Popular and unpopular Sonic opinions you agree and disagree with!

[DabigRG]

3 minutes ago, knuckles20 said:

So SomecallmeJohnny released a review for Team Sonic Racing and the thing that bugged me is the whole: ”Sonic works best if no one ever talked”. I can understand this for the classic side but for modern,No just no.

Bad enough we got people wanting to eliminate anyone who isn’t Sonic or Eggman or what remains of actual 3D gameplay. But this is another step in the lazy route of throwing something out instead of improving those aspects. 

Yeah the dialogue isn’t great but there’s no reason that it improved on.

Oh did he? 

[knuckles20]

2 hours ago, DabigRG said:

Oh did he? 

About three minutes in, he states he likes the overdrive shorts that promoted the games and he feels that the style of the shorts with no dialouge and cartoony humor(i.e. Shadow being a douche to a Chao) should carryover to the games as well. 
 

I like those shorts too but I like it when the characters can actually converse with each other.

[ComeAsYouAre]

I am not sure why people are still so obsessed about making Sonic a mute

Mute Characters work when it makes sense to their character, Sonic's overall character works best with voice acting

[Ivo-goji]

I hated how the Classic Sonic is depicted as a mime in the 3D games.  That was never part of his personality, he's supposed to have attitude and be sassy.  Sonic isn't Mario.

[StaticMania]

Just now, Ivo-goji said:

I hated how the Classic Sonic is depicted as a mime in the 3D games.  That was never part of his personality, he's supposed to have attitude and be sassy.  Sonic isn't Mario.

Neither is Mario.

[Dr. Mechano]

30 minutes ago, StaticMania said:

Neither is Mario.

This is true as well.

Mario is a man of few words, not no words. Even in most of the mainline platformers, dude still has grunts, phrases, and even a few complete sentences here and there. Some games like Fortune Street, Luigi's Mansion, and Dr. Mario 64 even up the ante by giving him text dialogue. Ooooh! Mario has a defined personality, and is not just a flat blank slate for the player to project onto. I wish there wasn't a seemingly-arbitrary limit on how much he's allowed to say. The idea of a "semi-silent protagonist" seems like an unnecessary restriction to me.

And yeah! I agree about classic Sonic too, to stay on topic. Classic Sonic, in fact, has talked in the games already! I point you to the ending of Sonic 3D Blast:

There he is. Talking. A thing he could always do.

He also has voice clips in Sonic CD:

 

The idea of classic Sonic being mute is recent. This was never the case in the older games. Sonic didn't talk much in the old games because the old games typically didn't have dialogue or voice-acting. But in the few that did, Sonic spoke just fine.

[DabigRG]

Classic Sonic not talking much in Generations was just a cheeky way of distinguishing him from his Modern/Dreamcast counterpart.

[StaticMania]

4 minutes ago, Dr. Mechano said:

...and is not just a flat blank slate for the player to project onto.

This was Link's deal, by conception, not Mario's.

Mario not talking a lot is more of a holdover from the old times, not really a creative decision. They also might not want to find "another" voice actor.

[ComeAsYouAre]

He also spoke in Sonic CD I think, and in that Japanese game that introduced Mighty and whatshisname

[Dr. Mechano]

Just now, DabigRG said:

Classic Sonic not talking much in Generations was just a cheeky way of distinguishing him from his Modern/Dreamcast counterpart.

I'd have been fine with him not talking much in Generations, but they made him not talk at all.

The idea of him being less verbose than his modern counterpart makes sense; People talked less in the old games, after all. But I'd have liked it if he - like classic Tails and classic Eggman - got some lines, you know?

[DabigRG]

1 minute ago, Dr. Mechano said:

I'd have been fine with him not talking much in Generations, but they made him not talk at all.

The idea of him being less verbose than his modern counterpart makes sense; People talked less in the old games, after all. But I'd have liked it if he - like classic Tails and classic Eggman - got some lines, you know?

Eh.

Generations' story much anyway, so I guess it wouldn't have hurt.

[Dr. Mechano]

Just now, DabigRG said:

Eh.

Generations' story much anyway, so I guess it wouldn't have hurt.

I think the appeal of Generations' story - such as it is - isn't really the intricacies of the plot itself. It's just seeing the characters interact with their past selves in quirky, funny ways, which - for a fun anniversary celebration - I'm fine with.

