Popular and unpopular Sonic opinions you agree and disagree with!

[Kuzu]

2 minutes ago, E-122-Psi said:

Still though Sonic and Tails blatantly hung out together and had a natural best bro chemistry, teasing or playing with each other a lot. This sort of intimacy was seldom there in the 2000s era where it was largely very formal and they rarely interacted outside missions or chance events, hell Sonic's 'long time no see' was practically a catchphrase. I suppose it is one thing we can thank the Pontac era for reinstating.

That said, it comes off a lot like Sonic and Tails' closeness was developed a lot more primarily by the western canon anyway. I haven't read much of the early manga, but it sounds a lot like there Tails' role was similar, just a formal sidekick to Sonic's superhero alias and not having many casual interactions.

Nope, you're wrong; Tails` japanese backstory had him teased because of his tails, and he ran into Sonic just by chance. Sonic ignored him at first, but Tails proving he can keep up with him earned him Sonic's respect and he kept him under his wing ever since. 

And like I said dude, the 2000's era was more diluted as the character focus was more evenly divided; its kind of natural that Sonic & Tails would get lost in the shuffle among trying to vie for screentime with all of the other main characters at the time. 

[E-122-Psi]

4 minutes ago, Kuzu said:

Nope, you're wrong; Tails` japanese backstory had him teased because of his tails, and he ran into Sonic just by chance. Sonic ignored him at first, but Tails proving he can keep up with him earned him Sonic's respect and he kept him under his wing ever since. 

And like I said dude, the 2000's era was more diluted as the character focus was more evenly divided; its kind of natural that Sonic & Tails would get lost in the shuffle among trying to vie for screentime with all of the other main characters at the time. 

Really it is a shame that the modern era slowly tried to develop on the main cast again and then.....just stopped there. It could have been a good breather time to slowly ease back in each character and strengthen their characterisation and role. Then again they weren't that competent with reestablishing Tails anyway, just he started at such a bland state to begin with. Boom and comic Tails mostly stands as a positive perception of him in the modern era.

[Diogenes]

Recollecting dropped rings has never been as fun in 3D Sonic as it is in 2D Sonic. In 2D, even though they spray out circularly, gravity and solid floors (and the 2D plane, of course) tend to bring most of them back towards your path, or at least within reach of a quick jump, so you can usually grab a bunch without breaking your pace too much. 3D games have generally had them spray out in a horizontal circle, which is definitely better than directly imitating the 2D games, but it still doesn't quite work. There's only ever a couple of rings within whatever direction counts as "forwards", and collecting any more requires veering off to the sides and maybe even backwards (which has always been more annoying in 3D Sonic than doing the equivalent in 2D Sonic). Plus I think a lot of 3D games have devalued individual rings a bit due to having more available to collect; the one or two you pick up by just going forward will keep you alive, the dozen or so you leave behind will be replaced by the next cluster of fresh rings you run into.

I'm not really sure how to make it work better though. Maybe a Platinum-style Ukemi to automatically recollect some rings? Maybe dropping some bigger 5- or 10-rings if you were carrying enough to give you some more enticing targets? And a better camera and better low-speed controls would help a bit with this, as well as being welcome in general...

[Kuzu]

18 minutes ago, E-122-Psi said:

Really it is a shame that the modern era slowly tried to develop on the main cast again and then.....just stopped there. It could have been a good breather time to slowly ease back in each character and strengthen their characterisation and role. Then again they weren't that competent with reestablishing Tails anyway, just he started at such a bland state to begin with. Boom and comic Tails mostly stands as a positive perception of him in the modern era.

These characters kind of exist on two planes: theri gameplay function, and their narrative function. More often than not, the first gets priority over the second...because Sonic is a video game series at the end of the day.

[Red Hot Jack]

Fuck SMBZ. The first Sonic Mega Man: Worlds Collide is still the best crossover with the Sonic franchise, both fan made and official ones. SMBZ is great, but the Sonic content really sucks A LOT, with the 3 main characters portrayed as DBZ rip-offs, Sonic is especially off, it's kind of offensive actually, more than the rest of the cast being dead, the world not used at all. Even Mario is kind of offensive as a Goku rip-off / overpowered perfect protagonist (without saying explicit terms), everything... feels like a parody, besides the shitty dialogues of the original series. The reboot might be better but, it's just outdated at this point. SMBZ was incredible at the time, now it's simply overrated. I hate to say it because in 2007-08 it was part of my childhood. Worlds Collide is in fact everything SMBZ should have been. I don't even mind Worlds Unite, mostly because of Mega Man X cast plus Sticks and the Freedom Fighters, they were nice additions, but the rest? Nah, Comedy Chimp and Fastidious Beaver did not fit at all, at least we were spared of Dave the Intern... the Deadly Six were minimal damage to okay, but still underused, Sigma really shined as much as he was a generic overlord, kinda bland, but I enjoyed the new forms, especially the final form. As for Sonic, he was on fire in both crossovers, in fact his contrast with Mega Man is my favorite part of both, they had that"crossover chemistry", same for Eggman and Wily... the emerald twist was genius and natural, loved all of it, even the crossover characters like Chaos Devil and Roboticized Masters (which simply should have kept their personality instead of being actual zombots).

