[HEDGESMFG]

Sorry, but I'll take SA1 and 2's anime-sque stories which actually attempt to build a cool and somewhat fleshed out fantasy world over a less than funny AoSTH any day. SA1's story was the perfect blend of fun, humor, and epic, with only a poor translation really hampering it. (Something this script writer has since fixed) SA2's had flaws, but was ultimately still very compelling. Heroes went back to being utterly shallow, but was only bad because of localization issues, and Shadow was grimdark in all the wrong ways. 2006's story wasn't entirely bad, but was poorly executed like the rest of the game, with elements like the princess which just didn't belong, and Silver being... just... bad (even if I like the idea of time travel).

I'm not asking for an angst fest. I don't want Sonic bawling in tears on the floor. I don't want Eggman to necessarily be a sinister bastard either. I just... miss it when Sonic had a genuine cool edge on him. Even if it turned out to be an anime-cool edge, he still kind of had it. Sonic X, when it was good, did actually capture his essence correctly. We just haven't seen very much of the blue dude with the 'tude doing awesome things like we used to.

Am I seriously the only one out there who feels this way? Even in Sonic 3 and K, you had a sense of tension and meaning when the Death Egg was revived and took you into A MOTHER F***ING CRAZY SPACE STAGE WHERE YOU HAD TO ACT FAST BEFORE WHO KNOWS WHAT WAS UNLEASHED, and a twist when Knuckles finally helped you fight Robotnik.

[qwertysonic]

HEDGESMFG, on 04 December 2013 - 05:54 PM, said:

Sorry, but I'll take SA1 and 2's anime-sque stories which actually attempt to build a cool and somewhat fleshed out fantasy world over a less than funny AoSTH any day. SA1's story was the perfect blend of fun, humor, and epic, with only a poor translation really hampering it. (Something this script writer has since fixed) SA2's had flaws, but was ultimately still very compelling. Heroes went back to being utterly shallow, but was only bad because of localization issues, and Shadow was grimdark in all the wrong ways. 2006's story wasn't entirely bad, but was poorly executed like the rest of the game, with elements like the princess which just didn't belong, and Silver being... just... bad (even if I like the idea of time travel).

I'm not asking for an angst fest. I don't want Sonic bawling in tears on the floor. I don't want Eggman to necessarily be a sinister bastard either. I just... miss it when Sonic had a genuine cool edge on him. Even if it turned out to be an anime-cool edge, he still kind of had it. Sonic X, when it was good, did actually capture his essence correctly. We just haven't seen very much of the blue dude with the 'tude doing awesome things like we used to.

Am I seriously the only one out there who feels this way? Even in Sonic 3 and K, you had a sense of tension and meaning when the Death Egg was revived and took you into A MOTHER F***ING CRAZY SPACE STAGE WHERE YOU HAD TO ACT FAST BEFORE WHO KNOWS WHAT WAS UNLEASHED, and a twist when Knuckles finally helped you fight Robotnik.

Finally someone who knows what they are talking about. Also all of Roger's Sonic Dissected do a pretty good job of explaining why the stories are good or bad. A story needs build up, climax and reason to love a character. None of the games' stories have done that since SA2. We all can't stand Shadow anymore, but we were sad when he died at the end, or when Sonic was sent out in the capsule, it made you want to defeat Eggman to see what happened next. SA2 did a good job of telling the story.

[GeneHF]

E-102 did the whole death thing better than Shadow. Like, several times over. Didn't even need a ton of voice acting or ANIME EXPOSITION I'LL MAKE YOU EAT THOSE WORDS.

SA2, especially Battle, was nothing but pure cancer to the series.

That said, I happen to like Sonic and friends as they are now. Sonic thinks he's awesome and hotshit, while everyone else just kinda looks at him like, "...really?" Even Tails is kind of sick of his shit and it's pretty funny. The only problem I see people having is that the story is not in your face to move things along, but rather just small blurbs.

Maybe it's because I come from an era where a platformer barely needed anymore story within the game than what was printed inside the instruction manual (which barely exist these days anyway.) Hell, the only problem I had with any of the writing in Lost World was that the Deadly Six were pretty garbage all around. I don't know if that's Sega's fault for designing them that way or Pontac for not being able to try and make them interesting.

Lastly, Eggman's at his best that he's ever been as of late. Hell, Tails too. I always liked that in SA1, they resolved to make Tails grow the hell up and not rely on Sonic so much, only for SA2 and on to squash that and make him Sonic's biggest fanboy. Since Colors, he's just more like "Oh, you did something you say is cool? That's neat I guess." If he's been friends with the guy for so long and is now doing his own thing, of course he'll find Sonic gloating just being normal. It makes sense.

tl;dr: Insert picture of SA2B in a trash can here.

[HEDGESMFG]

I actually think the guy's a competent script writer, BTW. He's authentically better and at times even witty when it comes to dialogue. Though you'll notice his scripts aren't even remotely close to the Japanese translation in most cases (I can't provide specifics, but anyone with an even elementary knowledge of the language can tell. Almost nothing is the same.), namely because unlike before, it's actually being made in English FIRST and then redubbed back into Japanese.

In fact, my problem with Sonic stories likely isn't him. He can read up on a wiki very easily, play some of the classics, and get brought up to speed on most elements in the franchise. What he doesn't know now can be learned pretty easily.

Sadly, I suspect that what we've got now is a mishmosh of Sonic Team losing all story ambition after they royally ****ed up in 2006, and playing it super safe and nothing but super safe from now on in just about every iteration. It makes reasonable sense. To many, why should Sonic ever have a more complex story than Mario? Only a few crazy people like me would ever care, right?

