SenEDDtor Missile

@Strickerx5 brings up an amazing point. What's needed is nuance. You can't go too far in the kiddy-bland direction in the more recent stories, but you can't get too convoluted like '06. There has to be balance in the narrative, or audiences will go hard against one thing or another. Since we are at extremes, it makes sense for storytellers to go a bit more serious and adjust for what a lot of Sonic fans want. I mean, at the very least it speaks to the popularity of the IDW comics.

people can not like it all they want but being realistic it's the most popular sonic story of them all so it's not like it's going anywhere. the dead little girl was in official art last year and it was the most shared piece out of them all. no point in all this bitching when they're not going to pick a side. they're just going to make everyone share no matter how awkward of a situation that creates.

i will never be seriously convinced that it's an insane tonal shift anyway. the last game had more war and murder in it than this one. it's equally blurred by the way it was contextualized, but it's there. aside from sonic CD, the classic games don't have any overtly tragic themes...because they barely have any narrative at all. as soon as angel island could be contextualized it was established as having a bloody history.  if you ask me, the classic sonic "tone" that people accuse SA2 of destroying has been exaggerated in hindsight but that's a whole other topic.

if you don't like tragedy mixed in with sincerity and comedy like sonic adventure/sonic adventure 2's tone then you probably just don't like sonic's tone, in which case... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯skip the cutscenes and hope that those rolling physics are waiting for you on the other side. surely, this time is it.

Like it or not, the series needs to evolve otherwise it's going to stagnate. People can bitch and moan about Sonic Adventure 2 all they want, but that's not gonna change the impact it's had on the series at all. We literally just had a concert that ended with its main theme, and said song was used when Sonic made his debut in Super Smash Bros. 14 years ago. 

Sonic Adventure 2 is iconic; you don't have to like what it did for the series, but trying to deny that is just being stuck in your ways. 

The fact that people still have such PTSD from this time period is honestly ridiculous to me and I will for the life of me never understand it. It was understandable when that was recent history, but we're talking about things that just about 20 years ago. 

Sonic fans are so quick to complain how Sega never moves on from the past, but are still letting a game from 15 years ago still live rent free inside of their heads and refuse to let it go. The sheer irony of it both hilarious and sad. 

Every 3D Sonic game has a lousy story. Every single one of them. The problem with this, other than that the storytelling sucks, is that when Sonic Team tries something different with the story, they wind up invalidating what is different with their lousy execution. Shove the little girl in the fridge to motivate her friend to kill everyone? Edgy dark melodrama bullshit. Tell some jokes while breaking the fourth wall? Ugh, they're not even trying to tell stories they just want to appeal to kids and "casuals". The thing with so many of the arguments I've seen about what is and is not an appropriate direction for Sonic to take is that everyone's evidence for what is wrong with the series is just Sonic Team being bad at writing.

I think there are many different valid interpretations of what Sonic is. If the series ever gets a development team worthy of it we might even get to see a few of those someday.

In hindsight, SA2 reminds me of a comic, or an action movie, and that's kind of fitting for Sonic in my eyes.

Other than that, I don't know. It never struck me as that melodramatic.

My issue is  that some games in the  series went too far in that direction and became joyless and convoluted moreso after sa2. They sacrificed a balance of humor, charm, and good writing for angst and shock value. Honestly i want a balanced story that doesnt feel like its leaning way too much into either side. The later Ratchet and the sly cooper games did this well when it came to balancing drama and humor, with major characters dying, and dealing With issues like acceptance, depression, and letting go of the past but still retaining humor and meaningful character moments and charm.  Even pixar has managed the same balance. 

Time is indeed a flat circle in this community.

I think the issue is more that it is 'dark' in a way that doesn't really feel in line with the mythos of the series. SA1 had a 'dark' story but it was still tied heavily with the classic game lore and fantasy.

SA2 has a corrupt manga human government gunning down an entire colony of people and using a scientist as a scapegoat, who goes mad with despair and creates a kaiju as the ultimate revenge. Oh and the government get away scot free and were basically just there as a quick plot device. Oh and apparently ALIENS later on because why not?

