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Sonic: Should Story Matter?


Ryannumber1gamer

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Alright then Dio, allow me to pose a question.

If you were sitting at E3 and saw a game that was completely silent and looked like this:

Sonic_Gameplay.thumb.jpg.8ed1a5ad1e67106

Would you buy it?

 

Even if it was, in all other ways, identical to this:

:6a00d83452033569e20134881b90c8970c-800wi

 

"If a game can't sell itself on its gameplay, it's a shit game." Those are your words. A game should be able to sell on gameplay alone, not context nor character, not story nor sound, not even art. So I've removed those distractions. I've left you with nothing but pure untainted gameplay, and if you won't buy it, then I'd forced to conclude that Sonic 1 is a "shit game" as you put it.

This is really dumb but plenty of games that have bad/simple graphics and have great gameplay are popular, like VVVVVV and Skyrim.

Also Sonic 1 has a pretty simple/barebones story so how is anything you just posted even revelent to what anyone is talking about?

Edited by Remy
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Alright then Dio, allow me to pose a question.

Try posing one that's not based on a comically ridiculous distortion of my argument, and I might actually answer it.

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Maybe I'm a little tense because every time I try to post about this everything I say gets twisted into some hardline anti-story agenda.

Its not about not understanding people wanting engagement from something cartoony. I understand that perfectly well. Hell I started watching Steven Universe a while back and I love the shit out of it, it presses all the right buttons and it being a cartoon has never been an obstacle for it.

But Sonic isn't fit to lick the scum off of SU's boots, when it comes to storytelling. It doesn't have even a fraction of the planning, focus, emotional depth, and outright heart of something like SU. Sonic is a complete fucking mess. If there was any plan (which I doubt) for it it was lost long ago, leaving the series wandering, shitting out cheap, barely passable action stories. No consistency, no goals, barely any character development. Interesting things happen to new, usually one-shot, characters, while nothing much is done with the main characters that are supposed to be the backbone of the series.

To cut my rambling short, basically, Sonic stories have pretty much always been shit. And the overall canon (in so much as there is one at all) is even worse. That doesn't mean it was never fun! It was, at least sometimes (sadly less often than it should have been). But any kind of serious emotional resonance? It does not have the chops for it.

But that's the past, right? It can be better in the future, right? Well, to an extent. But the difference between Sonic now, and something like SU or a good Pixar film or any other cartoony animated property that really touches people's hearts, is that they aren't trying to force the end results of 20+ years of meandering, contradictory bullshit into something resembling a heartfelt piece of art. They are built from the ground up to support the story they are trying to tell. Every last element can be tuned in service of the message.

Sonic can't do that. Sega won't allow it, judging from how neutered Boom ended up. Fans won't allow it, considering how much shouting there was about characters being "out of character" in Lost World. All that shit isn't just going to up and vanish, and I doubt people would like it if it did, anyway. For this series to have stories with meaning and purpose, and characters with genuine depth, they need to kill what the series has been practically since its inception.

 

And again, I'm not saying that things can't be fun. I'm not saying the characters can't be likable. I'm not saying that there can be no emotional resonance. But the series has trapped itself under its own failures.

I get this, Sonic has a lot of crap under its belt but then my question is...so what? Why should any of that matter in the present? Like, why does Shadow being an Alien monster hybrid thing matter in the context of now, when his entire character has been distanced from that. Did it have a significant effect on how people viewed him afterward? Does he still get made fun of an incredible amount because of it? Yes, but isn't that more of a reason why we should make sure that doesn't  happen? Why should Shadow's game have to define his entire character? Why can't we move on from it, are we supposed to be constantly reminded how terrible it was?

See, this is what kinda bugs me about this line of thinking, we're so afraid of repeating history so we don't have another fuck up, but then we're not even trying either. So like what's the point is basically what you're saying, you're basically saying we shouldn't give a fuck anymore.

 

So then why not apply that to gameplay too? Why is it ok not to give a fuck about narrative, but its taboo for gameplay? Yes, I know its a video game and they're meant to be played first and foremost, but if i want more out of my game than just some buttons to press, why should I(or anyone) stop caring? Why are my needs apparently so insignificant?

