Megathread IDW's Sonic the Hedgehog - Megathread

[DabigRG]

Okay, so for some reason, my post disappeared after the page froze while posting it and I had to refresh. 

So here's a quick rundown before I edit in the actual posts:

 

 

12 hours ago, Dantemustdie00 said:

I'm curious if SEGA themselves still intends to use human characters aside from Eggman, Forces marks the first time in the series we actually seen many Anthro's (or Mobian if you would prefer since they have no official name) aside from Sonic and company, which is something many fans have wanted for the longest time.

Forces takes place on human word.

11 hours ago, dbzfan7 said:

There is no excuse for Forces Tails . The absolute low point of low points.

But anyways IDW has done a million times better than modern games which really isn't difficult. Right now him working on a cure is the best spot he should be in. No one else can do that. Though perhaps more people should be at his workshop or watching his back. Who's to say a horde won't go there? There is no fighting back against it since he can't touch them or risk himself and the cure he's working on. I'm honestly surprised they're just letting him work alone. Surely someone like Eggman would figure that would be dangerous to him.

 

 

Tangle is still there.

4 hours ago, Shadowlax said:

In regards to tails in forces. There is actually no excuse. Simply put, tails not being " as good as a fighter "  isn't actually an excuse... one because we have seen him fight. But two because of the story in general. Infinite is a character who would be better suited to manipulating things from the background due to his powerset. Because of development issues, sonic teams being really REALLY bad at creating bad guys and new characters in general as of late outside of dodon-pa , and infinite's entire everything being a really bad rip of shadow the hedgehog and them leaning into that way too hard. Infinite was forced into the forefront and the narrative has to basically bend over backwards for him to function , by making characters not fight like everyone in the control room and tails outside, in competence like silver or just vanish like sonic and shadow, to make this non character vaguely threatening. It speaks to how nothing he is , when the two characters allowed to be mildly competent enter the story they make infinite and his illusions look like nothing contradicting the entire plot set up we were supposed to believe. 

So there is no excuse for what happened to tails because there quite literally is no excuse. Its just bad writing from a non story.

I mentioned shadow in regards infinite and how infinite seemed like leaning into a bunch of shadow traits in a really poor way. And it plays into this, so back in SA2. You notice how shadow only fights sonic? Back then if shadow were to even attempt to fight the entire cast by himself, he would get his ass whipped, handily. Yeah he's stronger now, but he was a much more reasonable foe back then. And instead of making him some big bad, they had him also be conceiving he directed eggman to the lazer to do what he wanted for him. He had plans, goals and was put in position where he was fighting a character in which his character motivations had reasonable push back instead of a nebulous everyone. Tails got to look competent because he got to face his own villain and shadow looked cool because he got to fight someone that gave him some meaning in regards to a character.

This isn't to say that sonic or anyone can't have a huge " Bad guy beats everyone up and no one knows what to do " bad guy. Thanos both in comic and in the MCU works because he's that. And countless other comic book villians, superboy prime, Dr. Doom, DarkSeid and the list goes on and on. The the key elements to characters like these is that they feel like and are presented as the heroes of their own narrative. Even shadow who isn't one of these types of characters in the grand scheme of things, is presented like the hero of his own tale. There are clear motivations, goals and things they achieve, trials and tribulations and entire narrative arc is had on the side of that bad guy , like he's the good guy or rather the protagonist. Infinite gets none of these, in lieu of characterization or an ark, he just makes everyone look incompetent or rather the plot does to justify his character and to do this it either has to make characters wildly out of character, do nothing, or not exist.

Why am I talking about this , as of late. The terribleness of inifnite's character has made me quite interested in him being included in the comic book in general. Because infinite in forces is three separate characters. Sonic Wars infinite, Sonic Forces infinite, and DLC infinite and these variances are quite different to say the least. Given that he most likely would be ruby-less. He would most likely be DLC infinite a character who's a coward making excuses for his own lack of power using other means to by pass that. And even then that's weird because ok, do you lean into the shadow rivaly, if so ... what does that mean? Because in the game, he throws magic ruby dust in shadow's eyes that incapacitates him for a bout... 45-ish seconds, while he turns on the self destruct and vanishes. And that sort of cowardice, and cunning contradicts the flippant overpowered nothing asshole he is for the rest of the game. I'm interested in how he would be characterized, I dunno. And that's dependent on even if we see him again, because there's a good chance, we wont. Dondon-pa a character in a spin of game already has iizuka saying we may see him again, the same can't be said for infinite.

