*(The TSOS Community Has Voted - Time To Get Real!)*

[Wraith]

25 minutes ago, ChaosSupremeSonic said:

I wasn't being defensive, I was wondering why one was being treated as "toony" and the other "real" when they shared the same aesthetic of "real" - why else do we call them both the "Adventure-style?"

I don't get how people honestly think that equates to saying they have the same level tropes and elements like that means there aren't nuances between them. Absolutely no one said they were the same thing entirely. I even stated that, yes, there are differences between them despite having the same aesthetics (like basically every game in the franchise).

No one really cited them as being that different from one another, though. At most I see people calling it " more toony" as an offhand, general statement to how it leans more toward that than Sonic Adventure 2 does. There's not much of a double standard or anything going on here. Just people seeing the differences  between the two and having a preference. 

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

29 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

In relative terms, CSS. If there's a scale with Lost World on the far left end and '06 on the far right, SA falls to the left of SA2. Not by a huge margin, but by a measurable one.

That's not the same as calling them "toony." You really couldn't compare this with this and say the former is closer to the latter than it is to this.

And if there was such a scale with Lost World on the far left and '06 on the far right, SA1 would actually be closer to '06. Even more than SA2, because they share almost the exact same level tropes (bar Casinopolis or Twinkle Park) and have a fantastical elements on top of fitting with a realistic aesthetic (and a lot of other things which aren't to the point). That's not disregarding that '06's style is uncanny as fuck compared to SA1, but quality aside, those games are so similar its ridiculous.

[Rey Skywalker-Ren]

6 minutes ago, ChaosSupremeSonic said:

That's not the same as calling them "toony." You really couldn't compare this with this and say the former is closer to the latter than it is to this.

And if there was such a scale with Lost World on the far left and '06 on the far right, SA1 would actually be closer to '06. Even more than SA2, because they share almost the exact same level tropes (bar Casinopolis or Twinkle Park) and have a fantastical elements on top of fitting with a realistic aesthetic (and a lot of other things which aren't to the point). That's not disregarding that '06's style is uncanny as fuck compared to SA1, but quality aside, those games are so similar its ridiculous.

I think it's a bit of a streach to say that SA1 is closer to 06's style than SA2. All of the DC games has the same style. though Heroes' style was a bit more plastic than anything

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

6 minutes ago, Mikyeong said:

I think it's a bit of a streach to say that SA1 is closer to 06's style than SA2. All of the DC games has the same style. though Heroes' style was a bit more plastic than anything

I'd say otherwise. You could make a checklist between the games, and I'd bet SA1 would match a lot of them with 06 compared to SA2 in more ways than one.

I'm not saying 06 is a good game (lol) and has a good aesthetics (lol), but it has A LOT of strong similarities - for one, they have a realistic aesthetic with fantastical elements compared to SA2's more sci-fi elements. Heck, is it any wonder why people unironically call Sonic 06 a spiritual SA3?

[Rey Skywalker-Ren]

3 minutes ago, ChaosSupremeSonic said:

I'd say otherwise. You could make a checklist between the games, and I'd bet SA1 would match a lot of them with 06 compared to SA2 in more ways than one.

I'm not saying 06 is a good game, but it has A LOT of strong similarities - for one, they have a realistic aesthetic with fantastical elements compared to SA2's more sci-fi elements.

I disagree. When it comes to settings and even how they looked to the humans, SA1 had a more anime feel, Sonic 06 was just way out of place.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

7 minutes ago, Mikyeong said:

I disagree. When it comes to settings and even how they looked to the humans, SA1 had a more anime feel, Sonic 06 was just way out of place.

You want to compare settings, compare Wave Ocean to Emerald Beach, White Acropolis to Ice Cap, Red Mountan to Flame Core, and Tropical Jungle to Lost World and Mystic Ruins. Not saying there aren't differences, but they're strongly similar.

And how is Sonic 06 not anime-ish? Yeah, it was out of place, but it's basically Sonic in Final Fantasy.

[molul]

I think toon asthetics fit Sonic much more than any glimpse of realism.

We don't want this to happen to Sonic someday:

Don't walk the real road! XD

[Kfarc]

In my opinion it isn't the case of aesthetics. I love Sonic Generations because stages felt alive. Not real, alive. For example: Silent forest Act 1 in Lost World made me feel like I was runing trough a jungle. I was still runing on tubes, but outside of them was something more, and tubes felt like a part of that bizzare, cartoony world. And thats the whole thing. Level has to look like a part of a biger environment.

[Chris Knopps]

12 hours ago, molul said:

I think toon asthetics fit Sonic much more than any glimpse of realism.

We don't want this to happen to Sonic someday:

Don't walk the real road! XD

...That argument just doesn't work. That raises more confusion than anything else...

