Sonic Team's message to the fanbase

All I can really say about unleashed (360/PS3) is that its not the great sonic game fans hope for but its a step in the right direction worth a buy just for sonics levels alone. Wii/PS2=fail.

@K2J: Lol! You really went out of your way just for a joke bravo.

 

Ditto...and I should've learned that before acting all uber-serious on a certain Klonoa board. =/

Besides, I see SatBK's plot as nothing more than a semi-repeat of Klonoa 2's, anyway...especially when both end villains seem to like to drench themselves in the pools of sorrow... No so-called "hidden message" that I can see there.

 

Even the Wii and PS2 versions are solid games for their respective platforms, whether you see them as inferior to the "next gen" versions or not. A lot of people enjoyed the scaled down version, including myself, yet I have both and mostly play the 360 version. Before I got the 360 version though, I had played my way through the Wii version, and had a good time for the most part.

The Wii/PS2 version is also pretty good considering it can be assumed to have been made to make up the losses from the 360/PS3 version. It was also said to have been "dumbed down" for more casual players, and I believe it does succeed in that right.

 

The game's storyline wasn't well thought at all.
Thus this whole theory isn't true.

But yeah, SEGA is only appealing to the more weeaboo side of the fandom, just look at the Knights of the Round Table - Shadow, Knuckles, Blaze, Silver and Jet. It's a blatant obvious fanservice to the "DeviantArt"-ish side of the fandom. I doubt that something surreal, well-written and that doesn't actually use new stupid characters (and make use of Tails as something more than a shop NPC that has a biplane) will actually happen.
Also when will they ever drop the giant monster cliché? God I am so sick of it. It worked PERFECTLY for Chaos, because his participation at the storyline was well thought through, the other ones were just a 'lol im just here for the fat finale'.

 

Yeah, Eggman's definitely proved that he has the capacity to build his own "final bosses", I just wish he'd start doing it again. Even in Sonic Rush he's got an evil twin/distant future relative to help him out.

Though I will admit, I kinda like Eggman Nega.

 

As I've said before, I love how Eggman just went crazy at the end of Eggmanland. Even Sonic's like "Dude, chill the fuck out!"

 

I do agree that the fanbase for a lot of the Sonic games seems to be the DevArt community -- that's the only explanation that I can come up with for making Sonic 06 into Trinity Blood (right down to recruiting Takahito Eguchi to do some music!).

 

This reminds me of something my friend said when he was watching me play Sonic 2. He joked that the general gameplay of the 2D Sonic games is a metaphor of the traumatizing memories of a Vietnam War veteran. Now if you think about it, it actually starts to make some sense: Sonic is a tunnel rat, he must navigate through a series of tunnels while avoiding obstacles such as explosives and spikes to reach the guy at the end of the tunnel who wants to kill him.

 

Ding ding ding. There's a lot of "us" out there who are plenty accepting of any new direction Sonic goes - as long as, you know, the games itself are good. Sonic Rush Adventure has a very different design aesthetic from Sonic 2, but that didn't stop it from being one of my favorite DS games ever, and a game on par with the original Genesis classics.

I think most Sonic fans have bought more than one bad Sonic game in the last few years and that's why we're wary - because they're bad games. Sonic 2006 is hated for its shitty controls, awful camera, goofy plot, ugly graphics, long loading times, and copious slowdown. In a sentence that spells out, "Sonic games are shit", Sonic 2006 is the exclamation point on it all, because it's like a compilation of all the worst parts of the franchise since it went 3D. All 3D Sonic games up to then contained bits of the problems Sonic 2006 suffered from.

And they were genuine problems - things that stemmed from bad game design. If Sonic made the appropriate "Super Mario World -> Super Mario 64" jump, most of the fans and the media would have happily followed regardless of how much it changed from the original design ideals.

But it didn't do that. Sonic in 3D has always had problems since day one and SonicTeam has been flat-out ignorant of that fact. For all the progress made in Sonic Unleashed, Black Knight seems to be ten steps back in the wrong direction, and that's simply because it's a poorly-made game. Period.

 

He's assuming that we hate change. That's not true. I liked Sonic Unleashed and Sonic Rush because they were good games. I'm all for change if it's executed properly. I'm not going to like a game just because Sonic's in it. Sonic 06 was trash, and so is Black Knight.

What can I say I enjoy fun games. What's so hard to understand about that?

 

Ah yes, those pesky generic Sonic concepts. Concepts like 'speed' and 'fun'.

Ladies and gentlemen, we can make a new Sonic game! This ain't yo Daddy's Sonic game. It's got entirely new gameplay elements. Instead of jumping, press A to hear an impossibly long monologue. Press B to read through a gigantic scroll with the plot specifics.

 

I agree 100%. They can't MAKE money if the fans aren't happy. Obviously Sonic Team cares, that's why they've been changing the games of late, trying hard to make us happy. Just because they haven't struck a perfectly tuned chord isn't reason to believe they're just a bunch of greedy people who just want your money and don't care at all what we think.



That said, I also think people are too harsh on DreadKnux. It's his opinion. We all have opinions that may vary. So why are some of you ripping into him like he's the biggest idiot on this planet? I have a feeling if he went to these forums, you wouldn't react that way quite so publically. I don't think he did anything to deserve the level of harshness that I'm seeing in some of these posts. If I was him and stumbled upon this topic, I'd be more than a little annoyed. So the ones spewing the snobbery, knock it off. I get sick of people not being able to accept that not everyone thinks exactly the same.

While I don't agree 100% with what he wrote, he does raise some points that deserve recognition. I think there are people to this day who still want Sonic games that feel more like the classics and are disappointed about that. That's why some sceners are "former" sceners.

 

He does, and I was fully aware of this when I made my post. I'm not saying he's stupid, I'm saying his argument is nonsensical. I fully respect his opinion to like Marine, for instance, but I just can't understand his logic when he says that the plot of Black Knight is an allegory of the fanbase.

 

Hasn't been around in a while.

 

I actually think his interpretation makes quite a bit of sense, even if he's reading into it a bit much.

That being said, assuming that's really what Sonic Team is saying, then they can go sod off. If you're going to try to branch the franchise off in various directions, try to make them fun, or in ways that make sense with the character. Something you've completely and utterly FAILED to do since Shadow, at the latest. Until then, I want games like the originals. Christ, you had it nailed in Sonic Advance (the first), albeit the levels were a bit uninspired (except Egg Rocket, that was ace) - just go back to that, if nothing else...

 

Wow. All this venom over a mere story analysis (which is less of a reflection of my opinion but more the approaches of Sonic Team themselves to modern games)?

Good job, gentlemen.

 

How about re-thinking some of those contradictions, instead of chalking criticsm down to "lol internets, you're taking it too seriously" and "good morning gentlemen"?
You know, taking responsibility for your opinions when they're exposed to criticism and actually reply, instead of attempting to renounce and nullify your downed point by using adjectives like mere?

I think your essay is retarded. Want me to talk about why I think it's retarded?

 

You can disagree with it if you like. I'm not debating that. Don't you think it's a little bit childish to be calling it 'retarded' though?

I see you ignored my post and still called it 'my opinion', when it fact it was never a reflection of how I feel about the situation, rather an analysis of how Sonic Team appear to be approaching modern games development. Debate the analysis, not an opinion that isn't there. It's futile for me to defend something that doesn't exist, just as it is for you to call me out personally for the same.

 

Fine, your opinion isn't stupid.

Your analysis is.