Spoiler Thread - SONIC X SHADOW GENERATIONS (SPOILERS!... Obviously.)

Unfortunately Sonic seems to appeal more to the common audience on his style rather than the substance the games might have, even moreso if the marketing pushes the "gotta go fast" angle but then in the games you don't immediately go fast.
With that being said, I wish that instead of flip-flopping like this they would try to go for the middle. A tone where not every line has a dumb joke rhat doesn't land, nor is it a melodrama that screams "I'm 14 and this is deep". Ideally something closer to the tone of SA1 or Unleashed imo. Where you can have scenes with cheesy lines and also some more serious dramatic ones. And not in a clashing way like Forces did.
I really don't get why some want a franchise about cartoony anthropomorphic animals fighting an evil scientist that makes machines to be this complex melodrama with thousands of moving parts. Then again it might just be what I grew up with that I just don't get it.
I want Sonic's friends to matter too. Not just be cheerleaders while Gary Stu the Hedgehog does all the work bc he's the chosen one. But also not have them play in a drastically, unappealing, different way. Or add fishing bc they are chasing after a specific audience.
Mechanically I wish they would try adapting the Classic design in 3D again, but properly this time. Not limited by technical capabilities. Also nerf the crap out of the Boost, make it work more like the one in Unwiished but even more limited so it's less of a key mechanic, or just not have it. Instead they are chasing trends I don't particularly like that I never understood why people wanted in the games in the first place, other than to see Sonic run, without a direction.

That would be easier if things didn't have to matter as much as they want them to now. After all they want everyone to buy all the games. It's a business.





Oh, and about that Amy cutscene, it feels like we can't have any sort of dialogue that hints at her crush directly. Thanks mandates.
The original was awkward too bc Amy's flanderization, but this is even more because it really doesn't fit the animation.

 

To be fair, I think half of Sonic's dialogue in Gens are like "no time for that now" or "we'll figure it out later, let's save ur friends first" and stuff like that.

 

I just rwwatched the cutscenes and it's less than that. After Chemical Plant, it's just stock phases, basic reactions, and basic questions. Not even "save our friends", just *Tails exposits* "Woah, we gotta go fast, now!" It takes until after Egg Dragoon that Sonic says anything interesting.

The Tailses do all the talking and thinking after that point.

And since Sonic doesn't speak anywhere else, that's literally all of his characterization.

So while the new scenes are awkward, Sonic at least shows off some personality more.

 

I was hoping that the Chemical Plant cutscene would've been the most offensive change here, but that Amy scene has me genuinely convinced that they might have fucked up absolutely everything.

I'm genuinely dreading how cringeworthy the Chaotix rescue scenes are gonna be, since there's already so few instances of them interacting with Sonic himself.

Edit: Oh god, they're totally gonna force Solaris and Time Stone references throughout the game, aren't they?

 

Ian "The Reference Devil" Flynn is totally going to ruin the awesome scene of Espio saying "be on your guard" and Sonic says nothing and nods.

Or when Vector foreshadows the major plot twist and Sonic says nothing and nods.

And what if he changes the iconic scene of Charmy screaming FREE BEE FREE BEE FREE BEE

Scenes flowing with characterization, teeming, and intrigue, now ruined because they will actually remark on their circumstance (reference reference).

 

I think I exaggerated on "half of" but what I meant or was trying to say was is those were more common in OG Gens than it seens.

I agree it's consistent with Sonic's personaltiy tho' (taking in context of the 2011 Sonic Generations, of course).

By the way, I've heard there are leaks coming from 4chan with content that isn't avaliable from that Twitter user. I'd like to acess it, but I have no ideia how... yes, I got skill issue using 4chan.

 

I don't hate the idea of Sonic actually responding to people this time around and dialogue changing to compensate an actual conversation instead of everyone just narrating their thoughts to him, but I also don't necessarily agree with recontextualizing every conversation potentially into something entirely new without taking much time to modify animations for compensation or anything, depending on how this unfolds.

 

Animation qualms aside, the scenes seem to still carry the spirit of the original well enough. The Chaotix scenes, actually, I could see working with this because of how Sonic moves even less there. And Vector's will probably be verbatim since it's actually super relevant to the story.

How would a Solaris reference forced?

Crisis City is in the game. Silver is in the game. Blaze specifically mentioned remembering Crisis City. Mephiles is a fucking boss.

But mentioning Solaris is somehow too far? But the Secret Rings reference was okay?

Did Ian Flynn shoot someone's dog because wtf

 

I don't think Ian is even allowed to reference much if anything of 06 other than if it is in the game.
The problem with the references in general is that it feels like they are there to enforce continuity when it's not as necessary as they think. And that may not be Ian's call but rather Sega's, but the way how the references are inserted could be improved.

 

Actually that's something that has been debated for a while. Did White Space bring back the memories they lost from 06 while they were there?

Seems in other media after Generations Silver and Blaze don't recognize each other, so you can't say that Blaze was unaffected after she disappears in Silver's story.

