Sonic Forces E3 Trailer "The Next Generations" *Huge Spoilers in OP

[Kuzu]

2 minutes ago, Lord-Dreamerz said:

As time and dimensional travel might be on the table again... There is also the possibility that Shadow is the past version of him before he turned better. and Chaos before Sonic defeated him. And so on. Ties into my idea the new villain is Time Eater incarnate pretty good.

Just what I wanted, Generations 2: Electric boogaloo.

[Patron]

1 minute ago, Chris Knopps said:

Don't make it even more of a headache... Oy...

Two Shadow's then? No thanks.

Why not? Shouldn't there be ten, hundred, thousand Shadow androids stored away somewhere canonically anyway?

[Lord-Dreamerz]

1 minute ago, Kuzu the Boloedge said:

Just what I wanted, Generations 2: Electric boogaloo.

We knew this the moment Classic Sonic and Green Hill showed up again. =V

[Mega]

They already established that this is a darker Generations with an actual story.

Frankly, I fully expect time shenanigans to explain the rogues gallery.

[Shaddy Zaphod]

2 minutes ago, Patron Night said:

Why not? Shouldn't there be ten, hundred, thousand Shadow androids stored away somewhere canonically anyway?

That would be a fantastic bait-and-switch, actually

[Chris Knopps]

2 minutes ago, Patron Night said:

Why not? Shouldn't there be ten, hundred, thousand Shadow androids stored away somewhere canonically anyway?

I-I don't know... I don't know anything about what is or isn't in this franchise anymore...

Who the hell does?

[Nepenthe]

1 minute ago, Shaddy the guy said:

That would be a fantastic bait-and-switch, actually

THIS is the only excuse I would take.

It's not Shadow at all.

[TheOcelot]

Could be interesting.

 

[ZinogreVolt]

This story already seems all kinds of stupid, I'm expecting asspulls on the level of Sonic suddenly learning Chaos Control in Adventure 2. That's not to say I'm not looking forward to it though, since I personally enjoy stupid fun stories.

[Pawn]

Forces Shadow has too many polygons though

[Kuzu]

4 minutes ago, Lord-Dreamerz said:

We knew this the moment Classic Sonic and Green Hill showed up again. =V

That doesn't make it even remotely  better.

[Plasme]

12 minutes ago, Nepenthe said:

Not caring about the story doesn't really matter much to whether or not the series' identity was based partly in that, just like people not caring about the rolling doesn't really matter much to whether or not the series identity was defined by that. It's one thing to say one didn't like/care about, but now we're talking about throwing away yet another aspect of the franchise that once gave it a reason for being just because, regardless of its effect on the context of the series as a whole, and that's utterly offensive.

Some people don't care about the story. Okay. But why do they get precedence over determining how the franchise should be dictated for everyone else, especially when for much of its lifespan it was dictated by narrative arcs by Sonic Team's own decisions regardless?

No.

Sonic has never traditionally been about story. The Classic Sonic games had the bare minimum required for a plot. They were classic platformers that put the gameplay first.

Sonic Team didn't start fucking around with plots until much later with Adventure, and ever since then they fucked up the series and its identity with their banal and awful attempts at storytelling. Often even throwing the traditional world and tone out the window.

You can like plots in Sonic if you want, but don't defend this on Sonic's identity. Plot is not traditional in Sonic.

[Endy]

This was such a fantastic trailer, everything about it looks so inventive and it looks like it's abandoning old conventions to take the series in an exciting new direction while keeping things polished and well designed, and the music was great too!

 

oh, crap, I was actually looking at the trailer for Super Mario Odyssey

 

You know I've always liked the idea of having a gang of villains try to team up and take out Sonic but for what purpose are they using all these characters? And I'm not the one to care much for lore or consistency in Sonic games but what possible justification could there be for these guys returning? I doubt we're even going to get one at all

[Multikaris]

12 minutes ago, Kuzu the Boloedge said:

You don't like Chaos as a villain then, you like him just because he's a cool boss fight.