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The vast majority of games are still just time killers. There's not actually anything wrong with that, but we should call it what it is.

The same can be said for the vast majorities of movies, tv shows, and fictional books - or rather all of fiction in general. So that hardly means anything.

 

And no, Sonic hasn't really delivered much in the way of meaningful themes. Nothing that hasn't been seen dozens of times on equally cheap children's cartoons, anyway.

So then, Sonic has delivered much in meaningful themes then. It just so haapens that other have shared in it. Just because it's been done a dozen times in other works doesn't negate that detail.

Edited by ChaosSupremeSonic
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So then, Sonic has delivered much in meaningful themes then. It just so haapens that other have shared in it. Just because it's been done a dozen times in other works doesn't negate that detail.

... It doesn't mean that at all. If two people say something meaningless, or 50 people say something meaningless it doesn't mean it suddenly gains meaning when it's repeated by someone else.

Probably the best theme Sonic had was the loose environmentalist message in the first 3 games. 

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Story will always be supplemental to gameplay in this medium. I think most of us agree that gameplay should be Sonic Team's top priority, and the number-one thing that needs fixing.

However, my philosophy on stories is this: If you're going to bother having one at all, make it good. Is there a plot? Make sure it makes sense and isn't full of logical leaps and contradictions. Dialogue? Make it flowing, in-character, and entertaining. 

A good story isn't necessarily complicated, just competent. 

Edited by Dr. Mechano
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So, yeah, this is where Roger talks about what I was talking about.

 

Edited by shdowhunt60
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This is really dumb but plenty of games that have bad/simple graphics and have great gameplay are popular, like VVVVVV and Skyrim.

Also Sonic 1 has a pretty simple/barebones story so how is anything you just posted even revelent to what anyone is talking about?

Here is the initial post I made if that helps clarify the relevance of what I'm saying.

 

The point isn't that the graphics are bad/simple, it's that they're sterile. The game depicted in Image A is about what a game looks like during the testing phase, when you're just checking to make sure that the gameplay mechanics are working properly and before you start adding in non-gameplay elements. As an example here's a picture of the test level from SA2.

 maxresdefault.jpg

As you can see it's mostly made up of simple solid colors, everything is as it needs to be to facilitate basic function but little beyond that. That's what I was trying to evoke with that picture, pure gameplay devoid of all else, in order to serve as a rebuttal to the idea that gameplay is the only real factor in selling a game while everything else is just a nice bonus. And while the plot of Sonic 1 might have been basic it still sold itself on the idea of Sonic being cool and having an attitude, and by demonstrating a coherent setting where things had context in contrast to Mario's world of random bullshit, neither of which has anything to do with gameplay. (Also are we playing the same Skyrim?)

 

I think what he meant with that statement is that, to him, even if a game is fully packed in every other way, if its gameplay doesn't hold up, then he's not gonna speak all that favorably about it. Him favoring gameplay as his primary hook in the medium doesn't mean that he doesn't appreciate the other elements that makes a game nor does it necessarily mean that he'll accept a game that is nothing but gameplay and devoid of all other context.

 

Let's refrain from doing this strawmanning thing here--it won't do anyone any good and it only assumes bad faith in others.

 

He said, quite clearly, and I quote:

But if a game can't sell itself on its gameplay, it's a shit game.

I'm not exactly sure how I'm supposed to take that to mean anything other than "If a game needs something other than gameplay in order to sell then it's an objectively bad game." Even if the argument was merely that gameplay is the primary factor in selling games I'd still call bullshit. If that were the case then '06 shouldn't have sold a single copy and Generations should have sold like hotcakes. As it stands though that's not what happened, '06 not only sold well, it made both Platinum Hits and Greatest Hits, and while Generations didn't do horribly in the sales department it's performance wasn't really anything to write home about. The thing with gameplay is that it's rather difficult to judge the quality of until you've already bought the game and played it, you can't really judge it from trailers and the like since they're going to do their damnedest to make it look like the best game ever regardless of it's actual quality. Essentially what he's arguing then is that the biggest factor in selling a game is something that's literally unknowable until the game has already been purchased, which is downright nonsensical.