[StaticMania]

2 minutes ago, Dr. Mechano said:

I think the appeal of Generations' story - such as it is - isn't really the intricacies of the plot itself. It's just seeing the characters interact with their past selves in quirky, funny ways, which - for a fun anniversary celebration - I'm fine with.

Wish they did more of more of that.

Figuring out what's going on should've been the back-burner to the characters interactions, especially since Eggman is a plan expositing villain.

[DabigRG]

9 minutes ago, Dr. Mechano said:

I think the appeal of Generations' story - such as it is - isn't really the intricacies of the plot itself. It's just seeing the characters interact with their past selves in quirky, funny ways, which - for a fun anniversary celebration - I'm fine with.

 

5 minutes ago, StaticMania said:

Wish they did more of more of that.

Figuring out what's going on should've been the back-burner to the characters interactions, especially since Eggman is a plan expositing villain.

That'd have been cool. Probably get some powwow with Shadow and Silver after their fights, see Cream & Blaze interact more, and maybe have Knuckles reminiscing some more about how far he's come in lieu of his Classic self.

[Kuzu]

Most Sonic dialogue is really fucking bad. Like REALLY bad. It so bad that it has influenced how the general public have viewed this series.

 

You can say "well just make it better" but we're in twenty years of mediocre to straight up terrible scripts, I can't really blame people for just wanting them to shut the fuck up after a certain point.

 

Ita that bad.

[Diogenes]

While I wouldn't do away with dialogue/voice acting in the series entirely I'm not really bothered by the idea of the characters not talking some of the time. There's a lot that can be done without dialogue and Sonic characters are well suited for silent acting, with their expressive oldschool cartoon-inspired designs and big, bold personalities. We saw it in action with both Mania Adventures and TSR Overdrive, and the characters have hardly ever been more appealing even with that "limitation". If Sega was actually up for it, and could afford to do the animation properly, I can't see any reason why a voiceless game couldn't work just fine.

The only time I feel it's been an actual problem is Generations, not because I think Classic Sonic should have talked, but because he was the only one who didn't, other Classics included. If everyone was silent, or if they at least made it a trait of the Classic characters it'd be fine, but when it's just him it reads as a personality trait and that doesn't fit his personality.

[knuckles20]

The series has adopted an unhealthy attitude of “X is bad so let’s throw it out”. It’s a defeatist pathetic way of resolving any issue when it comes to Sonic and it needs to stop.

It’s not just the dialogue anything regarding the 3D games, multiplayable characters, serious storytelling, actual 3D gameplay; these are things that got me to give a damn about the series and I want to see those aspect be improved on and not try at all to appease people who want it frozen in the genesis era. I don’t expect the dialogue to be Shakespeare level overnight, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be worked on.

To me the scripts had been crap when they care more about making meme humour and turning everyone else to cardboard cutouts who lost their agency as opposed to actual people who have their personal motivations and desires.

You want games where everyone acts like they’re in a Tom and Jerry cartoon, Mania and its future follow ups. As for the Modern games, let them talk because I don’t want to lose the few things the games have that separates them from Classic pandering. 

[Diogenes]

9 minutes ago, knuckles20 said:

The series has adopted an unhealthy attitude of “X is bad so let’s throw it out”. It’s a defeatist pathetic way of resolving any issue when it comes to Sonic and it needs to stop.

I'd say parts of this fanbase have developed an unhealthy hoarding mentality, where everything's got to be saved because surely it'll be good and useful eventually.

Sometimes it's ok to get rid of things. Sometimes you need to get rid of things. And it's not just "classic pandering" to try to tell a story in a different way.

[knuckles20]

57 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

I'd say parts of this fanbase have developed an unhealthy hoarding mentality, where everything's got to be saved because surely it'll be good and useful eventually.

Sometimes it's ok to get rid of things. Sometimes you need to get rid of things. And it's not just "classic pandering" to try to tell a story in a different way.

The Adventure/Modern games are the different way of telling a story from the classic series. The problem that I noticed is some fans has turned it into, "if it wasn't in the classic games, then it shouldn't exist". 

I'm ok with this for the Mania style games. But that doesn't mean Modern Sonic need to do the same. I want them to improve the aspects of the games that got me into the series than avoid them like the plague. 