So what else is there to say? In Worlds Unite obviously the latter part was basically "same exposition for every 2 pages" and introducing hordes and hordes of other franchise characters, eh, that was an obvious issue. Same for the pointless Xander.

[UnknownByME]

On 4/12/2020 at 11:34 AM, Kuzu said:

There's nothing overly dark about SA2 until literally the last act of the game.

IDK, Eggman did destroy half of the moon.

[Wraith]

9 hours ago, Diogenes said:

Recollecting dropped rings has never been as fun in 3D Sonic as it is in 2D Sonic. In 2D, even though they spray out circularly, gravity and solid floors (and the 2D plane, of course) tend to bring most of them back towards your path, or at least within reach of a quick jump, so you can usually grab a bunch without breaking your pace too much. 3D games have generally had them spray out in a horizontal circle, which is definitely better than directly imitating the 2D games, but it still doesn't quite work. There's only ever a couple of rings within whatever direction counts as "forwards", and collecting any more requires veering off to the sides and maybe even backwards (which has always been more annoying in 3D Sonic than doing the equivalent in 2D Sonic). Plus I think a lot of 3D games have devalued individual rings a bit due to having more available to collect; the one or two you pick up by just going forward will keep you alive, the dozen or so you leave behind will be replaced by the next cluster of fresh rings you run into.

I'm not really sure how to make it work better though. Maybe a Platinum-style Ukemi to automatically recollect some rings? Maybe dropping some bigger 5- or 10-rings if you were carrying enough to give you some more enticing targets? And a better camera and better low-speed controls would help a bit with this, as well as being welcome in general...

I feel like in 2D Sonic if you had a lot of rings you would basically get knocked back into them when you got hit anyway, so it might be worth it to maybe not have Sonic drop every single one. You could also have them spray forward in a fan so the player doesn't have to turn around.

Not necessarily any way to make it fun but I thought dropping rings in the old games was kinda lame too. I just figured it was supposed to be as a kind of punishment. 

[DabigRG]

10 hours ago, Kuzu said:

Nope, you're wrong; Tails` japanese backstory had him teased because of his tails, and he ran into Sonic just by chance. Sonic ignored him at first, but Tails proving he can keep up with him earned him Sonic's respect and he kept him under his wing ever since. 

And like I said dude, the 2000's era was more diluted as the character focus was more evenly divided; its kind of natural that Sonic & Tails would get lost in the shuffle among trying to vie for screentime with all of the other main characters at the time. 

Not really--thats technically backstory, not what was actually done with the characters on-screen/panel.

He was saying they're actual dynamic was something done more in English compared to Japanese. Which makes sense, as Sonic 2 was developed in the US, the games couldn't really do much interaction back then, and Sonic appealed more to Americans by design.

[Almar]

1. Sonic Shuffle combined with Adventure 2 doomed Knuckles as a character since it set the tone for him as Sonic's "other best friend" who's either only loosely connected to the plot or has a role that doesn't use his foundations as a character at all (Forces).

2. Team Dark being a thing back in Heroes turned out to be a mistake since in the end it straitjacketed Rouge to Shadow. Rouge herself is an interesting enough character who'd be much easier to translate to something like Boom than Shadow. They should've just waited until Shadow's game to bring him back and put Rouge in as Team Girl's power character like was planned. And swapped Knuckles out for Big.

10 hours ago, E-122-Psi said:

Really it is a shame that the modern era slowly tried to develop on the main cast again and then.....just stopped there. It could have been a good breather time to slowly ease back in each character and strengthen their characterisation and role. Then again they weren't that competent with reestablishing Tails anyway, just he started at such a bland state to begin with. Boom and comic Tails mostly stands as a positive perception of him in the modern era.

I'm sure the issue you see here is that Sonic was really intended by Naka and Co. to be an aloof character who's not a "friendship FRIENDSHIP" character. He "acts distant" towards Tails since he's both notably older than him and he's just that kind of man.

