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Even Yuji Naka didnt want a cutesy funny Sonic


Marco9966

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8 minutes ago, Sonic Fan J said:

Comically, Sonic isn't even the darkest themed of mascot characters. Klonoa is arguably darker in his dealings with loss, isolation, death, and other similar themes and he is presented from the get go as a cute character (though he arguably became more cheeky himself with time) which helps soften the blow of the subjects he addresses. Sonic on the other hand should come across more as whimsical than cute due to his attitude. IMHO because of Sonic's attitude and the whimsical to epic flow of his adventures, and even some of the nature vs industrialization themes of the franchise,  it is a shame that he did not evolve more in Ghibli-esque way as I think that would be a better fit for Sonic than either Shounen adventure stories, or the comedy adventure stories of late. The best thing about a Ghibli-esque approach is that the character designs and eccentricities of the characters would still blend in nicely as the story goes from whimsical to epically climatic.

@Marco9966

When I first played SA1 it really had some Ghibli vibes for me especially with Big, Amy, Tails's individual moments in the sunset... A beautiful game...

Now everything needs to be "gotta go fast and boost-to-win" and we can only play as Sonic as the other characters are for decoration.

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I'd have to play it again to see since I never really got those vibes from Adventure, but I wouldn't mind at all since it is one of my favorite games and I always enjoy finding references to the Japanese lore of the Genesis Games as I play (such as the legendary dragon egg and then Chaos eventually appearing draconic after breaking out of the Master Emerald).

I also agree that just focusing on Sonic running fast and being snarky strips the games of almost anything enjoyable. Slowing down the narrative again to say Unleashed levels of pacing I think would help as well as showing Sonic being someone who globetrots. Show his amazement when he discovers something his adventuring has brought him and then balance that with his inevitable encounter with Eggman and the conflict that follows.

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Just now, Sonic Fan J said:

I'd have to play it again to see since I never really got those vibes from Adventure, but I wouldn't mind at all since it is one of my favorite games and I always enjoy finding references to the Japanese lore of the Genesis Games as I play (such as the legendary dragon egg and then Chaos eventually appearing draconic after breaking out of the Master Emerald).

I also agree that just focusing on Sonic running fast and being snarky strips the games of almost anything enjoyable. Slowing down the narrative again to say Unleashed levels of pacing I think would help as well as showing Sonic being someone who globetrots. Show his amazement when he discovers something his adventuring has brought him and then balance that with his inevitable encounter with Eggman and the conflict that follows.

Try to play it without the music, perhaps it adds this kinda vibe.

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That'd be an interesting experiment. I'll just need to find the time to play again.

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2 hours ago, A person, that exists said:

So, yeah, basically, what you mean is that Sonic should become a yet another cheerful happy mascot...

What exactly do I mean?

 

I have made no argument, just questions. 

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29 minutes ago, Almar said:

He was already a cheerful happy mascot.

I guess, in which case he remained a cheerful happy mascot in SA1 and SA2.

"This is happening", "talk about low-budget flights", and all that.

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1 hour ago, Almar said:

He was already a cheerful happy mascot.

This is kind of Naka's point from back then. He was never meant to be and so with Adventure they tried to steer Sonic back to what he was intended to be from the beginning. Execution aside it says a lot about how much they had lost control of public perception of Sonic, if they ever had to begin with if you consider the various western medias.

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On 5/19/2018 at 9:54 PM, BaronGrackle said:

The... flowers?

No the fact that the 6 emerald 'disappeared' at the end of the game

On 5/20/2018 at 6:03 PM, Almar said:

He was already a cheerful happy mascot.

It's more of the point that through trials and tribulations, Sonic can still hold his smile even after stuff like Shadow's 'death', Chip leaving, the Sonic Storybook Series. Hell even in Sonic the OVA and The American outlets, Sonic holds his smile after tragedy and conflict to show that it's made him stronger

On 5/20/2018 at 6:22 AM, Marco9966 said:

I just found these pictures and it speaks better than a thousand words. 

how_we_see_the_games_by_foxheadtails-daxhow_dark_were_the_classics__by_theswordl

(montages by foxheadtails and theswordlegion)

DcoIdt8W0AA_Tlj.jpgDcoIhSJWsAEc7gy.jpg

(fanarts by Nathalie Fourdraine for Green Hill Zine)

This is how I remember Classic Sonic back in the day before all the outrage over Sonic 4.

