Popular and unpopular Sonic opinions you agree and disagree with!

[Gotta Go Rational]

More of a factoid that I don’t completely buy rather than an opinion, but IMDB continuously credits Roger Craig Smith as being the voice of the Wisp Announcer, but I’ve never seen an actual original source for this. Never really sounded like him to me (although admittedly there is significant voice distortion used), and not really 100% convinced it’s the case.  

To be fair, Sonic Colours only credits the actors who we know voice Sonic, Tails, Eggman, Cubot and Orbot, there’s no credit for any sixth actor, so that does work against my point, unless it’s an uncredited voice or someone other than Roger is doubling up. The “English Voice Actor Fandom” site strangely credits Kirk Thornton as being the Wisp Announcer but only for Team Sonic Racing. I dunno, it’s a strange ‘un for me.

[Multikaris]

I actually thing Eggman Nega could work; just make him Archie Eggman, complete with a set of organic minions under his thumb. His treatments of his minions could be like Archie Eggman, along with his strategies and stuff.

[DabigRG]

1 minute ago, Miragnarok said:

I actually thing Eggman Nega could work; just make him Archie Eggman, complete with a set of organic minions under his thumb. His treatments of his minions could be like Archie Eggman, along with his strategies and stuff.

Huh. Fair point.

Eggman isn't really that known for his organic underlings, come to think of it. Almost all of them are outsourced.

It also reminds me of how I thought his activities in Forces might've made more sense if it was Nega.

[MainJP]

I'm late on this but Sonic likes cars because he likes fast things.

Look at the amount of official art where he's in or around a motor vehicle.

Spoiler

Considering he owns the Tornado he definitely just likes vehicles in general.

[Badnik Zero]

Don’t know if this is an unpopular opinion.

The Super Sonic boss in Mania is bad. The sprite for the transformed HBH is weird, the ring consuming dash is guaranteed to kill you a couple times when you first play it, and the background is almost a blank space. 

I forgive it for the rest of the game being the best thing ever, and for it being a bonus stage basically. But next to Sonic 2 final boss, S3&K final bosses, and even Sonic Rush super fights, Mania’s fight is last place.

It has no atmosphere, and it feels awkward.

[Wraith]

I'll take it a step further and say most of mania's boss fights are pretty middling.

Long transition phases and wind up animations for attacks give them a sluggish pace. They sometimes feel like modern Sonic boss fights where you spend more time waiting around over acting. The immediate clarity that comes with bosses from the likes of Sonic 2 and 3 are gone and replaced with ideas and mechanics that feel clunky and sometimes a little cheap, like the tornado boss that moves on a 3d plane. The few joke bosses like mean bean machine and the first act of Hydrocity are cute the first time around but become tedious on replays. They're not all bad, but it's kind of a mixed bag like Sonic CD.

 

[Badnik Zero]

I also get a CD feel from some of the Mania bosses, like some of them are non-bosses that center more around a gimmick than the action of the fight.

Many are just bootleg copies of mini bosses from S3&K. I enjoyed fighting the HBH though. It seems like most of the effort was put into these being decent character vs. character fights, and the rest were maybe just extra fun like the weather boss in Studiopolis, which is a non-boss. The bosses were the weakest spot of this game.

[Miles Storzillo]

As much as I don't like Mania, I'll probably be the 1st to say the Egg Reverie is my favorite boss in the Classic games (though I guess that's not really saying much since it's one of, if not the only, few Classic bosses I like).  Especially when I compare it to S3&K's Super (or in this case Hyper) Sonic boss.  Even today I still have no idea where to go to get the most rings in the 1st phase, and it doesn't help that sometimes even after beating the 2nd phase I have such little amount of rings left that I run out of rings before thd 3rd phase even begins.  Is Egg Reverie my favorite in the franchise?  Hell no!  It will never reach the level of Solaris (wow, a game I actually hate has a boss I like more than a game I just find below average), Dark Queen, Egg Nega Wisp Armor, and especially HD Dark Gaia (That battle is kickass).  But I still enjoy it.  Too bad I don't care enough for Mania to go back to it.  I haven't put that game in my Switch ever since probably last year.  I'd rather focus on games I actually like such as Mario Odyssey, Smash Ultimate,  Sonic Forces, Sonic Team Racing, and maybe Spyro Reignited if I get it for Christmas.