1 hour ago, UnknownByME said:

IDK, Eggman did destroy half of the moon.

The darkness and gritty realism of the Adventure Era is exaggerated. In many ways, Shadow and 06 were exceptions to the rule (which could be summed up as Dragon Ball meets Looney Tunes).

[Kuzu]

1 hour ago, Wraith said:

I feel like in 2D Sonic if you had a lot of rings you would basically get knocked back into them when you got hit anyway, so it might be worth it to maybe not have Sonic drop every single one. You could also have them spray forward in a fan so the player doesn't have to turn around.

Not necessarily any way to make it fun but I thought dropping rings in the old games was kinda lame too. I just figured it was supposed to be as a kind of punishment. 

The abundance of rings yo get in Modern games is a factor in this too; I guess they figured they didn't want players to scramble all around to pick up the rings they lost.

[thumbs13]

Is it unpopular to say that Shadow the Hedgehog's 10 rings per hit thing was the best? Cause I liked that way more, honestly. 

[StaticMania]

5 hours ago, UnknownByME said:

IDK, Eggman did destroy half of the moon.

The least dark thing he could've done...

The only thing dark about it is that it's a threat.

[Sonario]

2 hours ago, thumbs13 said:

Is it unpopular to say that Shadow the Hedgehog's 10 rings per hit thing was the best? Cause I liked that way more, honestly. 

One system I'd like is that if you have over a certain amount of rings (say 50), your ring count gets halved with a hit (possibly going below that amount) but if you have less or equal to that amount, getting hit makes you lose it all. That could somewhat lessen the frustration of having several hundred rings but being reduced to 0 because of one little fluke.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

7 hours ago, Almar said:

9 hours ago, UnknownByME said:

 

The darkness and gritty realism of the Adventure Era is exaggerated. In many ways, Shadow and 06 were exceptions to the rule (which could be summed up as Dragon Ball meets Looney Tunes).

I would pay for them to make this more Dragon Ball meets Looney Tunes.

Never knew that was a combination I’d want to see.

[DabigRG]

12 minutes ago, CrownSlayer’s Shadow said:

I would pay for them to make this more Dragon Ball meets Looney Tunes.

Never knew that was a combination I’d want to see.

Should we get Bootsy on the phone?

[Moose the Cat]

On 4/13/2020 at 8:21 PM, E-122-Psi said:

Even Sonic X gave up on that quickly and just undermined him non-stop. In fact I could argue Sonic X was a meaner jab to Knuckles since by the end of the series he practically felt like the Meg of its universe, his role and backstory ignored by everyone unless it was useful (eg. bullying him into using the ME as a power source for their space ship) and all his quirks making him a laughing stock (his gullibility was exploited as much by the heroes as Eggman). Compare to Boom where, while everyone seems openly aware Knuckles is an idiot, they at least show they LIKE him and consider him part of the main group.

I have to say one thing though, Knuckles being this more comedic Daffy Duck-ish egotistical foil to Sonic like in later X and Boom fits PERFECTLY with how he was introduced through Sonic And Knuckles. I mean we have him hijacking Sonic's role in past games as the main playable character with tons of fanfare

You think that emblem that's even bigger than the actual title itself spells things out clear enough? Maybe need a little more emphasis there? 

Good comparison on Daffy Duck.... I've never thought about it before, but the "pranks" Knuckles plays on Sonic in S3K are definitely in that slapstick Daffy vein.

I think "Knuckles is a doofus" was always the idea behind the character.... but its interesting because, as a kid, I just didn't see it that way, at all. I think a lot of Sonic fans like myself saw Knuckles as mysterious and cool, as Sonic's equal but a bit ruder. I think it's because his design is so cool, or I was the right age for it when Sonic 3 came out

But I don't think that's how Sega / Sonic Team has ever really seen him that way. 

If they had, we'd have a solo Knuckles game already. (Sorry Chaotix you don't count). I mean a game with a full course of levels built specifically for Knuckles climbing/gliding/digging moveset.

 

[Sonic Fan J]

21 hours ago, CrownSlayer’s Shadow said:

I would pay for them to make this more Dragon Ball meets Looney Tunes.

Never knew that was a combination I’d want to see.

If we're going to go the action adventure comedy route I'd rather they just study the Slayers. Rolls it all up into a single package that can be explained and broken down for why it works rather than blending two different IP's ideas together when they can't even handle the one they made. That, and I just like the Slayers approach more for Sonic.

[E-122-Psi]

21 hours ago, Moose the Cat said:

Good comparison on Daffy Duck.... I've never thought about it before, but the "pranks" Knuckles plays on Sonic in S3K are definitely in that slapstick Daffy vein.

