Dr. Mechano

It never occurred to me before what could happen if somebody pointed out that Omega himself is an Eggman robot.

Paradox overload?

Maybe the same thing as Gamma, where Omega will destroy all other robots and then himself.

I sure as hell hope so. I want my Hooligan bois back in IDW.

doubt it. the split doesn't even really matter, considering how little sega/sonic team cares about the series canon anyway. most likely we'll end up back with a single timeline because they'll just give up on maintaining the classic branch at some point

@Diogenes

Correction: Till they give up on maintaining the modern branch

It's possible, Sega seems to change their minds on a lot of things regarding these series. I still choose to ignore the split because it's dumb and doesn't make me enjoy the games any more, but I still kinda hate that it's a big part of the Sonic series' marketing despite not being reflected in the games.

Then again I also like to think of (almost) every game being canon to each other and I've seen some pushback against this within the fanbase. Things tend not to contradict each other a whole lot in this series so I don't see how seeing Chaotix and the Game Gear games as canon at some point affects the overall timeline.

It's possible but I've settled into my position of ignoring it because I don't believe it matters. Aside from a random line or two in Forces, the fact that this is the new status quo isn't something that's going to be explored at all. Most of what Sonic Team/SEGA say about the changes in the story are things that a casual fan would probably never find out about because of how little the games incorporate them into the stories. 

There's also the fact that, despite the worlds supposedly being different, Modern Sonic still has a Green Hill Zone and a Chemical Plant Zone anyway. There's nothing stopping me from just assuming that what happened in the Classics still happened in the Modern world except with green-eyed Sonic instead. I don't see why not.

On top of that, it's really only something that stands a chance at even being relevant should they explore the characters' past before the Adventure games (fat chance) or bring Classic Sonic into another Modern game again (heaven forbid). It's basically useless information otherwise.

I'm more concerned about the much more egregious and ridiculous assertion that Modern Sonic's stories sometimes take place on a human-only world and an animal-only world. That right there just doesn't work, no matter how you slice it.  

Hey, didn't expect the stickler to jump in like half a day later did ya.

The split has technically existed for at least 15 years now. It's possible it goes all the way back to Adventure (as the two world split has been said to date back to) but we know evidence of it goes back to, at minimum, Heroes. 

If they've kept that for over half the franchise's existence, have had it on the low up until very recently and haven't walked back on it even with a classic branch being formed, I doubt they'll ever consider it. 

Generations claimed that the classic games were events that took place in the past, not "another dimension."

Furthermore, Sonic Adventure has classic iconography. The classic Sonic characters appear in the Casinopolis pinball game, and Eggman has likenesses of his classic design in the Hedgehog Hammer minigame. Also, in Sonic Pocket Adventure - released around the same era - Eggman actually wears both his classic and modern outfits over the course of the game. 

SA1 was not a retcon of the designs, because the classic designs appeared in it. It's acknowledged that the characters used to look like that, and in the contemporarily-released SPA, both of Eggman's designs are used for the same character in the same game.

To me that demonstrates that they were not thought of as separate at that time.

There's no way all this was planned so long ago. They may have sprinkled in some non-commital "evidence" of these concepts in a few games but if this direction truly was the full and honest truth, the extreme level of incompetence it takes to hold that close to your chest for over 15 years almost makes me lose what little hope I have left.

Though, again, the Classic Sonic stuff is easily ignorable. I'll just continue to assume the same locations exist (because Adventure and Forces prove they do) and the same events happened in the Modern world until they ruin it by telling us it didn't, contradicting even more evidence that it totally did.

The generally accepted theory of modern Sonic (and canon, really) is that the main classic games happened in some form anyway. So nowadays the only real distinction are titles like SegaSonic the Hedgehog not happening in modern while happening in Mania and other such minor examples.

Maybe.

I mean, SA1 basically had a flashback to Sonic CD at the beginning of Amy's story (using the modern designs but that just seemed more like laziness/not wanting to make new models than an artistic choice, especially since the classic designs are referenced elsewhere in the same game).

I'm trying to imagine Croco with a stereotypical gangster voice and it just makes me go "I'll stick with the Japanese Spanish accent, thanks".

They'll get the people that did the DKC cartoon to do the 64 series.

