Sonic X Shadow Generations thread, movie level out on the 12th

Ah hell, just sprung for the digital deluxe version. Can’t wait to play this bad boy Monday.

I think I will start with Shadow Generations but a Sonic Generations playthrough isn’t far behind.

 

Writing for Sonic games is usually kind of flaccid. I tend to prefer when it's less written, and more akin to throwing the characters in a jar and shaking it. The classics are genuinely some of my favorite stuff they've done with the focus on visual storytelling, action, and the more flawed versions of the characters butting heads.

The Adventure games are held up as a gold standard but I think they usually only land what they're going for about half the time. Tails, Amy, and Gamma's stories are pretty good and the finale is nice but I think the other three can leave something to be desired. SA2's more rapidfire approach stands to leave even more characters by the wayside but too fast for you to notice most of the time which is probably the right call for this sort of thing. I'd call Shadow the series's most well realized character but that's in spite of some serious road bumps. I'm also brave enough to admit the quality of the cutscenes and voice acting kinda sucks all around even for the era it's in.

I like most of the concepts in the Dimps games like Emerl, the Sol Dimension, Blaze, Marine etc but they all feel a little bit undercooked. I don't really think there's much to say about Shadow and 06 that everyone hasn't said already, but I actually don't mind Silver and Elise as concepts. That's probably as far as I'd take it though. The negative qualities of the Adventure games are just doubled down on in full force here.

I think the Storybook games are probably the best all around stories. Pushing the usual suspects off to the peripheral lets them focus more on developing new concepts which seems like a proper rhythm for this series to follow. Have Sonic crash into someone new who ties into the game's new location and gimmick(s), affect them positively in some profound way, have them give something to him and return and carry on. I'm a bit biased because it's the format I use for my own pitches, but I think it really works without blowing up the scale beyond what the games are capable of handling. The presentation of the cutscenes is also very nice without breaking the budget. I'd prefer if they erred further away from motivational speech Sonic, but upon a rewatch I realized that's not all he is. He gets some good quips off in these especially when Caliburn is involved.

Not much really happens with the characters in most of the Modern games and the tone is a bit lighter here but that's not all that damning by itself. I think the bigger problem is more that these games are comedies that aren't funny. The Sonic cast imo has a lot of comedic potential that goes underutilized here just circling the drain with Sonic and Tails so much.

And Forces and Frontiers both have a common thread of having some interesting new ideas that are decidedly not the focus, Frontiers especially. Sage, the Ancients, and the guardians should have been even more prominent and fleshed out than they ended up being with the reheated Adventure arcs for the usual suspects taking a backseat. Seriously.

I don't really like criticizing the writing for the series too much though because ideally it just wouldn't be the first thing that comes to mind. Action scenes like Unleashed's intro should be way more common than they actually are, and I'd take a focus on interesting cinematography, action, and visual humor in the animation over the stationary entirely dialogue driven stuff the modern games usually go for. I'd take excuse plots that just make the most interesting combo of characters and action happening. They just need to have fun and milk each sequence for the most it can go for while doing so. Think Kid Icarus Uprising.

 

I'd definitely like to see Flynn get a bit more time with the games before reaching a verdict. Frontiers didn't exactly have the greatest opportunities for organically weaving in continuity - it was split between flashbacks to ancient aliens and the party members literally just talking in random, somewhat generic locales. Maybe he could do more with a story and structure a bit more reminiscent of past games. (Plus, y'know, time to practice and adapt to a different medium.)

Granted, I doubt he'll ever get to mash pieces both old and new together to the degree he did in late Archie, which is where I think his use of series history really shined. But I wanna see the man keep trying to cook.

 

As someone who doesn’t truly care about the narrative at play here, I’d rather keep someone on board like Flynn whose willing to bridge the gap between old and new games in a way that makes me nostalgic and see a through line between the two, than whoever has wrote anything for Sonic from Heroes onward.

no matter what way you slice it, we’re getting stories intended for children. At least one of those alternatives can endear you and remind you a bit of your own childhood, imo

 

God knows we don't get enough nostalgia pandering from every other entertainment medium.

 

S3K, SA1 and SA2 and Battle had strong stories/writing in my book.

I remember long ago reading the translated Japanese S3 story in the help file in S&K Collection and being astounded that a platformer had such extensive lore and a plot that connected to its prequel so strongly, that's something platformers just didn't do back then (and I'd argue is still rare to this day). The way the game itself told a story with turns via in-level cutscenes without any dialogue was also brilliant.

SA1 and SA2 had great writing and characterizations, even if the presentation was hurt by the questionable dub and cutscene animations. SA1 also did a great job of building on the preestablished lore, while SA2 presented a fresh story and tone while staying true to the characters.

Battle did a good job of fleshing out the characters (for the most part; Knuckles and Amy were too flanderized). Rouge was so fun here, we saw how nuanced and conflicted Shadow actually is, and I felt genuinely saddened by the ending. It (almost) made up for the absolute tedium of the gameplay

I haven't beaten Frontiers yet so I can't fully comment on its story, but I appreciate the improved characterizations and the character rerailments.

 

To avoid mentioning the 3D console games I suppose I'd probably say Rush and Battle, but that's about it. Well, ok, the story itself wasn't outstanding, but Colors DS had some pretty good writing. Something the console version sorely lacks. Outside that though, you kinda got me there. Rush Adventure could've probably been great, but... Ugh, Marine. The Rivals games? Do I even need to say anything there? Advance? It may be Modern Sonic, but it still doesn't have much of a story. At the very least it's actually innovative with the gameplay like Modern. And the Classics? Yeah, I don't think so. There isn't a single Classic story (if you want to call them that) I find particularly memorable, especially Superstars. Seriously, how can you have actual cutscenes, yet still have such a nothing story? It's even more nothing than Sonic Gens, which is pretty damn pathetic. Even for Classic Sonic standards that was dull as hell. And it's even worse because the game itself is already heavily flawed in my eyes from what I've seen.