And in that case, what about Chaos is any better then any other monster of the week?

I guess because of a marginally better design. 

 

And with Tikal gone, this leaves chaos as nothing more than a monster to be destroyed. With that they either have to find a way to bring back Tikal or destroy/seal Chaos for good. 

[Badnik Mechanic]

2 minutes ago, Plasme said:

No.

Sonic has never traditionally been about story. The Classic Sonic games had the bare minimum required for a plot. They were classic platformers that put the gameplay first.

Sonic Team didn't start fucking around with plots until much later with Adventure, and ever since then they fucked up the series and its identity with their banal and awful attempts at storytelling. Often even throwing the traditional world and tone out the window.

You can like plots in Sonic if you want, but don't defend this on Sonic's identity. Plot is not traditional in Sonic.

This is so fantastically wrong I don't know where to start.

[Kuzu]

2 minutes ago, Plasme said:

No.

Sonic has never traditionally been about story. The Classic Sonic games had the bare minimum required for a plot. They were classic platformers that put the gameplay first.

Sonic Team didn't start fucking around with plots until much later with Adventure, and ever since then they fucked up the series and its identity with their banal and awful attempts at storytelling. Often even throwing the traditional world and tone out the window.

You can like plots in Sonic if you want, but don't defend this on Sonic's identity. Plot is not traditional in Sonic.

So ignoring them and pretending like they never happened will magically improve things?

[Shadowlax]

3 minutes ago, Paaaaaaaa said:

You know I've always liked the idea of having a gang of villains try to team up and take out Sonic but for what purpose are they using all these characters? And I'm not the one to care much for lore or consistency in Sonic games but what possible justification could there be for these guys returning? I doubt we're even going to get one at all

Creatively bankrupt nostalgia?

[Detective Kaito]

Did you guys see the custom character using some sort of spindash in the trailer? I guess the Electric Wispon thing gives you a spindash and an Electric Whip?

[Nepenthe]

11 minutes ago, Plasme said:

No.

Sonic has never traditionally been about story. The Classic Sonic games had he bare minimum required for a plot. They were classic platformers that put the gameplay first.

Sonic Team didn't start fucking around with plots until much later with Adventure, and ever since then they fucked up the series and its identity with their banal and awful attempts at storytelling. Often even throwing the traditional world and tone out the window.

You can like plots in Sonic if you want, but don't defend this on Sonic's identity. Plot is not traditional in Sonic.

The classic games strung together the plots of S2, S3, and S&K in one multi-game story that actually had a character turn in the form of Knuckles. 

SA1 referenced both CD and S3&K through Amy's flashbacks and the entire echidna lore respectively; it gave Knuckles a self-contained arc (as well as referenced his previous deceiving) and Amy and Tails character goals and desires.

SA2 references the events of SA1 by way of mentioning Tails being rewarded for Station Square, and Amy and Tails pick up where they left off.

SA2, Heroes, ShtH, and Sonic 06 partly or wholly devote themselves to Shadow's character development from a brainwashed villain to a hero who attains self-actualization.

So, yes, the games were once about story to a greater degree than what you've characterized them as, certainly far more than Mario has outside of the RPGs. This was the general proceeding from 1992 to 2006- 18 years, nearly 3/4s of the series' lifespan. Even if I agreed with you that this only started with SA1, which is objectively false, that's not only a third of the series' lifespan, but it- once again- was a deliberate creative decision made by Sonic Team of Japan without any noted outside influence from gamers at large to make it that way. They did it of their own volition, which means at one point they all agreed internally that Sonic should differentiate itself on the basis of having a narrative of some sort that's at least more relevant than Mario's.

And why do you insist on noting the quality of any given game's story (another broad stroke I disagree with you about) when you constantly keep letting people know how much you absolutely do not care about it? Seriously, I don't get how you can have a distaste for the older games' stories but be okay with this clusterfuck.

[Patron]

17 minutes ago, Nepenthe said:

THIS is the only excuse I would take.