[Iko]

I'm not a big fan of Sonic Mania, and part of the reason why I didn't enjoy the game is because of the bosses. Basically, the only boss that I like is that one in Chemical Plant that's surrounded by a bubble of that blue stuff. It may be a variation of some other existing boss behavior-wise, but it's the only boss that actually feels like a Classic Sonic boss in the game, everything else is meh... And even that boss has some cheap attacks, sometimes it bounces too fast and can't be avoided.

The running boss in Studiopolis is cool in concept, but the gameplay is atrocious because jump physics are unnatural and it's all about waiting the right missile, very boring.

Another opinion, different subject:

I think that in an Heroes-like team system, Silver should be considered power type.

Power types are based on Knuckles; they can glide, they can punch stuff and throw the other team members.

Silver can glide, can throw other characters with psychokinetics and he's considered slower than average... he fits well if not for the fact that he can't punch stuff. They can let him use some force fields instead of punches and get the same effect...

[DabigRG]

1 hour ago, Iko said:

Silver can glide, can throw other characters with psychokinetics and he's considered slower than average... he fits well if not for the fact that he can't punch stuff. They can let him use some force fields instead of punches and get the same effect...

That's actually a pretty good point. 

There's also his psychic pimp slap. 

 

[A Peep]

- “Sonic Advance 3 is bad”

I don’t get the hate. I like this game. Route 99 is a bit badly designed but everything other stage is good in my book.

 

- “Sonic 06 is a fun experience with friends  though not a good game.”

I agree with this one completely. While I would not recommend playing the entire game, I still enjoy it to some degree. Though, I’ll add this: The Sonic stages are actually well designed.

 

- “Sonic Colours is bad”

I disagree. While I don’t think it was great and I don’t think it started the short renaissance (Unleashed for me started it), I still think Colours is a solid 6/10 game, though I will admit, the DS version is better.

I have more but I got bored.

[Iko]

On 8/19/2019 at 5:47 PM, A Peep said:

- “Sonic Advance 3 is bad”

I don’t get the hate. I like this game. Route 99 is a bit badly designed but everything other stage is good in my book.

I also think that the game is good, but I stll prefer the other two in the trilogy.

Advance 3's level design is too repetitive, the same part is repeated multiple times with little to no difference, and spreaded through 3 acts instead of two.

Also, there are many parts where if you fall, instead of ending into a lower route, you end into a return route where you have to go back to where you failed and repeat until you pass (or repeat again if you fall again).

Finally, there are hub worlds... personal preference, but I don't like having to navigate a tricky hub world in order to select a level, unless the hub itself is interesting enough such as Delfino Plaza in Mario Sunshine, but this is definitely not the case in Advance 3.

Ignoring some issues I have with some specific bosses and levels (such as the one in Chaos Angel placed entirely on a moving platform with misleading hints which lead to being crushed unfairly), and the occasional glitches that happen more often than they do in the previous games, plus some physics/gameplay changes that IMO are a downgrade compared to Advance 2.

It's definitely a good game, it's fun to try out all the character combinations and all the tag team moves, though I think it's overall more flawed than the former Advance games. Regardless I would still play it over all of the modern mainline games starting from Adventure 1 onward.

[E-122-Psi]

Within all the 'serious vs comical' debates, I'm not really sure Sonic himself as a character works in a serious atmosphere.

Besides the execution, Sonic tends to keep a lot of consistent traits, and one of them is that he recurrently fails to take the situation seriously. Oh there are breaking points, but they  obviously never stick. Otherwise he's always a cocky one-liner spurting asshole, and I think that has more chance of being likeable in a universe that doesn't consistently work against that.

In cases we don't we either get him being enabled for being stone faced or irresponsible at inappropriate situations (eg. Sonic X) or we end up getting a rather negative take on Sonic who constantly needs his ego and dare devil attitude taken down a peg (eg. SatAm), the problem there being Sonic often still has to remain stagnant as a character so still NEVER learns. Archie Sonic in particular had the worst of both situations, since he was constantly reckless and overconfident which sometimes had lethal mistakes for people other than himself. The fact he never learned from all the collateral damage and often took any criticism as oppressing him and being ungrateful led to a rather odious and apathetic take on him, and since the writers couldn't permanently develop him from that, they often had to just straw man his opposition.

Even Lost Worlds, despite being comical, had this issue within the ONE SAME STORY, showing him being reckless and confident having serious consequences and NEVER LEARNING to stop. Boom to compare flanderizes his ego, but since the stakes often remain in a comical atmosphere, it doesn't feel quite as insufferable a trait, especially since they can often just given him a funny comeuppance at the end.

It's even worse in some of the games that try to just forgo his personality altogether and almost make him the stock comic relief good guy (eg. the Shadow/Next Gen era).

