The Little Details That Just Bug You

Sometimes I feel like Sonic doesn't act cool enough in cutscenes. I mean, he IS supposed to be a cool guy, right?

I guess you just don't see that much out of the characters in general. Just plot exposition.


...I guess this isn't much of a nitpick?

 

This. I don't mind fan theories and the like. But the way some people talk it's almost as if they believe there is a grand design behind the whole franchise. That somehow Sonic 1 to Generations has a grand continuity. It does not. I just hope that everyone making up theories realize it. Sometimes I get the impression they don't. I think a lot of the blame can be placed on the comic Archie and Fleetway. Probably more so Archie who attempts to keep such continuity, as many comics do. But Sonic games are games not epic stories.

This is sort of what I'm talking about. There is no story logic. The decision was most likely made by a concept artist and a modeler based on the aesthetic needs of the game. There are lots more examples in this thread. It seems everyone should understand this. But it sounds as if they don't. Maybe I'm perceiving something that doesn't exist.

That's not to say that grand stories are a bad fit for Sonic. Satam, Sonic X, OVA, even Archie at times has had great takes on the character. But you can't look for a grand design between all the games it doesn't exist.

 

"A grand design between all the games doesn't exist"...

This is exactly what bothers me, "there is no story logic", "decision... made most likely by a concept artist...on the needs of the game".

This is not to say that there never was a logic. In fact, I would argue the logic of Sonic is pretty simple and timeless (gander my signature)...

Maybe my scope is too large here, but what bugs me is the loss of the original archetypal narrative. It was once all bound up together in a cohesive unit.

The Story:
I mean, Sonic was a classic nature v. mankind story. However, there was an irony in that what was natural about Sonic's world was only vaguely so. It was a synthetic world of nature, against one man's synthetic vision of progress. But then, Sonic and his gang enter the world of humans and it dilutes this narrative. Then Tails graduates from his classic biplane, and becomes a technology mastermind seemingly on par with Robotnik. Now we aren'y fighting Robonik and science, we are fighting water monsters and time eaters, and other magical and paranormal figures which further serve to water down the Sonic brand and narrative (at this point were talking bland iced tea)...

The Graphics:
To this similar end we witness the abandonment of that crystalline-geometric-ultramodern, “Sonic The Hedgehog” aesthetic. I suppose one of the reasons Sonic Zones ended up looking the way they did was an attempt to upscale the graphical capabilities of the Genesis, I would argue in similar fashion to Donkey Kong Country for the Snes. Then, perhaps for the same reason, they abandoned it all in an attempt at realism (not that the zones themselves are realistic of course).

AND I don't wanna hear this was unavoidable in the transition from 2D to 3D, or platformer to racetrack, etc. Consider Sonic Advance, it's 2D, similar classic style platformer, limited graphical capability, and yet they too lack the design aesthetic which defined Sonic from his conception (I had MANY examples for this comparison). And, Sonic Generations and Sonic 4 have also proven to varying degrees that it is possible to return to these classic design elements.



Classic Sonic beauty...


Wow, so realistic and bland... What's the blurry blue thing in the middle?


I guess this is what Sonic would have looked like if first released on the Super Nintendo...


Perhaps a sidestep with momentum in the right direction...

The Music:
Furthermore, this was done with everything. Consider the music, and we can clearly see how the abandonment of classic design aesthetic merely to take advantage of new hardware capability does not equate with a better or more memorable product. Consider Rusty Ruin Zone Act 1, Genesis vs. Saturn. The same game, released same year, same zone, and yet the Genesis version is an unforgettable masterpiece (in my opinion), while the Saturn version is indistinguishable and ultimately neuters Sonic 3D Blast's only redeeming feature, its soundtrack.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdPU4WDdgBg


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJ5dXMLhQPc

By this point the series has lost its roots. No more anime influence, no more nature vs. mankind and technology narrative, no more irony of a synthetic natural world, or any definitive aesthetic style. We are left with... basically a glass of warm cheap scotch, when all the ice cubes melt, and probably the ice cubes were freezer burnt and sat too long beside a frozen garlic meatloaf.

 

You shut your mouth. Saturn 3d blast is the ultimate version of that shit show of a game

 

Yes. Saturn Rusty Ruins music is "indistinguishable"? Bullshit, it's handily one of the best tracks in the entire series; if anything, I'd say the Genesis version of Rusty Ruins is the unmemorable one. It's not the worst offender (I'm hard pressed to remember much of Spring Stadium or the Special Stages), and other tracks are very memorable (Diamond Dust and Volcano Valley are excellent, and the latter's one case where I'll probably side with the Genesis version over the Saturn), but it just doesn't do anything for me.

 

To be fair, I may give you Rusty Ruin Genesis, however some songs have clear winners for me. In fact here's my list of favorite versions of Sonic 3D Blast songs:

Green Grove - Saturn
Rusty Ruins - Genesis... maybe
Spring Stadium - Saturn
Diamond Dust - Saturn x 1000
Volcanic Valley - Saturn
Gene Gadget - Tie
Panic Puppet Act 1 - Saturn
Panic Puppet Act 2 - Genesis
Boss music - Variation 2 Genesis/Saturn (OBVIOUSLY THE BETA MUSIC THOUGH AMIRITE?)
Final Fight - Saturn
Special Stage - Saturn x 1000

 

As I had stated, IMO the classic music is better. That was admittidly a subjective claim.

