Project Needlemouse: old threads

I don't even care about Tails as a character -- fuck I don't care about any of them as characters -- and I just want to fly the fuck around everywhere.

 

The Sonic series has some of the most aggressively unlikeable characters ever. I don't give a rat's ass about them; however, the ability profiles of "speed, flight, climbing/gliding" work well.

 

I wish the character's personalities were as likable as their character designs, because the Sonic series has some of the best designs as far as anthros go, in my opinion. At least Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Robotnik, and some others do, at least. I don't care for "clone" characters (Shadow and Silver pretty much) and some characters are just ugly or completely uncharming (Vector, Rouge, Marine). As far as the original crew go and some others such as Blaze, I love the character designs of most Sonic characters.

 

I'm sure we've already mentioned this, but he's Mickey Mouse with some differences in the back of his head, his stomach, and his footwear. It's not like their designs are any more inspired than their personalities. And really, if they want great personalities, they need to hire some bloody writers. I seriously don't believe that whatever constitutes Sonic team has anyone that could be called a dedicated writer. And the result is obvious. The characters are basically completely devoid of anything that could be called personality 99% of the time and the other 1% seems just weird and exaggerated.

 

Why not cut out the writing part completely? That seems to be what's causing all of the problems. For example:
-The story distracts the team's lead from working on more important things, like the GAME
- The story allows for atrocities like acting, voice acting, etc.
- The story is coming from japan, so its going to be terrible and anime-esque to begin with (LOL THE 7 DRAGON EMERALDS)
- The story results in expansion of elements, additional characters that nobody cares about or even acknowledges, and generally all of the superfluous elements since the series' inception.

The next major game aside from needlemouse could be something along the lines of "Sonic the Hedgehog's Super Time Attack" and be a stripped down sonic game with a bunch of action stages and credits. Instant classic. Oh and guess what? DLC would just be more levels. Horray, a game with (hopefully) no flaws!

 

Again, if they want great personalities.

Personally, I like either a minimalist story or a story done up in full flare. I don't really prefer the minimalist story to the one done up in full flare, but if I can't have a great story, I don't want a mediocre one.

 

To be fair, 4kids is the one to blame for this, not the script writers.

To be even fairer, the ones that tried to complicate the story were the westerns in the genesis era, from SOA and their magificient bible to the comics and TV shows. The only spinoff story that is accepted as decent by the majority of the fanbase is the ova one, which is japanese and very close to what SOJ wanted from Sonic back then.

The two other points, I agree wholeheartedly though. Story and characters don't make a game.

 

I think the character personalities were decent in Unleashed. The food-related humor might have been a little dry, but at least the characters weren't super annoying like they were in Heroes. Even Chip was somewhat likable, as opposed to the other characters that are either "Gary Stu" fan characters (Shadow, Blaze, Silver, etc...) or are just plain annoying (Cream, Charmy, Marine, etc...). It doesn't help the fact that some of these characters just don't go away. They are crammed in every Sonic-related game as if they were series regulars since the very beginning, constantly being used to represent the series when there are much more deserving characters. I'm happy Metal Sonic has been making a resurgence, but why did it take so long?

Then there are characters like Fang who haven't been explored but have tremendous potential. It's the reason why people like the Koopalings so much. They don't overstay their welcome; in fact, they hardly appear at all. Their personalities are completely unexplored, but maybe that's for the best. They don't need to show much personality because it's implied. Ludwig is an evil genius, Lemmy is cute, Roy is a bully, and Wendy is a spoiled brat. Since there isn't much to know, there isn't much to dislike. We know Fang is clumsy just by looking at his sprite animations. Yet, for some reason, we anticipate his return more than we would for Shadow or Cream.

 

It feels odd being the only one here really liking the stories and characters without any bigger exceptions.

 

There isn't a manly man in the world who doesn't. Tails has an unlikeable personality, the whole bunch do. Doesn't mean I don't want to play as him.

I would dare to say it has some of the best. You're just not looking in the right places. The original cast are brilliant, as well as Metal Sonic and Amy (when she isn't swooning over Sonic, that is). Mighty is amazingly popular, Blaze is great (though the fire thing might be a bit much). Even EggRobo and Metal Knuckles. The designers really seem to be a hit or a miss with their characters, though more recently they seem to be missing more

 

Sonic, Metal, and Robotnik/Eggman have always been my all time favorites. Sometimes I think Metal is the coolest out of everyone, but they completely ruined him in Sonic Heroes. I like to forget about that as much as possible!

 

That part when Metal Sonic said "All living things kneel before your master!" was pretty awesome though. Then he turned into a dragon and everything went downhill.

 

I actually loved, for lack of a better term, the utter narminess of that line. I was cracking up when he said that.

Still, the final part of that battle was just too spartan to be enjoyable, and overly slow.

 

The voice actors shouldn't be blamed for having a terrible script to read from in the first place. No matter how good you are "The power of friendship!" will always blow ass.

And the 4kids voice actors aren't even bad. Christ, its like nobody actually listened to the english voice track in the games. Ryan's acting was mediocre.

 

The vast majority with the voices are as Chimpo said- it's the script, not the acting. Sometimes there will be indisputable errors/problems (Charmy's current VA doesn't sing like his original one did), but otherwise it's just preference. And yeah, I remember people talking about how the old voices made their ears bleed back when Heroes was released.

Assuming this game is going to sport classic Sonic, I seriously cannot fathom Griffith's deeper voice working. Drummond could have perhaps passed, but... Eggman and Tails would still work, Amy perhaps not. Dunno what to think of though for Knuckles. Imagine any of his voices going with that cheesy grin from 3/K!

 

Dosen't Griffith do Sonic and Shadow? Personally I think he dose better with Shadow than Sonic, Drummond did make a better Sonic, he just seemed to have attitude in his voice that wasent forced :/

I don't really hate the new VA's, like said earlyer, most of the horror is due to the god awful scripts

 

Unleashed made me love Jason's Sonic, and Mike Pollock does an incredible job as Dr. Robotnik/Eggman.

 

It's true that the script sometimes suck, Heroes and 06 are both very guilty, but he said voice acting and they're very guilty as well. Ah a plain, it's going to crash, ah. What the hell was that? This is Ryan too, just to show that I'm not a hater of 4kids actors. I suppose they've got better with time.

All the english cast was pretty bad. I prefer to hear either mute or in Japanese and just read the subtitles. And yes as well, Unleashed was better, both in acting and script. A tons better from 06.

 

I agree with an earlier point; the games should either be minimalist or full blown and well done. I'm fine with a game like Sonic 4, but the next time they do a big storied' game, I want it to be an exceptional one. I want the characters to be written as well as Taranea writes them. Aside from Sonic's powers being slightly overblown at times, every character is incredibly well written.

 

This interview seems to indicate they acted according to the really bizarre mouth animations Adventure already programed in, which might explain why nearly every character in the game sounds like the kids in A Charlie Brown Christmas.