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Even Yuji Naka didnt want a cutesy funny Sonic


Marco9966

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Sonic was also talking too much about the power of friendship and teamwork, that's fine but can they make it less in-your-face?

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7 hours ago, WakanoBaka said:

Is it weird that 06 never really seemed that serious to me? I mean...I look at Tomb Raider and a whole lot of games that have T ratings and aren't like some great drama or soap opera.

06 was a high stakes game that I really don't see a whole lot of difference between it and a game like Sonic 1(since it's the most basic of Sonic games)

I never felt a problem with Sonic having one game that Sonic didn't crack a joke or something. Because when you think about it, Solaris/Memphilis/Iblis are probably the most dangerous villains in the Sonic series to date...imo A literal creature the was gonna return the world to nothingness.

 

Now if you wanna talk gameplay...NO. I'll leave that for my homie with the Unity remake.

Sonic 06:

>Human princess is shilled as Sonic's Most Important Girl. Not even a cartoony one.

>Ow the Edge in villain form with a ridiculously unneeded plan

>Whole game looks like Final Fantasy aping

>Sonic and Eggman play second fiddle to Shadow, Future Trunks, and Lord Edgelord

Are you for real?

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4 minutes ago, Sonic Fan J said:

Don't get me wrong, I had fun when I played the game and actually felt the narrative flowed fine. I just think that Sonic was too detached from the how the narrative was effecting everyone and it was only made worse since Sonic didn't really interact with the cast. To me, the best scene in the story was Sonic assuring Tails after everything was over. It actually showed he was aware of what was happening and subsequently made his lack of communication throughout the rest of the game that much worse. Outside of the story, the most rewarding thing to me in the game was once it returned to the new title screen and showed a single flower standing in the abandoned Resistance HQ.  That moment alone brought me back to the good ending of the original game and Sonic CD in general, overwhelming with a sense of nostalgia that reminded me why I love this series so darn much. If Sonic just would have talked to everyone more and the Avatar was provided slightly better pantomime acting I don't think any flaw the game has could have stopped me from loving it. It really is such a shame they  didn't stir the pot just a little bit .

Fair enough, I can definitely see where you're coming from. I agree about the new title screen with that flower - every time I turn the game on and see that, it makes me smile. They really did a nice job with that one little detail.

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4 hours ago, Marco9966 said:

Sonic was also talking too much about the power of friendship and teamwork, that's fine but can they make it less in-your-face?

It's not Sonic Heroes...

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22 hours ago, Diogenes said:

Really? You really don't see much difference between a game where a time-travelling embodiment of darkness convinces a naive idiot to go back in time and kill the hero, ostensibly because it would prevent the release of a fire demon that caused the apocalypse, but in actuality he wants to make the princess cry to release the fire demon so he can fuse with it, become a god, and destroy all of space and time...and a game where a mad scientist captures some animals and turns them into robot animals and the coolest animal has to go bop his robots to save them? 

I'm referring to the somewhat monotonousness of Sonic 1's overall tone if you aren't looking at it from a basic stand point.

Beginning point is the start of conflict, end point is good guys lose...or win(then again, using that logic it's your A-typical hero story)

All the context in between(added with usual 06 mockery and/or ppl trying to oversimplify S1) might as well be fodder and up to you to decide if you'd follow or not.

16 hours ago, Almar said:

Sonic 06:

>Human princess is shilled as Sonic's Most Important Girl. Not even a cartoony one.

>Ow the Edge in villain form with a ridiculously unneeded plan

>Whole game looks like Final Fantasy aping

>Sonic and Eggman play second fiddle to Shadow, Future Trunks, and Lord Edgelord

Are you for real?

You literally just listed half legit(3 and 4), half nitpick(1and 2) points

16 hours ago, Almar said:

Sonic 06:

>Human princess is shilled as Sonic's Most Important Girl. Not even a cartoony one.

>Ow the Edge in villain form with a ridiculously unneeded plan

>Whole game looks like Final Fantasy aping

>Sonic and Eggman play second fiddle to Shadow, Future Trunks, and Lord Edgelord

Are you for real?