Sadly, I think this is the norm from now on. One dimensional stories with occasionally witty dialogue to help us plod through it. I can live with it, kind of, but it's actually sad to realize that most people don't quite get, or remember, what we're missing out on. Sonic has always had a very cool otherworldly fantasy element to it, harking back to what was very clearly a 80s/90s fantasy anime influence. It carried over into everything, including the stage design, music, and even atmosphere of the classics (especially in something like CD). Hell, I remember a day when people like me were EXCITED at the prospect of finally hearing Knuckles talk and learning what he sounded like! Sonic stories weren't something to loathe yet...

Alas, I'll stop my rant here. I did enjoy Generations and Colors stories, and bits of Lost World's banter.

[TheKazeblade]

The conclusion I've come to is that the story of the games since Colors are useless, but the dialogue and characterization is pretty outstanding. I loved everything between Sonic, Tails and Eggman in Lost World, and even the plot itself is a decent and self-contained romp, but the way of progressing through the story has no structure outside the

Spoiler

Zeti turning on Eggman, and Eggman's fake death

. Other than that, the story comes to a standstill for the entirety of the proceedings.

I've lived through the crap plots that Sonic went through in the 2000's. But that doesn't necessarily mean that NO plot is the only answer. I know it's difficult for people around these parts to wrap their heads around, but there is such a thing as a happy medium. I personally feel like a dialogue-light game with the plot pushed forward in a pantomime fashion with Sonic CD's ability to swing from surreal whimsy to dark dystopian absolutely possible, and would be my personal ideal for a Sonic game.

[Covarr]

The problem I've seen with these stories is that it never feels like anything's at stake. Sure, the characters are well written, but the stories simply aren't adding anything to the game. The stories in games like Adventure may have been melodramatic and stupid, but at least they mattered. That's something I miss.

That said, there's no reason why a larger-scale more epic plot can't be fused with goofy childish characters.

[Overlord]

Sonic stories have always struggled with high drama - SA2 and 06 prove that several times over. I'm actually a lot happier with the plot from Colours/Generations/Lost World than I have been with the ones before that.


That said, SA1 wasn't bad.

[GeneHF]

Thread out.

[TheKazeblade]

So dang melancholy yet happy. Gamma's storyline was amazing.

On further reflection, honestly I have to say I think some of the best storytelling in a Sonic game is actually on Lake's BTS/ATS. Those cutscenes have legitimate funny moments, legitimately cool moments, and most importantly, each one forwards the plot in some way, shape or form.

Definitely telling of the sheer talent of Lake and Lange, but also proving good storytelling is possible for Sonic games.

This post has been edited by TheKazeblade: 05 December 2013 - 05:29 PM

[corneliab]

The only Sonic game that has attempted a decent narrative has been Sonic Battle. Everything else has been total dreck.

I see some people praise the Colors-style games for their approach but they do it horribly too. Sonic is lame, Tails is superlame, everyone else is baggage or the butt of a banal joke, no one can fucking voice act worth a darn except for Pollock. People really only stomach this crap since they don't have much to compare it with in-series. Looking at something like the Ratchet and Clank series though, the difference is night and day.

[Sir_mihael]

GeneHF, on 05 December 2013 - 04:35 PM, said:

E-102's Death

E-102's storyline was just perfect. I'm almost convinced the whole thing was an accident of good writing that just happened to end up in a Sonic game.

corneliab, on 05 December 2013 - 05:48 PM, said:

The only Sonic game that has attempted a decent narrative has been Sonic Battle. Everything else has been total dreck.

I'd say everything else 'afterwards', as I always praise SA1's narrative to an extent (see above)
Other than that, I do concur. Sonic Battle was the last time I remember a Sonic game actually using it's wider cast of characters in a way that felt like it made sense to the game's plot. No-one felt overly shoehorned in (except maybe Chaos 0, but glorified cameos are another thing entirely), and each character actually bounced off eachother to create some decent and amusing dialogue.

Hell. They even captured both sides of Knuckles (The 'Emerald Guardian' side of his older games, and the 'Comic Doofus' side he's shown as now) in a way that didn't feel too awkward.

This post has been edited by Sir_mihael: 05 December 2013 - 06:02 PM

[GeneHF]

Sir_mihael, on 05 December 2013 - 05:55 PM, said:

GeneHF, on 05 December 2013 - 04:35 PM, said:

E-102's Death

E-102's storyline was just perfect. I'm almost convinced the whole thing was an accident of good writing that just happened to end up in a Sonic game.

It's not a complicated one to write in that a robot built as a war machine gains free though and realizes it and its brothers are slaves. Then it sets out to liberate them. Add the twist that all of the robots are fellow birds, and the main rival happens to be your best friend, and it's a very simple but effective plot.

People would be rather surprised how well simplistic little plots can play out in something like a platformer. Grand scale DARK STORIES and GOVERNMENT CONSPIRACIES are all just needless twaddle. The series never benefited from it and it only needlessly divided the fanbase, especially once the series launched on Gamecube. I'd say leave more complex stories to stuff like RPGs. Platformers don't need it.

In fact, I firmly believe that a lot of the problems the series suffered came from the new audience SA2B brought in on Gamecube. People got the wrong impression on what Sonic is or is supposed to be, and Colors and Generations have slowly restored things to a state of what it should be. Lost World seemed to try a bit hard to pander to the Nintendo side of things again since it feels like the most Nintendo Sonic game of the whole lineup.

[ICEknight]

GeneHF, on 05 December 2013 - 04:35 PM, said:

E-102's Death

And this is also a nice example of good storytelling without even one line of dialogue.

This post has been edited by ICEknight: 06 December 2013 - 06:09 PM