Edited by Bowbowis
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I'm not exactly sure how I'm supposed to take that to mean anything other than "If a game needs something other than gameplay in order to sell then it's an objectively bad game."

It means, "if a game is shit, it is shit." and not at all what you're trying to twist it into. You can dress up shit, you can give the shit a good narrative but if it's absolute crap it's still crap. 

On the other hand, games with minimal story and graphics can be amazing, take Nidhogg, the mythical gameplay first no graphics game that internet discussion boards world wide seem to think can't possibly exist.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWnLO9KnOyo

You can reduce a game down to it's mechanics with some simple graphics and it's still fun. Nidhogg is basically even reducing fighting games to their core elements and it's still fun. I think if you took a game with fancy graphics and reduced it's gameplay to something extremely minimal it probably wouldn't be that fun. 

I swear the internet is the only place you can have a discussion where people argue that the playing of a game is unimportant compared to the graphics or story.

Even if the argument was merely that gameplay is the primary factor in selling games I'd still call bullshit. If that were the case then '06 shouldn't have sold a single copy andGenerations should have sold like hotcakes. As it stands though that's not what happened, '06 not only sold well, it made both Platinum Hits and Greatest Hits, and while Generations didn't do horribly in the sales department it's performance wasn't really anything to write home about. 

Do you really think 06 sold well because of the graphics or the story? How well did it sell exactly? Do you have numbers?

 The game probably sold what it did because Sonic had been made a recognizable character after years of fun games, and people are or were willing to buy on brand name recognition alone. That game could have been a gallery of photos of turds burned to a dvd and people probably would have bought it in the store based on brand.

Do you know what SEGA accomplished by selling that many copies of a completely broken, shitty, game? They completely lost all respect for their brand, Sonic became a total laughing stock and now infamously has one of the "worst games ever" hanging over his head.

If anything 06 should be the poster child for why prioritizing visuals and a deep story over gameplay is a ridiculous idea. Because it seems like that's the only thing they cared about, and look what it got us. 

---

I also think it's really cynical and kind of horrible that you're setting the measuring bar for a good game as "one that sells lots". I guess that's what all game designers and creators should aim to do, sell lots of shit. Not make something fun or interesting.

Edited by Remy
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... It doesn't mean that at all. If two people say something meaningless, or 50 people say something meaningless it doesn't mean it suddenly gains meaning when it's repeated by someone else.

That is like the complete opposite of my counterpoint that it's mind boggling.

If someone says something meaningful and its repeated by 50 other people, that doesn't make the 52nd time its repeated meaningless. That's what I was saying.

And its not just environmentalism thats been tackled by Sonic. There's been the destructive cycle of hatred and revenge in the Adventures, teamwork in Heroes, moving on from you past in ShTH, and the inability to remove your sins in Sonic 06, and that nothing lasts forever in Black Knight. You cannot even begin to deny that these weren't the themes being delivered. 

While not all of them were delievered very well, if not downright shitty in the case in Heroes through Sonic 06, that doesn't mean that Sonic hasn't delivered much in such meaningful themes nor does the fact that other franchises have made render what Sonic did moot.

Edited by ChaosSupremeSonic
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 The game probably sold what it did because Sonic had been made a recognizable character after years of fun games, and people are or were willing to buy on brand name recognition alone. That game could have been a gallery of photos of turds burned to a dvd and people probably would have bought it in the store based on brand.

06 was the breaking point, but I'd argue that Sonic's credibility was already waning even before its release. Let's remember that Shadow was ill-received, and Heroes was met with mediocre reception at best. And yet people still enthusiastically bought Sonic 06 in droves.

No matter how lukewarm or even outright bad an entry in the series is, Sega knows that the games will sell well enough to usually not be financial failures. Rise of Lyric was a recent anomaly in that its sales mirrored its poor reception, but generally speaking, Sonic games sell at least okay whether they're any good or not.

