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Should The Next 3D Sonic Game Forget About Story?


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3 minutes ago, antyep said:

Even if they do, Sega’s law would get in the way. Seriously some of the stuff they cut off from Forces, like Shadow’s unused dialogue would’ve made the game a little better.

I mean.. it makes it more clear it's an illusion, but that's not much we didn't already know. I'm pretty sure it was just for pacing.

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1 hour ago, StaticMania said:

They had a point, if they didn't die...it wouldn't have made Sonic sad nor show off the true impact of Eggman's machine.

Well, Knuckles was 100% pointless fanservice between both Minnie Mouse and Squidward.

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3 minutes ago, Miragnarok said:

Well, Knuckles was 100% pointless fanservice between both Minnie Mouse and Squidward.

Is shadow squidward?

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Gonna post an unpopular opinion here and agree. The next 3d game should be light on story, just so they can get the gameplay right. Ideally, both would be improved but knowing sonic team, it's either the gameplay, or the story that's right.

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No. Instead, SEGA can learn to get better writers. 

I was one of the people who appreciated Colors story quite a bit, and even enjoyed stuff from Generations and Lost World, but I was wanting a more serious story. I got that with Forces. It wasn't perfect, but it did carry some moments that I found were legitimately good.  Still it's just that the story itself forgot what really makes a story good or at least getting the basics right. If you don't get it right then you just don't throw it all away and give up, you identify the problem and fix it. I feel this should be common sense, but sadly it seems as if SEGA/Sonic Team doesn't completely get this themselves, but anyways... 

This franchise has some amazing characters and I'm sure the reason why we've all grown attached to them was because of specific moments where they were written pretty well that helped made them standout in some way. If they want to stop doing serious stories, then okay, whatever, but they can still mess that up if the writers aren't good. So, better writers are the answer.

 

And personally, I really love character interactions a lot. I can even take that over having some sort of serious story. I loved Colors so much because I found Sonic and Tails to be very funny and enjoyed their bromance completely. 

 

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1 hour ago, StaticMania said:

They had a point, if they didn't die...it wouldn't have made Sonic sad nor show off the true impact of Eggman's machine.

Except that in itself was pointless. The reason Chaos wrecking Station Square or Eggman blowing up the moon worked in the Adventure games is they raised the stakes. We saw the threat, knew what it was capable of, and the pressure was on to stop it before any more damage could be done. In Lost World though the planet is dead, there's no more damage to be done, so it ends up removing the stakes instead of raising them.

If the game had then focused on Sonic struggling to find hope in a hopeless situation and/or going apeshit on the Deadly Six and needing to reign himself in before he loses any chance of making things right, that'd be one thing. Instead the Deadly Six drain Earth, Sonic looks sad for a minute, then Tails shows up and he acts like nothing ever happened.

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35 minutes ago, Izuku Deku Midoriya said:

SEGA can learn to get better writers. 

Yeah, light or serious, it doesn't really matter if the writing isn't that good.

...

So, we're screwed! 

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>Less story

Are you serious? Have you seen how underdeveloed or bleh Forces' plot is?

>Villains from across the series return only to not only be just illusions there's little to zip investigation of them by Sonic's posse but lots of them are so minor that they might as well have not been there.

>Eggman is an underwhelming villain who depends on Infinite and his empire little impact on the world (lack of serious damage to the environment, lack of roboticized antros).

>Knuckles is the leader yet is still treated like a fool by his peers and repeatedly screws up or is about to if it wasn't Sonic/Rouge/Avatar

>The comic clashing with the game (See Phantom Ruby's origin)

>The Master Emerald still being a thing yet nobody on the Resistance figures to use it and/or the Chaos Emeralds

>Tails being dissapointing

>Shadow being a DLC character while Classic is there from the start despite Classic Sonic being forced while Shadow has his past with Infinite.

>Infinite being Mephiles 2.0

If anything, Forces didn't have ENOUGH plot.

 

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2 hours ago, Razule said:

 

Yeah, light or serious, it doesn't really matter if the writing isn't that good.

...

So, we're screwed! 

