I always thought Sonic's best representation was not in any game, but in the OVA. He's a hero you want to root for because he gets shit done, but he's obviously also lazy and unmotivated, and sassy to boot. I never got the right vibe from anything post-Colors; I didn't get "likable-but-lazy hero," I got "wisecracking smug prick who's apparently a hero." To bring it back to Unleashed though, I thought his representation there was pretty good. Heard good things about SatBK as well, although I hardly remember its story or dialogue.
Agree. This and the surreal/futuristic/neon/other-worldly art style. It's why I lost interest in most main series titles after SA1, when the change into boring generic human world tropes started.
Regular buildings were in the backgrounds of all the classics, the Man of the Year short shows classic Sonic in a Station Square ish city filled with humans, Eggman's a human and so are a good few of the OVA characters (or at least semi-human).. Yeah, the only difference in SA1 was that they used more realistic textures (since it was when little things like that pushed for realism in early 3D games), but otherwise it was the same kind of thing. Neon parks and casinos, colorful mountains and beaches, floating islands, ruins with crazy murals and statues, it was all there. SA2 seems a lot closer to what you're getting at, really. And yeah I gotta agree that the OVA Sonic is the best one. SA1 got close and so did Unleashed, in different ways, but OVA Sonic gets it down the best.
Is the Ova overall considered a good movie by fans? I mean it stinks to High hell of a 90s anime, with Knuckles wearing a fedora.... and the Voice acting, But the animation is gorgeous, and some of the music sticks out in my head. Never really heard a General consensus on this. Personally I would give it a 6 or 7, but maybe that is too generous. But they did get the personality of each character down like nothing.
I agree that the shift to a "real world" environment for Sonic was kind of dumb, which is honestly why I think Unleashed was so brilliant. Its idea was to take the many cultures of the world and construct them as if they were fantastical and unreal environments. I think it worked beautifully, and while I still love the completely fictional environments of games like Colors, I'd honestly like to see more of the Unleashed approach.
Sonic and the Black Knight for the most part had a really boring and dull story. However, it picks up during the final story (which people often don't get to), and while it doesn't make up for the whole thing, it's a better final story than most Sonic games. Apparently the last story itself is the length of a full fledged anime episode, so for those of you who didn't get to it, here are the cutscenes right after Sonic defeats the king: [video]https://youtu.be/3dyt2BY9Bz4?t=23m27s[/video]
Yeah, I often see Sonic Adventure as the "last" classic Sonic game thematically. It wasn't until SA2 (which was made by a largely separate team) that things got weird.