I think "Knuckles is a doofus" was always the idea behind the character.... but its interesting because, as a kid, I just didn't see it that way, at all. I think a lot of Sonic fans like myself saw Knuckles as mysterious and cool, as Sonic's equal but a bit ruder. I think it's because his design is so cool, or I was the right age for it when Sonic 3 came out

But I don't think that's how Sega / Sonic Team has ever really seen him that way. 

If they had, we'd have a solo Knuckles game already. (Sorry Chaotix you don't count). I mean a game with a full course of levels built specifically for Knuckles climbing/gliding/digging moveset.

 

Yeah, I was similar. I think it was the west's marketing that helped, they definitely kept up the 'badass, mystical' vibe to him more. Then you look at his sprites and see how expressive and trollish he is and.....yeah you kinda see where the newer stuff was going.

I definitely think it was downplayed back then, he did have a lot of cool lore and he was definitely still playing on the 'attitude' factor Sonic had more than Tails did, who had a much cuter and less intimidating design, but yeah, there did seem to definitely be a clownish side to him overlooked by us as kids. Then again looking at the concept work, even Sonic himself looks like he was meant to be more cartoony and silly (look at that title animation in the first game, sure the finger wag screams attitude, but the build up is so awkward).

I think Mania and its tie in cartoon is likely the most accurate take on how the old games were likely meant to be conveyed.

I don't think the clowning's the reason Knuckles is overlooked however, if Cream or Big had been super popular enough, they likely would have got a game in a flash. The basic reason is that Knuckles isn't the hot topic anymore, same reason Blaze, Silver and the likes have just been sidelined despite their initial prominence. Sure Shadow still got Forces DLC but I wouldn't call him still high billing either, he likely only got it out of convenience of being an easy Sonic skin.

[Moose the Cat]

9 minutes ago, E-122-Psi said:

Yeah, I was similar. I think it was the west's marketing that helped, they definitely kept up the 'badass, mystical' vibe to him more. Then you look at his sprites and see how expressive and trollish he is and.....yeah you kinda see where the newer stuff was going.

I definitely think it was downplayed back then, he did have a lot of cool lore and he was definitely still playing on the 'attitude' factor Sonic had more than Tails did, who had a much cuter and less intimidating design, but yeah, there did seem to definitely be a clownish side to him overlooked by us as kids. Then again looking at the concept work, even Sonic himself looks like he was meant to be more cartoony and silly (look at that title animation in the first game, sure the finger wag screams attitude, but the build up is so awkward).

I think Mania and its tie in cartoon is likely the most accurate take on how the old games were likely meant to be conveyed.

Totally. 

Yeah in hindsight you can see the same Sega East vs West battle reflected in Knuckles the same way you can with Sonic. The USA Sonic had the angrier attitude eyebrow expressions, and USA Knuckles was following that spirit, whereas the Japanese Sonic was cuter, so Japanese Knuckles was goofier.

Sega Japan viewed the series as cute cool. Sega USA viewed the series as edgy cool. 

When a lot of USA fans found out about the other versions, we felt cheated from the true vision, but in hindsight, it might've been the right call for the USA audience demographic at the time. American kids wanted edgy and hated cute, or at least that's what they thought at the time.

In present day, these regional differences don't really exist anymore. Knuckles is the same goof who acts like a badass - a knucklehead - in every version, even if the canon is different (games, Boom, IDW, etc). There's more fictional universes but the franchise IP is much more cohesive, for better or worse.

I don't think the clowning's the reason Knuckles is overlooked however, if Cream or Big had been super popular enough, they likely would have got a game in a flash. The basic reason is that Knuckles isn't the hot topic anymore, same reason Blaze, Silver and the likes have just been sidelined despite their initial prominence. Sure Shadow still got Forces DLC but I wouldn't call him still high billing either, he likely only got it out of convenience of being an easy Sonic skin.

Oh, I agree! What I was saying (and I suspect you agree) is the Sonic franchise has a lot of characters who could be strong headliners on their own, but they've just literally never been given the opportunity to shine.

Instead of building any of these characters upward, Sega just expands the cast outward.

Super Mario has a far more limited cast with less storytelling depth, and yet all of the character IPs are stronger. There's separate franchises for Wario, Yoshi, Luigi, Toad, Donkey Kong, Mario in 2D and 3D and RPG (without needing to insist they're all different universes), and so on. Each is a distinct and unique flavor of the Mario platformer formula. 

Could this work for Sega and Sonic?