Super Mario's 64 Adventures (1997) is renowned for being the first CG cartoon based on a video game. 64 episodes (each for one of Mario's adventures mentioned in the title) across 2 seasons were planned, but parents calling in to the network and complaining about the show's disturbing primitive CG effects led to the cancellation of the second season.

Little is known about the show, as only the first 4 episodes were ever released to VHS and no re-releases have surfaced since. It remains an enigma amongst the Mario fanbase.

The thing that makes me skeptical that PM could go back to its roots the same as the main, Tennis and Party series is that is regarding its staff at Itelligent Systems. The old staff got split up (Ryota Kawade seemed to voluntarily move on from directing and went on to make Project STEAM), and I don't count on the new people there moving away from the new formula they made.

Part of my head wants to blame Fire Emblem for stealing its thunder since the 10s. They give it much more love and care, and should be more willing to share that effort with PM.

That was never a thing to begin with, so you might wanna hold-off on the hopeful business.

I can't believe I have to hope for a "good" Paper Mario game like hoping for a "good" 3D Sonic game

edit: Also I think the generic Toads are here to stay unfortunately, with Toadette being the singular "girl" Toad for some reason

At the same time though, like... Money talks. Tanabe knows everyone's going to absolutely blast the next game if it doesn't show any improvements, and he also knows he can't keep ignoring the fandom's requests forever if he values his reputation (especially after directly responding to fandom pleas with LM3). Their current philosophy is an temporary solution that can only keep them going for so long, with all the sustainability of a plaster on an open wound.

It's not going to satisfy the casual soccerkids that don't know what a Paper Mario is because it's so overcomplicated, it's not going to satisfy critics if they learn nothing from their previous blunder, and it's sure as hell not going to please fans. There is literally no benefit to making another game that doesn't acknowledge the first two. The only people benefiting from it is Tanabe who seems to get off on the hatred directed at him like a fucking internet troll (not even the rest of the dev team shares his sentiment if certain rumours are to be believed).

But I guess at the end of the day, when (or if) the next game gets shown, we'll see what Tanabe values more - his own self-indulgent enjoyment, or his reputation as a trustworthy developer.

The problem of Paper Mario isn't just Tanabe. If you read the Iwata Asks of Paper Mario: Sticker Star, you can see that Taro Kudo (Director of Sticker Star and Color Splash) wasn't very interested in a detailed story too:

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Iwata

That project came together because of that idea. Kudo-san, you were in charge of the script, so what did you think about whether a story was really necessary or not?

Kudo

I originally saw it in a way that's similar to Miyamoto-san. Personally I think all we need is to have an objective to win the boss battle at the end of the game. I didn't think we necessarily needed a lengthy story like in an RPG. Instead, we looked at the characteristics of a portable game that can be played little by little in small pieces and packed in lots of little episodes and ideas. I always did like putting in little ideas, so I actually enjoyed it.

http://iwataasks.nintendo.com/interviews/#/3ds/papermario/0/2

Miyamoto isn't very active at Nintendo nowadays, but Tanabe and Kudo still are working on new projects. While I still expect the worst, I hope that Luigi's Mansion 3 is a sign of future changes for the series.

Yeah, Luigi's Mansion 3 in particular seems like a really good sign.

After Dark Moon, I never expected to see humanoid/portrait ghost characters in the series again, and their return to LM3 is so exciting. They added so much character to the first game. And, importantly, they fall well outside the "standard platformer Mario character design" parameters that Nintendo stuck so hard to during the Wii U era.

Combined with Odyssey, it makes me hopeful that Nintendo is loosening up a little on what can and can't be in a Mario game.

Well, the later games kinda retconned that. For instance, the remake of Bowser's Inside Story removes all the designs of female Toads to look like regular Toads wearing an apron.

Nah, look at Toadley's intern right in front of Toadbert on the right. Even the 3DS remake didn't genericize everyone.

 

Toads have no gender so they are both wrong

Toads have no physical sex.

They clearly have something analogous to gender because they use gendered pronouns. (i.e. Toadsworth is a "he," while Chanterelle is a "she").

Huh, interesting.

It seems like what they did was just blanket-change all the nameless NPCs into generic Toads, but left all the named plot-relevant characters (Toadsworth, Toadbert, Toadley, Toadley's intern, etc.) alone.