I don't quite know. Important Humans in sonic in general tend to be used for more symbolic purposes ( for better or for worse ) than actual practical ones in regards to the games. GUN and Eggman are pretty huge examples of this . And while the normal humans tend to have less symbolic meaning, it played apart in how sega wanted you to believe as a kid that you could find some sonic character in the world and go on an adventure with them. Sonic hanging out with real humans was built into the concept art and something they would peruse to the detriment of the series. True to sonic team fashion, the learned very late ( TWO + Decades ) that people just wanted to see and be cool sonic characters in that world and that might of been why they kept seeing fanart of all those fan characters, and probably would be much more profitable in regards to merchandising to have characters that they can sell in the background rather than normal humans. 

So maybe we wont see them, Sonic now seems to be...overcorrecting for some criticisms made a long time ago and misinterpretations that they think the audience has in some regard. So where that leads us I don't know, but for right now it seems to be leading us into a direction with less humans

(@Dr. Detective Mike.This is what I was talking about before.)

Anyway, Dodon-Pa is easy to bring back compared to many things, but especially Infinite.

2 hours ago, MetalSkulkBane said:

Oh god, we're back to Forces Tails?

Look, I'm not going to defend the game. Writers sacrifices characters for story. To make Infinite scary, Classic Sonic cool, etc. But is it really that hard to believe that smart like Tails concluded that suicide attack on 6 strong villains that just KOed Sonic  isn't a right move?

Wasn't Lost World about not rushing into action like an idiot? I know that Tails doesn't contribute much later on, but it's less his intentions as much as opportunity.

Seeing those covers really makes me wish that previous issues (and hope for the next ones) will actually deal with Sonic's fears of roboticisation, rather than just let him go fast and reference older games.

I know, right?

[dbzfan7]

Just gonna say Tails woulda fought Infinite and the copies because Sonic was in danger and hurt. He would obviously lose, but I don't see him just doing nothing. That's his best friend. I don't see him not even trying to save him even if he knows he has no chance. Him trying and failing to save Sonic would make a good story. Hell even when it came to an actual time where they have this big "Battle" with the Sonic cast.....he does nothing. Charmy even gets a chance to do something, but not Tails.

I'm not gonna dwell on this too long but weak moments are fine for character building, but having too many without any sort of real pay off just makes the character worse. Not to mention a weak pay off also doesn't help. If we look at how it was handled, his character was not served at all. He was merely turned into a damsel to be saved by both Sonic and then Classic Sonic...that's it.

[Kuzu]

Tails, I feel,  is somebody who would jump in if there was other option. The main problem I think is that his actions have no consequences or affect anything.

Despite the game telling something is happening, it does a really shit job at actually showing it or why any of it matters. 

So him not doing anything to help Sonic and there being no pay off to anything he does; it does make him come off as incompetent and useless, even if that wasn't the intention.

[DabigRG]

3 hours ago, Kuzu the Boloedge said:

It's hard to justify any character's change in personality simply because they change with no real forewarning. The change doesn't feel organic and feels like it's done to meet the needs of the plot.

I don't think Amy doing mostly desk work is a bad change, but you're kind of left wondering just how this coincides with how her character is usually portrayed. It's not really consistent and there isn't much of a justification either...it just kind of happens.

It's essentially an extension of the "I was totally the real leader the whole time" reveal. She keep them organized during the war, now she's organizing the cleanup efforts.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

13 minutes ago, Kuzu the Boloedge said:

So him not doing anything to help Sonic and there being no pay off to anything he does; it does make him come off as incompetent and useless, even if that wasn't the intention.

