Sonic: Should Story Matter?

[Ryannumber1gamer]

This is a thread I made back before the forum wipe, and it ended up getting wiped so I'm going to remake it. It won't be like the other one though, as this time, I'm going to mention some of the spinoffs as well.

That said, to get to the bottom of the question, we should first look at the other games in the series and determine the story and if it was actually good or not.

So with that:

The Genesis Era:

The original Sonic games didn't have much story in them, apart from Dr.Ivo Robotnik deciding to cause trouble and Sonic runs off to stop him. To be fair, this was the norm back in those days. The only exceptions were RPGs and Adventure Games. Other than that, games, especially platformers just weren't expected to have a story in it. There was a little story in the manual, but of course other than that, there was nothing.

But here's the thing, Sonic actually did begin to step up it's game when it came to story, a really great thing compared to the other games of that time. 

It all began with Sonic CD, which introduced a story of Robotnik creating a robotic Sonic loyal to him in order to capture the time stones, and Little Planet. It was the most complex of stories, but compared to other games at the time, you can't really fault it for a first attempt. It gave the player a bit more motivation to play the game, especially with introducing a character who gets kidnapped in the story with Amy. 

But the true game that deserves credit is this one:

Sonic 3 & Knuckles is a game that really does deserve some credit, because they managed to make a good story but keep it subtle. Between Sonic & Tails going up against Knuckles and Robotnik, Robotnik's eventual betrayal of Knuckles and Knuckles' redemption by helping Sonic, and the epic boss battle between Hyper Sonic and the Death Egg Robot in space, along with the lore behind Angel Island and the Echidnas, it really was a great little story for the time.

Now, before we move onto the games, it's time to move onto a few other sources before we jump to the Spinoff/Adventure era.

 

TV Era (90s Edition)

Here, we've got two different examples to mention here. Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog didn't have much of a story, other than a bunch of self contained episodes where Sonic & Tails jump into random adventures against Robotnik's random robot of the week. The exception to this was one story arc where Robotnik attempted to take the chaos emeralds and transform himself into...well....

.....yeah, the less said about that, the better....

But being serious, as much as I honestly dislike this approach (Personally, I just don't like the extremely silly cartoons where the jokes is really just a bunch of random events occurring), I can't really blame them for the approach they took. This was during Sonic 1/Sonic 2. There wasn't much of a template for how a Sonic cartoon should be handled. Luckily, Sonic fans did get two versions to compare. The overly silly. Then...the overly serious.

 

Sonic SatAM is usually regarded as the best Sonic series, due to the dark themes, the darker take on the characters, especially Robotnik, and the characters introduced, like Sally, Bunnie, Rotor, Antoine, and Snively. 

Personally, I know I used to love this series when both SatAM and Adventures of Sonic was airing on Pop! in the UK, but with that said, It's been years since I've seen either series. I remember really enjoying the stories in SatAM while just being really meh on Adventures of Sonic. My favourite SatAM episode personally was probably the one where Robotnik manages to gain a power that allows him to brainwash Sally and Bunnie and Sonic has to gain a magical power to save them, but I digress.

SatAM in my opinion, was a really successful take on Sonic, where the characters got good personality and character development, and it showed that despite the premise of a bunch of talking animals fighting a guy who looks like a egg, it can be done in a serious tone that while still watchable for kids, adults can enjoy it as well, unlike the really silly AoStH.

And then this happened:

Sonic Underground happened. Imagine taking Sonic SatAM. Now imagine watering that down incredibly, remove all the SatAM characters, and Tails. Give Sonic a brother and sister who's voiced by Urkel himself. Oh by the way, if you thought having Urkel voice Sonic was bad enough. How's that voice about hearing that from three main characters, including having it be turned female to fit his sister?

Hint: IT'S NOT A GOOD IDEA.

But you wanna know how you make that worse? How about turning it into a show focused all about music. Because of course, Sonic the Hedgehog is the natural video game character that you imagine singing to solve his problems right?

But again. I digress. The story in Underground was again more or less self contrained in each episode, with a few elements carrying from episode to episode, such as Knuckles becoming a character in the series and I believe an arc or two based around Knuckles. But as a whole, Underground honestly isn't that memorable for me, and I can barely remember the story in these episodes, besides them trying to find their mother, Sleet and Dingo not really fitting in as Robotnik sidekicks, and a Sonic 3 adapt that for some reasons brings in elements from the Archie series.

Moving on, there's still two more things to mention.

 

Archie Sonic (Penders/Bollers era)

This is terrible. This is terrible. This is terrible.

Did I mention this is terrible?

This is how you don't do a Sonic story. Before Penders came on board, the comic was like SatAM mixed with AoStH. Then Penders came. Basically, the story in this was turned into a complete soap opera between the Sonic characters, especially by #80. The story arcs half of the time was riddled with plot holes, they created characters with no personality whatsoever and shoved them into the comic.

To make it even worse, Penders basically decided to keep nothing of Knuckles' backstory (Here, the echidnas are all alive and well) but also turned Knuckles into his pet, allowing him to overshine Sonic all the time, make Knuckles the hero in stories that he shouldn't be the hero, and more that I won't mention here.

This is how you make a awful Sonic story. Littered with plotholes, idiotic plots, stupid love triangles, characters with no personality (Which includes the Sonic characters, as he couldn't write them for shit), and turn the whole thing into one absolutely terrible soap opera.

But thankfully, another comic at the time did it right.