You literally just listed half legit(3 and 4), half nitpick(1and 2) points

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Tell me more on how pointing out that the princess' character design is out of a totally different series compared to Sonic's and that from all evidence the villain really didn't need to bother doing anything other than just slitting her throat to accomplish his goal is just nitpicking.

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  • 1 year later...

I think sonic was initially a victim of false advertising. especially in the us/uk adverts where he was portrayed as a rude and obnoxious rival to Mario. whereas he was charming, goofy, and even vulnerable in the Japanese ones.

same could be said for his box art design in the us markets vs Europe and japan.

he didn't look like your average superhero because of his cuteness; from his tiny stature, to his youthful friendly features, to the world in which he inhabits ('green hill zone'), to the soundtrack, etc. he didn't even look like your average hedgehog, with his clean lines and neat spikes.

that's why it made sense for Jaleel white to voice this young child.

if anything the 'edge' came from the difficulty of the game and the speed. not to mention his ability to curl into a ball and clear (almost) anything in his path. other than the idle animation, and the switching of the signposts at the end of each act, there wasn't much else.. he even wags his finger with a smile :) 

I've always interpreted sonic's 'attitude' to be; cheeky and a little mischievous, funny and fun loving, impatient and fast paced. however, he wasn't reckless or selfish. quite the opposite; he was responsible and put others before himself.

he didn't take himself too seriously, which is what made him refreshing and appealing to a wider demographic

 

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Naka as a lead designer is coming with a certain perspective on Sonic as relates to the industry. We don’t have that perspective sometimes. Sonic is cute compared to Batman, but has more attitude than Hello Kitty. Naka doesn’t want Sonic to be too cute. I’m also sure he didn’t want Sonic to be Batman when he made this statement. For those who take issue with Pontac & Graff’s laugh track Sonic, I’d argue the story formula hasn’t changed much since the Adventure games in terms of setup and final act. The tone of the games is intact. It’s just the lines they give characters that give us a crappy impression.

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  • 5 weeks later...
On 5/26/2018 at 1:36 PM, Cuz said:

Robotnik's Casino themes in-particular didn't really add levity to Shadow and instead contributed to the grungy aesthetic.

Not to detract from the point, since I will come to SA2's defense at the drop of a hat, but the hostage situation toward the later half of the Heroes story, without making any judgement to whether it belongs in a Sonic game, is hands down one of the darkest plot twists in my mind. I mean it's also one of the best scenes, and comes late enough within the overall story to fit with the rising tension but still.

It’s pretty much the same thing with Lava Mountain and other “dark” levels in SLW. They ended up contributing to the peppy aesthetics more than anything else, also helping the NSMB comparisons a bit. And that “techno dreamworld” aesthetic used in games like Chaotix, Colors, and CD did make a small appearance here as part of the NiGHTS fusion stage. That aesthetic should be used more often, as it is a great way to bridge the gap. 

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On 7/15/2019 at 1:58 AM, Badnik Zero said:

 For those who take issue with Pontac & Graff’s laugh track Sonic, I’d argue the story formula hasn’t changed much since the Adventure games in terms of setup and final act.  It’s just the lines they give characters that give us a crappy impression.

This is pretty spot on.

The thing I always see with Lost World more than any other game barring maybe Heroes is that the story itself is actually fairly intricate for it's seeming simplicity, but the way it carries itself out from scene to scene is where a fair amount of it's issues are.

And as has been noted by people like Mike, even that isn't exactly a problem all the time. Some of Lost World's scenes are pretty decent bordering on good in vacuum, but a combination of questionable phrasing, limited presentation(procedural more than detail), and sometimes forgetting to either setup or carry on with a particular mood results in a bit of an inconsistent, undercooked mess.