I still think he should've got the citizens to scatter, and then try to air-lift the KO'd Sonic out of the battle. Eggman anticipating this can send either Infinite or Illusion Metal Sonic after Tails, who shoots Sonic out of Tails' grip, and leaves him falling to the ground, while Tails is too critically injured to go back for him, crashing down into another part of the city - think a situation like Adventure where Sonic/Tails gets shot down in the Tornado, and Tails lands in Mystic Ruins, while Sonic lands in Station Square.

Not only does it negate Tails' perceived incompetence because he at least tried to do something to save him, it gives Tails a reason to be more heavily depressed in the story, as he is - as subtly put by the Resistance - "Losing it" (he could've saved Sonic had he managed to avoid Metal Sonic/Infinite), but it also gives a reason why Sonic would be believed dead. Tails was still there when he was KO'd in normal Forces. Sonic already being knocked out, and then dropped into the city again against the ground would lead a lot more reason as to why they think he's dead in the main game, as opposed to simply captured.

But that's starting to go into the sake of rewriting Forces' numerous story problems that make a lot of characters seem terrible, so go figure.

[Tornado]

2 hours ago, Shadowlax said:

Apparently differing opinions from yours is intellectual dishonestly.

This is not a concept you have shown enough of a grasp on in the past to lecture others on it.

 

 

And it's "losing."

[Shadowlax]

1 minute ago, Tornado said:

This is not a concept you have shown enough of a grasp on in the past to lecture others on it.

I'm sure you think that. But I do. And whatever you think of the past has very little relevance to what is happening now. Nice try though

1 minute ago, Tornado said:

 

 

And it's "losing."

uh huh

[Tornado]

11 minutes ago, Shadowlax said:

And whatever you think of the past has very little relevance to what is happening now

What is happening now is that someone has again attempted to debate you on a topic regarding a storyline of a piece of Sonic media, and again you've responded by chasing gotcha points and absurdly tortured readings of material to support your views. This is consistent with multiple topics I've seen you take part in while trying to shout people down, including one from all of last week.

 

 

Hence, intellectual honesty in a debate is not a concept you have enough of a grasp on to lecture others. Whether you've had a grasp on it in the past is extremely relevant to whether you are qualified to comment on it now.

[Shadowlax]

7 minutes ago, Tornado said:

What is happening now is that someone has again attempted to debate you on a topic regarding a storyline of a piece of Sonic media, and again you've responded by chasing gotcha points and absurdly tortured readings of material to support your views. This is consistent with multiple topics I've seen you take part in while trying to shout people down, including one from all of last week.

If you think experiencing a piece of media and going " eh this is kind of trash for the reason " and then someone unprovoked argues these points and then I proceed to defend my stance is gatcha points.  We are already lost in terms of conversation. And whether things are absurd or not, is really up to you. I don't really care if you find them absurd, its really irrelevant. And if you think looking at how other comic book media, and sonic itself has handled its villians an and seeing how maybe infinite might lack a bit of a character arc and explaining how that's bad is an absurd reading. When that is quite literally one of the primary complaints with that game is absurd. Agan, we are already lost in terms conversation. Because it seems as though " Absurd " is what you don't like at the moment, and you are free to feel however you want. Isn't particularly interesting in terms of a conversation point.

7 minutes ago, Tornado said:

 

 

Hence, intellectual honesty in a debate is not a concept you have enough of a grasp on to lecture others. Whether you've had a grasp on it in the past is extremely relevant to whether you are qualified to comment on it now.

It just sounds like you don't like the things I say, and while that's not neat. Its not really enough to support your point.

And maybe, when I can literally quote how this entire conversation started on the last page and how neutral and analytical the entire thing is , maybe this isn't the best place to try and even begin having this conversation. When the completely fine and lukewarm take of " villians should have arcs infinite didn't have one and thats why infinite is bad , " presented relatively unprovoked is featured on the last page.

[Zaysho]

No, we're not doing this in this thread again. No one is obligated to play along with your very specific interpretations of things just because it's inconvenient for you to talk about the actual fucking thing.

[Shadowlax]

3 minutes ago, Zaysho said:

No, we're not doing this in this thread again. No one is obligated to play along with your very specific interpretations of things just because it's inconvenient for you to talk about the actual fucking thing.