Sonic the Comic

Now this was a good way to do comics based on Sonic. Basically, Sonic the Comic incorporated a lot of the games lore and characters to make a really fantastic story that remained true to the games but still was it's own product. Between Knuckles' expanded story which remains true to S3&K's lore, and some of the great stories found in the series like the Robotnik Reigns Supreme story, this really was a great comic based on the Blue Blur and really did the Genesis era of games and Sonic Adventure justice. Unlike how Archie Sonic handled it.

and now, we can finally move back to the games.

Adventure Era 

The Adventure games was Sega's first real attempt at creating a story for a Sonic game, and for a first effort, It's really not that bad. There's an overarching plot that drags the six main characters into the game, along with each character getting their own subplot. Tails got a subplot about learning to stand up on your own two feet, Knuckles got a subplot about learning about the echidnas, and why he is the one who must guard the Master Emerald, Amy gets a subplot about doing things herself, instead of doing them for Sonic, Big got a subplot about friendship, and Gamma got a subplot about freedom.

There were some issues, such as lines that aren't voice acted well, and a lot more, but for a first attempt, it wasn't bad.

Sonic Adventure 2 is usually regarded as one of the games that either has one of the best stories in the series, or is a plot hole ridden mess. Personally, I think it's good, not perfect mind you, but good. It showed us the perspectives of both the heroes and villains, it introduced Shadow (Who at the time had a really tragic backstory) and Rouge (One of my favourite characters) But it really did show these characters' personalities in a good way. Sonic especially got a lot of time to shine, with lines like ''Whatcha see is whatcha get, A guy who loves adventure!''. Eggman was a true real threat here, holding Amy at gunpoint and everything.

But after the epic story of Adventure 2, Sega decided to calm things down for the next game.

Sonic Heroes was a more lighthearted story when compared to Adventure 2. The story was more like the Genesis games where it's just a bunch of heroes going to stop Eggman because he's done something or has something they want. While it had a few twists and turns with Metal Sonic, it did unfortunately introduce a lot of the plotholes that actually dragged down the series a bit, more specifically Shadow, and him forgetting his past, since it never explains why Sonic, or Rouge just doesn't tell Shadow what occurred in Adventure 2. Speaking of which...

THE DAMN EDGE ERA

This is where the story in Sonic games went off the deep end. Sega were desperate to make the story as edgy and dark as possible. Only to fail miserably and make this game more or less a laughing stock. Between lines like ''WHERE'S THAT DAMN FORTH CHAOS EMERALD'' to ''TIME TO ROCK AND ROLL''. That's on top of making Sonic sound like a 5 year old who's trying to sound super cool but because he's not all edgy and dark like Shadow, then he's just a lame baby who doesn't use epic guns and cars and shout damn a lot because he's not edgy.

That's not to mention how plot hole ridden Shadow is. Between stuff like the G.U.N Commander blaming Shadow for Maria's death...DESPITE seeing G.U.N gun down Maria (No pun intended), but then, and here's the best part. HE THEN BECOMES THE G.U.N Commander in the future. BECAUSE THAT MAKES SENSE.

Then there's the ''choose your path'' bullshit, despite it having a true hero ending anyway which makes the gimmick worthless, the fact the story is just Black Doom bossing Shadow around but despite your choices, if you choose to always pick the hero path, he won't ever call Shadow out, or the entire fact that this entire fucking game could have easily resolved it's story if either Sonic, Knuckles, Rouge, or Tails would just tell Shadow what fucking occurred on the A.R.K in SA2.

But things got worse. Much much worse.

What do I even say about this game? What can I even say about this game? We all know what a fucking mess of a story this game has. It's pretty much legendary at this point. I won't spend much time on it since we all know it's issues but, let's just get it over with.

First off, Sonic's story is protecting Elise, the most useless princess ever created, who gets kidnapped every 5 fucking minutes of the story. Then we have Shadow who's for whatever reason working with G.U.N despite the fact they tried to kill him in Shadow the Hedgehog, and then he releases a evil named Mephiles and Shadow must seal him in the present, and then Silver's in the future and is told by Mephiles to go back to the past and kill Sonic because somehow Silver believes that Sonic is the person behind his horrible future.

Then it turns out that Shadow sealed Mephiles in the past because that works somehow despite him being locked up in Prison Island at the time? Then Sonic and Silver become buddies and Eggman is stopped, only for Mephiles to randomly pop up and kill Sonic, to then everyone teaming up to save Sonic because that's the real power of teamwork? and then Elise kisses Sonic and everyone wonders what the fuck Sega were thinking, to finally the saving grace of the entire game's plot being erased from existence.

That was a quick summary and I didn't even mention all of the other stupid crap in there. To put it simply. 06 is where they tried to make everything all epic and grim and have these characters be all serious and have a massive time travel plot that has more plotholes than Archie Sonic, Shadow, and Sonic Heroes combined. It's a terrible story, filled to the brim with awful acting, terrible lines, amazingly stupid plotholes, and is all around awful.

Archie Sonic (Ian Era)

During the time of Sonic 06, the Archie Sonic comics got a new writer named Ian Flynn, and he improved the series extremely. All characters were finally written in character, a good chunk of the throw away characters introduced by Penders and Bollars were thrown away. The stories and arcs actually had events happening in them and had the characters grow and go through character development. This is how you do a Sonic story. Kids can still enjoy it but teenagers and adults can enjoy the character development and the serious tones as well. 

The Boost Era

After the absolute horror that was Sonic 06, Sega finally got things on track with Sonic Unleashed and Sonic & The Black Knight (Which I'll talk about later, right now, I'm focusing on Unleashed)

Unleashed was a return to the fun Sonic stories which could be fun but also have serious themes. The game cut the cast down to Sonic, Eggman, Tails, and Amy. But the story was a lot more simple than Shadow and 06, being a story where Sonic along with Chip traveled around the world and restored each chaos emerald, while also meeting and helping the residents. It was a nice story with some nice themes that fitted Sonic.

and then Sonic Colours happened.

