Sonic X Shadow Generations thread, movie level out now

I too prefer how Flynn writes, but despite not being fans themselves, Pontaff did try to write in a way that appeals to fans and they respected the franchise even if they did not have the same kind of attachment we do.

To put it in perspective, it would have been very easy to have had a writer back then that would use those meta jokes and self-awareness for mockery of the franchise, but Pontaff never came off as dismissive, and did try to tie it into the characters, like having Sonic being a very "seen it all" kind of cocky, not taking anything seriously kind of character.

Paired with a writer who was a fan, I think they would have thrived much more.

 

overbearing references absolutely didn't start with Flynn, Heroes alone has Sonic go "this reminds me of the Egg Carrier" when you're in Egg Fleet/Final Fortress, and the fact that I even remember that despite not playing the game at all in 15 years is really saying something.

 

Eh I don't see what's so offensive about that. The characters simply expressed astonishment that the Egg Fleet was so big it dwarfed the Egg Carrier. It's not like Sonic saying that some random ruins resemble the Angel Island ruins despite looking nothing alike.

(For the record, I don't mind the current games referencing old games, as long as it doesn't feel forced. Not every casual nod to a previous adventure is by default an "overbearing reference" in my book.)

 

I think unfortunately with these kind of preferences there's a line that's easy to cross, and that line is different for everyone.

For me it's more natural for Sonic to say that going through the fleet reminds him of the Egg Carrier than randomly saying lyrics to his songs.

Or for example. For every reference Frontiers had it just feels weird that no character mentioned the Ancients looked like Chaos.

Does that make sense?

Again that would be more natural to say that "hey these aliens look like Chaos" because Chaos was an important character in their lives. The journals have a reference to him, but at that time Eggman had not seen them.

And since the characters are remembering a lot in the game it does feel like a missed opportunity.

It's not the end of the world, and it doesn't make Frontiers bad, but to me that would feel more natural and less forced.

 

I’m curious what games you guys think actually have strong writing lmao. Literally like, SA2 is the only game I can think of that has consistently good and fun writing/characterization. Just about everything else is either forgettable, cringy, or Nick Jr. tier writing.

 

I think there's a difference in having a reference for reference sake and using a previous adventure/location/whatever to compare to the current one. The egg carrier mention in Sonic heroes serves to show how high the stakes are: "The egg carrier is nothing compared to this" it's a line that works even if you never played adventure and don't know what the egg carrier is, it still shows how team Sonic are amazed by it's size and perhaps even a little concerned.

 

Sonic Unleashed.

 

Though I like SA2 a lot, I wouldn't call its writing to be "consistently good".

But I do agree that Shadow is the coolest.

/thread

 

I personally have always adored the writing in the First Riders game. Characters feel distinct and lively, have fun interactions between each other, and the writing had humor that landed for me

 

None of these games do. Closest to good would be the Adventure games for me. The major deciding factor whether these stories are memorable for me comes entirely down to presentation and pacing, which both Adventure games and Unleashed excel at. S&K is godly at this despite not having a single line of dialogue. The final string of stages for both campaigns having continuity was cool. Bottom of the list are Colors, Lost World and Frontiers.

Guilty pleasures: Forces. A lot of it was dog shit, but moments like Capital City and Mortar Canyon were sick as hell.

 

The story book games are my guilty pleasure. I thought it was genuinely funny how Sonic hated being called a knave. Or a rat.

 

Fuck. I forgot about those. Put those on my list too.

 

3&K, Adventure 2, Unleashed, Black Knight, and Frontiers are the only games where I can feel like I can argue that they have a strong narrative, with a noteworthy mix of presentation, themes, plot, and ambition.

Games like Colors and Riders I think are games that are good for what they are attempting, but they do not attempt a lot.

Most other games are just plain forgettable, maybe with a few standout moments.

Then there's stories I really don't like like '06, Lost World, and Forces.

 

Maybe Sonic Lost World should not be considered "canon" because it plays nothing like other Sonic games at all. Like referencing the Lost Hex incident is unneeded and forced.

 

I get the anxiety around feeling like players will miss out on important stuff, but isn't that kind of just one of the sacrifices you have to make when you design open world type games? My philosophy is that the game should generally be beatable even without any skills or upgrades; Sonic's basic moveset should be fun to control from the very start of the game.

There was a thread on Twitter about this (that I can't find) but it essentially made the point that a lot of modern games have adopted a 'skinner box' type design where you're essentially grinding to make numbers go up in exchange for small rewards. I know that's nothing new in gaming but I think for Sonic it would be much more interesting to use the mechanics of the game to encourage exploration and discovery in a natural way, rather than grinding to increase EXP so you can pick a new thing from a menu screen. When I played Frontiers I think I had unlocked all of Sonic's skills by the start of the second island.

But you're right that there should be a reward for defeating enemies (if they ever decide to bring back Chao Gardens they could bring back chaos drives and animals). It'll be interesting to see how Shadow Generations' open-zone handles things.

