Is the tone of Colors really that bad?

[Kuzu]

I wish you can tell this to the critics and the non-Sonic fans who thinks that Sonic games shouldn't have a story.

[Aquaslash]

You can make your narratives for everyone without having facepalm-inducing corniness like BBBE and Baldy McNoseHair,

I found those pretty funny

[Kuzu]

This topic is kind of irrelevant now as the latest trailer for Generations shows that the game will at least take itself a bit more seriously.

[Aquaslash]

If this ends up as boring as Unleashed, I will hunt all of you down :|

[Octarine]

I don't think there was much in that trailer that the tail end of Colours didn't do. Well... maybe Sonic looking a bit distressed, but an argument could probably be made that in Colours he was just putting on a brave face. Not that I don't expect Generations to be a little more serious, but I'm sure it'll fall within the same ~realm~ of tone as Colours.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

If this ends up as boring as Unleashed, I will hunt all of you down :|

[Aquaslash]

We've got:

• Perfect Chaos destroying a city...again

• Silver throwing cars and a mountain of debris at Sonic

• Eggman in his Egg Dragoon really taking things up a notch from last time

• and tons of other things that happened all throughout this series history.

How the hell would it be like Unleashed?

...

Okay, there's still some doubt, but still...

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

I mean the story man, =P. Unleashed had tons of awesome things going for it gameplay wise (Especially those werehog finishers!), but anything that wasn't an Eggman cutscene was pretty skippable.

I was talking about the story too. We've got a lot more than just a few characters we did at the start of Unleashed, so I'm confident it's going to be more intense.

[Kuzu]

^^There's also the fact that Sonic actually talks in the cutscenes instead of having a look of indifference.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

^^There's also the fact that Sonic actually talks in the cutscenes instead of having a look of indifference.

In addition to the fact that we have new writers for the game, who weren't around for Unleashed's story. Things are stacking more into Generation's favor if anything. We just have to hope it all pans out once released

[Diogenes]

We've got:

• Perfect Chaos destroying a city...again
  
• Silver throwing cars and a mountain of debris at Sonic
  
• Eggman in his Egg Dragoon really taking things up a notch from last time
  
• and tons of other things that happened all throughout this series history.
  

These are all just disconnected events. Cool on their own, but unless they tie into a unified story (which I highly doubt) they don't mean much.

[Nepenthe]

I'm more confident in their characterization than anything as that's guaranteed to be top-notch. But with all of the "light story" confirmation I'm still cautious about the actual narrative, even with Perfect Chaos looking all bad-ass.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

These are all just disconnected events. Cool on their own, but unless they tie into a unified story (which I highly doubt) they don't mean much.

Things are too ambiguous to make that conclusion. But disconnected or not, I seriously doubt the plot is going to be anything like Unleashed if not for those very things and then some.

[Octarine]

The real problem I had with Unleashed was the pacing. I liked the hubs and didn't mind the Werehog for what they were, but they did their job of lengthening the game a little too well, and by the time I reached a cutscene I'd often forgotten what had happened in the last one. I guess you could blame that just as much on bland writing and immediate objectives that always boiled down to 'collect the bits', but the story still felt like it was stretched a little thin by the gameplay.

Generations' more streamlined approach should make that a relative non-issue, just as it was in Colours. Colours kind of squandered that asset by having too few cutscenes, but based on what we've gotten from the Generations demo that hopefully shouldn't be an issue here.

[Gaming Misfit]

Sorry for being late to respond.

I never said Sonic doesn't need a story or a "good" story. I said I really don't mind seeing some jokes in a series that revolves around a blue hedgehog. It just doesn't need a serious plotline because that doesn't work and is rather laughable *looks at Shadow the Hedgehog*

Chill.

EDIT: Hmmm...just looked at the original post, so I can see why you all thought that. Allow me to rephrase, Sonic's story does not come over his gameplay. The story can be light, and I don't see why jokes are bad in it. It only makes Sonic look TRULY stupid when people try to take him seriously.