Sonic Colours was where stories in Sonic games began going downhill once again. Not because they tried to be all edgy and epic. No, instead it became far too silly, far too short and the characters' personalities being changed in order to fit stupid jokes. The gap is especially noticeable because Black Knight happened one year before this and that's usually regarded as the peak of Sonic stories in games. We went from that, to Boldy McNosehair. Because that's funny?

That's not to put Colours down, it did have some good jokes like the Eggman intercom moments and some lines from Sonic but the majority of the story felt really silly and just not funny. Even Eggman's plan of brainwashing everyone doesn't work well. We see him use his beam on Tails, but with two full tanks of the brainwash juice, he only manages to control one person (Tails) for about 1 minute at most. 

On top of that, Tails wasn't really brainwashed, and it looked more like he was just Eggman's puppet. 

So how was this plan going to work? If two full tanks was only enough for one minute of brainwashing one person, how much is going to be needed for an entire planet? How can it work when Eggman needs to be right there to command them? How can it work when one person required so much of it? It's just so filled with holes.

But then we get to the place where this lack of story became most apparent

I won't be talking much about Generations....mostly because there isn't much to talk about. Really. The story is like nonexistent in this game. It's barely in there and is littered with stuff like Eggman just randomly finding the time eater in space, no explanation of how Classic Sonic & Classic Tails decided to join up with their modern counterparts, there's two cutscenes of Sonic & Tails remembering Green Hill and Chemical Plant only to drop that for some reason. There's Shadow and Silver who fight Sonic for some reason (Silver tries to claim Modern Sonic is an impostor for some reason). Sonic 06 is still in there for some reason despite being dropped from canon.

But as a celebration of 20 years of Sonic, this story is absolutely bare bones and lackluster. It feels like they're going to make an attempt at giving you fan service at first, with references to Secret Rings, and Colours, and the cutscenes with Green Hill and Chemical Plant but they just say fuck it for some reason after the first two levels and it's just meh all around.

 

Modern Era

I've already described my issues with Lost World's story many many times on SSMB and I'm not going through it all again, but to summarize. Firstly, the Deadly Six were hyped up as Sonic's new greatest enemies and that he'd have a hard time fighting them only for them to be really one note characters, who go down extremely easily on each world you face off against them. Sonic even deals with all six of them in two levels on the final world, with 3 bosses per level. Out of them all, Zavok is the only one who actually gives any kind of personality off, where you can see a little of his relationship with other zeti, such as playing to Zeena's love of compliments and the level of respect between Zavok and Zik.

But my major problem with the story is the characters. Everyone, other than Eggman feels out of character. Sonic is turned into a headstrong idiot who keeps screwing up because he dives into things head first, which is untrue to his character. Sonic is a person who's quick thinking. He doesn't stand around thinking up plans, he comes up with quick actions and plans and does them. But here, they screw it up by making Sonic look like he'll just dive straight in and smash anything he gets the chance to do.

Tails feels like a total brat in the story who keeps claiming Sonic is trusting Eggman over him, that Sonic has no trust for Tails whatsoever, and generally does everything to try make everything about a rivalry between him and Eggman, despite the far bigger threats that are occurring and the fact he clearly sees Sonic not wanting to trust or team up with Eggman, and clearly sees Sonic's disdain for even working with Eggman. It feels like it was shoved in there just to throw in to create drama, despite it not being well done.

But there's also the jokes which fall flat on it's face almost every single time. Sonic runs up to a Zeti, makes a one liner about them, it's not funny. The Zeti are stereotypes, it's not funny. To clarify. Because Zeena's the girl character of the Deadly Six, clearly she must only care about her nails and beauty? OK? Zomom is the fat guy of the group so he only cares about food? OK? That's not even mentioning Zik or Zor. Sega, are you fucking kidding me here? Then we have stuff like the jokes Sonic & Tails constantly throw out is some lame insult at Eggman only for the other to go ''OH GOOD ONE BUDDY HAHAHA''.

Ugh. Next game.

Alright. I'm going to get through this one as quick as possible, seeing as the game hasn't been out for a full year yet. Basically it's a improvement on Lost World, but not by much. There are some fun character interactions in the game, especially between the main four, such as Tails and Sonic discussing if Eggman lost weight during a ride on a lift, Sonic & Knuckles trying to compete with each other, and Sonic impatiently waiting for Amy while she stares at the underwater city, but he doesn't mention a word because he wants her to enjoy it.

But that said, the story still isn't very good. It doesn't describe any of the events of the TV series or how the group met up or became a team or whatever. Sticks is only thrown into the story as a side quest. Shadow is in there for no reason whatsoever other than to act like a asshole to Sonic and claim that his friends are idiots, and then we have stuff like Eggman only being thrown in there at random times so Lyric can take over as main villain, and stuff like random time travel that really has no reason other than Sonic meeting Lyric in the past and that's it.

The ancient echidna and hedgehog ruins aren't explained whatsoever, and almost nothing of what was actually promised to be explained in this game was actually explained. The story is a improvement over Lost World, but that's only very slightly, and even then, that's because of the little character interactions sprinkled in. Other than that, the story is still pretty damn lackluster.

and now we're getting to the worst Sonic story. 

