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Why don't you take Sonic seriously?


havikinazuma

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Hi everyone I'm new here. I'm here to ask question, post truths. Either I want to start here with this one.

"Why does a serious Sonic seem so ridiculous to you?"

"Is it because he's a blue athro Hedgehog?" 

"If he was human,would you have the same opinion?"

These questions come to my head, when I see people say stick to mostly or only comedy. I don't feel this way myself, as I've seen many story progressions from light-hearted and comedic, but later down the line, became much more serious, Dragon Ball comes to mind(Not like cringy DBZ-like OP Sonic OCs, I'm talking about OG Dragon Ball, when Gku was a kid.). Everytime something like shadow with a gun, or Sonic with a sword, or certain storylines,hell, even Infinite the new game, is called "Edgy", and therefore "bad". The moment people saw the destroyed city, some were like ,"NOOOOOO, not another Sonic 06, or OH NO! reffering to a serious story. 

 

Is it because he's a Headgehog? If he was human, would they accept the EDGY things as cool, instead of cringy?

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A darker Sonic story can work, but Sonic Team is just consistently inept at writing them.

I think if, say, Ian Flynn of the Archie comics were hired to write for the games, he'd be able to skillfully balance comedy and drama in such a way as to make a more serious story "flow" naturally, as opposed to feeling forced and awkward. 

So, like, a "serious" Sonic story can totally work. But the people writing the games have almost always been terrible at it. This is why Shadow the Hedgehog and Sonic 2k6 went down in history as unintentional comedies, not the serious stories they were intended to be.

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14 minutes ago, Dr. Mechano said:

A darker Sonic story can work, but Sonic Team is just consistently inept at writing them.

I think if, say, Ian Flynn of the Archie comics were hired to write for the games, he'd be able to skillfully balance comedy and drama in such a way as to make a more serious story "flow" naturally, as opposed to feeling forced and awkward. 

So, like, a "serious" Sonic story can totally work. But the people writing the games have almost always been terrible at it. This is why Shadow the Hedgehog and Sonic 2k6 went down in history as unintentional comedies, not the serious stories they were intended to be.

I hear you and agree, but I see a lot of people, atribute Sonic being a n antro cartoon hedgehog, and find it too ridiculous for him to have a serious story. If he was a short human character that moved fast would his story additons be as ridiculous? Is it because he's a blue hedgehog?

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6 minutes ago, havikinazuma said:

I hear you and agree, but I see a lot of people, atribute Sonic being a n antro cartoon hedgehog, and find it too ridiculous for him to have a serious story. If he was a short human character that moved fast would his story additons be as ridiculous? Is it because he's a blue hedgehog?

I mean, look at the Mario RPGs.

There's your "short human" with a bunch of games that skillfully balance comedy and drama, creating lovable, charming games that don't shy away from the series' whimsical, cartoonish nature in order to tell more serious stories.

The Mario RPGs embrace Mario's bright, colorful, silly aesthetics and manage to tell more grounded, serious stories within that framework. The Sonic games, by contrast, seem almost ashamed of their more lighthearted roots and try to downplay them as much as possible in games like Shadow, 2k6, etc.

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34 minutes ago, havikinazuma said:

Hi everyone I'm new here. I'm here to ask question, post truths. Either I want to start here with this one.

"Why does a serious Sonic seem so ridiculous to you?"

"Is it because he's a blue athro Hedgehog?" 

"If he was human,would you have the same opinion?"

These questions come to my head, when I see people say stick to mostly or only comedy. I don't feel this way myself, as I've seen many story progressions from light-hearted and comedic, but later down the line, became much more serious, Dragon Ball comes to mind(Not like cringy DBZ-like OP Sonic OCs, I'm talking about OG Dragon Ball, when Gku was a kid.). Everytime something like shadow with a gun, or Sonic with a sword, or certain storylines,hell, even Infinite the new game, is called "Edgy", and therefore "bad". The moment people saw the destroyed city, some were like ,"NOOOOOO, not another Sonic 06, or OH NO! reffering to a serious story. 

 

Is it because he's a Headgehog? If he was human, would they accept the EDGY things as cool, instead of cringy?

 

12 minutes ago, havikinazuma said:

I hear you and agree, but I see a lot of people, atribute Sonic being a n antro cartoon hedgehog, and find it too ridiculous for him to have a serious story. If he was a short human character that moved fast would his story additons be as ridiculous? Is it because he's a blue hedgehog?

