Kazhnuz

My favorite style for that is "Archie Post-SGW" a.k.a. a big mix of all these, but rationalized by a coherent art-style and a "framework". It's not just me being an Archie fanboy again, but that I think that those universe work great when fused. I like the idea of an "universe" (I mean that as a "narrative universe", basically it can be one world, two world, it's not really important) that contain a multitude of surprise, of narrative possibilities. For me more "earth-like" place (Unleashed, SA, 2006) can be depicted as part of the United Federations (or related to it), more cartoony place can be related to Mobians… It makes for me the universe feel bigger, full of possibilities. Especially if you can begin to play with the dissonances between the different place, and putting it in work in a story. Thus, for me the problem is the lack of a common framework to make all these universe fit together. If there was one, it would work well, as you can't represent everything of a world with a Sonic-like game (they are too small), so the rest can be in part that aren't represented (the problem is more for elements that are supposed to be world-wide, like GUN). That's why I'm interested in question like "two-world", of with the world created by Flynn for the second Archie continuity: both are framework that make the diversity/inconsistency of the Sonic universe work. One by creating two space that are linked by some kind of portal or whatever, the other by creating defined spaces inside one universe, in order to put elements from these "type of world" together.

Personally, I really would like some kind of "remake" of Sonic 4 (that add a third episode at the same time). If Sonic Mania have better physics and level design than Sonic 4, I really think that Sonic 4 had many good ideas. First because I think it's a bit sad that half of the game suffer from dreadful physics, secondly because I really would like a complete edition of Sonic 4 xD But that's mostly because there are many things that I like in Sonic 4, and I'm a bit unhappy with that this game doesn't reach is full potential because of being incomplete, its physics, etc. ( And I would love a final boss in Super State for it) I would be especially interested by a Sonic 4 remake made by the Mania team, even if I think it shouldn't go the 32-bits read, and use either a hand-drawn style à la Monster Boy (that would be the most work, but I would love that xD), or use entirely the 3D looks of the Episode 2.

I agree with most people in that I like the egoistical, manchild, evil-and-he-love-it, clownesque Eggman. For me, Eggman have to totally steal the show, because he *is* a showman. So that's why my favourite Eggman is modern Eggman (from Unleashed onward). His plan are still dangerous and murderous, but he has a wacky flair and a manchild attitude that make him awesome and way more funny. (I just feel that they should make Orbot and Cubot more competent while keeping the wacky banters). I'm less a big fan of him between Heroes and 2006, where I felt he really was underutilized.

Nope ? The arc would just be done in a different way.

I think Marco said "Unleashed" because it's the first arc adapted by Flynn during the reboot era, so he would have had to adapt it differently… but it would have mostly not been a problem. It would have been pretty simple, and might have lead to a more straightforward arc, more similar to the game : - All the important action would have happened on Earth. GUN would have been a part of it of course. Some arc would not even had many differences, like the Eclipse arc. - He would have world-build more Earth during this arc, and then would have during some other arc do that for Sonic's World. - Naugus wouldn't have been part of this arc, and would have had another storyline later. The Freedom Fighter might have been way less a focus and maybe even mostly absent, except if they traveled with Sonic to Earth. - According of if he wanted to play with inter-world relationship, he might have done something with the fact that only one of the two world is affected, as it have a lot of story potential. There isn't many big problems with such an adaptation (and I would say that he wouldn't have had any real problem). It basically would have been basically "Sonic Unleashed but with other characters and Adventure-era lore added". It would have been different than the actual arc we got, but it would have been pretty easy to adapt.