And this, is the problem

Sega of japan wants to create narrative , it is merely translated for other places. Now on one hand yes, you could take issues with the translation. But at the end the day the issue is sega isn't creating cohesive stories let alone gameplay that build on something. Ever since generations, they have been throwing shit at a wall and see what sticks. Nothing has  a goal anymore, its just to see if something works. So if the person making the story is literally flinging shit at a wall, thats the narrative you are gonna ned up with. Random shit on a wall

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1 hour ago, Almar said:

>Less story

Are you serious? Have you seen how underdeveloed or bleh Forces' plot is?

>Villains from across the series return only to not only be just illusions there's little to zip investigation of them by Sonic's posse but lots of them are so minor that they might as well have not been there.

>Eggman is an underwhelming villain who depends on Infinite and his empire little impact on the world (lack of serious damage to the environment, lack of roboticized antros).

>Knuckles is the leader yet is still treated like a fool by his peers and repeatedly screws up or is about to if it wasn't Sonic/Rouge/Avatar

>The comic clashing with the game (See Phantom Ruby's origin)

>The Master Emerald still being a thing yet nobody on the Resistance figures to use it and/or the Chaos Emeralds

>Tails being dissapointing

>Shadow being a DLC character while Classic is there from the start despite Classic Sonic being forced while Shadow has his past with Infinite.

>Infinite being Mephiles 2.0

If anything, Forces didn't have ENOUGH plot.

 

Then how about a simple story.. but developed? The best stories ever are somewhat simple.

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"Forget about the story" you mean like how the other games before Forces did? The perfect Sonic story to me is

All the characters are in character

The tone is serious but not on the level of 06 and Shadow. You can have jokes can be there but not incredibly obnoxious like Colors and Lost World.

The Sonic games that did this right to me were the Adventure Games and Unleashed.

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9 hours ago, StaticMania said:

I assume he's talking about Zavok, the guy who "hates fun"...

I intended for Knuckles to be Squidward because they were both Designated Monkeys.

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Sadly I have to say yes. With each game they continue the timeline the more complicated it gets. They had to recon so many storylines for characters already. Classic Sonic is now no more longer the younger version of Sonic, he is now from another dimension. Blaze is from the future now and is no longer from her own dimension, Sega doesn't care anymore, if Silver is now from the future or from the present and what Shadow now suppose to be I have no clue at all. Is he still half alien? Is he still an android? Is he good? Is he evil? I'm completely lost with this character. Same goes with Knuckles. Is he still the guardian of the Master Emerald? Is he smart, is he an idiot? They always change him.

I have to say, yes, when it comes to your question. Sonic should just get rid off its story completely. It is really hard to continue a timeline over so many years. No wonder, that it is just such a mess now. 

Jus get rid of the story, and sadly also on half of the cast. So many of them are useless now. The only characters, that can work for future games with simple stories are Sonic, Tails, (maybe) Knuckles, (maybe) Amy, Dr. Eggman, Metal-Sonic, Orbot, Cubot, the Wisps (but only as Power-Ups) and (maybe) the Deadly Six. 

All of the other characters have just to over complicated roles in the Sonic lore. Sonic is really the only Jump'n Run series that tries way to hard to tell an epic story. Mario doesn't need it, Crash Bandicoot and Spyro do not need, same goes for Shantae.

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1 hour ago, Swing said:

Sadly I have to say yes. With each game they continue the timeline the more complicated it gets. They had to recon so many storylines for characters already. Classic Sonic is now no more longer the younger version of Sonic, he is now from another dimension. Blaze is from the future now and is no longer from her own dimension, Sega doesn't care anymore, if Silver is now from the future or from the present and what Shadow now suppose to be I have no clue at all. Is he still half alien? Is he still an android? Is he good? Is he evil? I'm completely lost with this character. Same goes with Knuckles. Is he still the guardian of the Master Emerald? Is he smart, is he an idiot? They always change him.

Shadow is the same. They have not changed him since his game in terms of back story

1 hour ago, Swing said:

I have to say, yes, when it comes to your question. Sonic should just get rid off its story completely. It is really hard to continue a timeline over so many years. No wonder, that it is just such a mess now. 

