KingK's 60-Minute Sonic 06 Video Retrospective

Nah, the prophecy was around even during the time of the experiments. In the Japanese script, when Solaris gets loose:

"This is a Living Flame that has been handed down to our royal family. If nothing is done, the Flames of Disaster will awaken according to the legend!"

We aren't told much about Solaris' personality, because it doesn't matter. 06's theme isn't about nature, it's about accepting loss. Solaris and his manifestations exist to give the characters opportunities to engage with that theme. When Elise blows out the flame, the focus isn't on Solaris' nature, but rather Elise's decision to do what her father couldn't and accept losing a loved one for the greater good. This is a contrast to SA1, where the game's resolution highlights Chaos and him finding peace.

The manual describes the emeralds protecting Angel Island, which outside of Knuckles, only has animals. The Master Emerald was created by a sky god. The island falls to the ocean because of the Death Egg crashing into it, and the Master Emerald allows it to float again. The emerald allowing nature to heal after the Death Egg messed it up, sounds right in line with me.

Anyhow, I feel you're missing what I'm saying. Conflict and theme are distinct things. For a video game, conflict is gonna be in the forefront but the theme helps give it a distinct identity. In S3K, Eggman is building Egg-shaped superweapons and fighting you with animal-powered robots, while in 06 he's fussing about over a princess and fighting you with nondescript robots. The latter is more generic, and that's what makes theme important. With Colors, the environmentalism theme is more in force, with Sonic and Eggman both using the Wisps for their own ends. It's obviously not a perfect encapsulation of the classic games (neither is SATAM, I mainly brought it up to point out that I don't think "darkness" is really the issue people have with 3D Sonic). But with Colors, with the environmentalism aspect returning and Sonic being the clear star of the show again, I'd say its closer to the originals than SA2-06.

 

I don't know where you got that from, I don't believe that at all...

 

My bad, I was referring to you calling Sonic Colors "Sonic 1 in space" in terms of theme. I was saying that I think part of the backlash to Unleashed came from it being a follow up to 06, it just wasn't enough of a return to form for people after a decade of janky 3D Sonic stuff. Didn't mean to come off as putting words in your mouth

 

Well, if Solaris is to be seen as a force of nature that humanity tried to take control of, it makes sense that the plot wouldn't focus on his character.

As for SA1, I feel it's more about revenge and ending the circle of violence. Chaos and the Chao originally lived secluded from the rest of the world, protected by a magical barrier. The echidnas, in their quest for power, broke into their place and hurt the Chao. Blinded by rage and anguish, Chaos swears revenge on the world and tries to end civilization. It's only at the end that he learns that it's possible for the Chao to coexist with outsiders, so he sees the error of his ways and makes peace with the world.

Then again, a large portion of the enemies in 06 are fire elementals (Iblis' minions) that are ravaging the world and were created as a result of humanity basically tampering with a force of nature.

Eggman is repeating the same mistake, trying to take control of said force, which results in it being unleashed after it was barely contained and causing the destruction of the world.

Oh, I don't deny that Colors put a greater focus on environmentalism. My gripe is that the plot was basically stripped down to little more than that, when that's not all the classic games were about.

When people say that Colors and such are closer to the classic games, I read it as "These games are putting the focus on the aspects I personally favor"

 

Maybe? I don't know if I even have a preference. I'm cool with games that focus on the fantasy stuff like SA1, the sci-fi elements like SA2, and I wouldn't mind a 3d game that focused on the environmental aspect to the same extent as CD. Colors' story just rubbed me the wrong way with the over the top characterizations, tone, and stripped down plot where most of the time Sonic and Tails are just running around quipping and nothing of significance happens until the very end. Mind you, games that go the opposite extreme and have convoluted, overly serious plots like Shadow are just as bad in my eyes.

 

Iblis is associated with fire but its fire as biblical "fire and brimstone", not as in fire as a force of nature. The line between nature and the occult/religion can be thin, but considering Iblis and Mephiles' names both derive from demons, it's safe to say what side 06 falls squarely on.

