Realism in Sonic Games

[Chaos Warp]

This topic is about realism in Sonic games (derp). If you even want realism at all, if so, how realistic they should be, how often it should be realistic, etc, etc. Myself, if they are going to go for a realistic look, it should be Unleashed cartoon-realism. That way, Sonic does not look as out of place. But I would prefer if they went for a fantasy look like in the classics, Heroes, and the recreations of the classic levels (and Seaside Hill, Planet Wisp, and to an extent Speed Highway) in Generations.

Oh, and anthropomorphic (like Sonic and friends) animal citizens to fit in with fantasy-like areas please.

[Soniman]

Unleashed did it right

Sonic 06 and Shadow did it HORRIBLY WRONG

Sonic Adventure found a nice middle ground

SA2 is......meh

[Nepenthe]

The Sonic games have always had a Disney-ish level of realism. Locations are usually natural and man-made landscapes but given a lot of artistic liberty and color for the sake of style. I really don't want an ShtH aesthetic again (Hell, at least Sonic 06 had some color, a lot more than people give credit for), but Generations/Unleashed aesthetic is fine with me. But also important is the expansiveness of locations and environmental variety. Constantly recurrent environmental obstacles, as pretty as they may be, ultimately help downplay the perceived size of a level and how far it feels you've traveled.

[Sparky]

A combination of Pure Fantasy, Realistic Fantasy, Realistic Real, Cartoony Fantasy, and Cartoony Real.

[Gregzilla]

Unleashed is probably the best design when it comes to realism, because the animal characters fit in with the style. But why is it that there are never any other animal characters besides Sonic's friends? It's as if no animal character exists until Sonic befriends them. If they put in some other animals as NPCs with the cartoony humans then the style would be pretty well balanced and fitting.

[Solid SOAP]

I like Sonic games having more unrealistic, ridiculous landscapes ala the classics and Sonic Colors. Generations' portrayal of Green Hill Zone is how I think Sonic should have looked since this gen began.

[batson]

The Mega Drive games did it best.

...man if i had a quarter for everytime i've said that. But seriously, in this respect, they really did. Unleashed's only slightly warped and simplified real-life locations were way too realistic and boring for my tastes. I loved how in the classics, even most natural environments looked as if they were artificial (the good ol checkered hills being the best but far from the only example) and painted with bright neon colors.

[Diogenes]

The recent games are pretty close to what I'd like to see. Colorful, somewhat cartoony, and fantastic, while still mostly grounded in the real world. Though, none of them quite manage to hit it just right; Unleashed is too focused on real-world locations/cultures, Colors is too obviously artificial (outside Planet Wisp, anyway, but even there the natural sections are disappointingly rare), and Generations is a hodgepodge of settings with an Unleashed filter.

[Gregzilla]

On the topic of locations and settings, I actually think Heroes had a pretty good style. It really seemed like they took the bright, vibrant feel of the Genesis games and translated it well into 3D. That's the style I'd like to see most often, only HD.

Unleashed's locales were very realistic, but that was kind of a one-time gimmick, so I like it, but it's not what the series should do in the future. Colors had a fun style, but at times it felt a little TOO ridiculous and cartoony (Sweet Mountain especially). That game was going for a pretty kiddy feel though, so it's acceptable.

While Generations is a mish-mash of several previous styles, I think the design of the Modern versions of the Genesis era levels have a very good art style. Stuff like Modern Sky Sanctuary, Chemical Plant, and Green Hill is what the series should try to look like in the future in my opinion.

[Blue Blood]

When there's realistic locales in Sonic games, they need to be based on areas that aren't run of the mill every day places, and should have many parts of the exaggerated. Compare...

• Rooftop Run wasn't Italy, it was a beautiful city littered with balloons, giant barrels, an exaggerated colour scheme and cartoonified realistic architecture.
  
• Soleanna was Venice. And real is grey.
  

RTR isn't perfect even with it's improvements in Generations, but it's variety and I'm more than happy to see Sonic dabble in different styles. I'm not adverse to Colours either. Sweet Mountain was quite very almost too much on the fantasy side of things, but the fact it was mostly made of metal and full of industrial structures helped keep it in line with the Sonic theme. Aquarium Park too was a realistic location (seriously, the realism in the underwater areas is some kind of awesome) and it's mixed with equally realistic architecture, that with some exaggeration and turning the entire thing into a miniature planter makes a delightfully Sonicy stage.

Only too Sonic games have been too realistic in my eyes- SA2 and '06. SA2 mainly for it's graphical style to be honest. Everything looks very real and overly detailed, while '06 was simply "Sonic in the real world" as ol' Yuji Naka put it before jumping ship. ShTH wasn't too real, it was just dark and void of colour. The aspect of colour in Sonic games is hugely important.

Random note: Sonic's fur texturing is an element of realism that could be toned down a lot.

[Mangoaxe5]

The Sonic Adventure games had the right mix of realism and fantasy.

[Chaos Warp]

I think it would be legit if we had a mix of realism and fantasy depending on the level, for example Unleashed realism being the extreme end of the spectrum and Heroes/SG Genesis level recreation style being the other extreme.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Let me throw a curveball here. We all know about the GUN military, right? Take a look at their soldiers:

VERY realistic, huh? (those night vision goggles are drop dead awesome, tho)

But since Unleashed redesigned the humans into a more cartoony style, I think we can do the same with GUN. So instead of them looking like the above, wouldn't it be better if the GUN soldiers looked more like this instead?

Cartoony enough to be alongside Sonic, but soldier enough to still fuck your shit up.

[Nepenthe]

The relative simplicity of the current GUN soldier, mostly in the suit's inability to define a human muscular structure all that well, is enough for me not to equate them with the C.O.G soldiers. That first image actually looks like a bit Pixar-esque design, reminiscent of Syndrome's guards from The Incredibles. I honestly can't imagine seeing GUN grunts being redesigned like the guy in the second picture.