Jus get rid of the story, and sadly also on half of the cast. So many of them are useless now. The only characters, that can work for future games with simple stories are Sonic, Tails, (maybe) Knuckles, (maybe) Amy, Dr. Eggman, Metal-Sonic, Orbot, Cubot, the Wisps (but only as Power-Ups) and (maybe) the Deadly Six. 

All of the other characters have just to over complicated roles in the Sonic lore. Sonic is really the only Jump'n Run series that tries way to hard to tell an epic story. Mario doesn't need it, Crash Bandicoot and Spyro do not need, same goes for Shantae.

Your sonic sounds hella boring. You kind of getting rid of the shit that made me prefer it over those other series. 

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Added to which, Silver has always been from the future and Blaze has never been from the future.  Point me to a line in '06 which states that she was born and raised in the future.  I am quite sure there isn't one.  She's just there, you can explain her any way you like, but there is nothing to prove that she didn't just hop over from the Rush dimension.  With Knuckles I think the complaints are more legitimate - but less fundamental.  You can handwave any number of explanations for why he isn't sticking to the Master Emerald like glue - Chaos is guarding it while Knuckles is away, or "Tails helped me install some new sensors and traps!"  Should they put those explanations on-screen?  Absolutely.  But it's not hard to invent them yourself.  The Classic Sonic thing is dumb and easy to ignore, which is exactly what I'm doing.

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Personally, I feel like they need to change their approach. Even assuming they get a competent, consistent narrative going, Sonic Team's approach to storytelling usually doesn't gel with their approach to gameplay. It's like... uh, how was it said earlier?

15 hours ago, Bowbowis said:

What I think is that everybody, fans and SEGA alike, needs to stop treating gameplay and story like a zero-sum where one must necessarily come at the expense of the other.

In many ways, this is true - technically they don't came at each other's expense, but what's been happening instead is that they're being shoved into separate time slots, and the two rarely if ever intermingle. Rather than telling stories through their setpiecing, ST's been mostly content to let most of the plot unfold through fancy Marza cutscenes that often feel like they're operating on completely different rules and themes to Sega's own, and it's not uncommon find they only reference each other on the barest level on top of that. I can't fucking believe I'm using Forces as a case in point for this, but:

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That alone is already a short story told in one picture, and it instantly sets the tone for everything that comes after. Eggman came in a lot harder than normal, wrecked the hell out of everything in his way, and as a result Sonic and pals are actually on the defensive for once, with their backs more or less up against the wall for much Eggman conquered. There's a lot you can determine just from this view - I should know, because we as Sonic fans spent months speculating on it when it was first shown. Sonic storytelling in my eyes should pretty much just be a long string of these - using sights and sounds in gameplay to spell the situation out, and saving the expositional dialogue and cutscenes until you can't spell it out any other way.

There's still sparks of this here and there in other games:

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But for the most part story and gameplay live in their own segregated worlds. The plot should actually advance ingame beyond what's already predetermined in cutscenes, and players should be able to figure it out for themselves rather than being drowned in generic exposition for the whole level or just having absolutely nothing at all. Even if it's as simple as "bad guy drops in completely unannounced" or "you're continously chasing that mcguffin you need through the level rather than it just showing up out of nowhere after you've finished the level", or "oh shit the bad guy did a thing and broke the level, and now it's an escape sequence rather than a chase scene". Ori and the Blind Forest is pretty much the fucking king of this, and if there's any single game Sonic could stand to take lessons from narrative wise, it's that.

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3 hours ago, Shadowlax said:

Your sonic sounds hella boring. You kind of getting rid of the shit that made me prefer it over those other series. 

Because fanservice isn't everything. If so, than Forces would have sold over 2 million copies buy now. 

Let's be honest here guys. The fanservice can not rescue a game, if it as boring as Forces or as broken as Boom, 06 or the storybook games. Gameplay matters the most for a game like Sonic. Super Mario Odyssey didn't had Luigi or Rosalina in the game, but guess what? It was a really fun game. Not every single Crash game needed Ripper Roo, Koala Kong or N. Brio in it, but guess what? Each of the trilogy games where really polished good games. Same goes for DKC. This series has gotten rid of almost the entire old cast and their still fun games to play. 