Well, we can't know, as it's never been tried Shadow's one solo game (Dr Robotniks' Mean Bean Machine, Tails Adventure, and Knuckles Chaotix notwithstanding). Instead, they have tried to make the Sonic games be the one place for all of them. That would be like playing Super Mario Odyssey, then before the next world, you have to do a Luigi ghost mission, or a Donkey Kong collect mission, or whatever. Maybe it would work if everything is executed well but it's probably just as likely to feel as messy and incoherent as the Adventure games.

At this point, Sega doesn't have many big viable franchise IPs left besides the Sonic universe, so it may be time to start dedicating themselves to diversifying the line more.

Solo Sonic = 3D Mario 

Sonic & Tails = 2D Mario

Knuckles = Donkey Kong/Toad (treasure collect quests in platformer levels with a lot of hidden secrets)

Amy & Blaze = Yoshi/Luigi (easier, cuter, slower, different art style)

Shadow= RPG (this is where you go full epic anime)

 

[Semi-colon e]

I absolutely hate the Mirage Saloon Act 2 boss. First off it's pandering at it's very worst, since it's not even the actual characters. This makes their inclusion just a manufactured hype moment without any of the depth of say including a full level where it actually significantly influences gameplay. The second issue is that the attack patterns make no sense and it seems like you should be able to hit the heavy more than you actually can.

[A Peep]

2 hours ago, Semi-colon e said:

I absolutely hate the Mirage Saloon Act 2 boss. First off it's pandering at it's very worst, since it's not even the actual characters. This makes their inclusion just a manufactured hype moment without any of the depth of say including a full level where it actually significantly influences gameplay. The second issue is that the attack patterns make no sense and it seems like you should be able to hit the heavy more than you actually can.

Yeah, I kinda agree, like why of all characters would it be 3 characters we literally haven’t seen since 1996 (outside of a discontinued comic), it’s one of the few mania references that feel forced. As for the boss, I can barely remember it because of how quick it is.

[E-122-Psi]

It's pandering but I can't help but like it for the inclusion of them in a 2D styled game at last. It is a shame it wasn't them proper, but hopefully something might come out of it should another retro game comes out.

I also kinda like they semi-canonised Bark and Bean's comic personas as likeable bad guys instead of supposedly just being another pair of generic good guys. Bark's sprite looks kinda ugly though. Very rare miss for Mania's design team there.

 

I might have done this one before since this thread's gone on for a while now but I'll say it. I LIKE Sonic 3D Blast/Flicky's Island. I mean yeah it's not the level of the main 2D games, but I think it's more fun than frustrating enough times to validate it, and the Director's Cut mitigates a lot of its biggest flaws. I'd love if that version got an official release at some point.

[Blue Blood]

4 hours ago, Semi-colon e said:

I absolutely hate the Mirage Saloon Act 2 boss. First off it's pandering at it's very worst, since it's not even the actual characters. This makes their inclusion just a manufactured hype moment without any of the depth of say including a full level where it actually significantly influences gameplay. The second issue is that the attack patterns make no sense and it seems like you should be able to hit the heavy more than you actually can.

The attack patterns of this particular boss are annoying, and it has periods of invincibility with no good reason. But pandering and manufactured hype? No way. It's a clever, fun way to include those three characters in a thematically relevant way. I thought it was really cool when I first played Mania and saw Heavy Magician transform into Nack. Having seen the posters around the level, I quickly knew what to expect next. It was exciting. I didn't see the Act 1 to Act 2 stage transition cutscene where the Tornado gets attacked by one of the characters until my second playthrough, as I played Knuckles' playthrough first and he doesn't get that cutscene.

I definitely don't think it diminished the characters in any way. Bean and Bark were never developed beyond being new characters created specifically for a very obscure arcade fighting game, whilst Nack was a secondary villain in some of the series' oldest spinoffs. They're commonly thought of as bad guys and as a team (in part due to the Archie comics), and this worked so well. It even played off Nack's wanted poster cameo in Generations. 

I respect your opinion, but I 100% disagree. This was a brilliant way to bring the characters back for a more substantial cameo appearance. It would be great to see any of them return as full characters, playable or otherwise, but for what Mania was this was perfect. 

[Wraith]

It wasn't a huge deal but I definitely remember thinking it was lame that Fang, Bark and Bean didn't actually show up. 

[BadBehavior]

The general consensus seems to be that Forces is mediocre. So I guess my unpopular opinion is that I don't like it.

Like, I really don't like it. I guess you could say I hate it. The amount of effort that went into it (or more accuratly: didn't go into it) offends me on a deep and personal level.