If you're going to have a Sonic franchise with no realism, you may as well retire him for good and stick with Mario if we're going for the superior franchise that exists in a solely fantasy/toon oriented reality. There really aren't many fans up for the idea of an entirely fantasy/toon oriented Sonic franchise.

When it comes to Sonic, fans often enjoy being able to place themselves in his locations, they enjoy feeling as if they could actually be/go where Sonic is at. When you throw that away, it really splits apart a big part of what makes Sonic, well, Sonic.

While granted there are some locations that, of course, you could never realistically go to in his games, by and large, even in the Genesis days, you still felt like everything was going on in your world, just with a unique twist.

[Nepenthe]

Immersion has almost nothing to do with how toony or realistic an art style is. Immersion occurs when investment is established through the context and development of a game world's physics, objectives, settings, narrative, and tone. Unleashed is a popular example for being an immersive Sonic game because care is taken to present the world is both reasonable and inviting through things like fun NPCs, different cultures, and music that properly reflects each location, not simply because it's "realistic." The classics are immersive too albeit in different ways, and they present a world that's trippier and has a brighter palette than Unleashed does.

Subsequently, toony and realistic do not exist in a binary system of mutual exclusivity. Different elements can have varying levels of realism or cartooniness in a single work. You can have a realistic world where feral animals talk and sing to humans in English. You can have a cartoony world where the characters are still rendered as realistically as possible. Simply declaring that Sonic should be one or another does poorly in defining the better art styles the series has had over the years, especially so when the art styles are arbitrarily correlated to different characteristics of narrative when media says art is far more fluid than "realistic = grey and boring, toony = bright and fun." 

In general though, (Sega) Sonic games haven't looked bad for nearly a decade regardless of what kind of style they're going for. So at this point it matters less to me about the style guide than it does the use of the style in matching the narrative and mood of any given particular scene or section of the game. Gens and Lost World- two games with different styles- are both pretty shitty at doing this, using bright and happy palettes for what are otherwise serious or morose scenes or difficult parts of the game (this is all goes back to the context thing I always harp about). There's a disconnect that occurs for me as a visual storyteller with Planet Wisp being the hardest level right before the final boss, or with the Deadly Six regaining power from Eggman in a bright yellow desert- literally the happiest fucking color on Earth. The care that naturally results from paying attention to how the visuals are communicating to the audience is a level of care that has a higher chance of creating an immersive experience when applied across the board, and it's one that has made certain Sonic games my favorite. On the other hand, when Sonic Team isn't doing this, I don't expect all that much personal investment from the game in question.

So I don't much care for whether we get games that look like Gens or Lost World so much as I care about worlds being as defined and alive as S3&K's, SA1's, and Unleashed's are.

[Chris Knopps]

4 hours ago, Nepenthe said:

So I don't much care for whether we get games that look like Gens or Lost World so much as I care about worlds being as defined and alive as S3&K's, SA1's, and Unleashed's are.

I would like to ask which of those is your top preference... With the general idea being that Unleashed perfected what other titles attempted, do you fall in the Unleashed preference as well in visual regard in both how the game balanced real and fantasy as well as how it matched scenes in the game?

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

21 hours ago, ChaosSupremeSonic said:

 

And how is Sonic 06 not anime-ish? Yeah, it was out of place, but it's basically Sonic in Final Fantasy.

It's anime-ish more so in the CGI cutscenes which actually manage to make things work out visually for the most part. In-game though, fudge no, it's cruddy cgi with moddish 3d models as opposed to clever anime-ish artsyles that allowed the humans of the Adventure games to fit in more.

[Nepenthe]

Well, I don't think Unleashed is perfect, or at least anymore perfect than the titles beforehand in terms of immersion. Each game has different strengths; for example, I think SA1 had a better and more creative use of level design ideas that communicated the unique landscapes or architecture of each level than Unleashed did (a hidden sewer section in Casinopolis for example). But in general, Unleashed is my favorite game to return to of the three simply because it allows both the content and the breathing room to make the hubs worthwhile additions. I actually want to visit the locations within the game and to meet those specific NPCs. It's also my favorite overall look of the three simply because of its technical competency. It's still the most impressive looking Sonic game to date. However, I wouldn't mind either a 2D or 3D game that emulated S3&K's look, and in SA1's case it's kind of unfair to compare it to Unleashed because early 3D has aged poorly overall anyway.

[Chris Knopps]

3 hours ago, Nepenthe said:

Well, I don't think Unleashed is perfect, or at least anymore perfect than the titles beforehand in terms of immersion. Each game has different strengths; for example, I think SA1 had a better and more creative use of level design ideas that communicated the unique landscapes or architecture of each level than Unleashed did (a hidden sewer section in Casinopolis for example). But in general, Unleashed is my favorite game to return to of the three simply because it allows both the content and the breathing room to make the hubs worthwhile additions. I actually want to visit the locations within the game and to meet those specific NPCs. It's also my favorite overall look of the three simply because of its technical competency. It's still the most impressive looking Sonic game to date. However, I wouldn't mind either a 2D or 3D game that emulated S3&K's look, and in SA1's case it's kind of unfair to compare it to Unleashed because early 3D has aged poorly overall anyway.