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Last I remembered, Sonic 06 didn't actually fare that well. It sold less than even ShTH when the franchise's reputation went down the sink. I remember it selling around 90k in the first few months (i think), and it just barely came close to a million units.

Don't take my word for it, but the most recent figure I remember was 900k, but I can't recall where the source came from. Either way, I know 06 sold poorly during its time.

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Last I remembered, Sonic 06 didn't actually fare that well. It sold less than even ShTH when the franchise's reputation went down the sink. I remember it selling around 90k in the first few months (i think), and it just barely came close to a million units.

Don't take my word for it, but the most recent figure I remember was 900k, but I can't recall where the source came from. Either way, I know 06 sold poorly during its time.

According to this source, it did eventually break a million units: http://www.vgchartz.com/game/70440/sonic-the-hedgehog/

Granted, it's not great, but it's a pretty impressive number for the sort of game it was. Though now that this has come up, I'm actually really curious what 06's budget was compared to its earnings. 

Edited by Dr. Mechano
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Are we sure to trust vgcharts of all sources? Because, I've gotten the impression that it isn't exactly the best source to use.

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It means, "if a game is shit, it is shit." and not at all what you're trying to twist it into. You can dress up shit, you can give the shit a good narrative but if it's absolute crap it's still crap. 

What I'm trying to "twist it into" as you put it, is that gameplay is the sole, or at least primary factor in determining sales of a game, which does not strike me as a particularly unreasonable interpretation of:

"But if a game can't sell itself on its gameplay, it's a shit game."

Especially when what follows:

"And honestly I don't think Sonic stories could ever draw in all that many people, even if they were good. It's niche nerd shit, it's only ever going to appeal to kids and people who are already emotionally invested in this shit. Platformers are practically dead but cartoon animal mascots are deader."

  Is essentially a dismissal of non-gameplay elements as a significant factor in sales.

 

On the other hand, games with minimal story and graphics can be amazing, take Nidhogg, the mythical gameplay first no graphics game that internet discussion boards world wide seem to think can't possibly exist.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWnLO9KnOyo

You can reduce a game down to it's mechanics with some simple graphics and it's still fun. Nidhogg is basically even reducing fighting games to their core elements and it's still fun. I think if you took a game with fancy graphics and reduced it's gameplay to something extremely minimal it probably wouldn't be that fun. 

If that bit in bold is true then it kind of proves my point though, doesn't it? If the gameplay is excellent and people are still skeptical of it due to it's lacking non-gameplay elements then it proves that, yes, non gameplay elements are important if you want to reach a wide audience and sell your game and that gameplay alone isn't going to cut it. Regardless of how amazing it may be.

 

I swear the internet is the only place you can have a discussion where people argue that the playing of a game is unimportant compared to the graphics or story.

Oh don't give me that shit. Look, I'm a programmer okay. I know better than to underestimate the value of gameplay. Thing is I'm also a storyteller, I know better than to underestimate the value of non-gameplay elements too. Little pisses me off more than the suggestion that gameplay and story are somehow in conflict with one another, or that they exist in a vacuum completely seperate, or that one is a parasite leeching off the other. In reality the relationship between the two is symbiotic, each enhances the other and helps to compensate for its weak spots. Both are equally important, and ideally both would be treated with the utmost care and attention. I watched a bit of that video of Nidhogg you posted and the first thing that struck me is that, for a game that's supposed to put gameplay above all else, there was clearly a lot of care put into the non-gameplay elements as well. The game quickly establishes a setting, a medieval fantasy type world; the character animation is fluid, making it pleasing to the eye and giving the impression that these two guys are master fencers, like Westly and Inigo Montoya good; when they go to the exterior of the castle they appear to be very high up giving some sense of location; there's quite a bit of detail in the backgrounds as well, the stone floors, barrels, cobwebs, birds, torches, windows, and chandeliers of the castle area don't serve any gameplay purpose as far as I can tell but they do serve as an excellent way of establishing a setting. All of that helps to create a context for the action, and from that I can extrapolate a basic narrative: "A pair of master fencers engage in a duel on the upper levels of the castle. What they fight for, be it honor, justice, gold, love, or vengeance it is not known. All that is certain is that only one will survive to leave these halls while the other shall perish at his hands." It's not the most exciting story ever but it's a hell of a lot better than "A couple of colored boxes hit each other with other colored boxes until one of them disappears".