It was epic, mysterious stories. Don't remember the master emerald? Angel Island? The threatening Mecha Sonic? The last battle of Death Egg? Sonic CD with its bad alternate future and legendary animation? This is epic stuff! Not so different from Chaos in SA1 or Metal Sonic in Heroes, or Shadow and Biolizard in SA2, or Blaze in Sonic Rush. It's similar themes of mystery and adventure and fantasy!! Stuff that that I love about Sonic.

(Hence why I hate that people subdivide the franchise while before 2011 and Sonic Generations mistake, it was all one great series, with an inconsistent timeline sometimes of course, but with consistent effort to do captivating stories, not only gameplay)

That's how I remember Classic Sonic, not Green Hill zone all the time or Tom & Jerry comedy! (Not all the time at least, it was just in AosTH and that's just how the style and purpose of the TV show was, like Boom...).

THIS ALL THE WAY, in total agreement yo!

 

Honestly I think the fans and anti-fans who use the "Sonic games is about a cutesy hedgehog who's blue and a hedgehog" are missing one important fact; Never judge a book by it's cover.

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I also wanna add this, from a great article:

14424930_1075059665876739_34134567781264

14352583_1075061149209924_15652503144521

I will repeat it a thousand times even if there are neo-classic fans and anti-fans who refuse to listen: Classic and Modern era have the SAME VIBES.

Just look at these 2 pictures on Sonic vs Metal and Sonic vs Shadow.

This further proves that we absolutely did not need Classic Sonic to come alongside Modern if his game have the same vibes. What a downgrade! The only reason Classic is mute is because voice acting took would take too much space in the old game. Let Sonic be true to himself, make him talk and have epic adventures, and don't bring this "neo-classic" mute fake cutey version of Sonic. I want all the next games to have only modern Sonic and NOT CLASSIC SONIC ALONGSIDE HIM (except for Mania 2 I'm very fine with classic sonic there).

The Sonic from Sonic 1 is the same Sonic as the Sonic from Adventure 2, thus Sonic Generations is a grave mistake for the Sonic franchise, and Sonic Forces only makes the damage worse.

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Yep, I'm not the only one who notice ppl using classic to undermine the modern in terms of themes and settings. Friggin Food Levels with no apparent reason for being there, shit like that annoys me. And you can see that Forces tries to get the usual equal balance, they even made an excuse to have C.Sonic there by allowing Mania to tie into it's plot.
I could go on about this for days, and even bring Sonic Dissected into this. That's why I support any and all ideas to remake 06. I miss the high stakes battles that spanned from the first game all the way to the last Sonic game with an actual story;Sonic and The Black Knight.

 

Basically...just give us Shounen anime/manga Sonic back, rather than going for the total Americanize cartoon animal root.

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22 minutes ago, WakanoBaka said:

Yep, I'm not the only one who notice ppl using classic to undermine the modern in terms of themes and settings. Friggin Food Levels with no apparent reason for being there, shit like that annoys me. And you can see that Forces tries to get the usual equal balance, they even made an excuse to have C.Sonic there by allowing Mania to tie into it's plot.
I could go on about this for days, and even bring Sonic Dissected into this. That's why I support any and all ideas to remake 06. I miss the high stakes battles that spanned from the first game all the way to the last Sonic game with an actual story;Sonic and The Black Knight.

 

Basically...just give us Shounen anime/manga Sonic back, rather than going for the total Americanize cartoon animal root.

Forces did have a high-stakes battle and actual story, if an awful one.

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On 5/20/2018 at 2:22 PM, Marco9966 said:

I just found these pictures and it speaks better than a thousand words. 

how_we_see_the_games_by_foxheadtails-dax

Honestly. It doesn't. 

It speaks of selective propaganda to try and manipulate people into believing something without even trying to make a debate on the subject.

Take away the text there and the image makes absolutely no sense... I could easily take that image and find counter imagery from the games and shows that... whoever the image creator is... I guess it's one of those true sonic spirit sites or whatever group is claiming a line these days doesn't like and it would make the same non argument.

In fact I guarantee you I could easily swap the images over with other images from the same source materials and it would completely ubdermine he point of the text.