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On ‎7‎/‎15‎/‎2019 at 2:57 AM, sonic 1-derful said:

I think sonic was initially a victim of false advertising. especially in the us/uk adverts where he was portrayed as a rude and obnoxious rival to Mario. whereas he was charming, goofy, and even vulnerable in the Japanese ones.

same could be said for his box art design in the us markets vs Europe and japan.

he didn't look like your average superhero because of his cuteness; from his tiny stature, to his youthful friendly features, to the world in which he inhabits ('green hill zone'), to the soundtrack, etc. he didn't even look like your average hedgehog, with his clean lines and neat spikes.

that's why it made sense for Jaleel white to voice this young child.

if anything the 'edge' came from the difficulty of the game and the speed. not to mention his ability to curl into a ball and clear (almost) anything in his path. other than the idle animation, and the switching of the signposts at the end of each act, there wasn't much else.. he even wags his finger with a smile :) 

I've always interpreted sonic's 'attitude' to be; cheeky and a little mischievous, funny and fun loving, impatient and fast paced. however, he wasn't reckless or selfish. quite the opposite; he was responsible and put others before himself.

he didn't take himself too seriously, which is what made him refreshing and appealing to a wider demographic

 

 

Honestly, judgning by Naka's comments on the original idea behind Sonic, I'd say that it's the complete opposite; during the early 90's, the western branch of SEGA is the one that kept his bad boy attitude intact, while the japanese branch took Sonic in a cutesy direction. Just look at any western Sonic commercial and compare them with any japanese Sonic commercial from that era. Sonic in the west was oozing with attitude while Sonic in the east at the same time was very "kawaii".

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3 hours ago, batson said:

 

Honestly, judgning by Naka's comments on the original idea behind Sonic, I'd say that it's the complete opposite; during the early 90's, the western branch of SEGA is the one that kept his bad boy attitude intact, while the japanese branch took Sonic in a cutesy direction. Just look at any western Sonic commercial and compare them with any japanese Sonic commercial from that era. Sonic in the west was oozing with attitude while Sonic in the east at the same time was very "kawaii".

Japanese Sonic back in the day had a young "delinquent" attitude ,compared to a lot of his  Kodomo  peers , he was disrespectful and edgy and did have kind of a western Skater boy personality even if it's from a Japanese perspective

And almost every Japanese Media has "Kawaii" elements since the 80's regardless of how "edgy" it's meant to be, Japan has a different idea where "cute" and "cool" don't conflict with each other like it does in America

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On 5/25/2018 at 3:56 PM, Diogenes said:

Y'know I'm not going to claim to be an expert on these things but comparing Windy Hill to Forces GHZ, in spite of the flak the former gets for being too "simple" or minimalist, the latter looks more sterile and fake to me.

fEr51FS.jpg

7tLadi3.jpg

Forces GHZ may be more realistically rendered, but that only highlights how fake it looks. The grass is all the same length with the same repeating stripes, the checkers are all equally sized and plastered across whole blocks, it looks like astroturf stapled on cardboard boxes. Windy Hill has more variation in its patterns, with various solid and checkered blocks legoed or tetrised together to make up larger blocks and the grass having a similar patchwork look in terms of color plus the square wave edges. It's more heavily stylized, but in a coherent way, where Forces GHZ is sort of falling into the uncanny valley, as much as that can apply to locations.

I'd also say Windy Hill seems to have more foreground detail objects, but Forces GHZ has more far background objects, and it's debatable which is providing more benefit.

e: and for comparison, Generations' GHZ:

X6bmwcg.jpg

Which I think is a lot more successful take on a "realistic" GHZ with more organic shapes helping to vary up the patterns and a lot of (maybe too much?) detail but personally I'm still more of a fan of Lost World's heavy stylization, deliberately surreal geometric designs, and highly saturated colors.

This makes me think about how Windy Hill could have tried better to look less like Green Hill. Sure, there were a few traits, such as the more deciduous trees and the solid blocks tetrised into the terrain to contrast the checkered areas,  yet the checkered areas could have looked more interesting, like in Sonic CD where they were triangles. A lot of the Classic era’s games made their initial Zones distinct with little things like that. The totem poles being there didn’t make much sense either. 

 

In general, quite a few SLW levels were just generic. That’s the operating word here, generic. Most of them should have done a little more to get an identity. The aesthetics being generic might also be part of why some people are so concerned over the look of Lost World.