 

I also think it's really cynical and kind of horrible that you're setting the measuring bar for a good game as "one that sells lots". I guess that's what all game designers and creators should aim to do, sell lots of shit. Not make something fun or interesting.

I never said anything of the sort, and I'm rather baffled that you would think that my is anything along those lines. My argument is in no way saying that quality is determined by sales. What I'm saying is basically that non-gameplay elements are a vital part of selling a game. A good game can sell poorly a bad game can sell well. But a game that has interesting non-gameplay elements is more likely to sell than one that doesn't, even if the gameplay is shitty. To use an analogy think of a video-game as a restaurant. The building the restaurant is housed in is the game's premise, it's the first thing you'll see along with the type of food the restaurant serves, which can be equated with the game's genre. These are going to be the first things that influence your decisions on the game, if you don't like Italian food or FPSs then you're probably not going to go to an Italian restaurant or buy an FPS no matter how nice it may look otherwise. However if you find the type of food to be agreeable and the restaurant looks nice you'll go inside. Once inside you'll see two things the decor and the staff, the decor is like the plot of the game, it adds detail and flavor to the premise, the staff are like the characters in the game's story. If the decor is nice and the staff is friendly you'll order your food, the gameplay, if it's good you'll come back, if it's not you won't. Of course if the restaurant is run-down, and the decor is ugly and stupid, and the staff are a bunch of assholes then it doesn't matter how good the food is, you're gonna be long gone before you even place an order.

Ultimately what I'm saying isn't that that gameplay is not important, but you need to get the audience interested enough to play the game first. Otherwise they'll never get to the gameplay to begin with. In other words even if gameplay is the hook, anyone who's been fishing can tell you that you'll catch more if you put bait on it.

 

Last I remembered, Sonic 06 didn't actually fare that well. It sold less than even ShTH when the franchise's reputation went down the sink. I remember it selling around 90k in the first few months (i think), and it just barely came close to a million units.

Don't take my word for it, but the most recent figure I remember was 900k, but I can't recall where the source came from. Either way, I know 06 sold poorly during its time.

If that's the case then I stand corrected. Although I know for certain that it achieved Greatest Hits status which means that it had to have sold at least 500k on PS3. It's also on Platinum Hits for Xbox although Microsoft hasn't made the criteria for that known beyond "selling well." So I don't think saying that it sold poorly is quite right.

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I'm somebody that loves games for everything they can offer me, the more content it has then the more I can appreciate it. Gameplay, story, artwork, etc etc. You name it.  "Play the game, skip the story"  is starting to seem less like a preference and more like a mandate that gamers are trying to force down, assuming that anything that takes attention away from the "main" part of the game isn't worth it. 

To use an example from a genre I play, fighting games. Soul Calibur V has probably the most improvements to the series to date in regards to the gameplay, but the story is piss poor bad. The developers went on record to saying that the game was incomplete as a result. So if developers, of a fighting game no less which have far less of a justification to have story than other genres, can acknowledge not having a plot makes a game incomplete, why can't other gamers :V

 

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 Using Mario as an example, I liked Super Paper Mario

Dear Sean:

53317146.jpg

In a platonic way, of course. SPM has numerous flaws gameplay wise, but damn if it doesn't deliver perhaps the most unexpected and downright intense experience you'd ever expect from a Mario game. And to hear someone else likes it despite that just makes me happy, not just because we share the same like of the game, but also because I use that game a lot in comparison to Sonic when it comes to storytelling. It (and TTYD) are practically the Mario equivalents to Sonic's SA1 and 2 (in RPG form).