 

Any important tool or or move is usually put behind major milestones in these types of games, like a boss fight or upon reaching a new area that would require them. Metroid for example would hide new functions behind boss fights while upgrades to your more powerful attacks would be hidden in stages. Mega Man X would hide Armor Capsules in stages along with health options.

With good world design and item distribution, this is a non-issue. Discovery and exploration is the appeal to these games. People loved just finding shit on their own in Elden Ring but groaned when Horizon Forbidden West would just spell out everything for you. The problem with Frontiers current design is that it offers no reason to actually explore its world other than watching numbers go up.

There's also the fact that we live in the age or information. No one is getting lost these days unless they're stubborn or actually stupid.

 

Sonic games in the 2000s were filled to the brim with references, but I wouldn't say any of them are intrusive themselves. Usually they're fairly natural, like characters mistaking Chaos Gamma for Gamma when it fights them, Omega commenting on the Egg Emperor, or Shadow wondering if he's been to Prison Island before. If anything, the endless amount of dialog commenting on the actions and hazards the player should pay attention to are the most egregious thing about those games.

This is the aspect of Flynn's writing tendencies that I think is the most harmless, as well. I don't think it's particularly graceful in this Gens rewrite, but they're above all else the most harmless aspect of his preference in writing stories.

Song lyrics and reusing quotes, both by the same characters and by completely different characters, is a whole other beast, though. They ultimately don't matter for a baseline reading experience, and the casual reader would be hard pressed to find anything noticeable about them, but I have thoughts regarding the self-described indulgence of them. In short I just wish much better dialog was written instead; there's not really any reason to opt for them when the alternative is creating equivalent dialog that can be just as, if not more, effective as whatever the reference was attempting in the first place.

 

There is no problem with referencing prior events, if the context for recollection makes sense.

Amy comparing those giant ships in Egg Fleet to the Egg Carrier...makes sense, but she's the only one to make that comparison because from her perspective the Egg Carrier is the only time she's experienced something like that.

There's similarly no problem with Tails referencing Dark Gaia in Frontiers...even though contextually it's a lot less justified since he doesn't actually know what Dark Gaia can do and the only actual experience he has, at best, is knowing Dark Gaia had awoken was when the planet broke apart.

But even if this is all totally fine, the reference should probably also come from the fact that both of the things being compared are similar in nature. The End can be considered...loosely similar to Dark Gaia (or any number of the eldritch horrors in this series), but at the point of comparison all Tails saw was a civilization being destroyed by some lasers. It would've made more sense if Tails compared that to Chaos than Dark Gaia.

---

Referencing the song lyrics will always get the same reaction out of me.
Referencing "meme-y" lines the characters said is 50/50 for whether or not it bothers me.
Referencing past events is the only thing that doesn't get my goat.

 

The Adventure games are the only good stories I can think of. There are character arcs, a decent pace with hardly any dull moments, and a clear balance between how much they goof off vs how seriously they take themselves. Stories that aren't insecure about it's inherent cartooniness, but also aren't afraid of going harder in on the emotional depth.

Battle, Rush/Rush Adventure and Unleashed are games that I think have good stories in theory, with interesting concepts and some fun character dynamics. But they're definitely much wonkier in pacing, and are early examples of the games starting to rely on the characters standing around yapping the exposition instead of showing what happens. I'd still count them as "fun" stories though, for sure. Fun goes a long way for scrimblos.

The Storybook games are almost noteworthy, in that they remember Sonic's morals are a little sketchier than the average hero, and the banter is sometimes funny. The storybook concepts just feel a bit on the "jumped the shark" side of things, especially as the events within have no stakes or ground in the main series. I hate to be that guy, but it's kinda hard to take Sonic King Arthur seriously as an idea. Not that I would've preferred them riffing on how silly it was, I just.. would've preferred not doing it. lol

Oh yeah, Murder of Sonic is maybe the best-written Sonic thing maybe ever, but it's also been deemed non-canon by Sega themselves and is definitely not their preference for how they wanna do Sonic stories at the moment. A shame.

The rest are junk, all for varying reasons. Sometimes bad quality, sometimes severely off in tone, sometimes boring, often times all three.

..All that said, I hope Shadow Gens story is good! It looks like the best they could possibly do with ShTH's concepts.

 

I wasn't particularly bothered by Tails mentioning Dark Gaia, but it is more along the lines of what you'd find as references for the sake of references. Something like The End's speech mentioning Sonic's past foes as it looks into his mind and sizes Sonic up, though? Fucking phenomenal, THAT is some top-tier implementation of the series' past into a present-day story, and I don't care what any of Ian's detractors say, I think The End's grandiose posturing in spite of it being ultimately defeated was fantastic. More a character than a god, and that's where their disappointment comes from, but it's far better executed than similar characters like Infinite.

To the extent of my understanding from other places + bumblekast blurb, the only reason for that being the case is the Shadow factor, and just other "things" they disagreed on. I doubt that means that the stories like that are off the table, just that Sonic Team wants their hand in the pie for their rules like with IDW.