I could understand if Sonic games were a really story heavy like Life is Strange or the Final Fantasy games, but they aren't. It is still a story about a blue hedgehog, who fight against a mad doctor who tries to take over the world. How much egdy can you make such a story where it doesn't feel like it is trying way to hard to be serious. 

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21 minutes ago, Swing said:

Because fanservice isn't everything. If so, than Forces would have sold over 2 million copies buy now. 

It isn't about fanservice its about offering something different in the landscape of platformers and its characters and aesthetic and stories did that for m

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Let's be honest here guys. The fanservice can not rescue a game, if it as boring as Forces or as broken as Boom, 06 or the storybook games.

Well instead of taking story out

How about we fix the gameplay, its almost as if you can do both. Its almost as if video games have been doing both for decades. 

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Gameplay matters the most for a game like Sonic. Super Mario Odyssey didn't had Luigi or Rosalina in the game, but guess what? It was a really fun game.

That's cool, what does that have to do with what I want out of sonic though? I don't care about what mario is doing, that's neat. I care about what I want sonic to do. If I wanna play mario, i'll fucking play mario. 

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Not every single Crash game needed Ripper Roo, Koala Kong or N. Brio in it, but guess what? Each of the trilogy games where really polished good games. Same goes for DKC. This series has gotten rid of almost the entire old cast and their still fun games to play. 

I don't care about crash too much nor do I care about DK country, so those comparisons don't mean anything to me. What does this have anything to do with what I want out of sonic the subject at hand? Also your comparisons also have little to do with playable characters or any real sonic comparison point. 

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I could understand if Sonic games were a really story heavy like Life is Strange or the Final Fantasy games, but they aren't. It is still a story about a blue hedgehog, who fight against a mad doctor who tries to take over the world. How much egdy can you make such a story where it doesn't feel like it is trying way to hard to be serious. 

That shit sounds boring, If I want a silent ass protagonist in a story where nothing happens, I have a litany of games that play better than sonic, on its best days to pass my time. Sonic offered me something different, but if you take all that shit away. I mean all you have is not as good mario, and if you are interested in not that good mario, sure go ahead But i'm not. Sonic has always something interesting interns of how it presented itself, for better and for worse that said the reason that in dear myself to the series because its offers this unique perspective on presentation in platforms. There's shit even in bad sonic games in terms of presentation that for me never get topped because other platforms don't present themselves that way we aren't even mentioning the good games. 

You also seem to be operating under the flawed assumption that to be a good story game, you need to be story heavy. Which true, you can tell a story that works that isn't as grand as an rpg or an adventure game and still works and fuctions still has twists and turns. I like Ratchet and Clank, Jak and Daxter, and Sly Cooper for those same reasons. 

I feel like your perspective on this subject is...  , limited to say the least

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11 minutes ago, Swing said:

Let's be honest here guys. The fanservice can not rescue a game, if it as boring as Forces or as broken as Boom, 06 or the storybook games. Gameplay matters the most for a game like Sonic. Super Mario Odyssey didn't had Luigi or Rosalina in the game, but guess what? It was a really fun game. Not every single Crash game needed Ripper Roo, Koala Kong or N. Brio in it, but guess what? Each of the trilogy games where really polished good games. Same goes for DKC. This series has gotten rid of almost the entire old cast and their still fun games to play.

The success of those games is completely irrelevant to how much story is in them in general though, let alone how many characters each one featured. Any single one of them could have added extra characters in similar means to the ones they already had and would have lost practically nothing on it. Hell, most of your examples don't even concern playable characters, where you could at least have argued they'd need additional resources to tailour and balance more playstyles.

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Forces' story wasn't worked on for 3 years, the engine for the game was. And as for story, I liked Mania's story just fine, as in I liked the presentation and storytelling. All that's really needed is character interaction between the cast and Eggman. I personally liked the story of Colors and Generations as well.

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Again, Forces didn't have much plot for how it got hyped. Sonic Team is hardly focusing on plot over the rest of the game.

Where's the interactions between Team Eggman (or since they're illusionary, the investigations of them by Team Sonic)? Where's Knuckles being credible? Where's Eggman actually making an impact on the world? Where's Shadow actually being Infinite's archrival?

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