I'm… really not for an anti-climatic battle this time. It's a brand new arc, on a brand new comic, and we got anticlimax a few time before in other media. So having a proper climax would be neater. But I'm not against making Neo Metal "surviving" and maybe becoming "something new" at the end of the arc, somehow. There is no real basis to say that he is more "forced" than he was before. Basically, he have already said that have he known when he created the new timeline for Archie that this was the canon, he would have used it (meaning that they were quite lax and that it's his preference to follow the official canon for that kind of thing, and for many things he stated that he prefer to follow the canon). Maybe they enforce it more than before, but there is no basis with these tweets to say that. It's exactly the same kind of bs that happened when Cream/Gemerl/Omega weren't here and that were refuted before. Not every choice is a SEGA mandate. And yeah, generally we are obligated to accept the choices of the owner of a franchise as the official canon. That's the base of a canon. Their toys, their rules, their canon.

As they haven't "decided to make a non-accurate cover", nope. As it was said, sometimes changes happens after the cover is done (or when the cover is in production, meaning that sometimes changes can't be done). Plan changes, it happens, the cover get wrong, that's sad. Sure, it would be better if the cover were always accurate, not-spoilery (I've more a problem with spoilery cover… especially in the Archie era when spoilery cover weren't revealed at the last moment xD), but sometimes crap happens.

As the cover might have been done before the decision, I'm not sure that it would have been better to remove them. I mean, can you imagine the overreaction if the character had been removed from the cover (as it would have been known at one moment) ? We already had tons of speculation because of that they weren't included in the actual issues, if they had been removed from the cover, we might had got a lot more people that would have believed that it was SEGA wanting to erase these characters or something like that. TBH I think that even if it was a bit of a let down, it was better than what could have happens in terms of rumors and stuff like that with them removed from the cover (and I'm even not talking if they had to be removed AFTER it was announced, in this case it would have been a really bad idea). Especially as anything can become a rumor like "the author hates this character" or "this character is banned because the main company is an evil corporation wanting to annoy me" in fandoms.

At first, I though it was "dank themes", so I was pretty confused. Personally, my opinion is that darker theme in an overall light toned franchise adapted to children are a good things. There are ton of franchise that do that : Ace Attorney (games are often pretty wacky and fun when they need to be, but the inherent concept of the franchise make it deal with darker theme), the latest few Fire Emblem (even Awakening, that is often seen as one of the least dark FE game, had pretty serious themes), the Legend of Zelda, Paper Mario, etc. So, for me, many series that aim for children are able to deal with "darker", more serious theme. I could also talk about cartoons, stuff like that (Avatar : the last Airbender have already been mentioned). The fact that they are adapted for children doesn't make the thematics less serious or less interesting, and I think that having thoses kind of themes are also important in children stories (especially as these thematics often exist in the real world and the real life of the children, so it helps their construction to reflect them in the culture they'll have access to). Therefore, I think that having darker theme in Sonic can be great, no problem for me with that. And to be frank, sometime the "but it's just a blue hedgehog that runs pretty fast" annoy me. I mean, in Paper Mario we always have a Plumber with jumping as a trademark ability… in paper. The reasoning of something not being able to tell some kind of story just because the first appearance is "cartoony" or "not serious" really seems to me… pretty shallow, tbh. But I don't feel that they are *always* necessary too. Dealing with them is great, but i think that for this franchise, story-wise the most important is the overall writing of the characters. A great part of this fandom is built around the characters, and I feel that not writing them well is really a disservice for the franchise, and it's even more important than the tone of the story, or its complexity. One exemple I have is Lost World. Honestly, the story isn't less complex than Heroes', Rush or the Advance one. There are many stories in Sonic that are straightforward, without having a really "dark" tone. The biggest difference is that there is more humor, but mostly how the character react. What I've seen the most in Lost World criticism is how Sonic seems to dismiss Tails' feeling, how Tails reactions to that seems exaggerated, how the D6 doesn't have real personalities. Another exemple, even if here the opinion is more mitigated (I'm really not sure of how this word is written lol), many people seems to really like the IDW comic-book even if the story is really simplistic. Most often, they praise the character writing. Of course, I'm not talking for everybody : I know that they are people that want Sonic-only, that prefer darker-tone stories, etc. I'm just talking about most of the reaction I see when I search stuff on several networks. But, my point is : Dark themes can be useful for Sonic's stories, but I feel that they are just an element of the story, as it's a franchise built mostly around characters.

