I honestly don’t care for Seaside Hill Modern. It’s one of my least preferred stages in Generations. People just like how ambitious it is with all these thousands of paths and how you can water run to cut corners and stuff. That doesn’t really mean much to me if I don’t find what I am actually doing to be all that fun. And I find that for some reason, I just generally don’t care for playing through the level design in that stage. Like some of the platforming you can’t flow through , the cannons which take too long to get into, the entirety of the kart section which thankfully is optional. Also at 2:26, this particular “passivity trap” as some would call it is very annoying to me for some reason. It is a 50/50 if my muscle memory will kick in with this one specifically and I don’t know why.
It probably isn't popular... But for more downbeat, lower scale stories, Sonic could use a stronger comedic identity. I don't know what makes the series tick in regards to its humor, it just throws stuff at the wall.
Not sure how much I want “comedy” to be a focus, but if I think of funny things that exist in Sonic that I enjoy and don’t make me cringe: Sonic making a face at Tails when he asks if Sonic saw the Egg Carrier transform. Knuckles getting knocked off the pillar in Launch Base. Mania Adventures is too heavy on the jokes to be a perfect representation of the tone I like, but they’re all fine if it’s in moderation. The OVA is good. Very of-its-time anime humor, but I loved it as a kid and find it tolerable now. —— And that’s about it actually. It’s not that I will actually chuckle from the things I mentioned, but I think it’s pretty accurate for what I wouldn’t mind seeing in Sonic media. Anything post-06 is too slapstick and silly for me. I’m sure there’s a scene or two in Unleashed that makes me crack a smile (Eggman gesturing with the sandwich comes to mind), but it’s not what I’d want to see.
The annoying thing about Boost-era slapstick is that they clearly want to be like western cartoons with Sonic talking aside to the camera like Bugs Bunny, or Chip dying from shock and his ghost flying back into his body, which would be fine, but they don't get it. They have a basic understanding of the punchline, but they don't understand setup, delivery, or payoff. They don't understand comedic timing and what makes those cartoons actually work. It's like watching a space alien try to imitate human behavior.
I agree about the english voice acting sucking but I think the tone is only really praiseworthy in the context of Sonic 06 happening right before it. Is it really true to the series outside of that context? I'm not really sure. Sincerity is always appreciate over the awful humor in the later games but imo even the clas still have a lot more bite to them than this.
Mania is really lighthearted fare. It's really earnest and not buried in irony. But if that's considered too "heavy" on the comedic side, I guess Sonic just doesn't need comedy in general. It just needs to be like, I dunno, a story where it tells a plot with the bare minimum of cutscenes to gameplay ratio.
Speaking of comedy! I don't think this'll be echoed at all, but I actually enjoy the brainrot comedy people are doing with Sonic these days on TikTok and Instagram. Except for the fact that it's made with AI. There's that. Which really sucks. But like seriously. Behind, well, all the brainrot, I find the characterization genuinely interesting for a "neutral-state" world that's able to accommodate characters that, in the official series, only ever exist or interact in exceptional circumstances. I do find myself laughing at Tails as a kind of know-it-all, impossible to please jerk that gets bullied by a (surprisingly fitting) petulant and petty Shadow; and a level-headed but positively insane Knuckles is so much better than any mixture of dumb and angry we usually get in the more lighthearted material!
Mania Adventures (the YouTube animation series), not Mania proper. I like Mania Adventures a lot - it’s my favorite non-game Sonic media since at least the OVA, maybe ever - but its tone as a series of comedy shorts wouldn’t work for my ideal type of game. It’s perfect for what it is, but I wouldn't point to it and be like, “Make a game exactly like this.” Quick edit: I forgot Shadow Dark Beginnings was a thing… hmmm, they’re probably all tied then.
I think Sonic Origins is fine. I think the same of it's music, especially carnival night zone. I absolutely hate original carnival night zone music.
This is going to be very unpopular I imagine but I don't actually mind use of AI VA for braiinrot memes. It's just a joke. I think most people like myself can separate stupid memes you aren't supposed to take seriously with the massive problem AI poses in the industry. AI does suck big time in that respect. It's just I do find some AI VA based memes really funny, like the Persona 3 cast memes which were done a year ago or so.
AI memes pale in comparison to YTPs. One of the first videos I watched on youtube was a sonic generations YTP.
I like the Akon remix of Sweet Dream. I want to hate it, but I can't. I genuinely think it's better than the original.
I agree. It's still got its foibles but I feel it's a really convenient way of playing the classics on home consoles. I fired up Amy in CD the other day and had a total blast wrecking everything with her hammer. The replacement music in 3K never bothered me much either, I've become very fond of Ice Cap actually!
I don't mind the replaced music in Sonic Origins, I have grown to love the new tracks. Sonic Origins is a great collection to play the classics on consoles and I would recommend it to anyone who is new tot the series. In fact I recommended Sonic Origins to my nephew not too long ago.
I don't mind any of the tracks compositionally, but it's incredibly frustrating to me how they're based off the PC version MIDIs and are instrumented like shit, when the Prototype Build versions exist and are so, so dramatically better.
That, and the fact that the entire S3K soundtrack in Origins is filtered to sound very low quality for some reason. I'll always maintain that Origins is the going to be best, most approachable way for almost everyone to play the Classics. Do arguably better versions exist? Yes. Are those versions going to make a difference to 90+% of the audience, come neatly in a single package and be playable without mods/roms/sideloading/decomps/old ports that aren't readily available? No. I have no reason to play any other version of the Classic games anymore. Origins gives me what I want.
I really wish SEGA were in the business of just letting fans hand over their mods and patch them into the games officially. Origins+ with Ultrafix would've conquered the world by this point, to say nothing about everything I use for the Adventure games and Frontiers. I completely forgot muffle mode even happened on S3K until Blue mentioned it. Whenever I talk to new fans (which happens a lot on the Sonic reddits), I always recommend Origins, Mania and Superstars for 2D, along with Colors, SXSGens, Forces and Frontiers for 3D. I think that as far as accessibility goes those are all good choices, but they also completely annoy me due to wanting to recommend all the mods with them (except for Mania and SXSGens, which are basically perfect vanilla).
