Heroes was also the first Sonic game for PS2/Xbox and I imagine the flanderization was intended as a way to make it crystal clear to potential new fans (who would've been kids) what these characters are like. That might even explain Shadow's whole amnesia arc, as it allowed Sega to re-introduce Shadow while not having to explain to those people who Maria was. I think the Amy argument should just end with a truce that Heroes' story sucks :P
I get what you're saying, but most of this can be handwaved in other ways unrelated to character progression; it's a game about friendship, so the main trio all being best friends only makes the most sense. Shadow effectively gets a character reset with his amnesia and the events of SA2 aren't directly followed up on until the next game. The only one that makes sense is Metal Sonic as his whole thing assumes you know who he is, and even that barely touches upon prior events. Like I said, I think it's hyperbolic to say Amy was ruined by Heroes, but I also don't see it as some big character overhaul for her either. Heroes was designed as a simpler game to introduce the cast and establish their core traits to a newer audience who never played Sonic games before. Sonic is the hero, Tails is his less confident sidekick, Knuckles is Sonic's other, less important sidekick, and Amy is a plucky who likes Sonic. Etc etc.
Most of my points had little to nothing to do with that tho. I hear this often but Shadow and the question of his memory isn't even just a random concept they slapped onto him in Heroes. He had that in SA2 itself. Heroes is actually very good about continuity and callbacks to previous games. Such as Amy and Big mentioning to Cream about their attack on the Egg Carrier when they get to Final Fortress, or Shadow commenting on how he feels at home at artificial places like Grand Metropolis. Sonic and Shadow's encounter assumes you have some idea of Shadow, as does Team Sonic's conversation about how he's supposed to be dead after SA2 in the following level. I wouldn't go as far as to say she was "overhauled" but there was definitely substantial tweaks to her in Heroes going forward since that game. From that point on, Amy would be presented as an assertive and confident individual as a capable fighter in her own right rather than more of a tagalong like in SA2 for example. Whether it was Battle, the Advance games, Sonic X, etc. Amy very much was shifted in terms of overall direction in a way that logically progressed from where her trajectory was in SA1. She is again a lot more confident and sassy, and is depicted as more of a prominent fighter amongst the cast. It's the point where the idea of people not wanting to get her temper flared up more sort less took more prominent. It's something I enjoyed and it really stems from Heroes and that general period.
Ehh, the Deadly Six are still really strange villains to me. I think it's mainly the character designs themselves feeling more Mario-esque to me. I do agree that Lost World was...a messy introduction however. I think my biggest issue with Lost World's narrative is that it feels like a worse re-telling of CD's story that throws a lot of exposition at the player without really elaborating on it. CD gives the player enough context to care about what is going on in it's manual and opening/ending FMV. Eggman is up to no good and has chained this planet down. Go stop him! It's a bit of a gross simplification of the story-telling that I think CD does well, but it's very simple at it's core with minimal character interactions. Lost World has more going on in it's narrative in terms of character interaction, but there's a lack of context for the player to care. What is the Lost Hex? Screw you, we're not explaining. Where did the Deadly Six come from? Screw you, we're not explaining. How did Eggman get this item that controls the Zeti? Screw you, we're not explaining. It's a shame too because I guess my unpopular opinion here is that I think some of the ideas that Lost World has in it's narrative is interesting. I like the idea of a narrative where Sonic actively makes a situation worse by making a poor call. It'd actually allows a narrative where Eggman has reason to criticize his actions. Tails also having doubts about what Sonic is doing is interesting too, but kinda messy (it's been a bit since I checked out Lost World, but Tails doubting Eggman when he's probably the second best life-line they have at that point is strange).