Aside from that, I know what you mean by SPM not being as good as the other Mario RPGs but triumphing as a more memorable experience. But I'd have too much of a field day going on about how. :lol:

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To use an analogy think of a video-game as a restaurant. The building the restaurant is housed in is the game's premise, it's the first thing you'll see along with the type of food the restaurant serves, which can be equated with the game's genre. These are going to be the first things that influence your decisions on the game, if you don't like Italian food or FPSs then you're probably not going to go to an Italian restaurant or buy an FPS no matter how nice it may look otherwise. However if you find the type of food to be agreeable and the restaurant looks nice you'll go inside. Once inside you'll see two things the decor and the staff, the decor is like the plot of the game, it adds detail and flavor to the premise, the staff are like the characters in the game's story. If the decor is nice and the staff is friendly you'll order your food, the gameplay, if it's good you'll come back, if it's not you won't. Of course if the restaurant is run-down, and the decor is ugly and stupid, and the staff are a bunch of assholes then it doesn't matter how good the food is, you're gonna be long gone before you even place an order.

This is easy- if the restaurant is sparkling, the service is pristine but the food is fucking horrible/boring/the chicken falls through the floor, your bread jumps infinitely into the sky, another thinly veiled allegory for poor game design, will you eat there? will you eat an awful meal because the location and stuff that happens inbetween getting the food is great?

I guess maybe. But the core reason I typically go out is for good food. The other aspects of the experience are accessory.

Ultimately what I'm saying isn't that that gameplay is not important, but you need to get the audience interested enough to play the game first. Otherwise they'll never get to the gameplay to begin with. In other words even if gameplay is the hook, anyone who's been fishing can tell you that you'll catch more if you put bait on it.

You can have a good hook for a game without any kind of meaningful scripted story, as seen above with Nidhogg. Effective presentation and a relatively simple narrative can carry a game a long way, the audience's imagination will fill in in the rest.

"A pair of master fencers engage in a duel on the upper levels of the castle. What they fight for, be it honor, justice, gold, love, or vengeance it is not known. All that is certain is that only one will survive to leave these halls while the other shall perish at his hands.

Or until they get eaten by a giant worm. Which is what happens when you get to the last screen. Also in Nidhogg there's some sort of crowd cheering(?) and an infinitie supply of fencers (?) are two armies of multicoloured men fighting an infinite battle to the death for entertainment?? why is this happening in this world??

Most of the time when you play Nidhogg, whilst the setting is cool and some care was put into great animation and art design, factors I believe are super important you are focused entirely on the act of playing the game. That in itself becomes the story of Nidhogg- instead of talking about a cool cutscene you talk about how your friend threw 6 discarded swords at you which you dodged by running up a wall and leaping through a window and ripping out his heart. I've never really thought "nidhogg would be improved if it had a deeper story/more cutscenes" Nidhogg's presentation creates a cool atmosphere then steps away to let you play it and make your own story. 

You mention that you're a coder and a storyteller- have you at any point tried to be a game designer? There's a lot more to a game then just "programming" "graphics" and "writing the story"

Edited by Remy
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This is easy- if the restaurant is sparkling, the service is pristine but the food is fucking horrible/boring/the chicken falls through the floor, your bread jumps infinitely into the sky, another thinly veiled allegory for poor game design, will you eat there? will you eat an awful meal because the experience is great?

I guess maybe. But the core reason I typically go out is for good food. The other aspects of the experience are accessory.

But how do you know if the food is any good? That's something you could only know if you'd already been to the restaurant, ordered the food and tried it. At some point you had to have eaten there for the first time, what made you choose to eat there over any of the other restaurants in the area? It couldn't have been the quality of the food, you'd never eaten there before, you couldn't have known what the food was like. Somehow, someway, something else must have initially drawn you into that restaurant.