[Kuzu]

I don't think it's fair to say all of that is because "Sonic doesn't work in a serious setting" when it simply comes down to writing quality.

Like, he's fine in the Adventure games (if a little flat compared to the rest) and the storybook titles, and those are pretty serious themselves, especially in comparison to Boom.

The simpler reason is that most of the writers who work on this series just aren't very good and have poor communication with Sega in managing it. Saying "well Sonic just isn't suited for serious storytelling" feels like a massive underselling of the character's potential.

[StaticMania]

I mean, that last thing isn't really accurate.

Outside of Shadow the Hedgehog, all the serious games had him in a more subdued portrayal...

Heroes didn't, but that game wasn't serious.

[Dr. Mechano]

"Sonic needs to fix its core gameplay before worrying about spinoffs" whenever the topic of games starring other characters comes up.

I disagree with this because Sonic Team doesn't have to divert resources to spinoff games at all. A game starring one of the other characters (like, oh just spitballing here, Eggman) could easily be outsourced to some other team (as they did with Traveler's Tales, Dimps, and others for certain games) while Sonic Team continues to focus all their resources on the next big main-series title.

I think, in light of that, talking about and/or wanting to see weird experimental spinoff games in the series is a valid pursuit. They wouldn't have to cut into the main series' focus or resources at all.

[SenEDDtor Missile]

13 minutes ago, Dr. Mechano said:

"Sonic needs to fix its core gameplay before worrying about spinoffs" whenever the topic of games starring other characters comes up.

I disagree with this because Sonic Team doesn't have to divert resources to spinoff games at all. A game starring one of the other characters (like, oh just spitballing here, Eggman) could easily be outsourced to some other team (as they did with Traveler's Tales, Dimps, and others for certain games) while Sonic Team continues to focus all their resources on the next big main-series title.

I think, in light of that, talking about and/or wanting to see weird experimental spinoff games in the series is a valid pursuit. They wouldn't have to cut into the main series' focus or resources at all.

Focusing on the core gameplay to the exclusion of spinoffs doesn't mean much of anything as it is given just how badly mismanaged the franchise is. They could literally do nothing but focus on the main game only and it still wouldn't fix their lack of ability to actually create a core gameplay worth a damn.

[Dr. Mechano]

7 minutes ago, SenEDDtor Missile said:

Focusing on the core gameplay to the exclusion of spinoffs doesn't mean much of anything as it is given just how badly mismanaged the franchise is. They could literally do nothing but focus on the main game only and it still wouldn't fix their lack of ability to actually create a core gameplay worth a damn.

I agree with this too.

Granted, me saying that Sonic Team doesn't know how to make video games anymore isn't exactly a surprising opinion.

[DabigRG]

Was anyone else not super keen on Dodon Pa being this ruler of a Kingdom who runs a successful automobile company...across the galaxy? 

[Gotta Go Rational]

Quote

Was anyone else not super keen on Dodon Pa being this ruler of a Kingdom who runs a successful automobile company...across the galaxy?

I did find it strange that Amy knows of the company too, as it's never really been made clear that there was any established ongoing connection or communication between Sonic's world and other parts of the galaxy.

[Marco9966]

I want a game that actually show that planet and that company

[DabigRG]

33 minutes ago, Gotta Go Rational said:

I did find it strange that Amy knows of the company too, as it's never really been made clear that there was any established ongoing connection or communication between Sonic's world and other parts of the galaxy.

Yeah, seriously.

Like he obviously has some stock resources and capabilities, but sheesh, I thought we were supposed to be aiming for more manageable things.

32 minutes ago, Marco9966 said:

I want a game that actually show that planet and that company

Honestly, I went into the game fully expecting Dodon Pa to turn out to be a Master-of-Games type character who would bring the racers to his home dimension/planet for the final races.

[Splash the Otter]

Hot Take: Knuckles shouldn't "take his job seriously" like some people say he should. To me, taking his job seriously means being a sleep deprived, paranoid wreck with no social life. Say what you like about Knuckles in Sonic Boom, but at least he's happy there!

[Eurisko]

Ryan Drummond's Sonic was awfully overrated.

[Menace2Society]

3 hours ago, Eurisko said:

Ryan Drummond's Sonic was awfully overrated.

Oh, I definitely agree here. I thought Ryan was massively ear-grating in the Adventure games, and while he was a bit better in Heroes, I still didn’t think he was that great of an actor. I find Jason and especially Roger to be much better fits for the role.