 

Hey so the version of the game that leaked was on Switch, right? How does it perform?

 

And how does it look.

Frontiers and Forces both perform fine on Switch IIRC, but the are times in both games when they look unacceptabley bad. Generally okay, but when the visuals take a real hit you can really feel it.

 

There's 40 minutes of Switch version footage on the spoiler thread, if you're interested.

 

Both games are a stable 30 FPS. Generations is 1080p docked and 720p handheld. Shadow is 720p in both modes, but has better lighting when docked.

 

I also dislike the trend that we had everywhere of comics, movies, series and brands throwing references as if it was an impressive thing to do in this day and age - it was cool before the internet became so centralized and all-knowing *because* it showed you had first-hand experience with what you were referencing (instead of just looking up a wiki), and the more obscure it was, the more it showed how deep your obsession went, and it didn't call attention to itself because it wasn't meant to be instantly understood by everyone, it was sneaky and hidden to be unearthed by people of the same obsession level to find kindred spirits, or just as a thing the author did for his own self-amusement.

But I always thought the "throwing references" thing that was happening with the Sonic comics and happened with Frontiers was an attempt to address a complaint with the fanbase that the games and media were feeling too disconnected from one another instead of this feeling that they had a "throughline" as fans felt like Sonic had in the 2000s. As a wink and nod to be like "See, we get you guys, we're big fans of Sonic too over here! We're considering all the games you like!", and I imagine they had their hands tied to do anything else more substantial than that (the comics don't go anywhere until they start introducing more original characters and having plotlines and character development with them, presumably because they're restricted with how much and what they can do with the game characters)

I don't think Ian is God's Gift to Writing but he clearly cares a lot about those characters and he also cares about how the fans are receiving it, and that may not seem huge, but it is. To weave between several interests like this (his own, the fans, the japanese developers, the brand, the company) is not an easy task and I think he's been doing it pretty well, while allowing earnestness and fan participation to grow. It's way, way too easy to have someone who doesn't care, who's cynical, in a position like his, and that doesn't mean that what it's been put out cannot be criticized, but I don't think it should be taken lightly either. I haven't looked at any spoilers for the game, but I would wager that Sonic X Shadow Generations' writing probably doesn't do the reference wink-and-nod thing and I think it is partially because Ian does look and care at what people say they want online, and if there's a huge pushback against that, then he won't do it.

I do get concerned about, like, how he (and/or other people at SEGA?) keep very close and thorough tabs on "what's canon" and "lore" or whatever, I think that's kind of a boring way to approach writing, but maybe that's needed so that the american side can do more when it comes to writing these characters? Keeping tabs and then if there's a complaint or restriction from above they can point to a specific thing in a game and go "we agreed that this is canon, right? so we can do this, right?"

To make a point about how caring about "canon" like this is a huge trap, Sonic Battle, one of the best-written games of the series, came *way* before Shadow the Hedgehog, and in this game, Shadow doesn't follow his character storyline from Heroes at all. He's not amnesiac. He's written as if Sonic Adventure 2 happened but he didn't die at the end of it. Nowadays people agree that because of this, Battle comes somewhere after Shadow the Hedgehog in the canon, but who knows how much that was figured out when Battle was being made. The writer probably went "this is the story I want to tell and it's better if Shadow is like this in this story", and whether Shadow was going to get his memories back in a later game or not and whether kids would be confused "about the canon" were very small or barely existent concerns. In fact, the concern about having a "clean" canon only makes sense nowadays that people can watch every game's story on Youtube. Back then, you experienced whatever game you could, and if there's a connecting tissue between them, that's just extra icing on the cake.

 

I don't really want to navigate that, keeping myself as spoiler-free as possible for Tuesday. Ideally, I'd want to see some footage of just the Shadow portions we've already seen running on Switch.

 

I’m not gonna watch anything, but I’ll take all the impressions. The Shadow side is sounding good!

 

wont spoil anything but I can confirm the switch version actually looks better than I expected. But yeah for shadow gens its still 30 even docked.

 

I wonder if they'll offer an upgrade when the Switch 2 is released (if it even exists)

 

I guess it was too much to hope Sonic Gens would be 60fps on Switch but if its a stable 30 then I'll gladly take that.

720p handheld for Shadow Gens is a godsend, Frontiers was something like 480-500p and honestly looked pretty bad, glad that's not the case here

 

Can't complain at all at those specs. 1080p 30 FPS Sonic Gens docked at least is an upgrade from the 360 and PS3 being 720p 30 FPS, so at least every console gets a fidelity upgrade in one way or another.

 

Not to mention that it's a stable 30 FPS. From what I recall the 360/PS3 version dips in quite a few places. I'd be shocked if you can't play it with an unlocked frame rate on Switch 2 once that's out, as well.

Only complaint I have from footage of the Switch version is that the way stages load once you first boot into them looks ugly as hell but that lasts for .5 seconds so it's a pretty minor nitpick.

 

I will also say, from what ive played of base gens so far, it looks mostly the same from what i remember of the PC version. Lighting is roughly the same from what i remember and things might be slightly lower poly but textures dont look much worse, its a pretty decent port from what ive played so far, switch version seems pretty solid!