But I am curious what others may think about the loss of the prototypical narrative, the watering down as it were. Can we agree that it ever existed? And if so, is the series better off without it, or should it move back towards it, perhaps in a similar fashion to the faithfulness of Super Mario?

 

You can't water down what wasn't really there. SEGA of America chose to see a tale of nature versus machines. SEGA of Japan had a tale of freedom versus authoritarism. As we know, SoJ won. And that's still going on.

Saying the games diluted the message of nature vs technology is only slightly more considerable than saying they diluted the message that it was about socialism versus capitalism.

EDIT: Add in again the rant of "there were humans in the world since the start"

EDIT EDIT: And a further raspberry in your general direction over criticism of Unleashed's art direction

 

But that message of Freedom v.s. Authoritarianism is also diluted to all fuck?

Serious? The franchise as a whole was watered down, including the storylines of both the West and East. If you replace Man v.s. Nature with Freedom v.s. Authoritarianism, his post would still have a point.

+ - Unleashed's art direction still sucks, too.  

 

Twice the raspberries in your face, Greg, plus an order of a horde of French soldiers to insult your family.

Freedom vs Authoritarianism is diluted? How so? It went to the exaggerated extreme of Sonic Adventure 2, where Sonic is not only fighting the bad scientist who wants to rule everything, but also the bad military. Sonic Heroes, you got cities being conquered by Eggman and Sonic fighting. Shadow? 06? Unleashed? Colours? All maintain the theme, heck, Colours takes it to another extreme with Eggman planning to mind-control the entire universe. At the most it gets blurry in Generations, where it's replaced with a personal vendetta.

 

I'll just leave this here to further confuse you and everyone else then:

Spoiler

 

It's generally assumed Sonic is gofast by himself, but there's a certain meta-element-ness that there's something to his shoes, which is what that Unleashed mention was. In classic manuals, it was normally a way to try to explain the speed shoes.

 

How is Sonic '06 supposed to be evidence against my point? That was a good v.s. evil thing with Sonic Christ v.s. the fucking Devil. Which should be obvious considering that the pivotal point leading into the climax is a prayer to the fucking Chaos Emeralds.

After SA2, it all became global domination or get trumped by the monster that's all evil and has to be stopped. It was turning more into really bad kaiju parodies v.s. that one guy that picks on the harmless scientist.

Only in Colours does your point start to take substance again, but considering the piss poor writing that Sonic 3 & Knuckles could shit on, who even cared about the theme anymore when the franchise became this unrecognizable mess of mediocre gameplay and design?

I said diluted, though. I didn't say it was GONE. It just took the backseat to really stupid bullshit.

 

Wasn't it in an interview with someone who worked on the original games at some point where it mentioned that one of the central themes of the games was man vs nature? I think it might have been a concept artist or something and I've spent a good 20 minutes having a look but I'm tired and I really can't find it. I'm sure I didn't imagine it anyway.

The point still stands though that the original games definitely had man vs nature overtones whether you like it or not. It was something that SoA played on but nonetheless something that was already heavily present. This is less obvious in the newer games where it appears Sonic is more at home in cities and techno bases with his goggles and high-tech shoes and hover boards and stuff.

You only need to play the old games, especially Sonic 1, 2 and CD to see this theme played out as a central plot point.

 

Blue eyelids. They were that orangeish color until SA2 and them they went blue for some reason, and seem to have stayed so... same deal with other characters.

 

I see what you're saying, but eyelids, or eye colour for that matter is superficial. The entire series itself ought to be about something. What is it about anymore?

Authoritarianism seems redundant. You could seemingly make the claim that any good v. bad plot has elements of a struggle against authoritarianism, as the villain is usually viewed to be imposing his will upon others. Bowser is authoritarian, Ganon is authoritarian, Squidward is authoritarian.

The series as a whole therefore certainly has elements of authoritarianism. But is merely this the justification for turning anthropomorphic animals into robots, for turning the entire planet into a machine, etc?

 

But it's exactly the games, especially Sonic CD, that go against it. Good future still means a technological future.

You can see the man vs nature subtext in it, yes. Again, you can also see a subtext of socialism versus the industrialist masses. Or you can imagine Eggman is actually helping the animals, protecting them from the environment. A lot of things you can imagine. The only one who remains consistent throughout all the games, though, is that Eggman is trying to establish control of an area, and Sonic is freeing it.

EDIT: Which gets expanded on with the later games, but was already something Sonic Team planned, going by the OVA. Eggman wants to make his Eggman Empire, and whoever lives there be damned. Sonic is out to stop him. This has always been the theme of the games, much like with Mario, whom Sonic was made to compete against. Bowser uses ghost koopas and giant ships, but no-one claims Mario is about nature vs ecto-plasmo-technology.

 

He was making a comment about what bugged him. It has absolutely nothing to do with what bugs you.

And for the record, it bugs me too. The change correlates to when Sonic X came out; I guess there was some reason related to the production of that show that mandated the eyelid color change, and Sega decided to let the tail wag the dog, incorporating the changes into the games. It's kinda bizarre in Generations, honestly, where you have Modern Sonic with blue eyelids and Classic Sonic with fleshy ones.