Where SA1 was at least a parable about a bunch of echidnas paying for their greed and wrath and how that formed Angel Island, SA2 almost feels like an attempt at an 'epic' that could have been swiped from any adult anime or dark sci fi and would lose little context. Sure there is the links to the Robotnik family and Shadow's similarities to Sonic but they feel rather surface level and don't feel like they play as much into the main context. They're just something to say it's REMOTELY Sonic-like. This also ended up a franchise original sin since several games after worsened this problem, trying to turn Sonic into Final Fantasy and throwing out a lot of what made the world charming, to the point even the main characters didn't feel like they meshed anymore. Hell Sonic's world is run by a corrupt government, that's a REALLY dark thing to just whitewash over, especially given Sonic's attachment to freedom and justice.

I have the same issue with the recent Crash 4 story for example, it suddenly has a jarring mood whiplash during the climax. I don't think Crash can NEVER be serious, but this felt like something ripped from a dark fanfic from any franchise rather than something that tries to give depth to the series. The fact Crash similarly feels like a second banana and they made their own 'dark and edgy' characters specifically for it emphasises this, they weren't interested in telling a heavier CRASH story, they wanted to turn the franchise into something it wasn't.

Like 'darkness' is something even very lighthearted works have done before, but it has been done with nuance and relevance. Winnie the Pooh and Thomas the Tank Engine actually have some VERY dark context in some stories but the difference is that they mesh with the usual whimsy and lore of their works so they don't feel out of place (scrapping is a pretty dark context with sentient trains, but still has difference in execution to 'violently gunning down a young girl onscreen'). A lot of Sonic's attempts to be 'dark' feel like it was because the writers were ashamed to be writing for a silly cartoon franchise like Sonic and tried to turn it into their favourite anime (hell given the same writer wrote Heroes I feel that was his exact sentiment to writing about some candy coloured anthros).

You don't have to be morbid and distressing and make the world into a gritty manga to make a dark or emotional story after all.

You ever notice how its the same arguments regurgitated against SA2 yet it still persists as an icon of the series 

Its almost like people don't care what a bunch of older classic fans think 

@Kuzu Well Sonic 1 is an icon too but people are perfectly free to point out the divisive elements of that as well. Doesn't mean they're hate mongers or anything, it means the game is imperfect in spite of making some right steps.

@Kuzu Because it's a just as valid a criticism as the many other ones people have for this game for some people. SA2 was an extremely flawed game and this is a big outlier. Especially when you look at how nearly every other well written Platforming series or media aimed at children handles darker plots. Heck I'd even say Kirby handles it better. SA2's whole "Let's have a little girl dying from aids get shot by a corrupt goverment agency and have her grandfather executed via firing squad". Plot just didn't fit the series at all.

sonic 1 was superseded in popular culture by sonic 2 since it took sonic 1's positive qualities and ironed out the kinks

sonic adventure 2...has not been superseded in popular culture...despite there being dozens of narrative driven sonic games since...hmm...

time to stop running away from it and take some notes, maybe?

@Wraith

That's opinion, some say Unleashed did a better story than SA2, others say the comics, some even say the promotional shorts like Mania Adventures did a better job, and those were light hearted little cartoons with zero dialogue. Doesn't mean SA2 is the definitive way to tell a Sonic story, it just means the fanbase is really divisive on what approach makes a good Sonic storyline.

I'm noticing a trend that when people think of light vs dark stories, people go to the extremes.

When people say they want darker stories, detractors tend to go "I don't want melodramatic corrupt government bloodsheds in my Sonic"

When people say they want light stories detractors tend to go "you just want to turn Sonic into a bootleg Looney Tunes/Teen Titans Go."

As for SA2 not "fitting in the series", well, it's part of the series for 20 years now, people STILL praise this story(as strange as this may seem to some) so there's apparently a market for darker Sonic stories with mature themes, and people need to deal with it instead of trying to retcon it, because thatt's one of the biggest reasons why Shadow has been bastardized.

Sonic Adventure 2 is not my favorite Sonic story but I have no trouble admitting it's the most popular one 

@mayday2592 @E-122-Psi And yet, SA2 is still in the public zeitgeist two decades later.

You can bitch and moan about all the game's faults dude, its not gonna change the reality that its the most iconic Sonic plot.

This isn't even fair criticism anymore, this is just you being in denial about reality.