Pretty much in full agreement with you. I believe character designs has more to do with people not liking them more than anything. And even then I feel a lot of the negative view of their character design would be less severe if they weren't introduced in Lost World, as I think a lot of people view their "Mario-ness" as a byproduct of Lost World association more than anything. In my personal opinion, the Deadly Six look more like something out of NiGHTS or something than Mario. Conceptually, a group of 6 deadly monsters that want retribution against Sonic and Eggman for messing with them is a fine idea. Especially compared to other things Eggman messed with that usually are lacking in the personality department or motive directly related to the actions of the characters in question. The Deadly Six have a lot of utility and application in my eyes, as their ability to manipulate EM fields and thus Eggman's robots, allowing them to do things with them Eggman himself couldn't is a neat ability that makes them a neat 3rd faction in the Sonic vs Eggman dynamic that can turn everything on its head in a way that makes things feel less obligatory and more motivated. I also like that they are a team of villains rather than just 1 powerful god monster. It means we get character dynamics amongst them as well which is not something we get often. Usually Teamwork is reserved for our heroes. Lost Hex as a setting didn't have any explanation, and I agree it wouldn't have even needed much to be satisfactory. Little Planet is just a weird anomaly that appears over a lake 1 month of the year. Lost hex didn't need much. Just tell us it's where these Zeti monsters were banished to thousands of years ago or something and these conches were a tool used to subdue them in order to do it or whatever. Bam. Easy. But we don't even get that.
It's easily the most infuriating thing about Lost World's story which otherwise I think has some okay concepts. What you wrote is something I absolutely would've accepted if it was thrown into the game as a quick sentence right before Eggman blows that little horn for the first time. There are some decent concepts there, but it feels every time you ask a question about the concepts the game just kinda ignores it. I don't feel Colors suffers from this issue since you're given enough to care about the Wisps and Generations basically explains Eggman broke time to get back at Sonic. You actually do bring up a pretty interesting thing I never realized about the characters with the 'teamwork' interaction they have with one another. It makes it stranger that a majority of them were pushed aside because...they wanted another recurring villain and Zavok was the most interesting of the bunch? They never really experimented with the others. I legitimately can't recall how Team Sonic Racing handwaves the rest of the Deadly Six being absent without looking it up. Zavok is just kind of there by himself, and it strips him of that very concept you find endearing if the others are literally nowhere to be found in Forces/TSR. I never checked out the comics either to really determine if they handle that a bit better there.
The deadly six are much more of a unit in the IDW comics, and though zavok gets a bit more focus as leader at the end of the metal virus, its only because at that point the rest of his team has been taken care of by the heroes. I actually thiink they are decently interesting in the comics, but not like, incredible or anything. I like their dynamics though
The deadly six and lost world as a whole may be the most creatively bankrupt and grasping at straws I have ever seen a long running series be.
Maybe by today's standards, but back in the day there was nothing quite like it. And if you were me and played Unleashed on a CRT, you probably thought God made Sonic real. Because I sure as shit did.
Yeah. Let's not forget the fact that Unleashed is now 15 years old. Of course it's going to be below the standards of a lot of modern games. But it looked fantastic for its time. And aside from a few low res textures, Unleashed can still give any other 3D Sonic game since 2008 a run for its money. The lighting in Unleashed was really on another level. The graphics held Unleashed back, to the point that even Generations sacrificed a lot of visual fidelity just so that it could run better than Unleashed.
My main issue with Unleashed is that its aesthetic is carried almost entirely by the lighting. The actual environments are pretty bland and low-poly. While I wouldn't be as harsh as him, there's an old Polygon Jim post that kind of explains the issues with the look better than I could. From that generation, I think Colors and Generations are both much better-looking games overall, aside from lacking Unleashed's lighting. It's definitely aged better than most games of the era, I will give it that (though for 2008 games stuff like Mirror's Edge and Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise equal/beat it), but I think continuing to act like it's the best-looking Sonic game ever is hyperbolic.