This game is tied with Sonic 06 as bottom of the barrel shit. I fucking despise the story in this game. The story is nonexistent other than Amy's been kidnapped, let's go save her. The jokes are unbelievably terrible in every fucking way. The characters are so far out of character that it's actually baffling, and if there was ever a game to prove to me that Potac and Graff have no fucking clue how to handle these characters, it is this fucking game.

What's my problems? Alright. First off, Shadow is once again thrown in there randomly, only to be randomly brainwashed by Lyric. Amy is fighting Lyric randomly at the start, only to decide for whatever reason to stop fighting him so she can talk to Sonic, because truly the so called leader of the group who is smart, would do something so stupid as that amitrite? Then we get to the stupid jokes like Sonic & Tails arguing about who has to talk to Sticks, almost all of Sticks' lines being idiotic conspiracy theories that aren't funny and fall flat on their face.

And then we have Knuckles.

Knux. Dude. What fucking happened to you. You were one of my favourite characters. You were cool, smart, tough, and then they made you into what they did in this piece of shit story. Bascially, Knuckles is turned into a complete and utter idiot here. I know what you're going to say ''But Ryan! He's an idiot in the Boom series''. No, you see, In the Boom series, he's stupid, but he still has his moments where he acts normal or he can be really funny. Here, he is a full on idiot. He tells Sonic and I quote ''Amy only thinks of me as a piece of meat.....WHICH IS AWESOME''. That's one of the worst lines I've heard come out of this series to date. But every line from him just falls flat on it's face. It's actually amazing how far off the mark they were when they wrote Knuckles in this game.

But I digress.

And with that. I've gone through the majority of games and series (Apart from Secret Rings and Black Knight, which I might do another time.

 

My Opinion

So after all that, what do I think? Should story matter in Sonic? In my opinion. Yes. It should definitely matter. Sonic has had good stories before. He still has good stories right now in things like Archie Sonic. Sonic the Hedgehog can have great stories, and great characters, but these characters need to be the focus of the stories.

In my opinion, what the stories need is a balance. The stories should have a level of seriousness to them. The characters should be the main focus so that when a serious threat arises and these characters are put to the test, they can overcome it. Even if it's Sonic giving Tails and Knuckles inspiration to keep going, or if Sonic is forced to go up against his friends, but with that said, there should be lightheartedness as well. Some jokes and lighthearted friendly moments between the characters should definitely be in there. Take Sonic Adventure 2 for example, even during the serious moments of the story, we did get some nice moments that kept up the excitement but also helped keep things lighthearted, such as Sonic's reassuring ''whatcha see is whatcha get, A guy who loves adventue'' when him and Shadow are racing for the eclipse cannon.

When it gets too lighthearted, it ends up feeling like there's no threat, and no motivation, and that becomes especially worse when the characters are absolutely flanderized to the point where they barely resemble their previous personalities. The stories can become far too simple, and that can heavily effect a game massively. The same way that 06's dark themes made it's story too try hard and too complicated, it also works backwards when the characters and jokes become so childish like in Shattered Crystal that the story becomes too simple, and too boring. That's why I feel that what this series needs is balance between both sides. To find the middle ground between lighthearted and serious. The same way games like Adventure 1, Unleashed, and Black Knight did it.

 

[SenEDDtor Missile]

I definitely do agree with much of what you say, although I also think another point is the issue of what Sonic supposedly should be allowed to tackle and what he can't do before he supposedly becomes too "un-sonicy". Using SA2 as an example, there are people who say that SA2 is too unsonicy because of Shadow's backstory, the corrupt government and government conspiracy, and the more realistic appearance of locations/"realism" in general. I of course find this notion somewhat baffling since frankly it isn't some chore to reconcile the fact that the world of Sonic could have elements of the surreal, fantastic and realistic/down to earth in his world, and plus SOMEONE'S gotta be running things in the background.

What does this have to do with the story though? A lot actually, since this question of what exactly constitutes as "Sonicy" also affects what kind of stories can be told, and my opinion is that this fixation on what is Sonicy also greatly limits what Sonic stories are capable of doing. Now granted that's not to say Sonic should be able to do ANY type of story, since there are some subjects that definitely would not fit so well or can be worked into the Sonic Universe so easily, but I don't think Sonic being a cartoony hedgehog battling an egg-shaped scientist should limit the stories Sonic can be in to only a narrow set of stories that are only lighthearted to the point of being uninteresting, detached, and boring (and excuse bad writing on that basis alone).

Additionally, realistic elements should not be treated as some kind of taboo due to said cartoony hedgehog, but rather something that can be used to examine where things fit in the world of Sonic. Like Eggman could be manipulating things behind the scenes via bribery, blackmail, secret businesses linked to him and media manipulation to get money for his machines or to cover up his crimes to those gullible enough to believe him (Zero Gravity sorta did that with the businesses part). Or it could be used to examine why it seems like Sonic and friends are the only animals around by implicating that there might be some past racial tensions or incidents that occurred between anthros and humans to the point they try to stay away from each other, and Sonic and friends are breaking down the barrier between both to a point. Or even that Sonic's adventuring and rebellious actions might cause public opinion of him to be mixed or have the consequences of seemingly innocent or cool actions on his part become apparent later.

Granted most of the above is unlikely to happen, but hey just saying.

Edited July 17, 2015 by SenEDtor Missile

[Phos]

I have this criticism/praise that for me encompases a lot about a story, or at least how successful it is, I refer to it as a story "being about something".  It's essentially a question if a story has a real theme and has a real point.  It's not a question of being serious vs lighthearted, it's a question of what makes this story worth telling, and it often isn't intuitive to the story's content.