 

I get that whoever made these doesn't like kiddy stuff. Just a shame they don't treat their audience like adults because anyone can see through all these macros.

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On 5/20/2018 at 2:22 PM, Marco9966 said:

 

how_dark_were_the_classics__by_theswordl

This image too because I have a few issues with it.

We have 4 levels here from 4 different games.

And the caption "Classic Sonic never had dark themes."

Given what the creator of this image is trying to say. There's 2 flaws with this statement and the image that's trying to back it up.

1: The first image is from the hidden palace zone... which has this music playing...

How is that a dark theme?

In fact what is even dark about that level?

Surely the image creator should have picked Angel island act 2... or lava reef... or even death egg?

Now the other problem with this image is as follows.

Other than Sonic Spinball. Which is set completely inside a fortress of Eggman... all of those games have multiple stages which prove the exact opposite of the point is trying to make.

How about we replace Palmtree Panic's bad future with this.

pppgfuture.png

Let's swap the Tails Adventure stage with this one...

tailsadventure.jpg

.

And this is where the image fails. Where it fails so hopelessly.

What it tries to prove is that Classic had a dark theme.

But that would mean, the whole game is dark, that whole game has a sense of foreboding or doom.

But unless you play Sonic CD and go for the bad future story, it sure isn't a dark game.

Even Spinball, whilst set in Eggmans fortress, start using screenshots from the higher graphical 16bit version of the game and suddenly the dark colour tones are not as harsh.

 

All what this image proves... is that some Sonic games sometimes have a level that has dark lighting or that might be a bit spooky.

 

But if you are seriously relying on these to prove the entire games theme is dark.

 

Display these few examples against the entire game.

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I don't think it's implying the whole game is like that, only addressing when "darker"/more serious window dressing is said to be out of place or contrary to Sonic's motif in those games.

I don't think Sonic should get as morose as ShTH and 06 could get. But I also don't like it when things have little to no conflict or stakes as say AOSTH (which I don't hate, just don't get excited about) or Boom (which I don't hate, just dislike).

Aside from some odd dub lines, I don't think Forces is too serious for Sonic. I don't think Mania or the classic games are too childish either. I see Sonic as an action adventure series with a sense of fun. Most Sonic media reflects that to me.

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1 hour ago, Mayor D said:

1: The first image is from the hidden palace zone... which has this music playing...

How is that a dark theme?

In fact what is even dark about that level?

Surely the image creator should have picked Angel island act 2... or lava reef... or even death egg?

I'm... sort of amazed that you can listen to Hidden Palace Zone's music, experience it as a level within the full context of the game, and walk away with impressions of it being whimsical, lighthearted, or cutesy.

EDIT: But to your point... Sonic games can go from Green Hill Zones to Scrap Brain Zones. The Green Hills don't cancel out the Scrap Brains. The Green Hills make the Scrap Brains more meaningful.

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On 5/23/2018 at 2:50 AM, Marco9966 said:

I also wanna add this, from a great article:

14424930_1075059665876739_34134567781264

14352583_1075061149209924_15652503144521

I will repeat it a thousand times even if there are neo-classic fans and anti-fans who refuse to listen: Classic and Modern era have the SAME VIBES.

Just look at these 2 pictures on Sonic vs Metal and Sonic vs Shadow.

This further proves that we absolutely did not need Classic Sonic to come alongside Modern if his game have the same vibes. What a downgrade! The only reason Classic is mute is because voice acting took would take too much space in the old game. Let Sonic be true to himself, make him talk and have epic adventures, and don't bring this "neo-classic" mute fake cutey version of Sonic. I want all the next games to have only modern Sonic and NOT CLASSIC SONIC ALONGSIDE HIM (except for Mania 2 I'm very fine with classic sonic there).

The Sonic from Sonic 1 is the same Sonic as the Sonic from Adventure 2, thus Sonic Generations is a grave mistake for the Sonic franchise, and Sonic Forces only makes the damage worse.