 

The whole thing is about a disagreement, the entire premise of the conversation that just happened, is that we disagree and no one expected the other person to adhere to anyone's interpretations of anything. Unless the entire concept of rhetoric is bad now? Unless I messed up I don't think I mentioned that this was " THE INTERPRETATION " of events.

 

[Sean]

Stop back-talking and drop the argument before you net yourself a suspension.

[StaticMania]

1 hour ago, DabigRG said:

...now she's organizing the cleanup efforts.

What's she gonna do after that?

When this is done, she kinda needs a fall back. That's when her character becomes "fun" again and not just "not annoying".

It's a good thing plot has happened, so we don't necessarily need to worry about that.

[MetalSkulkBane]

Speaking of let-change-subject-on-something-less-heated:

What do you think will be the arc of Year 3? Personally I'm suspecting something space-involved. Wisps, Lost Hex, Little Planet, now Donga Kingdom, Mobius has a lot of  satellites to explore. Plus latest put a lot of emphasis on Wisps and Deadly Six.

For example I could imagine Zavok creating Cacophonic Conch rip-off that works on Wisps, thus allowing him to gain control of all Wispons. And with yearly-arc, each member of D6 would have some time to shine, yet avoid feeling of monotony like Mecha Sally (Only alternatives I can think off would be Boom crossover to get Sticks here.  I'm assuming Infinite will remain off-limits at least for a while).

BTW, in whole 2011-2020, Sonic Lost World was the only (main canon) Sonic game to not reuse stages and major ideas from past games. Feeling depressed yet?

[StaticMania]

Sonic Lost World has the Casino Level and a Green Hill pretty much.

[DabigRG]

43 minutes ago, MetalSkulkBane said:

Speaking of let-change-subject-on-something-less-heated:

What do you think will be the arc of Year 3? Personally I'm suspecting something space-involved. Wisps, Lost Hex, Little Planet, now Donga Kingdom, Mobius has a lot of  satellites to explore. Plus latest put a lot of emphasis on Wisps and Deadly Six.

Mm, perhaps. Idk, part of we would think they'd avoid jumping there so quickly, but I suppose there's not much else for them to do aside from bringing in another villain/antagonist.

 

45 minutes ago, MetalSkulkBane said:

For example I could imagine Zavok creating Cacophonic Conch rip-off that works on Wisps, thus allowing him to gain control of all Wispons. And with yearly-arc, each member of D6 would have some time to shine

I had to make sure I read that correctly.

I suppose it'd be interesting, especially if Whisper gets involved at some point.

49 minutes ago, MetalSkulkBane said:

yet avoid feeling of monotony like Mecha Sally

To be fair with Mecha Sally, there were travel through different locales to deal with different characters. And there were a number of breaks with things going down in New Mobotropolis.

 

51 minutes ago, MetalSkulkBane said:

(Only alternatives I can think off would be Boom crossover to get Sticks here.  I'm assuming Infinite will remain off-limits at least for a while).

I kinda get the feeling they were just gonna have Sticks be a thing already.

43 minutes ago, MetalSkulkBane said:

 

BTW, in whole 2011-2020, Sonic Lost World was the only (main canon) Sonic game to not reuse stages and major ideas from past games. Feeling depressed yet?

 

25 minutes ago, StaticMania said:

Sonic Lost World has the Casino Level and a Green Hill pretty much.

Uh, there was also the Metropolis Zone screws in Frozen Factory. 

That was another thing people get the game crap for, unfortunately.

 

 

[MetalSkulkBane]

56 minutes ago, MetalSkulkBane said:

BTW, in whole 2011-2020, Sonic Lost World was the only (main canon) Sonic game to not reuse stages and major ideas from past games. Feeling depressed yet?

 

39 minutes ago, StaticMania said:

Sonic Lost World has the Casino Level and a Green Hill pretty much.

Geez, don't try to cheer me up that hard I would still argue Lost Worl's art-style is enough to qualify as 'original'. Heores and SA1 had casinos levels too.

