https://thefantastician.tumblr.com/.../i-think-i-asked-a-question-on-the-wrong-blog Barry is a quokka whatever the hell that is
I haven't played it yet but will get round to it. One thing I do like about the games success is it shows that weird new approaches to Sonic can work and should be pursued if the product is quality. The game may have a positive impact on the franchise going forwards in this respect.
Grab everyone's attention with a meme and then curveball them a lovingly crafted VN with amazing art and some of Sonic's best writing ever, and yeah! Checks out. I've been seeing a lot of people give it a go, including people who don't really play Sonic games. Makes sense, bc the gameplay of this series has a bit of a stench around it, lol. Really hope this brings a future of Sonic VNs. There's not a much better way for people to get their fix on these characters, especially when the games stay largely Sonic only and strictly "action-adventure"y. Would die for character explorations and more unlikely genres.
I would love a sequel to this Sonic Murder game. But next time at least charge it 5 bucks. I want to give money to the entire team for making such a great little spin-off game.
Honestly I think this format is really good for telling these kinds of lighter, almost slice-of-life stories and to provide a vehicle for exploring the characters in a variety of situations that even the comics are unlikely to give to us due to their action oriented nature. They don't even need to have Sonic in them! Hell, they could totally do one of these following someone like Cream, giving them the perfect excuse to roll a Chao Garden into the package as well, or have an honest to god detective noir Chaotix plot and make the whole thing a riff on Professor Layton with puzzles and so on. The possibilities for this kind of thing are massive and would be a great way to fill out the release cycle with lighter titles from smaller teams.
The issue with making a real VN using these characters is you can't really raise the stakes too high. Part of the reason this game works as a VN is because 1. We're not playing as a Sonic character. Not really. The character we're playing is an average joe who doesn't have any superpowers, unlike the rest of the gang. 2. The stakes are very low. Everyone's playing pretend, because otherwise it wouldn't be very fun. By the time the finale rolls around and things get serious, we're not doing any more detective work, it's all action. Maybe I haven't played enough VNs or adventure games, but I don't know of any where the player character has super strength, or can fly, or can climb walls. They tend to be normal people. Because otherwise, that would solve a lot of problems and make normal problem-solving redundant. Also, even the Professor Layton games have scenarios and themes that are perhaps darker and more intense than SEGA would allow for this series. We can't truly have anyone die; at best, they'll move to another dimension or be sealed away. And we can't have much in the way of true interpersonal drama between characters. Now I know some of you will point out dark shit that's happened in the comics numerous times before, but I must stress that a comic and an official game published by SEGA are two different things.
I dunno, Phoenix Wright has alternate paths and outcomes, and that's pretty engaging. A Sonic VN would work as much as a CYOA comic book I feel. Weirdly I think the best example of this is Tyson Hesse's old parody Sonic comic, where Sonic is presented with choices and obstacles to overcome and it's very engaging.
I do think it would be good to use this as a way to introduce more cool new characters and also bring back some more obscure characters we haven't seen in the games in a long time like Gemerl or Sticks.
I think lower stakes are a great thing actually. We currently have a series of comic books, a TV Show and the games themselves for the more series stories. I would even go as far to say that this is one of my biggest problems with Sonic now having a "multimedia continuity". Yeah, you have different stories, but the type of narrative they tell is mostly the same, the only difference is the medium. A visual novel not only could provide a new form of media (While VNs are still videogames, the experience is still different enough from a regular Sonic game for me to consider it a different thing in this case), but also a place for stories with lower stakes. Dragon Ball is a series about overpowered characters too, yet I think that a lot of its best modern stories are the ones that avoid doing the same formula of "battle to save the world" we've already gotten dozens of times before. I mean, the lives of these characters don't always have to revolve around dangerous adventures, they can have fun or solve smaller problems while interacting with the world around them without having to worry about the next giant monster that is going to eat the entire planet or something, they all have personalities and roles you can explore outside of situations we've already seen before
Are you suggesting a Sonic version of Henry Stickmin? Because I'd TOTALLY be down for that. But only if it had the Sonic The Sketchhog artstyle.
Yeah. I think IDW could really benefit from an ongoing Classic style book as well that does more silly stuff. Let more goofy stuff happen like Sonic Mania Adventures.