I've never said anything about bad gameplay being acceptable if the other elements are good and I'd appreciate it if you'd stop putting words in my mouth. In fact I've explicitly stated that gameplay and non-gamplay elements are of both very important, and that a great game needs both in equal measure. That's all tangential to my argument anyway, my whole point is as follows: "Quality gameplay alone is not going to sell a game, non-gameplay elements are absolutely vital to securing sales." There's two major reasons for that.

First is the fact that the quality of gameplay is pretty much unknowable until you've already purchased and played the game. That means that people really won't be able to judge the gameplay until after the game has already sold, meaning that gameplay couldn't really have been a factor in selling it. Now you can argue that people could learn about gameplay through demos and the like but then I'll tell you that games have been selling since long before widely distributed demos were a thing, and that people don't really download demos unless they have a passing interest in the game already, which means that something outside of the gameplay must have grabbed their attention to begin with. Trailers aren't much help either as they're going to make the game look as good as possible regardless of it's actual quality. This trailer for Sonic '06 for example shows some gameplay but does little to suggest that the game is the buggy unfinished mess that it is.

 

The second reason is that quality is really the most basic expectation one should have of a game. Trying to sell a game on quality gameplay is like trying to impress your date with the fact that you can tie your shoes all by yourself. It's not impressive, it's just something you're expected to be able to do. If tying your shoes is really all you have to recommend you as a potential mate then why should anyone date you when Bob over there has a charming personality and a PhD in astrophysics, in addition to being able to tie his shoes?

 

You can have a good hook for a game without any kind of meaningful scripted story, as seen above with Nidhogg. Effective presentation and a relatively simple narrative can carry a game a long way, the audience's imagination will fill in in the rest.

True enough. Not every game needs to be Metal Gear Solid to sell, but it still needs strong non-gameplay elements to draw people in order to draw an audience in the first place.

 

 

Or until they get eaten by a giant worm. Which is what happens when you get to the last screen. Also in Nidhogg there's some sort of crowd cheering(?) and an infinitie supply of fencers (?) are two armies of multicoloured men fighting an infinite battle to the death for entertainment?? why is this happening in this world??

Oh, okay. I only watched a few minutes of the video since it was getting late on my end so I didn't catch all that. So there's a constant stream of fighters, a crowd of spectators, and there are creatures around that might eat the combatants. Sounds like Roman gladiatorial combat to me (which actually fits with the title too, Nidhogg is a dragon in Norse mythology who served to punish the worst of criminals in their afterlife, gladiators were often convicted criminals). So I suppose I'd revise my narrative to fit that.

 

Most of the time when you play Nidhogg, whilst the setting is cool and some care was put into great animation and art design, factors I believe are super important you are focused entirely on the act of playing the game. I've never really thought "nidhogg would be improved if it had a deeper story" Nidhogg's presentation creates a cool atmosphere then steps away to let you play it. 

That's fine, but recognize that art design, animation, and atmosphere are vital to attract people to the game in the first place. Remove that context and I guarantee that almost no one would give Nidhogg the time of day. Also bear in mind that Nidhogg's primary focus seems to be multiplayer, where the engagement comes from social interaction and competition with your opponent. So it operates under a slightly different set of rules than a singleplayer experience like Sonic where the engagement has to come from the game itself.

 

You mention that you're a coder and a storyteller- have you at any point tried to be a game designer? There's a lot more to a game then just "programming" "graphics" and "writing the story"

I've tried, though admittedly I haven't quite gotten anything of the ground yet, I've almost got a working Mega Man engine though (I've got a Sonic one too although the status of that one is, complicated, to say the least).  It's really just a hobby for me and I'll freely admit that I'm still learning, but I've come far enough to recognize that even the most seemingly inconsequential detail can have a big effect on how you experience a game. Put it this way, after a few days of just testing pure gameplay with just solid colored shapes and character sprites I really came to develop an appreciation for that sound effect Mega Man makes when he lands. The real message here is this, don't take non-gameplay elements for granted, even something so simple as a sound effect can add a lot to a game. To say that gameplay is the only thing that's important in a game is, frankly, a stunning display of ignorance, and that's really all I have to say on the matter.

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  • 2 months later...