It's because the execution is fucking terrible more often than not. It's not that Sonic is incapable of having higher stakes than the norm, but rather the writing is so damn inept that it always come off as cringe inducing and unintentionally funny rather than being taken seriously.  That's why so many people are turned off by Modern Sonic games, not because they're against the idea of a "darker" Sonic, but rather Sonic Team have shown time, and time, and time again that they simply cannot do it in a way that's convincing.

I would point to the comics like Mechano said, particularly post-Reboot and some pre-reboot as well with Flynn on board. Those stories have stakes and deeper characterizations, but it's not too ridiculous to the point it where it just feels alien within the series. 

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Because the entire premise of the series is silly.

You play as a blue hedgehog with 90's 'tude fighting the accurately named Dr Egg-Man and his army of animal robots in a stylized world of geometric patterns and naturally-occurring loop-de-loops with some light environmental themes thrown in. The tone set by the early games in the series is about a hair's width more serious than Mario, so suggesting we should actually take it seriously is like expecting us to be seriously concerned with the political implications of a princess being kidnapped by a foreign king who is also a turtle.

That's not to say you can't tell compelling, interesting stories with the series. But the kind of "seriousness" that some Sonic fans have latched onto isn't necessary or even inherently supportive of that. What most people seem to think of as "serious Sonic" seems rooted in Adventure era nostalgia, which is the period where I feel a lot of things that were interesting and unique about Sonic started getting stripped out in favor of a duller and more generic world. The series became "serious" at the expense of its own identity, for the sake of stories that weren't even all that good anyway.

What Sonic needs isn't seriousness, it's earnestness. It's got to take care of and have respect for itself before it can regain the respect of others, and it's not going to do that if it's constantly chasing an outdated idea of "seriousness".

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I feel like the kind of "seriousness" that people really complain about is really only present in two games in the series. Nothing the SA series does is anymore overwrought than a Saturday morning cartoon show. And yes, I'm including Sonic Adventure 2 in that.

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I was introduced to Sonic at a time when it was a cartoon and video game character that liked eating chili dogs, saving cute bunnies and breaking a fat guy's toys. Any attempts to make it serious only makes it funnier to me. 

That said, I took SatAM seriously when I was young. Saving the rainforest from being a polluted wasteland? Talking animals being turned into metal? Sign me up brah.

In hindsight it was still dumb. But whatever floats your boat.

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The same character saving cute bunnies had backstory involving time travel, lost civilizations that wiped themselves out through the misuse of ancient artifacts, and giant warships directly inspired by Star Wars.

The story telling limitations of the platforming genre not withstanding, Sonic was always meant to have a bit more edge than "fluffy cartoon character saves cute animals from walrus-shaped man".

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Just now, Razorsaw said:

and giant warships directly inspired by Star Wars.

The Death Egg is literally the opposite of a reason to take Sonic seriously, though. It's a movie reference with the villain's face plastered on it. That's what most people would call "a joke".

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My point is more that it's a bit more action oriented than, say, a character based on a Japanese storybook creature flying around in a smiling clown car.

Everything about Eggman, conceptually, is also meant to appeal to younger adults and teenagers. His robots are "cooler" and more dangerous than waddling chestnuts and turtles, he made a cool edgy robot Sonic, and both his designs are references to the Beatles - not really references kids are gonna get.

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"Action-oriented" and "serious" aren't the same thing, nor does the former imply the latter. It's a completely separate trait.

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This quote seems seems like a decent summary of the series, which I actually CAN take seriously.

 

 

"that life's most serious moments and most incredibly dumb moments are often distinguishable only by a momentary point of view."

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Maybe, but I was responding to comments that described Sonic as a shallow concept full of whimsy and cartoonishness, when that's only true to a degree. It's born out of the same 90's sense of "coolness" that made characters like the X-Men popular; a franchise that's, coincidentally, full of consequences and mystery as much as it is ridiculousness. The backstory for Sonic created the basis for a world full of danger and mysticism, not something that was purely a colorful storybook world. Sonic has always had an attempt at depth in it.

