Personally I'm fine with Classic Sonic being a sub series of the Sonic series. And I'm fine with the Classic series being a part of a separate universe. Having them as separate characters would solve plenty of issues. It allows Sega to make Sonic games that are light hearted, as well as serious without it being a tonal whiplash such as the jump from Adventure-Unleashed being taken mostly seriously to Colors-Forces being an over the top ridiculous cartoon about the power of friendship and freedom, back to the somber tones of unraveling the destruction of an ancient civilization in Frontiers. And on a gameplay level this can keep things neat and tidy too. Have classic be your basic 2D platformer, and modern can be 3D and more experimental. Classic can be for the 90s fans, the little kids, and the general public that want safe Sonic games. Modern can be for the hardcore fans into the lore and nitpick every detail. Yeah, this does mess with Generations establishing Classic Sonic as Modern's past self, but we can consider this split in the series as a reboot or something, I don't know. That's just my idea of how modern and classic could be handled, and is what I believe Sega is trying to handle it as. Edit - Don't know how hard of swear words we can use on the forums, oops.
He very briefly mentions tone. He talks mostly about the gameplay, game design, game structure, story telling. He also talked about separating both Classic Sonic and Modern Sonic more so that opens up for adding characters like Classic Shadow, Classic Rouge, and bringing back Classic Chaotix. He added that Knuckles can be more of a guardian in the Classic Series and he can be a treasure hunter in the Modern Series. Furthermore, I mentioned art style myself because people do care about it whether they want to admit it or not and there’s nothing wrong with that because art is subjective. Otherwise, Modern Sonic wouldn’t be 3d and Classic wouldn’t be 2D. If we do something different people will complain about it like that have in the past.
Here's something relevant to the discussion at hand: The whole "Sonic from an another dimension" line in Forces was clearly just meant to be a meta reference to the fact that Classic Sonic's games are two-dimensional, and anyone who didn't get it and instead took it as a serious statement on "the lore" or "the canon" needs to do something about their genuinely awful media literacy ASAP.
I kind of like the idea of a classic 2.5d version of Lost World similar to Superstars. And then you get to play as the Deadly Six because why not.
Not buying it. If you listen just a couple lines ahead, Tails talks about how "the power Eggman is using is affecting other dimensions". It could partly be a 2D reference, but he seems to mainly be referring to the seperate world that Classic came from, which isn't supposed to exist. Oh yeah? Well if you don't have my opinion then you're dumb. Wow it's so much easier to argue this way! (I think it's just a bad line.)
Fair enough, could've probably been less confrontational in my wording. I just genuinely believe that it's pointless to get all worked up over a line which clearly wasn't given more than five seconds of thought.
I mean pretty much all of the scripts from Colors to Forces were given about that much amount of thought, for better or for worse. :p
Im pretty sure you're just straight up wrong, considering they recently have been trying to explicitly backtrack that line specifically, and I recall official sources at the time also trying to make the claim that classic sonic was *suddenly* from another dimension as well. And also modern sonic is in 2d plenty himself so I absolutely do not buy this conclusion at all
Ooh, in that case I'd like to hear what your ideal Sonic story would be, if they *had* to do a big story with dialogue and whatnot.
Long story short, I do not think that this series' writing can or should be improved upon that much. Every single story in this entire series has been nothing but a series of excuses to introduce new levels, gameplay mechanics and playable characters, and that's all that mascot platformers should really need. Even irredeemably awful stories like ShTH and '06 only serve to accent the gameplay.
I'm also firmly on the side of, "Classic and Modern should be as distinct as possible." In his video, Pariah actually lays out how this idea of characters from one "side" being re-interpreted through the lens of the other has actually already happened. Espio, Charmy, and Vector were completely redesigned and had their ages, relationships, and personality altered considerably with Sonic Heroes. And personally, I'd love to see the same thing happen in the opposite direction for characters like Rouge or Shadow, giving us a lighter "Classic Universe" version of who they are and how they came to be. It's funny, though. Between Frontiers and Superstars, and how wildly different they are, I feel like Sega is doing a better job of making those distinctions NOW than they ever did before they re-re-canonized "Classic Sonic is the past." It's more important to me that they're distinct brands than distinct canons, but still, I think nailing down Classic as the original and Modern as a re-interpretation is the more interesting way to go, personally. Interesting! I kind of come at it from a more "glass half full" angle, I guess. I agree that Sonic's writing has never, from Adventure all the way to Frontiers, been anything special. But I think a lot of people tend to overlook or downplay the good concepts and ideas of whichever periods they didn't personally grow up with. Currently this is hitting the 2010s hard, but when I first got online the same thing was happening to the 2000s. Basically, I think games like Colors and even (especially!) Forces have just as much potential to mine out of their settings and characters as games that are more appreciated now like SA2 and Unleashed, and in time, I think they similarly will be more appreciated.
It's why I hate the metanarratives of this series that are so prominent in this fanbase. Everyone talks about "potential" unless it's something they don't have any emotional attachment to, and suddenly it's fair game to say it sucks. I have very little love or care for most of the 2010 stuff, but that doesn't mean I never wanna see it again either. I'd be more than fine with Wisps showing up every now and then as opposed to every game for instance.
Yea you aren't entirely wrong :p. Although clearly some games had a bit more thought put into their scripts then others. But at the end of the day I'm a gameplay first guy when it comes to Sonic so eh. A good story is just a cherry on top of that.
I used to have "potential"! I used to have "passion and effort"! But then they changed what "passion and effort" were! And now, what has "potential" seems weird and scary to me! It'll happen to yoooouuuu
The game must have at least a story to give the game a sense of place and progression. Sonic Mania didn't have that, and it's why it always felt so off to me.