I was actually thinking how they were going to handle Shadow remembering Mephiles. Or if he's going to remember him at all.

 

The fact you (and I) like SA2 is completely irrelevant. There are loads of people who hate the storyline of SA2, including many gaming critics who are very influential for gaming developers and marketers. But it is also a general opinion among gamers. There is a real case to make that SA2s dialogue needs more change than Generatons. My example was a little soft but I could go much further.

Imagine if SA2 was re released and rewritten by Pontac and Graff to have the same story but with subtly dialogue changes with a lighter tone and Baldy Mcnose hair jokes. Subtle dialogue changes, but ruining the tension. You and I might think that is utterly dreadful, but there are loads of people who would think that would be either good or mostly unjmportanr. And now original SA2 has been delisted from Steam.

Now that would be way worse than what's happening with Generations but I think it should get the point across to the very weak defences I'm seeing here. Just because you (and I) think Generations has a weak story is irrelevant. I'm against this general practice of re writing old games dialogue in a remaster and then going on to delist the old game. And saying you personally dislike the story of Generations so it doesn't matter simply isn't good enough.

 

Oof if people are aversive to these changes i can't imagine the reactions to the ending.

I can see them changing Eggman/Robotnik naming stuff (whatever you like it or not the Doctor already adopted the alias by the time S2 happens) and even the "Future is great" mantra.

 

Classic Sonic: attempts to do the homing attack and fails

Modern Sonic (within the span of two seconds): That power is not something which you are able to access. The Golden Shield power, which can be obtained from destroying an item monitor on Flicky Island, is your only possibility for achieving results comparable to the maneuver which you were in the process of attempting to perform. Executing it without having to rely on an external special ability will not be possible for you until the moment you develop a green complexion to your irises.

 

From what I've seen, it looks like not all of Sonic Generations' dialogue will be rewritten from scratch; even though it's been rerecorded, Knuckles' first line ("Thanks for the help - not that I needed it!") is worded identically in both versions.

Honestly, I'm not too bothered about this particular game getting rewritten - as many have said, the original game had even less substance to its story than the console version of Sonic Colours, which is saying something. I'm actually a little disappointed the rewriting has had to be done within the framework of keeping the same timings and animation as the original scenes - my main hope for a rewrite when rumours started circulating was that it'd finally put some real meat onto the bones of the game's plot, which just doesn't seem possible within the constraints it seems to have been done under.

Anyway, the fact that not every single line has been rewritten from scratch gives me some hope they'll have kept my favourite bit of the original English script - the "Doctor Robotnik!"/"Nobody calls me that anymore!" exchange before the final boss. I'll be sad if that's gone, as the mention of his original localised name seemed very fitting in an anniversary game (and would perhaps be even more so in this version, as the companion game Shadow Generations is bringing back Maria and Gerald who literally share that same surname).

Also, anyone who's been trying to compare to the original game's Japanese script - remember, the OG game was written in English first and then translated and adapted. I have no doubt the revised script will also receive a new Japanese counterpart, bringing over some of the same changes we've seen so far.

 

Being honest I'm not precious about basically any Sonic game's dialogue. I think dialogue and voice acting are usually the worst parts of these games across the board, so I'm not against a rewrite/dub on paper. That extends as far back as the Adventure series too. If they ever did a remake of those games and did not make an attempt to rewrite the script or do something about the trash voice acting I'd be confused.

There's a good point to be made about preservation. Going back and changing thing in what's meant to be a straight port is a bit different. Still ultimately the company's prerogative but I usually don't see the point if you're leaving the vast majority of the art the same. It's debatable where this version of Sonic Generations falls but I think the problem is lessened significantly by just leaving the original version of the game up. There's no downsides to doing this so I don't get why SEGA treats it like pulling teeth.

The bigger problem is that the changes I'm seeing so far are half-assed across the board. No consideration for the cutscene timing or the animations. Harmless jokes removed just to reaffirm location names or fit whatever modern brand mandates they have. It seems like Sonic Generations rewritten for the type of fan who would have hated Generations anyway which is always risky business. An SA2 rewrite is fine but you probably shouldn't rewrite it exclusively with Arin Hanson in mind.

This is all coming from someone who dislikes Generations's story outside of the final twist, btw.

 

More cool cutscenes.

 

Mephiles' model being well animated looks so weird, I'm used to him blankly hovering around like a stiff ragdoll because everyone in 06 animates like that.

 

Hard agree. I was surprised that I was able to read his emotions so well, given how blank he was in '06 and because up until now he had really only been in '06 I kind of associated the lack of animation as him being stiff, emotionless, and slow moving, not realizing that it applied to the whole cast due to how poorly animated '06's cutscenes are. Definitely gives me a new perspective on Mephiles as a character.

 

Finally, we get to see how Mephiles would've looked like had he not gotten tilted at the towers

 

Funny enough, that fit Mephiles pretty well but I wouldn't say no to more expressive animation.