Knowing the Sonic fanbase, even if they priced a Sonic dating sim at a mere five dollars it'd still be the most profitable game of all time.
Can I date Rouge? Asking for a friend. Which is why I worded it that way, because clearly what I mean is can my friend date Rouge?
After I enjoyed the Homestuck VNs so much I wanted to create a farcical, slightly mean-spirited Sonic "friendship simulator" of my own, but I kinda got the wind knocked out of me when Murder of Sonic turned out so surprisingly good.
I don't give a fuck about a "true" Sonic Fighting Game, but I will never pass up on the chance to say that I want a Sonic smash clone but it usually comes with the suggestion of the game having a very strong single player comparable to Brawl's subspace or 3ds' Smash Run. I just think it would be a really fun time.
Apparently my bestest friend in the whole wide world is a "Sonic shouldn't take place on Earth" type, which really surprised me, as much like me he's a youngster who really likes the 2000s era stuff.
I think the movies might be changing what 'Sonic taking place on Earth' means exactly. The SA2-SHTH-06 worldbuilding certainly isn't realistic especially compared to real-ass Montana. I could see how the 2000s games could seem just as fantastical as the classics to younger fans.
Sonic Team, in 1998: "Sonic was always on Earth." Also Sonic Team, in 2003: "Sonic is from an alternate dimension."
I never liked "Sonic was always on Earth" dogma. What they did with it was really poor too, because nothing in Sonic resembles even an imaginable alternate Earth. They kind of tried reflecting some sort of liberal, end-of-history utopia that matches the 90s zeitgeist so that they don't have to deal with anything that actual Earth is like, but it ultimately falls really flat. I'd much have preferred the stories to remain contained to remote, mythical, never-before-seen islands in the Pacific or something without worldwide implications like blowing up the moon or shattering the entire planet. The themes would've been kept more cohesive -- the only big cities are the ones Eggman builds, scope is limited, humans exist but are something like a legend to them etc. World-within-a-world type of stories (even if examples about "magical societies" like Harry Potter or the Fate franchise run into their own problems) fare better.
Nah. The human and non-human sides of Sonic's world are too segregated as-is. If I'm honest, I think the interplay between humans and furries in the series should be as out-of-focus as possible unless they're going full Archie and establishing that Eggman is kind of the norm and most humans are just kinda racist (and it's easy to see that they're not interested in that avenue, and why). I feel like "world where humans and also cartoon animal people both exist" shouldn't be that big a deal, and while the inconsistency is bothersome, the idea that places like City Escape and Speed Slider can somehow coexist on the same planet is cool to me. You want Sonic's world to be full of surprises. Nothing that I've ever seen of trying to tie all the games together is such a big deal that it's worth trying to cut the locations apart, especially given how unestablished two worlds is as a concept.
Classic Eggman builds his own replacement moon for fun while turning the oceans to oil and setting islands on fire. Him blowing up the moon is thematically cohesive and whether or not it's Earth or Mobius' moon really doesn't matter anyway. Are the themes fixed now? Sounds just as dark to me!
Yeah, actually that makes it better for me. It's cleaner. What you're talking about I'd call tone, even though I don't know if that's the right word, and yeah that's aligned with whatever Eggman does. I'm not talking about that-- I'm talking about how he invaded South Island, West Island and Angel Island (kinda nondescript locations that could exist somewhere like in myths or something, and make up the "area of effect" of the stories) not Kiribati, Tuvalu and Fiji (places that exist). Or even Biritaki, Vuutal and Jifi (which, ok, is what Unleashed does). Because if you're going to tell everyone it's on Earth and then not add anything that resembles Earth or any imaginary version of it -- if you're going to say the whole world is now united under a Federation and it's going to literally fall apart, but that's incredibly vague (what world is that, even?), doesn't tell anything about our own world and contributes nothing to whatever the games are talking about... what is that adding to the story anyway? It's Earth, but doesn't function like Earth in any way or doesn't show it. Might as well just be somewhere else and it doesn't matter one bit. It's exactly like you said. Games in the Adventure era look and feel just as otherworldly as the classics, except they invoke super larger than life topics that don't really resonate because it's kinda shallow. The insistence on "but it's Earth!" does nothing for me. EDIT: So I have to ask the reverse question: what gets fixed or better because it's set on Earth?
...They called it Earth because that's the default answer. Why would it not be Earth? You don't have to rename the entire planet in your series just because your environments are weird-looking and have different names, or because fantasy concepts exist. And I mean. Come on. The UF is America. Look at the flag. You're really telling me that nothing here resembles Earth? I've seen way weirder versions of Earth in fiction without it stretching the bounds of believability...because like, of course it's Earth. If the planet's not allowed to just be Earth, then you're either implying that Earth does not exist in this universe (why would they want that? it's clearly not holding them back at all) or that the world exists separate from and in comparison to Earth (which is pointless when they're so similar, unless you're doing a story about that like in Sonic X).
The reverse question isn't relevant to me. I'm not the one insisting there's some kind of tonal difference if you call your fantasy earth Earth instead of something else. If anything I'm just sick of SA2 and the other 2000s games getting the blame for what's always been canon.
I'm not insisting there's a tonal difference either. Said as much. I'm insisting it's yet another example of SEGA creating a weird rift full of questions that never needed to be asked. "But it's always been like this actually" means little because that canon needed enough clarification at some point and still creates discussions even among fans much younger than me, or maybe us. But at the end of the day it's more about the shift from stories that take place Somewhere to stories that implicate The Whole World than whether that world is Earth or not, which is maybe tied to many other discussions about stories in the Adventure era we've all had before. This particular issue is just a drop in the ocean.
I think the Adventure games still take place in this Somewhere you talk about. City Escape and Radical Highway are inspired by San Francisco, Casino Night Zone is inspired by Las Vegas. There's still inexplicable fantasy adventure stuff like rockets in pyramids, naturally-formed pumpkin mountains etc.
I love the rocket station in pyramid base, i have nothing to add to the conversation, but I just think its really funny
I agree about Adventure. Even Perfect Chaos' flood doesn't reach outside Station Square iirc. Heroes takes place Somewhere too. The games pushing for a greater, all-encompassing scale aren't that many if you think about it, but they are there. SA2, Shadow, (06 but not quite), Unleashed, Lost World and Forces? That's about it, I think.
This is such a non-problem, though. How many stories have we seen that take place on "Earth" despite obviously differing from reality? Like, an overwhelming number of anime, comics and cartoons? I'm tabbed out of a Dragon Ball rewatch right now, and somehow it gets by an infinitely-weirder and less accurate version of Earth than Sonic without breaking any immersion, because why would this even be an issue? "It's always been like this" is only a thing that needs to be said for Sonic because they tried to change it. Every single person on the planet understood that Sonic's world was functionally "Earth" until SEGA decided to say it wasn't.
OK, I think I maybe understand what you actually mean now. That the world of SA2 and beyond is too big and interconnected? Like the setting accounts for too much? Ehh maybe so but I would argue 3&K started that trend, not to mention I just don't think it's an inherent problem personally. SA2 is technically kinda about a government conspiracy but it's not like the story particularly indulges in that aspect. It's still mainly a ploy to get a Dark Sonic Clone Guy and Femme Fatale Spy Bat into the story.