[Kazhnuz]

1 hour ago, MetalSkulkBane said:

What do you think will be the arc of Year 3? Personally I'm suspecting something space-involved. Wisps, Lost Hex, Little Planet, now Donga Kingdom, Mobius has a lot of  satellites to explore. Plus latest put a lot of emphasis on Wisps and Deadly Six. 

For example I could imagine Zavok creating Cacophonic Conch rip-off that works on Wisps, thus allowing him to gain control of all Wispons. And with yearly-arc, each member of D6 would have some time to shine, yet avoid feeling of monotony like Mecha Sally (Only alternatives I can think off would be Boom crossover to get Sticks here.  I'm assuming Infinite will remain off-limits at least for a while). 

That would be really cool. I kinda think that a good space universe could be done for Sonic, if a bit of works is done in it. And I feel that they could expand it a lot, and create some stuff it, especially if Flynn do some expies of other old fun species of Chronicles or Sonic X.

TBH, I would also love if he continued the trend of using Japanese mythology for aliens. I mean, Zetis are based on Oni, and Do donpa is based on tanunkis. They could base all the new aliens species on that, and do some fun things with that. And it would add more personality to the universe.

Spoiler

Does that mean that Tails… ? XD

 

[DabigRG]

41 minutes ago, Kazhnuz said:

That would be really cool. I kinda think that a good space universe could be done for Sonic, if a bit of works is done in it. And I feel that they could expand it a lot, and create some stuff it, especially if Flynn do some expies of other old fun species of Chronicles or Sonic X.

 

Hm...how do you think that'd go over though?

40 minutes ago, Kazhnuz said:

TBH, I would also love if he continued the trend of using Japanese mythology for aliens. I mean, Zetis are based on Oni, and Do donpa is based on tanunkis. They could base all the new aliens species on that, and do some fun things with that. And it would add more personality to the universe.

  Hide contents

Does that mean that Tails… ? XD

 

Yeah, really gets ya thinkin, doesn't it?

[Dr. Detective]

I'm still kind of hoping this current arc goes on for a bit past this year. I don't want the Zombot apocalypse to end really. Then again, the sooner it ends the sooner I get to see Charmy come back to us. 

This is a such a good idea. I can't believe this all resulted from Ian looking at the creepy metal forms from Heroes and going "I can do something with that." I'm kind of jealous I didn't come up with it first.

[DabigRG]

6 minutes ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

 

This is a such a good idea. I can't believe this all resulted from Ian looking at the creepy metal forms from Heroes and going "I can do something with that." I'm kind of jealous I didn't come up with it first.

Oh, is that what it is? Man, can he spin.

[Ellipsis-Ultima]

10 hours ago, MetalSkulkBane said:

Speaking of let-change-subject-on-something-less-heated:

What do you think will be the arc of Year 3? Personally I'm suspecting something space-involved. Wisps, Lost Hex, Little Planet, now Donga Kingdom, Mobius has a lot of  satellites to explore. Plus latest put a lot of emphasis on Wisps and Deadly Six.

For example I could imagine Zavok creating Cacophonic Conch rip-off that works on Wisps, thus allowing him to gain control of all Wispons. And with yearly-arc, each member of D6 would have some time to shine, yet avoid feeling of monotony like Mecha Sally (Only alternatives I can think off would be Boom crossover to get Sticks here.  I'm assuming Infinite will remain off-limits at least for a while).

BTW, in whole 2011-2020, Sonic Lost World was the only (main canon) Sonic game to not reuse stages and major ideas from past games. Feeling depressed yet?

For some reason I think year 3

Spoiler

Could involve the Octopus girl from Tangle Whisper #2 working with Eggman on the latest scheme.

 

[Red Hot Jack]

I just asked Ian on twitter why the TSR manual says Zavok is the "former" leader of the Deadly Six, if they are dead or not.

[Big Panda]

42 minutes ago, Psycho_Jack said:

I just asked Ian on twitter why the TSR manual says Zavok is the "former" leader of the Deadly Six, if they are dead or not.

Ian didn’t even write the story so I doubt he’d know.

[DabigRG]

1 hour ago, Psycho_Jack said:

I just asked Ian on twitter why the TSR manual says Zavok is the "former" leader of the Deadly Six, if they are dead or not.

 

Hold up--what?