Hmm...

Dunno, by and large I'd say the best course of action is to go with something similar to Unleashed out of all possible directions to return to, it really does seem to be the dominant choice... While some debate its Pixar-esque design choice, primarily revolving the humans in the game, I still feel it's the best course of action myself, especially since the design of humans in that game reflect overall what you would likely expect them to look like in the franchises world...

This is just going by general thoughts between TSOS and here, but again I'd wager this would be a fairly reasonable and agreeable option overall.

[Nepenthe]

As I said in my first post, I'm less concerned about the style guide of a game at this point (although I prefer Unleashed's) than I am the style guide's application to properly establishing the tone changes and difficulty curves throughout any particular game. If the final boss in Unleashed- established previously as the embodiment of darkness and despair- took place in a super brightly lit and colored environment, I'd still call it shitty lighting even if the technical result of its lightning was as good as it is now. However, it is also important to understand that there is nothing that objectively prevents Lost World's style from using darker or dimmer colors in certain situations; after all, Sonic 3 is a much more technologically simple game and it completely changes the lighting in Launch Base to reflect the severity and risk of facing the final boss. Same with SA1.

We don't have a style problem anymore. We have a problem concerning either incompetent understanding of visual storytelling principles on part of the artists, or the lack of passion and/or time necessary to utilize them in a way that enhances the experience of the game itself.

[Chris Knopps]

3 hours ago, Nepenthe said:

As I said in my first post, I'm less concerned about the style guide of a game at this point (although I prefer Unleashed's) than I am the style guide's application to properly establishing the tone changes and difficulty curves throughout any particular game. If the final boss in Unleashed- established previously as the embodiment of darkness and despair- took place in a super brightly lit and colored environment, I'd still call it shitty lighting even if the technical result of its lightning was as good as it is now. However, it is also important to understand that there is nothing that objectively prevents Lost World's style from using darker or dimmer colors in certain situations; after all, Sonic 3 is a much more technologically simple game and it completely changes the lighting in Launch Base to reflect the severity and risk of facing the final boss. Same with SA1.

We don't have a style problem anymore. We have a problem concerning either incompetent understanding of visual storytelling principles on part of new artists, or the lack of passion, care, and/or time necessary to utilize them in a way that enhances the experience of the game itself.

Well, that brings me to ask, if you could choose someone to head the next game ALONGSIDE Mr. Iizuka mind you, who would it be? I'm interested in hearing/reading who you think could perfect, or at least vastly improve the current complications within the franchise in these regards.

I'd say alongside because it could allow for some much needed aid/knowledge for Mr. Iizuka in the process. Any specific developers/artists/etc come to mind?

[Nepenthe]

If I could ask for an environment where a Sonic game could be developed free of any potential corporate, political, or gaming cultural fuckery that keeps making them boring/frustrating titles, I'd get Yoshihisa Hashimoto (Unleashed's director) back and pair him with the writers of either the Storybook games or SA1. Iizuka would be there for quality control and to reign Hashimoto back in under any potential Werehog scenarios. Not that I don't like the Werehog or appreciate a Sonic title implementing a duality angle in a logical way through the gameplay, but no one's about to go for any shit that isn't basic Sonic gameplay and I'd rather any type of Sonic game I'd actually like to see not be beset with a negative first impression.

[Chris Knopps]

3 hours ago, Nepenthe said:

If I could ask for an environment where a Sonic game could be developed free of any potential corporate, political, or gaming cultural fuckery that keeps making them boring/frustrating titles, I'd get Yoshihisa Hashimoto (Unleashed's director) back and pair him with the writers of either the Storybook games or SA1. Iizuka would be there for quality control and to reign Hashimoto back in under any potential Werehog scenarios. Not that I don't like the Werehog or appreciate a Sonic title implementing a duality angle in a logical way through the gameplay, but no one's about to go for any shit that isn't basic Sonic gameplay and I'd rather any type of Sonic game I'd actually like to see not be beset with a negative first impression.

Hmm...

What would you say to some type of shooting element returning such as Gamma from SA1 and the walker stages in SA2? I'm not saying the likes of Shadow's title by any means, but would you approve of that game play returning for an alternate character?

[Nepenthe]

Honestly I'm not adverse to much in the way of past gameplay concepts returning in some specific forms, although I'm not sure what shooting has much to do about the visual art of the series.

[Chris Knopps]

3 hours ago, Nepenthe said:

Honestly I'm not adverse to much in the way of past gameplay concepts returning in some specific forms, although I'm not sure what shooting has much to do about the visual art of the series.

Little, but you brought up game play along with the Adventure titles so the question came to mind as a result.