Dude no one's denying SA2 had an impact, but it's not THE Sonic game and it's not 'above' getting a few knocks. SA1 was the public zeitgeist before it and people damn well know that game has its flaws. 

You act like ANY Sonic fan who says a single critical thing is a deluded, ungrateful meanie. The Sonic series is FLAWED. It has been since conception. People are allowed to not like things about it. Doesn't mean they don't acknowledge it has good things, that's often the reason they give criticism in the first place.

If SA2's your favourite game, that's fine. I can agree it is for many as well. But to say that is unanimous is a lie. It was divisive from a very early point.

interesting how sa2 is both 20 years old so you should stop caring about it and also the most iconic and beloved sonic story so you should still care about it

Sonic Adventure 2 is truly Schroeder's Sonic game.

Sonic Adventure 2 isn't even my favorite Sonic game, that's the funny part.

But I'm not gonna pretend like it hasn't had a significant impact on the series. I don't think anyone here has said the game is perfect or without flaws whatsoever. I fucking hate Knuckles and Rouge' stages, but it doesn't really affect my overall enjoyment of the game.

But y'all love to exaggerate and use hyperbole about the game's flaws and make it look worse than it actually is. I

Did you know that its possible for a game to be beloved despite its flaws, crazy concept I know. 

True, but it's also possible to still not like parts of the game and give critique to them without it just being pointless hate. Why do you think everyone who criticises something about SA2 just HATES everything it stands for and thinks it's a failure?

Because people have literally said exactly that lol. People who don't like Sonic Adventure 2 are very vocal in saying they believe its the point when Sonic started to "lose its way" and think its reputation isn't warranted. 

Very rarely do I hear critique against Sonic Adventure 2 that didn't express that sentiment. 

I don't think it's so much that everyone who thinks criticizes the game must hate it, but rather the criticisms towards this and "serious Sonic" as a whole has held the series back to the point of stagnation.

Like, at some point, y'all are going to have to get over this complex about Sonic ever attempting to do anything substantial again otherwise we're just gonna keep getting the same lackluster shit. 

yeah i know who to blame if we get games like Forces for the forseeable future.

I guess the opening kinda reminds me of Ice Cap but other than that I dont see it.

"GET BACK HERE YOU DAMN EGG!!"

"AWOOOOOOOOOO!"

"I DON'T NEED A REASON TO HELP OUT A FRIEND DAMMIT! LET'S GO!!

"GEEZ EGGMAN!! SIMMER DOWN!!!"

I guess after enough time has passed, a meme memes a meme.

Do you think Nintendo has the copyright to use the song? I mean, with how bad they are with copyright with songs on Youtube, that would be hilarious.

SMASH BROS CROW

just give me Strife already

yeah i'm basic but idgaf

Arcade Edition?

Just plain 'ol "Super Smash Bros" as to indicate it as a soft reboot

@Ferno and then ironically they can't get Cloud back.

Beyond., if you want name that sounds bigger than "Ultimate".

But that's just postponing till we hit the ceiling. Sooner or later we need to just use fun words. Cliches like "origin, adventure, revolution, universe" or maybe something wackier. IDK Festival, Cheers, Clash.

But please no "reboot with same name as original"

Knowing Nintendo a reboot would be called New Super Smash Bros.

Go back to using synonyms for "fight" like Melee and Brawl.

Super Smash Bros. Rumble
Super Smash Bros. Clash
Super Smash Bros. Fisticuffs

Mario Kart eventually started using numbers. I expect the same from Smash at some point

Smash Bros...Infinite

just a smash game that sticks around for like a decade or so with nonstop character additions

everybody gets in

characters from the bottom of the barrel get in

the lint from the bottom of the barrel gets in

the barrel gets in

waluigi doesn't get in tho

@Ferno They can only add the barrel if it's the Barrel of Doom from Sonic 3K

It'll be a barrel that was in the background of a Fire Emblem game

Smash Bros Extreme

i do think they will leave Ultimate as a constantly port-able game and engine for the original Super Smash, but then i think they may try to introduce new types of environments in an experimental game!!  maybe not like Power Stone 3D types of arenas per se, but something similar is always an option!

Pretty sure his account is hacked.

Pretty sure it's not. Pretty sure I'm just mocking the spam bots.

NO YOU'RE HACKED.