Even the generic red Toad in the apron is still called "Mom" by the kid in the intro, interestingly.

I do wish they weren't on such a "make all the Toads super generic" kick, either way. I like the RPGs' unique character designs and didn't see anything wrong with them.

I don't believe so. Zavok even mentions that he's not being paid, implying he's forcibly enslaved.

I guess we can assume Eggman got another conch like he said he would.

If you're aware of his past work, this doesn't come off as surprising. Jim is made of ham.

Oh hey, look who's back.

If it means getting less Toads in spinoffs, I'm in!

We think that Eggman built Metal Sonic to defeat Sonic, but in reality he needed someone who could keep up with him during his morning jogs.

Well they tried changing Sonic's gameplay/style to better fit Mario's and people damned it off. I wonder how diffrent everyone would feel if it was originally pitched as a crossover game.

At this point i'll take an RPG or something. Just anything that isn't a mini game compilation.

@Dejimon11

The issue there is that people are unwilling to give Sonic RPGs another chance after Chronicles, claiming that the slow turn based gameplay goes against Sonic's fast-paced "philosophies." But man, would I kill for one that had a 2d artstyle and gameplay reminisent of M&L.

Sadly, I feelbalot of general people have grown to not care for a real crossover, all because "Mario is too good to be paired with someone as crappy as Sonic."

It's honestly why I don't care to have a crossover between the two at this point, the two are so wildly different that I can't see how a platforming crossover would work beyond "let's put this guy's levels and tropes into THIS guy's gameplay and vice versa" (and to me this would be pretty boring as a crossover). 

I mean, I can see why - from a story standpoint - people would want it.

Seeing Mario and Sonic, Luigi and Tails, Bowser and Eggman, etc. interacting has some promise.

But like others have said, an RPG is probably better suited to that sort of thing.

What design philosophy? Modern Sonic (at least if Forces is any indicator) would probably have more depth in a Mario/Sonic platformer due to the Mario people actually giving a damn.

Edit: partial joking.

Well Mario can roll in Mario Odyssey and Sonic tried to adapt to the Mario gameplay in Lost World but yeah... it is something that can work but a lot of effort from both sides has to be done.

If a platformer wouldn't work and RPGs have issues regarding Sonic himself (and only Sonic, rest of the cast are more adaptable and would be fine), what about racing or tennis? Something that is faster paced to suit Sonic yet not as conflicting when adapting. After all both Mario and Sonic had racing and tennis games.

As weird as it sounds a Donkey Kong Country and Sonic crossover might make more sense just on the grounds that DK can roll, different level design when compared to Mario, more natural environments but then again it still clashes with Sonic artistically and the level design is still linear.

Honestly I'd just straight-up take a Mario game and Mario gameplay that happens to be set in Sonic's world, rather than try and "marry" the two together or do the inverse. Especially since Mario's gameplay is actually delivering more on what I want from Sonic than the actual Sonic games [aside from Mania] if Odyssey is anything to go by.

Otherwise I'm of the agreement that it would likely be better off just having an RPG rather than trying to do a proper platformer. Take the crossover premise and make that the next Mario and Luigi or Paper Mario.

I mean, Sonic had clashing, wildly different gameplay styles in his games all the time, so "Mario runs through Sonic levels and Sonic runs through Mario levels" approach in a Generations kinda style wouldn't even be too outlandish.

@Thigoblin not to mention Mario's latest adventure literally had over a dozen different play styles as well. That argument is pretty much invalid at this point.

At least Nintendo can still reference that canon by implying that NYC exists on the Mario World.

Mario's not the one that lacks the brain cells to make everything exist in just one world, and not have it all be called "Mario's World." Sure the Mushroom World is hardly an improvement, but it's something. 

Yeah, New Donk City was a nice compromise for us old fans. I'll take what I can get, for sure.

With the whole "two worlds" thing you'd think they'd just slap the Mobius name on Sonic's world and Earth on the human world.

Although Paper Jam did try to separate the Paper series to its own universe.

...which was immediately ignored again in Color Splash, which directly referenced SMB3 and Mario Kart, so I guess Paper Jam's retcon got un-retconned.

I just imagine certain games happened in both worlds (Or all three, if you consider Mario & Luigi separate from main-series Mario), just like how Classic and Modern Sonic both had 1-3K and CD, albeit in different ways. (Character designs, Super Emeralds, etc.)