Flynn working on the game is neither the only solution nor the solution to the core problem. I think he could so some interesting thing and he handle the characters quite well, but I can say the same things about many other people, for the first part the writer of the official Sonic anniversary comics. Those were really on point, pretty funny and had a lot of character into them. So the talent and the knowledge of the character is already in the Sonic Team or accessible to them (maybe not used for the games, though). For instance, we could think if it's a good idea for Sonic of having script that are often radically different for occidental and japanese people. If you look at the change made between japanese and occidental script, you can see that some character haven't even the same personnality ! (for instance, the deadly 6 can be quite different in japanese, for instance Zeena) Most of the humor is toned down in japanese script. It's not new that the script are different in japan and occident, though, and I'm not saying that it's something bad in itself (there are other games that do that and that I like a lot), the question is for it being adequate "for Sonic". And for me, the problem here is mostly that I strongly disagree with the american script, tbh. I feel that since Colors it change even the goal of the writing. Moreover, the big different with many other project that have different script is that here the occidental script is the one that prevail (with for instance cutscenes animated for the occidental script…). If you look at Sonic Forces, it seems that the script followed that pattern : original story -> English script -> Japanese script We can see a big turnover in japanese writers too : Colors have Yasushi Otake, Sonic Lost World have Harumasa Nakajima; Sonic Forces have Makoto Goya (initial story) and Eitaro Toyoda (japanse final script). So here we can have two different solution : - Stick to the current system and have an english writer that'll do less joke and use the character a better way. I don't feel that Flynn would be worse than other writers for this jobs, as he knows the character and do a good job to make them vibrant. It wouldn't solve the problem of having a script that travel from japan to US to japan again, though. - Doing more the script in japan and then translating it a bit more accurately (with good translators, and writers that revamp a bit the text to make it feel more natural, in order to keep the goods of the current system). It wouldn't improve everything, though, but I feel that it would also improve the other problem of Sonic Forces : I've always the feeling when I look at that games that there have been too many hands on the script, and that the final script suffer from this with its inconsistent ideas. (and nope it's not that "the japanese writers didn't care about making it consistent", it's often something that happens when a script have too many hands,) So for me the solution can't be simplified as something like "let's remove the current writer and use better one because Sonic Team have no talent !!1!1". Sonic Team still have people that are passionate and full of talent. For me, it's way more a question of policies and way of working the games. We can't always pin down a problem to individuals. Maybe there are problem in the leadership. Maybe they are problem with what are SEGA's demands on each games. Maybe there is a problem with the budget. But I'm not sure it's just a question of individuals.

No. You *can't* do an adaptation like that, it's the best way of doing something that isn't adapted for the new media.

… So I didn't even notice the actual line, wow xD

They don't really need too ? There have been basically three big musical reference in the, and all of them are integrated to a moment (and a "cool" moment). They are just some "plus" were the reference isn't needed. We don't have to know that "my way, my own way" is a reference, as it's used in a place were it's part of the dialogue. Same for "show me what you're made off", it's a sentence that could have been used without the reference. And to be honest : I didn't understood the "I never fear the fall" ref' at first, and I still found that moment cool. "Comical" reference were more a problem for me, though, as it's a joke were the joke is basically "it's a reference so it's funny", but when haven't the reference, it feel flat.

You don't have to understand anything. They can be a multitude of reason of why they aren't there : change of plan, cover not depicting the exact issue, etc. Maybe they ("they" can be SEGA, IDW, Flynn, etc) just thought that adding even more character just before the big fight wasn't a good idea, for instance. That's not totally true: games have happened "in some way", and they might not have *all* happened (especially the most obscure ones) Me too. He is really entertaining, and it's refreshing to have a menacing threat like it.

Mmh, the pages on spoiler make me thinks something… I really like how quirky and funny Flynn write the characters. I could even read a sitcom comic full of that, even without a story XD