Ehhh I dunno. I think Unleashed definitely doesn't look as good as people say it does, but I don't think that post does a great job illustrating why. Texture quality and polycount aren't what makes something look good or bad. After all, some of the most beautiful games ever made were done with pixel art, even though that's low-fidelity. For me, it's that there's a distinct...smeariness(?) to it. Not just because it forces motion blur on everything, but in how the lower and higher resolution assets clash, which you might not notice if you're not looking, but becomes like a fly buzzing around your head over time. It's really obvious when looking at the way light bounces off the background pieces and objects and makes them look like plastic, doubly so when they're artificially lit-up to be more visible at night. And while the lighting does a lot of work, I think people kind of overrate the art direction. Windmill Isle and Jungle Joyride are easily the best-looking stages in the game, but Rooftop Run, Skyscraper Scamper, Savannah Citadel, and Arid Sands are mostly made up of greys and browns. Nicely lit greys and browns, mind you! The design of Mazuri's giant trees, the heights of Empire City and the deep canyons of Arid Sands help them stand out and creates cool moments, but they're not really all that pleasant to look at when you're just doing normal run-throughs. This makes me think that what's plaguing modern Sonic art design is less about the visual style alone and more how the level design uses it. Generations was the last game to really get praise for its visuals, and while I think it has some of the best art in the series, it also managed this by stuffing its stages chock full of unique environmental shapes. Seaside Hill could've used the same textures as in Heroes but would still look better because the shape of the mountains, canyons and ruins that you're running through is in constant shift over the course of the stage, no two areas look quite alike. This is also why a lot of the Adventure games' environments still hold up. By contrast, Lost World, Forces, and Frontiers' Cyberspace feel at many points like they're put together using level tilesets or reusable pieces, like the classic games of old. This is probably more efficient! But there's no naturalism to the way they feel to travel through, it's incredibly artificial and would probably still feel that way even if it had every art trope straight from Unleashed. A lack of real setpieces compounds this, and I think Forces would've fared better had it packaged the ones it had with proper length to its stages.
Adding to what Shaddy said about something being low poly not meaning it looks bad: Jim himself acknowleged it looks good in motion and Unleashed's day stages notoriously will always be in motion, for better or worse. They just took advantage of that and directed the visuals with that in mind. It's just smart on their part. On the other hand though, whenever someone brings up how pretty Unleashed is, it's always the same three stages: Apotos, Adabat and Chun-nan. Which do look good even today. But I never found Holoska or Eggmanland impressive at all in 2008, and I sure don't like them better fifteen years later. And you'll spend a lot of time in Eggmanland. That is, I do think Unleashed's best visuals were pretty good then and are pretty good today, but overall I don't think it was ever that beautiful either. Still, whatever tricks it uses are all in its favor, and them being tricks doesn't mean anything.
Speaking of Unleashed's visuals, can I just say that I truly detest the game's human designs? Everyone always brings them up as examples of how humans should look in Sonic, but I think that's really only because they're cartoony, which isn't the same as actually fitting with Sonic's style. And beyond that, people invoke Pixar to describe them a lot, but they just look really rubbery and their expressions can be off-putting at times. I don't remember Pixar's movies having dead-eyed stares. Professor Pickle is the only one that doesn't give me any weird vibes, and that's because they basically stylized his face off. I have no idea why the only human they ever let Ohshima or Uekawa design for the games was Eggman.
Yeah I think I said it before but good lord do the human look atrocious in Unleashed. And since we’re on that topic, that’s one of the reasons why I can’t really consider Unleashed « the best looking Sonic game » or whatever: the environment might be beautiful but you have these eyesore of character designs populating them, and it just ruins the whole thing They look super out of place next to Sonic, and somehow manage to look awkward with the werehog too, despite the fact it was created specifically for this game. And as Shaddy mentioned people bring up Pixar all the time but I just…don’t see it? They don’t look like Pixar characters, they look like the chinese Pixar bootlegs you find in the clearance bin of your local supermarket, lol Call me a weeb but I think the best human designs we’ve had by far are the anime looking ones from Adventure/Sonic X, period
Unleashed humans are Jimmy Neutron jank if you ask me. Honestly I feel Unleashed is only partially better than 06 as far as artstyle awkwardness goes. It's saved by its lighting and not having a hilariously awful Sonic model but he just still looks weird to me next to (a good attempt at) photo-realistic Greece in just the same way he looked weird next to (a not so good attempt at) photo-realistic Elise. To be fair SA2 has this problem as well but Dreamcast limitations save it somewhat. SA1 humans are preferable but still not perfect and suffer a bit from generic animeness like Unleashed humans do generic westerness. Sega should've taken a page out of their own book a long time ago.
I like sonic 4's music actually, its very simple, catchy and effective, even if a little crusty.(maybe im just biased towards korg triton sounds) if not for it, i probably wouldnt have started to make music myself. EP2 in particular has some real hits.