I consider all Mario games (and their spinoff series, like Wario, Donkey Kong, and Yoshi) to take place in one unified world.

Paper Jam's storybook version of Paper Mario being an anamoly that isn't the same as the "real" Paper Mario games, which themselves openly reference other games as actual events that happened. Each of the Paper games, sans Paper Jam, makes direct references to other, non-Paper games.

Considering Partners in Time directly references Yoshi's Island, I think it's clear the M&L series are part of the "main" world (i.e. the only world) as well.

If anything, we could take the "Paper" storybook as being a book version of events the "real" Mario went through. So stuff like Bowser stealing the Star Rod, the invasion of the X-Nauts, the fight with the Shadow Queen, Count Bleck, etc. all happened - just not in the stylized "paper" aesthetic that we saw in the games.

Considering Paper Mario debut characters like the Goomba King and the Star Spirits have appeared in other games, as well.

Remember when people said that Paper Mario's games took place in Rosalina's storybook?

That'd be okay. I'm fine with the Paper games as a sort of dramatization, sure. 

But I dislike the idea that those stories are somehow "less canon" than the other games.

Super Mario 3 was confirmed as a stage show. Perhaps we should call SMB3 non canon as well.

Yeah, but SMB3 itself gets referenced in later games.

I think the "stage show" version of SMB3 is, again, a dramatization of the "real" SMB3.

How the story is depicted is unimportant. Be it on a stage, in a pop-up book, or through 2D sprites or 3D models. To me, this is all mere flavoring, and not something that indicates something as canon or non-canon.

I've never really been a fan of the Mobius name tbh. But if the Robotnik name transfered over to the Japanese canon, they may as well bring the Mobius name over too if they can't think of anything else, though imo I'd just call them both earth, or "the alternate earths"

Doesn't look like it:

Yeah, that's true of when he joins as an ally.

Was wondering if there was at least the possibility in the hub world. Ah well.

Seems every other character has dialogue, though- even Pom Pom, according to the Mario Wiki.

I mean, since Cell is made up of an amalgamation of all the Z-Fighters and has knowledge of all their techniques and fighting styles, he could be seen as a doppelganger of sorts (although a very unconventional one). And he's about as antagonistic as it gets.

I guess that's kind of the inverse. Instead of one character having a lot of evil copies, it's a lot of characters having the same evil copy.

Fooled you!

It doesn't help that pretty much that entire generation revolved around him. Even games which billed him with only supporting roles seemed to be based in large part around his personal arcs, which is a sense of inflated self-importance that you didn't even get to see from Sonic himself most of the time.

Yeah, I think Iizuka just kinda over-promoted his baby, and it turned a lot of fans off to the character. (In fairness, it worked with a lot of fans too, given how popular Shadow is)

It wasn't really that they just capitalized on his angst that was the issue. It was that they capitalized on it in the most poorly thought out way possible.

I kinda think if they wanted to give him angst issues, or at least made him retain his cynical side, they probably could have made it so that Shadow tries to keep Maria's promise, but finds himself having difficulty and second thoughts because he sees that the world hasn't changed that much from his time. That there are still horrible people in control of a lot of things they shouldn't, and that people are capable of intense pettiness, cruelty, and selfishness.

So even though Maria wants him to give others a chance to become better, his own cynicism would make it so that he's either interpreting it as FORCING them to be better people even if it means stripping them of their freedom to make that decision, or deciding just to end their lives so that their hateful ways can't spread, since he has difficulty finding a better solution, thus putting him in conflict with Sonic (on the freedom of choice perspective), Amy (the ending people's lives perspective) and his general tendency to be a terse and blunt individual rubs a lot of people the wrong way.

It would essentially be a battle of ideals as opposed to arbitrary amnesia; Do you give people the chance to be better people and the freedom to make their own decisions, even if it means potentially having them start off as horrible people who cause a lot of damage at first due to the consequences of their actions, or brutally force them to be decent people even if it means stripping away their ability to make decisions, or end their life to prevent things from getting worse, but at the cost of them ever being able to redeem themselves?

Heck, if you're feeling like amping up the angst, make it so that he feels like his life is just one long train of failures despite being "the ultimate lifeform" as a result of him not being able to uphold Maria's wish the way she wanted to both times (the first time due to him wanting vengeance, the second being the result of the above), and how his creation ultimately did nothing to help her disease either, and that for all of his power he's failed when it mattered to him the most.