Take Predator, it's a movie where Arnold Schwarzenegger fights an alien in a jungle.  However, it's a story about reckless bravado collapsing the moment it encounters something it doesn't understand.  That's what set it apart from all the knock offs that followed.  

My favorite video game example of this is Demon's Souls.  It's a story about greed.  It blurs what's good and evil till they can look the same.  It's my favorite example because it permeates everything.  

If I were to try and do the same for a Sonic game, Sonic 3 would probably be the easiest and best candidate.  Its major theme is how far the struggle between Sonic and Robotnik goes.  It's not much, but it's something.  Even though it's a fairly short game, you feel the ground you've covered, culminating in the battle in space.  

I definitely do agree with much of what you say, although I also think another point is the issue of what Sonic supposedly should be allowed to tackle and what he can't do before he supposedly becomes too "un-sonicy". Using SA2 as an example, there are people who say that SA2 is too unsonicy because of Shadow's backstory, the corrupt government and government conspiracy, and the more realistic appearance of locations/"realism" in general. I of course find this notion somewhat baffling since frankly it isn't some chore to reconcile the fact that the world of Sonic could have elements of the surreal, fantastic and realistic/down to earth in his world, and plus SOMEONE'S gotta be running things in the background.

What does this have to do with the story though? A lot actually, since this question of what exactly constitutes as "Sonicy" also affects what kind of stories can be told, and my opinion is that this fixation on what is Sonicy also greatly limits what Sonic stories are capable of doing. Now granted that's not to say Sonic should be able to do ANY type of story, since there are some subjects that definitely would not fit so well or can be worked into the Sonic Universe so easily, but I don't think Sonic being a cartoony hedgehog battling an egg-shaped scientist should limit the stories Sonic can be in to only a narrow set of stories as dictated by...some groups.

Hmmm, a world where one person's plan is to take over the world via mad science^tm and be taken seriously for doing so doesn't exactly jibe with one where you might seize power by enacting a military coup d'etat.  I don't exactly think the president from Sonic the Movie needs to worry about being overthrown by a political rival and executed via firing squad.  

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

You forgot the Sonic OVA movie, dude...

Now regarding those examples, you've gotta bear in mind that some of the cartoons in the past don't always age well to today's standards. Example being the slang Sonic uses in both SatAM and AoStH, which can come off as rather dated. They were great for their time, but nowadays a lot of their fondness can be attributed to nostalgia among older fans - as much as I like both cartoons, if I were to put myself in a newer fan's place and watch them, I'd cringe.

Now, regarding Penders' run with the Archie Comic, it seemed less that Penders ignored Knuckles' backstory and that he instead went along with the backstory before bending it into the direction he wanted. Last I recall, he kept the part about Knuckles being the last of his kind, but that he turned it into a matter of perception. That's not excusing all of what he did, but rather that instead of saying Penders ignored Knux' backstory, it would be better to say that he made a huge mess of it instead. If you ask me, Penders at the very least had some interesting concepts (Enerjak is one of his best ideas), he just didn't work with them well. Nevermind the legal mess he brought about. 

Now, I for one disagree with Sonic Colors being where things went downhill. Not to the extent you're saying at least. Colors was more inoffensive, but underwhelming than anything. Yeah, it was definitely the start of where things started to become a bit more joke heavy, and the plot less intense with the handling of the antagonist, but it was only until later on when things started reaching that critical mass. Colors is a bit hit or miss if anything.

 

Regarding the overall storytelling, there's very few things Sonic is incapable of telling. We've had bad, if not near apocalyptic future dystopias alongside the idyllic good future utopias with Sonic CD. We've had ancient kaiju monstrosities destroying cities with Adventure 1, and we've had genetic experiments and military cover-ups in SA2, with both of them being stories about revenge and forgiveness. We've had Sonic literally traverse the pages of old fairytales in the Storybook games, and we've had Sonic transform into a werehog and face demonic (albeit cartoony) fragments of a god-like force of nature with themes of duality in Unleashed. And we've had Sonic in stories about rescuing cute aliens in Colors, and one with basically a quirky boss squad of rather flat entities in Lost World. And this isn't even getting into the cartoons where he's a Bugs Bunny-esque trickster in AoStH, a guerilla fighter in SatAM, a warrior prince in Underground, an adventurer in the OVA, a layabout in Sonic X, and a sitcom-ish character in Boom.

The point is, Sonic is diverse. You can't pick one of these things and say they don't belong anymore than the other, and doing so is just being arbitrary about what Sonic is and isn't. What Sonic is is a blue, supersonic hedgehog who fights a rotund mad scientist scheming for world domination and/or conquest - anything else is just an added ingredient to that stew, no if, ands, or buts about it. 

Now it's understandable that some will have a preferred flavor of one over the other, but at the end of the day, genetic experiments aren't any more out of place than water kaijus or dark gods in the earth's core.

 

Hmmm, a world where one person's plan is to take over the world via mad science^tm and be taken seriously for doing so doesn't exactly jibe with one where you might seize power by enacting a military coup d'etat.

There's a game called Megaman Zero where the entire setting and background happens to be all of that word for word.

Mad scientist has a plan to conquer the world (or at least the only city left in the world) and seizes power by a military coup and political manipulation. Then the bastard turns everything into a dystopia that people run away from, and he tries to kill those people by shooting a laser beam from space at them before dropping the laser weapon onto them. And this isn't including things like genocide and terrorism (that the hero is cast as by the antagonists) that are part of the series' plot. It's practically the same in essence as SA2.

It can jibe much better than you think. And I fail to see how it doesn't jibe any more than said mad scientist awakening an ancient god of destruction from a lost age that risks destroying the world.