[Nepenthe]

I don't understand why people who are against "serious storylines" (e.g. stories where something actually happens and there's some semblance of tension since Eggman wants to enslave the entire Earth) always automatically assume that everyone wanting that is asking for another ShtH instead of, you know, something like SA1, or heck, even Secret Rings. It's exactly this type of hyperbole that makes almost any discourse involving this franchise frustrating beyond all reason.

[Aquaslash]

"Serious stories" for me implies the garbage that was 06 and Shadow. I'm only guessing it implies the same for most others as well. I'd much rather have fun stories than serious ones. I'm not coming to these games to be emotionally moved. I just wanna play a game.

[Nepenthe]

I didn't say anything about being emotionally moved. I really don't want Pixar. But neither do I want another storyline like Colors where I have nothing to look forward to but excessive jokes- a lot of them terrible- completely wasted potential for conflict, and dropped tangents until we get some 11th hour destruction and finally some actual adrenaline, which in turn is anticlimatic anyway because it wasn't supported well by the previous narrative. Apparently, this is the only franchise nowadays in which people assume the storylines' tone can only be Edgar Allen Poe levels of depressing when you bother doing or advocating interesting events or even writing properly.

I mean, honestly. Sonic is pretty much a superhero, living in a world of ultimate power sources, alternate dimensions, and robotic armadas and shit. And people want to relegate the entire universe to nothing but comedy? :|

[Aquaslash]

I didn't say anything about being emotionally moved. I really don't want Pixar. But neither do I want another storyline like Colors where I have nothing to look forward to but excessive jokes- a lot of them terrible- completely wasted potential for conflict, and dropped tangents until we get some 11th hour destruction and finally some actual adrenaline, which in turn is anticlimatic anyway because it wasn't supported well by the previous narrative. Apparently, this is the only franchise nowadays in which people assume the storylines' tone can only be Edgar Allen Poe levels of depressing when you bother doing or advocating interesting events or even writing properly.

I mean, honestly. Sonic is pretty much a superhero, living in a world of ultimate power sources, alternate dimensions, and robotic armadas and shit. And people want to relegate the entire universe to nothing but comedy? :|

Aside from the moment where Tails was used as a test dummy for Eggman's mind ray, there wasn't really kind of conflict that needed to be portrayed. Sonic Colors's bosses were pathetically easy, and up until the very last one, Sonic was implied to be curbstomping them just as badly as the player was.

[Kintor]

Aside from the moment where Tails was used as a test dummy for Eggman's mind ray, there wasn't really kind of conflict that needed to be portrayed. Sonic Colors's bosses were pathetically easy, and up until the very last one, Sonic was implied to be curbstomping them just as badly as the player was.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

EDIT: Hmmm...just looked at the original post, so I can see why you all thought that. Allow me to rephrase, Sonic's story does not come over his gameplay. The story can be light, and I don't see why jokes are bad in it. It only makes Sonic look TRULY stupid when people try to take him seriously.

Let's get this out of the way.

What those of us advocating "serious stories" really want:

• A story that builds the character
  
• Has a level of intensity that that makes us want to know what happens next
  
• Darker elements handled well and not exist for the sake of being dark
  
• Lighter elements to balance out the dark and relax the plot at certain intervals
  
• And for all these elements to flow naturally within the plot as it goes on
  
  What we don't want:
  • Anything handled like ShTH
    
  • Anything handled like Sonic 06
    

  This doesn't speak for everyone, but it is ridiculous that whenever those of us actually want something intense and it happens to be something you see in more serious plots of other series, it's automatically assumed we want something like the mess that was ShTH. Even worse when those very people completely overlook that we want them to actually be good, and that kind of quality is not something that is bad by default simply because it's on the dark end of the light/dark spectrum.

[Kuzu]

These are all just disconnected events. Cool on their own, but unless they tie into a unified story (which I highly doubt) they don't mean much.

This is true, but considering the severity of said events I'm pretty sure they can't just leave events like that disconnected, its one thing in Colors where there are probably one or two scenes that are plot related, compared to everything CSS posted.