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12 minutes ago, Razorsaw said:

Everything about Eggman, conceptually, is also meant to appeal to younger adults and teenagers. His robots are "cooler" and more dangerous than waddling chestnuts and turtles, he made a cool edgy robot Sonic, and both his designs are references to the Beatles - not really references kids are gonna get.

Eggman appeals to older fans more than kids because they focus more on making him likable than on making him "badass" or "edgy."

Not to say Eggman is never cool; I think he's really cool. But he's not cool in that contrived, engineered, focus-groupy way that most modern Sonic villains are. He's cool because he has genuine charm and likability, which gives him staying power as a character.

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There's a lot of reasons I don't take Sonic seriously, both in and out of story.

Stuff like this is one of them 

LolGast.jpg

Like Dr. Mechano said ST's pretty bad at any attempt of writing serious situations too. Lost World is more than enough of an example. 

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Just now, Nintendoga said:

Like Dr. Mechano said ST's pretty bad at any attempt of writing serious situations too. Lost World is more than enough of an example. 

Lost World seemed more like it was supposed to be goofy.

I didn't get an "Intended to be super-serious" vibe from it.

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5 minutes ago, Dr. Mechano said:

Eggman appeals to older fans more than kids because they focus more on making him likable than on making him "badass" or "edgy."

Not to say Eggman is never cool; I think he's really cool. But he's not cool in that contrived, engineered, focus-groupy way that most modern Sonic villains are. He's cool because he has genuine charm and likability, which gives him staying power as a character.

I was talking more about his conceptual roots than anything.

But you do realize, your comment about "contrived, engineered, focus-groupy way" to describe modern Sonic villains could just as easily be turned around on, say, Metal Sonic, who literally has no character outside of how surface cool he is most of the time. The only really difference between him and Shadow is that Metal Sonic is a robot.

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Taking colorful, silly characters and puting them into a serious situation isn't a new concept. There are alot examples of that. Some work, others don't.

Issue is, I think, isn't really sonic taking itself seriously but rather the quality of writing. You can replace all the elements in 06 with a different series and the story will still be considered pretty awful. I dont think anyone will have a problem if a "serious" sonic plot was written well. Look at Satam or the archie comics ( Ian Flynn's work..). 

 

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23 minutes ago, Razorsaw said:

Everything about Eggman, conceptually, is also meant to appeal to younger adults and teenagers. His robots are "cooler" and more dangerous than waddling chestnuts and turtles,

I don't think this is what traditionally passes as "cool":

 5CLOyig.png

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For the record, I'm not gonna disagree with the idea that Shadow and SA2 aren't overwrought and un-Sonic-ish, but Sonic Adventure? SA2? Those are fine.

I don't really see what standard makes them different from the kinds of stuff Ian would write.

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1 minute ago, Razorsaw said:

I was talking more about his conceptual roots than anything.

But you do realize, your comment about "contrived, engineered, focus-groupy way" to describe modern Sonic villains could just as easily be turned around on, say, Metal Sonic, who literally has no character outside of how surface cool he is most of the time. The only really difference between him and Shadow is that Metal Sonic is a robot.

Oh, sure. I don't even disagree.

But in his first appearance, Metal Sonic was just a boss, not the main villain of the game. In his subsequent appearances, like in Triple Trouble for example, he also just appeared as a boss fight, making him scarcely different from Silver Sonic or Mecha Sonic.

It wasn't until Heroes that they tried making him a full-on solo villain in his own right, and... well, that didn't go so well, did it? So really, I agree with you; Metal Sonic works great as a boss and as an obstacle, but in Sega's one attempt to make him an actual antagonist with his own motivation, he failed to be a compelling villain. 

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2 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

I don't think this is what traditionally passes as "cool":

 5CLOyig.png

it's a bug combined with a motorcycle. His arms are spiky blades. He's not the most threatening robot in the world but he's not exactly cuddly in the same way other video game bad guys are.

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9 minutes ago, Dr. Mechano said:

Lost World seemed more like it was supposed to be goofy.

I didn't get an "Intended to be super-serious" vibe from it.

Tails and Sonic's rift and the sudden change of tone near the end with Sonic's friends and Eggman "dying" gave off the impression of a sad attempt at a more serious story to me.

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6 minutes ago, Razorsaw said:

The only really difference between him and Shadow is that Metal Sonic is a robot.

And his story

and his character design

And his personality

and having a personality

and the people he hands out with

And his powers

And his connection to dr eggman

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