Edited July 17, 2015 by ChaosSupremeSonic

[Dejimon11]

Why didn't you talk about Sonic X and the sonic boom cartoon?

Should story matter in sonic? Yes besides the gameplay the story in a sonic game is why so many people are invested in sonic and his friends. My complaint about the story isn't so much the tone but the context that they're giving me. If your going to do a plot in a sonic game or any media please do your damnest to give context, explain the stuff and try not to make things feel empty or one note.

 

Knuckles: It's stated that he's the last of his kind. How is that? What happened to his race and why the heck is he protecting the master emerald if he pretty much has no idea why he's doing it in the first place(?granted SEGA has pretty much ignored the M.E. at this point) It just doesn't make sense to me. Sonic Adventure tries to go into that (from what I've been told correct me if I'm wrongwith what happened to his people but in the end that was thousands of years ago and angle island wasn't even a thing sooo what?

Sonic Adventure: Yup Im going there. As much as I think it's one of the better plots in the series there is no denying that this plot has flaws. For starter's why did professor Gerald even make the eclipse cannon in the first place? It was established that he made it before he went insane so what was the point of it? Yeah shadow explains that he made it to defeat the black arms(which is fucking stupid) but if that's the case why the hell didn't he tell the G.U.N. about this? Speaking of which why did G.U.N. even attack the ark in the first place the game never goes into dept as in why they did just instead it was "just because" and they pretty much had no reason to kill anybody. Another thing when and how did Gerald mess with Shadow's memory and find away to connect the ark from crashing into the world?

 

Sonic Lost World: What the heck is the Lost Hex? Who the heck are the deadly six? More importantly what happened to them in the end? Did they die?(I doubt it) did they just run away? We don't know. Another thing is when Eggman's machine was sucking the life out of "Sonic's World" it didn't feel all that the stacks were high. It's implied that the entire world was being drained but we really didn't see the effects of world we only saw knuckles and amy nobody else. I mean look at SA2(despite the fact that I just bashed it) when the world was being threatened we saw people from all over the world being scared and it felt like the stakes were high ya know?

 

Rise of Lyric: This game 's plot is the very definition of lack of context. Yeah the character interactions were amusing but overall it didn't accomplish anything. This is a whole new universe in the sonic franchise and nothing is established. Who are the heroes? Why are they a team? Who heck is this shadow character and what's with his chaos moves? What's egg man's goal? Who are the ancients the game keeps blabbering about and more importantly what lead the what was once a world that was so dependent on technology for peaceful things lead them to evolve backwards? That kinda sucks that I was interested in the new take on the character's but ultimately it just serves to give them redesigns so people won't get offended when they do something different.

 

So what I'm trying to say is yes the story does matter it's just that they should give us context and hopefully a good representation of the characters

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Sonic Adventure: Yup Im going there. As much as I think it's one of the better plots in the series there is no denying that this plot has flaws. For starter's why did professor Gerald even make the eclipse cannon in the first place? It was established that he made it before he went insane so what was the point of it? Yeah shadow explains that he made it to defeat the black arms(which is fucking stupid) but if that's the case why the hell didn't he tell the G.U.N. about this? Speaking of which why did G.U.N. even attack the ark in the first place the game never goes into dept as in why they did just instead it was "just because" and they pretty much had no reason to kill anybody. Another thing when and how did Gerald mess with Shadow's memory and find away to connect the ark from crashing into the world?

Honestly, the whole Black Arms thing just throws a monkey wrench into everything SA2 had established, and that's less the problem with SA2's lack of context than it is ShTH making a mess of things. Were it not for that, most of the flaws in SA2 could easily be fixed.

[Phos]

There's a game called Megaman Zero where the entire setting and background happens to be all of that word for word.

Mad scientist has a plan to conquer the world (or at least the only city left in the world) and seizes power by a military coup and political manipulation. Then the bastard turns everything into a dystopia that people run away from, and he tries to kill those people by shooting a laser beam from space at them before dropping the laser weapon onto them. And this isn't including things like genocide and terrorism (that the hero is cast as by the antagonists) that are part of the series' plot. It's practically the same in essence as SA2.

It can jibe much better than you think. And I fail to see how it doesn't jibe any more than said mad scientist awakening an ancient god of destruction from a lost age that risks destroying the world.

 

He's imposing his will through Omega, not followers from a standing army, which he had just dismissed, based on a plot synopsis.  That's not a military coup.  I've not actually played much Megaman Zero, because of its self defeating design.  

You also can't really compare a world where high ranking individuals in an army are super powered robots with animal themes to a black ops military organization who arms their forces with MP5's.  Those means different things.  

Also...

>Implying I think Dark Gaia jibed.  Implying I think any of these stories were any good.  

[Ryannumber1gamer]

I didn't forget about X, or the OVA, or Boom. Guys, the OP took a few hours alone to do. I'll do X, and the OVA and Boom another time.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

 

He's imposing his will through Omega, not followers from a standing army, which he had just dismissed, based on a plot synopsis.  That's not a military coup.  I've not actually played much Megaman Zero, because of its self defeating design.  

You also can't really compare a world where high ranking individuals in an army are super powered robots with animal themes to a black ops military organization who arms their forces with MP5's.  Those means different things.  

If you haven't played much of Megaman Zero, don't try to argue with someone who has because you're just shooting yourself in the foot over details you blatantly admitted you don't know.

