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

I don’t know about SxSG, but for Frontiers he offered a lot of suggestions that ended up making it in, but the main plot itself was by Sonic Team. For example, the story with the ancients existed before he was brought in, but he suggested making them look similar to Chaos to hint at an ancestry, and Sonic Team liked the idea. (Amusingly he didn’t know they would take the suggestion so literally and was surprised when the game came out and they were actually made of water like Chaos.) Essentially he was able to decide some stuff through discussions with Kishimoto, but largely just wrote the cutscenes and dialogue for a story outline that already existed. More hands on than Pontac and Graff were, but still ultimately writing Kishimoto’s story. Strangely though, some of the non-essential dialogue in the DLC is not by him, such as the part about Big in cyberspace not being real. He’s said he doesn’t know who wrote that stuff either. A shame whoever it was wasn’t credited.

For Dream Team he actually mostly just did a pass on the script that Hardlight had already written. He said he didn’t have to change much.

 

Both Frontiers and SxSG are moreso about the characters than "the plot", I'd say. They're also both really about reintroducing characters/concepts/lore, bringing older story elements back into the fold, and aligning characterizations with SEGA's new direction.

It is fair to say that not much happens in these games. I mean, neither of these games, nor Dream Team, even has their platforming levels take place in reality: Time Anomolies/Black Doom Visions, Cyberspace, Dreamscapes...

Now I'm hoping that since Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Amy, & Shadow's characterizations and histories are aligned with how SEGA wants them going forward, and larger game budgets making asset reuse less essential, that we can get a new game story that moves things FORWARD, instead of just looking back.

When Ian worked at Archie, his time as writer started with a lot of cleanup to tie down loose story threads. I see the mainline games in that same position now. The question is if they're now ready to move forward (I think they should), or if they want to just sit there and continue to Rev their engines while we're all staring waiting for them to "do something already."

SxSG, I believe, revealed what they're cooking in the Gameplay department post-Frontiers (and it was great, IMHO), but the story was limited because it had to re-establish Shadow while slotting into to the stagnant plot of Sonic Gens. I think the next game will show us what stories will look like going forward... for better or for worse.

I have some optimism that it will be for the better. Only time will tell.

 

I hope for...stories with actual movement.

In Sonic.

 

Pinball Plotting

 

Static wants movement... how ironic. LOL

 

Remember back in the day when characters did things besides standing in a void and talking?

Good times...

 

It's kind of funny how that's been the exact premise for 3 games in a row now.

I really fucking hope that the next game doesn't involve saving any of Sonic's friends.

 

You must have suffered terribly while playing Sonic Heroes for the first time.

 

Lol

Nah, the it's not the same. Heroes was unabashedly corny and simple. The dialogue wasn't good, but it made no effort to tell an emotional story. ShGens on the other hand...

 

[citation needed]

 

Are there any Sonic games that this description doesn't apply to?

 

Purely in terms of animation quality I think Shadow Gens has some of the best animated cutscenes of the entire series, especially the cutscene that plays when Shadow meets up with Gerald and Maria just after getting the Doom Wings.

I've always been mixed on whether motion capture works well for Sonic. Adventure 2 had pretty good in-game character animation but the motion capture used for the cutscenes doesn't hold up very well lmao. '06 also used mo-cap and it was equally weird and awkward looking. Unleashed mixed motion capture with traditional keyframe animation which looked good for the most part, though there were a few cutscenes that looked pretty bad. I'm not sure if Frontiers used mo-cap but the animations in that game are a real mixed bag, some cutscenes are decent while others are kinda ass.

Shadow Gens takes the Unleashed approach to motion capture but more refined, mixes it with keyframe animation and better shots and the end result is some of the most consistently high quality character animation in any Sonic game imho. I can't think of any cutscene which stands out as being particularly bad which is usually the case for these games.

Would love for them to really push the ways they can make these characters expressive again in the future.

 

Oh its absolutely applicable to relative degrees for other games. The games with the more complex stories however (Adventure 1 & 2, Heroes to a degree, Sonic 06, Unleashed and Forces) seem to have a story much more embedded into the games design (meaning the progression of levels, the transition between locations, the nature of the threat and therefore the bosses and enemies), and so I wondered if they were bringing in outside writers (Graff & Pontac, Flynn) to essentially punch up the dialogue rather than drive the plot of the game. This might mean we're giving those writers more credit (and blame) then is fair.

 

It feels like people wanting these stories to appeal to them, grown adults, when they never were supposed to. The best we’re going to get as longtime fans is fan service and cool character moments.

 

Typo.

No, that's not it. And I'm tried of seeing this reductive argument every time the story of a Sonic game is discussed. Why do you think stories can't appeal to adult fans and the younger target demographic too?

I already said that I don't want to become hyper-focused on that one point about one or two of Maria's lines, but it's happening anyway.

 

#BringBackHipAndHop

 

Apologies, but I'm gonna hyper-focus on these lines for a sec:

"Do you know why I named you 'Shadow'?"
"Because without light there's only darkness, but a shadow will show you where to find the light."
"I don't want you to be driven by darkness, I want you to be happy.
Stand in the light with peace in your heart."

You see... this actually might be one of my favorite lines in Shadow Gens, since it reminds me somewhat of the lyrics to Supporting Me.

I believe in my future, farewell to the shadow
It was my place to live, but now I need your hand
Lead me out with your light, I have breathed in
The disgusting air of darkness, but I never lose out

To the pressure, everything's just like
An illusion, I'll be losing you, before long

Contrived? Unbearably saccharine? Perhaps.

But I still like it.

 

I’m a big hippy underneath this rock loving nerd exterior, so I absolutely loved those lines, it made it meaningful, and I’m the sort of person who eats that shit up!

Loved it!

 

I think those lines are really dumb lol. Can't get over how contrived and cheesy it is.

 

I've never played a Sonic game whose dialog wasn't predominantly contrived, cheesy, and cringe. Whether those games were trying to be emotionally-impactful or not doesn't really make a big difference to me on this point.

Sure, we can pine for a version of this IP that has dialog that won't make a grown adult roll their eyes, and it's valid to wish for it, but I don't really think there's precedent for it.