It's something where you have to look at the big picture. Chaos floods the world, which is a kind of biblical disaster, but otherwise reads far more as a guardian of nature than anything else (even his revenge is on behalf of the Chao, creatures that're treated like animals). On the flip side, Mephiles is a stock Devil character, who has the most screen time out of Solaris' incarnations by far (and Solaris itself looks vaguely angelic).

As for Colors, I guess its a matter of what you prioritize more. The fact that Sonic is put back in the spotlight + there's a greater focus on environmentalism + Eggman is the central villain matters to me more than not having lore. Evidentially most critics from back then agreed, for whatever its worth. The quippy script is childish but I think that's more a problem with writing a full-fledged script for characters who weren't meant to talk so much.

 

I'm just gonna leave this here:

 

I really want to react with a simple "man shut the fuck up and get over yourself" to all this absurd melodrama of his but I guess that's his job- without melodramatically going "woe is me, for sonic has failed" he has no videos to make

 

I'm not watching another video of his so all I'll say is that, after playing Project 06, I can't sympathize with his 06 apologetics, it's just fundamentally a bad game, the rushed development was just the nail in the coffin. No one is immune to nostalgia but its clear that this man is unable to see Sonic outside of the lens of someone who grew up through the 00s. And as been pointed out in this thread, the whole "ambition" points are very questionable, with this game very obviously trying to tail SA2's popularity

 

What melodrama? The video basically just concludes that Sonic isn't for him anymore and he doesn't think it's necessary to give it so much energy like he used to. I don't even agree with his assessment of the game and even I can tell that's a very reductive take.

He literally says verbatim "Sonic doesn't impress me like it once used to, and that's okay. Sometimes it's healthy to realize when you need to let go." He's literally moving on, which is more than you can say for some weirdos who make loving/hating certain games their whole personality.

 

I've read the script of this and the previous video. "I guess the series just isn't for me anymore, sigh, I see the glass half empty, sigh" it's just like
you don't like it we get it
this isn't offering any analysis or criticism of interest it's just him going "people are happy with it and I'm not, sigh"
I don't even mind the negative response to it, it's how he's presenting it that's driving me up the walls with how he's wrapping it in this self-important overdramatic overblown way

 

He's allowed to talk about it. He didn't ask you to listen to him or even acknowledge his thoughts at all, he's just putting them out there. I hate to use the "you don't need to watch it" bit, but that really does apply here.

And I don't agree with him not offering any analysis or criticism of interest. I'm literally watching the video right now and he's explaining why it's fun to rail jump in Ares Island to get to places you aren't supposed to be yet. He's literally offering a positive critique of the game.

I'm sorry but this just reads as you jumping on a bandwagon without having actually known what is in the video.

 

yes, which is why my conclusion was "I guess if he doesn't act like this he doesn't have videos to make in the first place", in effect the same one you just gave :v

 

This is going on a tangent, but whenever I think of Youtubers expressing a loss of fandom I'm always reminded of Unknown Archive's conclusion to his Running on Empty series. It has that melancholy that a lot of Youtubers put into the conclusion of their videos, but it also rings as somewhat sad. Like why is this guy so incredibly sad about Sonic getting worse, and it feels very intentional to me knowing Unknown Archive's bizarre sense of humour. I always think someone expressing a loss of fandom always gives that impression of sadness in a way.

 

Ironically the people telling him to just stfu and let go are incapable of doing just that for this guy. If that's all this threads gonna devolve into, we might as well lock it now.

 

I completely agree with his Frontiers video, this dude basically put all my feelings and thoughts into words. I'm glad that Frontiers is not a disaster and is actually fun to an extent, but we can be doing a lot better than this.

 

Pretty much.
There's people in the Sonic community that don't care about a silly plot as long as the gameplay is solid. Colors is like that. I wanna say Classic fans are more like that in general, because even if the classic games do have a story, you can have fun without it and maybe didn't even notice there was a story when played them as a kid.
And there's people in the Sonic community that care a lot about the story, and don't mind if the gameplay is janky. 06 is like that. I wanna say Adventure fans are more like that in general, because all the games in the 00's were janky as hell but had much more focus on the story.
But the more general people would think it's simply absurd to prefer 06 over Colors.