It wasn't just Omega he had control over. It was the Eight Gentle Judges he turned over to his will who were part of his military, and who were part of the political structure of Neo Arcadia who joined under his command after he essentially purged the original generals through his manipulation of the city's ruler. That is a military coup. Nevermind the Elf Wars in the backstory and the Maverick Wars of the previous Megaman X series, both of which doubled as a military insurrections that lead to the apocalyptic setting in the first place.

And yes, I can compare a world with high ranking individuals in an army are super powered robots to a black ops military organization who arms their forces with MP5s, because they do the same exact thing in their stories. Militaries massacring entire groups of people to cover up a government secret they don't want the world to know? How is that not comparable? The only thing different about them is the aesthetics, with one being realistic and the other being cartoony, but that difference doesn't make them incomparable to each other given the actions both GUN and the Neo Arcadian Military are massacres against innocent people regardless.

Also...

>Implying I think Dark Gaia jibed.  

I was actually talking about Chaos, FYI. Where was Dark Gaia called a "god of destruction" in Unleashed?

EDIT:

Implying I think any of these stories were any good.

And that's completely irrelevant.

Edited July 17, 2015 by ChaosSupremeSonic

[Phos]

 

If you haven't played much of Megaman Zero, don't try to argue with someone who has because you're just shooting yourself in the foot over details you blatantly admitted you don't know.

You're always this way, why?  So confrontational.  If I'm not also familiar with it it's not proof because you can't demonstrate anything.  It also doesn't prove that it was any good.

Oh yeah, and Inafune himself said that he never made a concrete connection between classic and X because the tones don't match.  

Edited July 17, 2015 by Phos

[Dejimon11]

Honestly, the whole Black Arms thing just throws a monkey wrench into everything SA2 had established, and that's less the problem with SA2's lack of context than it is ShTH making a mess of things. Were it not for that, most of the flaws in SA2 could easily be fixed.

Ok fair point but if you ignore shadow and you just think about the games plot there are just some missing elements like I said earlier 

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

You're always this way, why?  If I'm not also familiar with it it's not proof because you can't demonstrate anything.  It also doesn't prove that it was any good.

If you're not familiar with it, it's proof that you don't know what you're talking about compared to someone who does and is familiar with it.

Whether or not it is any good isn't the point considering how subjective it is, because anyone can easily counter that it doesn't prove that it was any bad and lead nowhere. So what exactly is your point?

 

Oh yeah, and Inafune himself said that he never made a concrete connection between classic and X because the tones don't match.

That has nothing to do with what we're talking about?

Edited July 17, 2015 by ChaosSupremeSonic

[Phos]

If you're not familiar with it, it's proof that you don't know what you're talking about compared to someone who does.

Who are you trying to prove any of this to, then?  What does an example that's meaningless to me serve to show?  

Whether or not it is any good isn't the point considering how subjective it is, because anyone can easily counter that it doesn't prove that it was any bad and lead nowhere. So what exactly is you're point?

If you're going to play that card I have to wonder why you're in this thread.  

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Who are you trying to prove any of this to, then?  What does an example that's meaningless to me serve to show?  

You, of course. And anyone else out there who's reading this thread. The example serves to show that there are things out there that do exactly what you say "doesn't jibe", and proves the point that these things aren't that rigid or incompatible with each other as you tried to make it out as by bringing them out for people to know. And it being meaningless to you doesn't make it pointless to bring up in this topic overall.

Or to put it concisely: It's to make people aware of things they don't know about and how they compare to other things. Such as stories with a mad scientist trying to take over the world in one where you might seize power via a military coup that both SA2 and MMZ happen to be examples of.

If you're going to play that card I have to wonder why you're in this thread.  

To explain whether story should matter and how, like the OP was asking. That's kinda the point of this thread.

Edited July 17, 2015 by ChaosSupremeSonic

[Phos]

You, of course. And the example serves to show that there are things out there that do exactly what you say "doesn't jibe", and proves the point that these things aren't that rigid or incompatible with each other as you tried to make it out as.

You don't see the problem with trying to convince me with something that's meaningless to me?  I have not played any appreciable amount of MMZ.  The extent of my knowledge of Dr. Weil comes from a random wiki article and the  game in question is one I don't actually think is any good, and that's meant to convince me that it would be reasonable to write the President of Planet Freedom facing a firing squad, and that a cartoon hedgehog is meant to face the skeletons in the closet of a black ops organization, even when this franchise's plot has become such a laughing stock for this very tonal dissonance.  GUN is like the sort of thing someone might joke about Sonic going up against, that he's been captured by the CIA, but Tails and Amy are going to break him out.  Next time: Sonic's latest rival joins ISIS.  

But no.  Dr. Weil.  Whoever that is. He did basically the same thing.  

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

You don't see the problem with trying to convince me with something that's meaningless to me?  I have not played any appreciable amount of MMZ. The extent of my knowledge of Dr. Weil comes from a random wiki article and the  game in question is one I don't actually think is any good, and that's meant to convince me that it would be reasonable to write the President of Planet Freedom facing a firing squad, and that a cartoon hedgehog is meant to face the skeletons in the closet of a black ops organization, even when this franchise's plot has become such a laughing stock for this very tonal dissonance.

No, I don't. I see more the problem in you calling it "meaningless" as an excuse to ignore a counterpoint being made to inform you of what you don't know, whether you've played enough of the game or not. I've played the entire MMZ series, and I'm saying that a story with a mad scientist trying to take over the world in one where you might seize power via a military coup isn't something that's unreasonable with this game being an example of such a story.

GUN is like the sort of thing someone might joke about Sonic going up against, that he's been captured by the CIA, but Tails and Amy are going to break him out.  Next time: Sonic's latest rival joins ISIS.  

