking of which and this is offtopic but Chris Welch (Voice of AOSTH Tails) Died, how sad. />/>

Very sad. I watched him in an episode of Elementary just last year.

It's hard to believe, assuming the facts are correct, that he must have been 28 when voicing Tails in AoStH. Considering Jaleel White was only 17 at the time, it's pretty funny. I wonder if there's any possibility it's not the same Christopher Welch and it's just the internet copying bad info from IMDB...

[Sir_mihael]

Not sure how I feel about the post-Unleashed story writing. I feel like Unleashed had a nice balance of standard story 'save the world'-ness without being too shallow.

And I'm guessing it's Pontac's influence in the writing that's causing 'Earth' to be referred to as "Sonic World" now, in some kind of attempt to throwback to how the Western manuals/comics had it as before Adventure made everyone scratch their heads and go "Huh?".
So now people are probably double-scratching...

Very curious to know how the Japanese versions of the game hold up now. Do they just translate the English written Pontac script? Or is the English script re-written from the base (Japanese) script?
(Does Pontac and Warren Graff's writing even WORK when translated to Japanese? Surely something gets lost in the translation process..)

[GeneHF]

qwertysonic, on 02 December 2013 - 05:00 PM, said:

When he said he wasn't aware of what SA and SA2 were, I cried a little.

The less said about SA2 styled story, the better. Keep that whole era buried.