It's not Shadow at all.

You're in for a treat then. I totally forgot that there aren't just android copies, but also pods full of clones of him. The semi-modern games left it completely ambiguous whether you're playing as the real Shadow, who'd have had to survive cosplaying as shooting star, or some sort of duplicate. For all we know it could be OG Shadow, the one who we've been following the whole time or someone completely different.

Fun is infinite with Sega Enterprises lore, sometimes...

[Shaddy Zaphod]

Uh, no, the end of Shadow's own game confirmed he actually did survive the drop.

[Plasme]

9 minutes ago, Mayor D said:

This is so fantastically wrong I don't know where to start.

Sonic 1 = Sonic wants to fight Eggman because Eggman captures critters. That's literally all there is to the story.

Sonic CD = Same as Sonic 1, but Metal Sonic has also kidnapped Amy.

Sonic 2 = The same as Sonic 1, except Tails is there.

Sonic 3 = The same as Sonic 1, except Knuckles is tricked by Eggman to fight Sonic. Sonic 3 has more of a story than the others, but it still has an incredibly thin plot.

Sonic had a very basic plot, it paled in comparison to Final Fantasy and Chrono Trigger which were around at the time. Sonic didn't start taking plot seriously until Adventure, which ended up being an awful move.

Just now, Nepenthe said:

The classic games strung together the plots of S2, S3, and S&K in one multi-game story that actually had a character turn in the form of Knuckles.

Sonic 1 and 2 had almost nothing to do with each other. Sonic 3 had a very thin plot, yes, but it was still extremely thin.

2 minutes ago, Nepenthe said:

And why do you insist on noting the quality of any given game's story (another broad stroke I disagree with you about) when you constantly keep letting people know how much you absolutely do not care about it? Seriously, I don't get how you can have a distaste for the older games' stories but be okay with this clusterfuck.

I didn't like the other games stories because they were embarrasing and had awful writing. Pontac and Graff massively improved things with Colors onwards.

I'm not totally bothered by the old plots, but it's worth mentioning.

[Patron]

1 minute ago, Shaddy the guy said:

Uh, no, the end of Shadow's own game confirmed he actually did survive the drop.

Huh, I stand corrected. Was Heroes just pretending to have a twist then, or could Heroes-Shadow and StH-Shadow still be two distinct entities?

[Shaddy Zaphod]

Just now, Patron Night said:

Huh, I stand corrected. Was Heroes just pretending to have a twist then, or could Heroes-Shadow and StH-Shadow still be two distinct entities?

Nope. The Shadow of SA2, the Shadow Rouge finds, and the Shadow in ShtH are all the same Shadow.

[Nepenthe]

8 minutes ago, Plasme said:

Sonic 1 and 2 had almost nothing to do with each other. Sonic 3 had a very thin plot, yes, but it was still extremely thin.

Not only can you not find where I said anything about S1, but no one said anything about how thick or thin the plot was. You said Sonic games were never about plot. I and others have charged that part of their appeal was that the stories connected together and told one narrative across multiple games regardless of their depth, which gave their stories far more presence than Mario's (which you keep equating Sonic to for some weird reason) and gave consumers that much more reason to buy them compared to every other platformer at the time that was doing the same ol' thing of not having any narrative beyond excuse plot. Seriously, the fact that they connected together is literally undeniable, and following from that it's the basis with which I and others have criticized Shadow's implied characterization in Forces, which ignores the fact that he had a character that was dictated by connected plot threads in individual titles.

Again, your argument is that you don't care. Which is fine. However, I don't think your apathy should step over the line and start dictating to Sega what the games should be like. If you don't care about the story, then logically it shouldn't matter how consistent it is or not. The people who do care want more consistency, and they can base this desire in an actual precedence of the games made prior. Thus, the best compromise would be to write better stories that take into account basic character rules.

Now, if you do care about story, inasmuch as you want them to basically burn it because fan service is what should matter above all else, that's a fundamental disagreement we have with one another that can't be argued beyond that.