Whatever the WhoCares

All they need to do is make Big’s fishing optional yet fun. Do the Red Dead Redemption 2 method, except faster. Make the fish look varied and fun to catch, one after another, racking up rings. Maybe you can bring some fish back for your Chao, too, and they give them extra skill points when eaten.

Well when it comes to art style, they’d probably lean into the cartoonish direction. Sand Hill in TSR might be indicative, although hopefully the sand would look more like sand and less like frosting. Regardless of where things land on the spectrum, there’s no way we can expect the anime humans to return. This topic brings up a lot of aspects that invite further discussion. Chaos gets a little visceral as it grows, with nerves and bones showing. Women are seen sunbathing in bikinis around the pool. Would these aspects be retained, guaranteeing an E10+, - or would they be toned down somehow? Hopefully, and honestly probably, the former. Life, relatability, and grit. Let’s not avoid those entirely please. Then there aspects of the story that SEGA was wish-washy on the first time around, that they won’t be able to gloss over this time. Limited animation allowed them to dodge the question of whether the Chao were killed during the flashback scenes. And if the destruction of Station Square is recreated, I don’t see how they get around the implication of mass casualties. The city is empty when the flood begins, or there are people cheering for Sonic when he goes super. Pick one.

I can’t say whether I have faith in SEGA to do a SA remake. After Forces got slammed and SEGA did the internal restructure, who the hell knows who’s doing what?

If the next game is an anniversary title, I hope SEGA doesn’t make it an explicit celebration. Just do what SA2 and 06 did and have a little “30th Anniversary” emblem somewhere on the box art/wallpaper.

If there’s one thing we have any chance of seeing carried over from the movie, it’s the “two worlds” concept that supposedly already exists in the game universe. Maybe the film’s plot will encourage future stories to be less wishy-washy about that.

I’m really grateful for Sonic Mania Plus. A lot of people probably skipped Sonic Mania the first time around due to the series’ reputation, and then picked up Plus when it was clear this was a solid game. Also having Plus come out when it did really helped wash out the bad taste that Forces gave us. I know it was just an updated version of the same game, but regardless, it was nice to see the good game come back and take the spotlight from the bad one- and definitely good for the brand as well.

I’ll take your word for it, although I hadn’t noticed. And yeah, a CG trailer wouldn’t cut it for me either.

What’s also remarkable is how this decade ended. We know so incredibly little about the next game. Usually when a piece of media is probably coming out within 16 months, the public at least has a vague idea of what it’s about. With Sonic, it’s just one giant question mark. What consoles will it be for? Who is directing it? What’s the plot synopsis? The suspense isn’t exactly killing me, but it is pretty exceptional at this point.

I actually like the idea of them being separate dimensions. It means they can go back to that art style without having to shoehorn the associated story as a prequel to Adventure. Although to me, I always had trouble viewing the Classic characters and Modern ones as the same characters. Either way, I agree that they shouldn’t be mingling with each other. Anyway, I will always remember this past 10 years as a retread of the one before, in a general sense. Sonic Colors and Generations are this decade’s SA and SA2 in terms of quality. Then Lost World (Heroes) marks a major step down. Then we get a misguided attempt to cater to a new market with Sonic Boom (Shadow the Hedgehog), followed by a colossal disappointment with Sonic Forces (Sonic 06). Finally this is bookended by a surprisingly good racing game in Team Sonic Racing (Sonic and Sega All-Stars Racing). There is no analogy to Sonic Mania or Unleashed, so it’s not really the same, but the parallels that do exist are remarkable imo.

Thread title should be changed to "A Mainline Sonic Game in 2020" to make expectations realistic and avoid further confusion. Anyway, I wish SEGA would just release a three-sentence blurb about the next game. Any info, three sentences. I don't care if it's just the plot premise, gameplay, or whatever else. I just want something to discuss. We know so little about this next game, it's kind of boring.

They didn’t get picked at nearly as harshly, though. Because they clearly weren’t story driven.

Ever notice how critics don’t rip apart stories like Generations or the 2D games? That’s because, as others have said, the stories that get bashed are the ones that take themselves seriously AND have gigantic narrative/pacing/tonal/presentation/dialogue flaws. That’s because - Sonic 2, 3&K, and Mania aside - every Sonic story to take itself seriously has had such flaws. And we’ve seen with games like Unleashed, critics finding the good parts of the narrative and setting, and praising it accordingly. We’d have seen similar praise for Sonic Forces, but there weren’t any praiseworthy aspects.

I’ve always envisioned Eggman as someone who wants to control everything because he’s pathologically insecure about himself and the chaos of the world. This makes him the polar opposite of Sonic, who has a carefree attitude and seeks to preserve the natural world. An ending to the franchise would involve Eggman overcoming this psychological flaw.

Looking back, it’s actually funny. From Colors to Forces, the Modern Sonic stories got progressively less interesting. Ironically and hilariously, Team Sonic Racing has the most engaging story of the last decade. And that story wasn’t good. I’d imagine many scholars would claim that Sonic Mania doesn’t even have a “story” per se; that’s how straightforward it is. But it’s charmingly conveyed, so it kicks the shit out of anything Sonic Team has done in ages.

If it’s an anniversary game, I really hope they mean so in spirit rather than the literalism of something like Generations. I want a big, grand adventure that uses its story AND gameplay to celebrate the FEELING you get from a good Sonic game.