EDIT: Also in regards to him being overexposed, it's honestly not that surprising. Outside of the popularity factor of being the dark edgy guy in the franchise, he also had the benefit of being one of the more complex characters (comparatively speaking, though I've said in the past that Amy is actually pretty interesting in her own way: https://board.sonicstadium.org/profile/2255-seneddtor-missile/?status=931325&type=status), and thus people were more interested in him since his behavior wasn't as flat as the others. It also doesn't help that Sonic was never really allowed to have much characterization or even a story arc back then either.

I would say, there are moments in Heroes that show that he is not just angsty all the time, he is weirdly playful, sarcastic and cocky sometimes in Heroes, like you can see him smiling by the tone of his voice which is to me is my favorite Shadow, but they never did more than these small parts and that upsets me.

I don't even know how Shadow would properly develop from what he learned from SA2.

Everyone can go on about why Shadow should've stayed dead like they originally intended, but is that the only answer? Must every secondary character outlive their purpose in every game they appear in after they debut?

could've made him like vegeta. still mean/ angry 80% of the time, but there's no doubt that he's a good guy now. sure it's like that for shadow now, but i mean, without us having to get dragged through ShTH for it to happen

Quote

Everyone can go on about why Shadow should've stayed dead like they originally intended, but is that the only answer? Must every secondary character outlive their purpose in every game they appear in after they debut?

My problem with that isn't that they brought Shadow back. It's more that they brought him back fucking immediately, the very next game, in such a short span of time that his death scene carried no weight or meaning.

Heck they even gave Gamma more respect in that regard. Omega was pretty much an excuse to have Gamma there in everything but name, but still.

I still see turn-based RPG's as the "default" in terms of RPG's (including ATB, I HATE it when people try and argue FF ATB battle systems aren't turn-based, they're just different kinds of turns). ARPG's just aren't the same thing and as a whole I don't enjoy them the same way. Or as much.

I figure when most people hear RPG, they think of FPSs with an overpowered weapon that launches explosives forward.

When I first think of RPGs, I also think of the turn based games such as Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest. I don't really class the Fallout series as strictly RPGs even though the terminology of Role Playing that basically means anything from platformers to action to sports games even because you are playing the role of X character/skill. Maybe Action Adventure with RPG elements, Action RPGs or even FPRPGs with the Bethesda games but not the first thing that comes to my head.

Then again I do come from a country where JRPGs (I don't really like that term btw because you get some made in the US/Europe e.g. Cosmic Star Heroine while the Western type gets made in Japan e.g. Dark Souls) were in very few quantity until the PS1 with the Final Fantasies and nearly everything else took until the PS2, PSP or even the DS/3DS era to get, many of them pricey too. I can only think of Phantasy Star. If there was any mention apparently because I was too young, RPG meant something like The Bard's Tale that might be classed as an adventure game these days or Ultima that to be fair was one of the OG RPGs. Even going back to Phantasy Star IV and it was an import copy, the reviewers alternated between RPG and adventure for the words. They also classed Soleil (Crusader of Centy), Story of Thor and Shining Force as not proper RPGs saying that they were too actiony or strategy even though they are classed as ARPG and SRPG these days.

With what I said, RPGs (as in the traditional sense) were apart from the Final Fantasies were just too much of a niche while the Fallout games are much more mass market and hence why your students think of those

Unless if I'm playing a FP/TP shooter where RPG certainly means something else.

I can understand this feeling. One of the unfortunate things in life is the eventual change of what people consider something. In this case RPGs. The idea of what they are has been slowly changing, like many things. It's actually a little scary how out of the loop you start to feel when you are a old soul in a changed world. I cannot speak to deep into how it is to be old yet. But I will be there eventually.

When I think of RPG's I think of stuff like Pokemon, Final Fantasy and the like. Games like Fallout fall under the category of an open world FPS (or FP Sword for games like Skyrim) with heave RPG elements. And then there's Borderlands, which flat out calls itself an RPGFPS on the box. I also lump MMO's in their own category away for everything else ( That category is called Games I Can't Play, but I digress). Have I ever mentioned I can be old fashioned?