But no.  Dr. Weil.  Whoever that is. He did basically the same thing.  

Replace GUN with Neo Arcadia, Sonic and Shadow with X and Zero, and Tails and Amy with Ciel and the Resistance, and yeah pretty much. All in addition to Dr. Weil in MMZ pretty darn close to the story of SA2. Both are stories with a mad scientist (Dr. Weil or Dr. Eggman) trying to take over the world in one where you might seize power via a military coup (Neo Arcadia or GUN), like you said "doesn't jibe". It's not an unreasonable story to make. Not so sure about that hyperbole you made tho.

Edited July 17, 2015 by ChaosSupremeSonic

[Phos]

Because I'm not familiar with the story, from my point of view there's no difference between it and one that you've just made up, so it's not a convincing example.

I don't know why you've decided that I should just take you're word for it that within Mega Man Zero and only megaman zero there was both mad science and coups (my wiki reading suggest the opposite), that what Weil did was actually a coup, that the story to a game I haven't played is any good, and that MMZ is representative enough to matter to Sonic (MMZ's nightmarish atmosphere seems meant for anything so long as it's horrible). 

I'm done talking about MMZ, and done derailing this thread. 

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Because I'm not familiar with the story, from my point of view there's no difference between it and one that you've just made up, so it's not a convincing example.

Which is why I'm informing you of the story, because I am familiar with the story and what I told you is exactly what happens in the games.

I don't know why you've decided that I should just take you're word for it that within Mega Man Zero and only megaman zero there was both mad science and coups (my wiki reading suggest the opposite), that what Weil did was actually a coup, that the story to a game I haven't played is any good, and that MMZ is representative enough to matter to Sonic (MMZ's nightmarish atmosphere seems meant for anything so long as it's horrible).

Maybe because, like I've said before, I've actually played the whole series to know that it's similar to SA2 in essence? That Weil is a mad scientist that overthrew the existing government and military of Neo Arcadia with his control of the Eight Gentle Judges and his manipulation (and destruction of) Neo Arcadia's ruler to establish his order, hence a coup? And, like GUN, the Neo Arcadian military has gone about massacring people to cover up government secrets? Seems more like you refuse to listen as you can go on youtube and see it in action, but whatever. You're done, and I've made my case.

Edited July 17, 2015 by ChaosSupremeSonic

[Tracker_TD]

I just want a good game first. A universally loved one, like the classics. Generations was amazing, but since it's been... eh.

I take the John Carmack approach. If Sonic Team can do a good story then hell yeah I'm for it, but gameplay first. 

[shdowhunt60]

To me, it's not just about story, it's about narrative. It's about experience. That to me is what videogames are about. While I'll agree that Sonic 3's minimalistic approach to providing a narrative is a good approach, I don't think it's the only game that's done it, and I certainly hate the mentality that it's the only way to go. The Adventure games, and possibly Black Knight, were every bit as good. Just because it's a different approach doesn't mean that it's the only way of going about it.

Ultimately the end goal is the same. Get the player invested by providing context. I never liked that whole mentality that "non-gameplay elements" are somehow not important.

[Vertekins]

The line of thinking that Sonic games stories don't matter and that they're an expendable aspect of the games annoys me greatly.

There is nothing taboo about the concept of a story in a Sonic game. If you're going to point the finger at something that renders a story stupid in a Sonic game, point it at poor storytelling, plot holes, shallow plots, flanderization and other cases of OoC behavior. Not the basic concept of there being a story in the first place.

Stories are the backbone that motivates the characters to do what they do. It gives them direction. It gives them purpose. It can serve to give them depth. And it's just mind boggling to me personally that something that can serve to enhance the overall entertainment factor and memorability of a game can be considered so expendable.

 

[Dr. Crusher]

I probably won't show up in this topic again after this post, but there's one thing I would like to mention regarding the tone aspect. Namely, that I don't actually think it's as simple as saying "balance" and leaving it at that. Thinking about it realistically, I doubt that most of the opposing folk will really be on the extreme end of either side of the scale, or even right in the balanced center. To use myself as an example, I generally prefer things to be on the lighter side overall, so I guess that would logically mean I would be sitting on that side of the scale overall, but at the same time, that's not to say that I don't approve of any spookiness, tense moments and whatever else being present at all.

In other words, everyone will always have different percentages about this. I don't think the majority of fans are going to be sitting on exactly one side, exactly the other side, or exactly in the middle, so as a result, I think it goes a little deeper than the three main points of the triangle. This is also why I've recently been starting to think that using something else as an example of what Sonic should "be like" doesn't always work as perfectly as the person making the comparison would like it to be.

[Willsy]

It depends on how much it matters. Of course, gameplay should be above all things in terms of priority, but I think that the quality of the writing does bear some relevance. Personally, I would prefer it if they went back to the simplistic nature of the classics, rather than trying to create 'epic adventures' that only fall flat on their face (Lost World) or just don't age well (Adventure 2). 

[Alienrun]

Lost World = Epic? What?

[Osmium]

Lost World = Epic? What?

He put parenthesis around epic adventures, as he was being sarcastic about it. He's trying to say that Lost World's story tried to be too dramatic and somewhat edgy at times, and it came off as forced and stupid. 

So, about the topic. Yes, I think story is very important and it does matter (not as much as gameplay of course) but it certainly is relevant and adds to the experience greatly. I feel that what Dr. Crusher said is very important as stories are complicated, and there is more than just "balance". I personally prefer having stories that are more light than 50-50 also. 

 

 

 

Edited July 17, 2015 by Osmium