I think the reason people make jokes about stories in Sonic games is because they have been pretty melodramatic and cringey since Sonic Adventure. Not that I'm complaining about them, I love some melodrama in my Sonic games. I think Sonic Adventure 2's story is both ironically and genuinely incredible. I can totally understand why a lot of people don't want them though.

I think that if we got a story that was a better produced that supplemented a great game that no one would be suspicious of stories in Sonic games anymore.

Edited by Regen
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Heh, I fear this debate will never end.
Especailly sine it's debating apples against oranges on the same level for some reason.
Anyway, far as I'm concerned on this debate, I got 3 points:

1) Agreeing with Nepenthe, AAA modern VIdeogames are full multimedia experiences.
All the aspects need to work in harmony. This gameplay Vs. Story debate is silly. Everything needs to be as good as possible.
We're talking about one of the most important, and most sold videogame icons in the world.
Well....At least he used to be and Sega still seems to consider him to be that.


2) I think at this point, it's not so much the quality of the story but more the Tone that's the most important problem of the narrative.
Plotholes and character inconsistencies may make you snicker or raise an eyebrow but aren't probematic when the story and atmosphere have a nice energy and excitement to them.
It's why so many people love the Adventure Era games despite plotholes.
Heck, it's why people love the jokes in Sonic Boom even tough they don't make a lick of sense if you try to connect the dots.
The energy is right, so people are entertained.


Don't want a story for your goofy game starring talking Hedgehog fighting a clown? Fine, then don't, but then neither make me sit trough 40 minutes of cutscenes that feel like it's the characters mocking me with a stern look on their face for watching said 40 minute movie.


3) Also, forget about what "normal" platformers do or what we expect from them. This is a Sonic game. Like it or not, from Sonic 3 and Knuckles on, they have made epic stories and larger then life characters a big part of the identity of the games for over a decade and a half. It's part of what makes Sonic Sonic. It's what a big chunk of the fanbase tunes in for.
And as recent Sonic game sales show, they need every customer they can get.
Denying the worth of stories in Sonic is denying an important part of Sonic's history and relevance.
How many other videogame heroes can fuel over 2 decades of non-stop comics?

 

So in conclusion, I don't really give a damn if the next game has a big story or not, as long as it has the right tone and energy.
Nor do I care if it has "good gameplay" in an empty vacuum. If I want "good platformer gameplay" I'll get an indy platform game for 5 bucks for my phone, not the next big epic full priced extravaganza Sonic experience.
I want that Sonic tone and energy. Gameplay and story are in service of that.
But it's highly corrupted, confused and mutated lately. So yeah. I want a Sonic game, not a spiritual Bob the Squirrel in happy platform land pirated game from China that modified Sonic into it.

And fine, have a Heroes-esque "everyone wants to punch Eggman because he's naughty" 5 minute story, but put some heart into it. Make me excited for those 5 minutes.

Edited by Roger_van_der_weide
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Third point is definitely a sticking one for me. For the past 24 YEARS Sonic has had mangas, TV shows, comics, on a nigh constant basis. What videogame character can actually claim that? And what about things like fanfiction and comics? Sonic has one of the most prolific fanfiction communities, and you don't have to go far to find more comics to shake a stick at. And it's not like none of these aren't successful, it certainly isn't hard to find people who like SatAM, Sonic X, or the most recent Sonic Boom. And the comic has a strong following as well.

It's pretty damn clear that Sonic, as a character and concept, is very marketable, and people have always had an interest in himself and the world he resides in. That's something that's impossible to deny, regardless of where your preferences lie. Even now, with the franchise in the shits, the Sonic Boom TV show is very popular, and that's nothing but the characters. It would be incredibly foolish for SEGA to not capitalize that.

Edited by shdowhunt60
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How many other videogame heroes can fuel over 2 decades of non-stop comics?

If their series had as large an existing fanbase to tap into as Sonic had, if it was as oldschool-game-vague as Sonic was, and if the writers had the freedom to fill in that vagueness with damn near anything they could come up with, probably any hero could've done it.

 

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