Honestly, this is how I always thought of the series in some way. I never really thought there was ever a reason to make Classic and Modern their own separate things. It just seems that's what most fans want though, because the general consensus says so. And it's quite honestly baffling that anyone came to the conclusion that there needed to be separation in the first place. If anything, 'Classic' Sonic being mute seemed more like a case of laziness or ST pretty much using the logic that because Sonic was not voice-acted in the original games, excluding the 'I'm outta here' voice clip in CD, that he needs to be mute in Generations and Forces.

But the point stands that Generations opened a can of worms that it really should of not of opened. Now things have gotten more out of line due to the whole Classic/Modern split. The last thing this fandom needs is more fuel to the already hectic fire.

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I mean, the Classic design is still popular. I don't see any problem with it having it's own place it can exist in. Mighty, Ray and the rest are back which wouldn't have happened otherwise. Mania is well regarded (still waiting for Plus to play) and Mania Adventures is fun (well... the first episode was anyway).

Just because you could conceivably do everything Classic is doing with Modern doesn't mean Classic has to go away. There's plenty of room for both.

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1 hour ago, Mayor D said:

But if you are seriously relying on these to prove the entire games theme is dark.

While it was definitely poorly worded, I’m pretty certain they weren’t even remotely implying that the entire games theme was dark than they were clearly saying that they had such elements in the past and that Sonic is capable of having them in general.

There’s a reason they didn’t argue Green Hill Zone was dark.

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Oh god, when we've gotten into just spamming the SA3 page's nonsense as an 'argument' we're at a lost cause. 

H5qREPW.png

There. It's just as ridiculous cherry-picked. I didn't even need to resort to using fanart to dramatically oversell how 'epic' light-dashing into Shadow a few times in a clunky boss fight was. Rad. 

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4 minutes ago, Tracker_TD said:

Oh god, when we've gotten into just spamming the SA3 page's nonsense as an 'argument' we're at a lost cause. 

H5qREPW.png

There. It's just as ridiculous cherry-picked. I didn't even need to resort to using fanart to dramatically oversell how 'epic' light-dashing into Shadow a few times in a clunky boss fight was. Rad. 

Arcade Japan-only one-shot spinoff  game, a game that was balanced with moments on both extremes, and Generations’s epic moments are cancelled out by the same Baldy jokes as Colors and Lost World surrounding it.

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10 minutes ago, Miragnarok said:

Arcade Japan-only one-shot spinoff  game,

Related image

Clear plastic Eggman Keychains

Not quite - mostly because the pose is nigh-ripped from a piece of Classic Eggman key art, and appears across over titles too. If anything the fact it's from an early depiction of the character should make it a 'truer' depiction, no?

Spoiler

a game that was balanced with moments on both extremes, and Generations’s epic moments are cancelled out by the same Baldy jokes as Colors and Lost World surrounding it.

Uh huh

So Generations' cool points are somehow cancelled out, but Adventure's aren't

What's the ratio here? For each bad joke, we deduct a point? Is there a scoring system? Maybe a rank or something?

 

Or is it just really dumb SA3 page nonsense, like I said? 

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4 minutes ago, Tracker_TD said:

Related image

Not quite - mostly because the pose is nigh-ripped from a piece of Classic Eggman key art, and appears across over titles too. If anything the fact it's from an early depiction of the character should make it a 'truer' depiction, no?

  Reveal hidden contents

a game that was balanced with moments on both extremes, and Generations’s epic moments are cancelled out by the same Baldy jokes as Colors and Lost World surrounding it.

Uh huh

So Generations' cool points are somehow cancelled out, but Adventure's aren't

What's the ratio here? For each bad joke, we deduct a point? Is there a scoring system? Maybe a rank or something?

 

Or is it just really dumb SA3 page nonsense, like I said? 

Okay. TWO obscure japan-only arcade spinoffs and one title for preschoolers. And Generations is only cancelled out due to the other two games around it being nothing but stupid jokes.

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1 minute ago, Miragnarok said:

Okay. TWO obscure japan-only arcade spinoffs and one title for preschoolers. And Generations is only cancelled out due to the other two games around it being nothing but stupid jokes.

Just edited but I'll pop it here:

Clear plastic Eggman Keychains

It's a piece of key art. From the character's original designer. 

And Generations now pays for... what other games do? Shit, I guess Sonic Adventure and Adventure 2 both really suck now because... Sonic Heroes existed kinda close to when they did. 

Almost like it's SA3 page nonsense! Boy howdy!

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