The only thing I can say the fandom is hoarding it the use of Green Hill Zone in every single game because it's iconic or something like that. 

Aside from that I don't see it as a hoarding issue, but more of "what do I like about Sonic games". The fandom has grown to the point where some prefer Sonic games where it's a nonstop 2D genesis dreamland where the only thing that matters is the gameplay while other fans desire having games that contains serious storytelling, 3D gameplay various characters(who act more than glorified wallpaper) and and fully voiced dialogue. Honestly if SEGA does this for Sonic it's not a perfect plan but I can only imagine there would be less headaches and animosity than what we're dealing with now.

[Wraith]

To me no voice acting is an arbitrary limitation unless there's some valid budget limitation that makes it less feasible like the shorts. It's a tool that can enhance your game and it would be best to use all the tools you have available to you. It never had to come at the expense of more expressive animation. 

Classic Sonic games don't have particularly strong narratives as they are so I don't really get why people want to go back to that anyway.

If what you want is unobtrusive, just skip the cutscenes and carry on. They already cut almost all the dialogue during gameplay over 10 years back, along with countless other concessions to the narratives to appease to classic fans. I'm not sure what more you could ask for at this point.

 

[StaticMania]

16 minutes ago, Wraith said:

They already cut almost all the dialogue during gameplay over 10 years back, along with countless other concessions to the narratives to appease to classic fans.

 

What if Sonic Forces starts that back up, it might've just been something to "try" to expand that game's story, that's very likely.

[E-122-Psi]

I think it would help if there was still a focus on expressions and acting to compliment the characters as much as dialogue. A key problem is that a lot of the time, the characters look like emotionless toys, so the cheesy dialogue is almost all they have to express characterisation.

[StaticMania]

They're not expressive enough, because *things people have said before* and it would help to be not that.

And considering how decent/average the movement tends to be, there can't be any justifiable excuse as to why they don't emote well in the facial area.

[Kuzu]

8 hours ago, knuckles20 said:

The Adventure/Modern games are the different way of telling a story from the classic series. The problem that I noticed is some fans has turned it into, "if it wasn't in the classic games, then it shouldn't exist". 

I'm ok with this for the Mania style games. But that doesn't mean Modern Sonic need to do the same. I want them to improve the aspects of the games that got me into the series than avoid them like the plague. 

The only thing I can say the fandom is hoarding it the use of Green Hill Zone in every single game because it's iconic or something like that. 

Aside from that I don't see it as a hoarding issue, but more of "what do I like about Sonic games". The fandom has grown to the point where some prefer Sonic games where it's a nonstop 2D genesis dreamland where the only thing that matters is the gameplay while other fans desire having games that contains serious storytelling, 3D gameplay various characters(who act more than glorified wallpaper) and and fully voiced dialogue. Honestly if SEGA does this for Sonic it's not a perfect plan but I can only imagine there would be less headaches and animosity than what we're dealing with now.

Think what you're missing is WHY people are against these things man.

This isn't some arbitrary thing that happened over night; this is the result of TWENTY YEARS, of inept management.

Most 3D games with all of the stuff you've described have ranged from mediocre to just straight up bad. Sure, that's just a consensus that you might not agree with since those were games that brought you into the series, but I think its important to understand WHY people feel that way. It's not just some arbitrary hate bandwagon (for most people anyway) but just that those legitimately are badly put together.

I say this as someone who grew up on games past SA2; I've played those games in recent years and they do not hold up well at all.

 

Sure, getting rid of everything isn't my first solution either and I'd prefer things to improve...but that's not what's actually happening. 3D games still aren't very good with the exception of two games in the last ten years, and most glowing reception the series has had was from a love letter to the 2D games. 

Knowing all of that, can you really blame people for preferring 2D games to 3D ones?

I want the series to get its shit together too, and if it has to get rid of some things to do it then so be it. 

 

 

Moving on...

 

I feel like if the 3D games didn't have such stiff animations, the dialogue wouldn't stick out as so badly. As said, they cartoon characters who don't animate. Its jarring.

[Wraith]

36 minutes ago, Kuzu said:

 

I want the series to get its shit together too, and if it has to get rid of some things to do it then so be it. 

 

This has always been a false premise that needs to be beaten into the ground instead of humored.