Besides, I still have horrid memories of Chronicles' rendition of the Commander. X.x

[Diogenes]

Honestly, I'm not that bothered by the first design. It's not exactly exciting, but it works for a generic grunt.

[Blue Blood]

Yeah, there's nothing ill-fitting about it. Completely agree with Nepenthe and Dio on this one.

I just came across this screenshot from Unleashed:

That's some kind of extreme and un-Sonicy realism. In the actual stage and not the hub, you see a lot more of the landscape. The clock-tower, aqueduct and excess of orange, barely visible in this screen, give some sort of focus to the place. They're stand-out points that make everything seem a little less realistic.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Hmm, really?

That's not what I expected considering how many of us favored the more cartoony humans to the more normal looking ones in previous titles. But I guess that just shows more that realism is not bad no matter the aesthetics...for lack of a better way to put it.

At least it isn't like the ones in Sonic 06, right?

[Solid SOAP]

I actually liked the design of the humans in ShTH, and the game in general actually kind of had a cool art style, despite having ugly textures and visuals. The whole idea of the cities and wildlife covered with alien technology and plants was kinda cool, and levels like the computer ones were remeniscent of Sonic CD I felt. Sonic '06's style is one that Sonic Team should not return to, I'd like to see more original ideas for levels like seen in Colors from now on, while ditching the cheesy storyline and dialogue.

[Gregzilla]

I personally don't really have a problem with the GUN soldier designs, but the GUN soldiers lead me to another aspect of the series' realism: the GUN organization itself. When you think of Sonic, a hedgehog who saves animals from an evil doctor who makes animal-shaped robots, what comes to mind?....That's right, the military! Out of all the things that have become somewhat recurring features in the franchise (super forms, ancient monsters, teleporting with Chaos Emeralds, etc), GUN is the one that I think is the least fitting. SA2 was good, but it marked the point when the stories started trying too hard to be cool and more realistic. Though it seems that GUN really isn't a part of the series ever since 2006 (besides the cameo in Generations with the truck), so that's one change to the series that I consider an improvement.

[Sparky]

I personally don't really have a problem with the GUN soldier designs, but the GUN soldiers lead me to another aspect of the series' realism: the GUN organization itself. When you think of Sonic, a hedgehog who saves animals from an evil doctor who makes animal-shaped robots, what comes to mind?....That's right, the military! Out of all the things that have become somewhat recurring features in the franchise (super forms, ancient monsters, teleporting with Chaos Emeralds, etc), GUN is the one that I think is the least fitting. SA2 was good, but it marked the point when the stories started trying too hard to be cool and more realistic. Though it seems that GUN really isn't a part of the series ever since 2006 (besides the cameo in Generations with the truck), so that's one change to the series that I consider an improvement.

It was mentioned in Zero Gravity.

ANd get rid of GUN = Get rid of Shadow and ROuge

[Speederino]

I am of the stance that super-powered talking animals don't really blend well with hyper-realistic art styles. (I'm looking at you, Sonic 2006) I don't mind 'realistic' locales or humans, so long as the game doesn't try to be super-ultra-high-def with realistic textures and character models. (Again, Sonic 2006)

[lounge]

I don't see what's wrong with humans that look like Maria. I especially like her Sonic X design.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Though it seems that GUN really isn't a part of the series ever since 2006 (besides the cameo in Generations with the truck), so that's one change to the series that I consider an improvement.

GUN is as much a part of this series as Shadow, Rouge, and Omega are simple due to the fact that they are members of GUN themselves.

And you know, that's partly why I even brought up the idea to change them from they way they were in my last post just so they could actually be more fitting in this series. I'm more than likely in the minority, but I'm one of the people who actually likes GUN and want them to be used more, but I'm not above changing their design so that they don't conflict next to the more cartoony characters.

[Nitwit_Speed]

I'll be frank. Every time someone says cartoony in this thread, i die a bit inside. The modern redesign is a more physically developed Sonic in a manga art style the way i see it, so semi-realisticness is perfectly fine the same way it is in anime. In insert anime here, the protanogist lives in generic city but often goes to demon land or the fantastical forest and it never clashes with the art style. Sonic can do that. He did it in- here it comes- SA2 near perfectly. Those photograph textures where ugly no matter what the goal was and they ruined everything. But SA2 has Central City (City Escape, Radical Highway, Mission Street... all the same location on the map and refered to as the capital city, which as we know from SHtH and Battle is Central City), the realistic city; the Space Colony ARK, the super Scifi setting; and Pumkin Sky Rail Hill land, which is an excellent fantasy setting. It all fits the art style of the game. Unleashed had pixar people running around in HD google street view, which is hardly cartoony although debatably fittable in the anime art style again.

And in GUN's defense, Sonic takes place on an alternate earth as far as the Japanese- now international- canon goes, so having GUN around isn't a good or a bad thing unless the story needs it (no one was phased by the world blowing up in Unleashed, but if it did, GUN'd have to step in) or isn't compatable with it (if they randomly picked a fight with Eggman before he did something in, well, any game, GUN'd be a problem. Stories shouldn't be written to disagree with a game's world, though. Even though the plot of Heroes was light on content and super-cheesy, the game didn't go out of it's way to not be a Sonic game. It just had a different tone.

Rudeness not intended, the inner troll be kickin' tonight and i feel like it snuck a little into this post.

[Nepenthe]

There's nothing really conflicting about the human designs in GUN simply because they aren't as hyper-realistic as the humans in 06 were. Not every single character design has to be some variant of a sphere on noodles to fit in with Sonic and the gang, especially if they're just narrative/background fodder. =P