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2 hours ago, Miragnarok said:

This makes me think about how Windy Hill could have tried better to look less like Green Hill. Sure, there were a few traits, such as the more deciduous trees and the solid blocks tetrised into the terrain to contrast the checkered areas,  yet the checkered areas could have looked more interesting, like in Sonic CD where they were triangles. A lot of the Classic era’s games made their initial Zones distinct with little things like that. The totem poles being there didn’t make much sense either. 

 

In general, quite a few SLW levels were just generic. That’s the operating word here, generic. Most of them should have done a little more to get an identity. The aesthetics being generic might also be part of why some people are so concerned over the look of Lost World.

I think it was a missed opportunity to replace the checker board patterns with either chinese checkers markers or simple hexagons.

Were there totem poles in Windy Hill?

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1 hour ago, Miragnarok said:

This makes me think about how Windy Hill could have tried better to look less like Green Hill. Sure, there were a few traits, such as the more deciduous trees and the solid blocks tetrised into the terrain to contrast the checkered areas,  yet the checkered areas could have looked more interesting, like in Sonic CD where they were triangles. A lot of the Classic era’s games made their initial Zones distinct with little things like that. The totem poles being there didn’t make much sense either. 

 

In general, quite a few SLW levels were just generic. That’s the operating word here, generic. Most of them should have done a little more to get an identity. The aesthetics being generic might also be part of why some people are so concerned over the look of Lost World.

Yeah that's the thing, Lotsa games do differing grassy locations better. Each area has its own style. 

Look at the different rock patterns. Even in the case of levels like Hilltop or Isolated Island that still have checkered patterns they at least have different colours applied to them rather than the standard brown.

Exj8daX.pngwNv2dT1.pngKxxxOLS.pngXO9L8Wy.png7Vc2ODK.png6mQyu3Q.pngGtdKX4E.png

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9 minutes ago, DabigRG said:

I think it was a missed opportunity to replace the checker board patterns with either chinese checkers markers or simple hexagons.

Were there totem poles in Windy Hill?

1. I totally agree. Hexagons and Chinese checkers patterns would have been great fits, the latter for Sky Road. 

2. In Act 1, you can see some as part of the level geometry.

 

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On 5/28/2018 at 9:27 AM, WakanoBaka said:

All the context in between(added with usual 06 mockery and/or ppl trying to oversimplify S1) might as well be fodder and up to you to decide if you'd follow or not.

Old comment is old but maybe I can get a reply.  How does "oversimplify" Sonic 1's story?  Goofy mad-scientist is turning animals into robot; go stop him and make sure you collect the Infinity Stones Chaos Emeralds to make the flowers grow at the end.  You can't get any simpler than that.

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32 minutes ago, andrewtuell1991 said:

Old comment is old but maybe I can get a reply.  How does "oversimplify" Sonic 1's story?  Goofy mad-scientist is turning animals into robot; go stop him and make sure you collect the Infinity Stones Chaos Emeralds to make the flowers grow at the end.  You can't get any simpler than that.

They ignore the subtle details and subtext of the gameplay, level design, etc, but otherwise I agree. 

 

The nature-technology contrast, Sonic’s inability to swim, etc, are established here. Even Scrap Brain seems to be where the Death Egg was being built. 

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The most annoying thing about the modern interpretation of classic sonic is this business about him being "cutesy". Sonic was just as much of a reckless, arrogant prick during the classic days and was always considered a teenager. His classic version would be the same exact age as the modern version. His entire schtick during the 90s was just a 'tude character that spawned dozens of copycats. Almost all of the media portrayals of him were as someone that was inherently cooler than Mario. 

The adventure redesign came at a time when sonic started to get competition from other edgy, badass looking characters, so SEGA felt like they needed to up the ante. Boy were they wrong, especially with Sonic becoming much more talkative which was one of the worst decisions they could have made, but it is understandable why they did so. I do not believe sonic should have remained a mute whatsoever, but him being action first, speak later helped him to avoid the cornyness of so many other characters that needed to sound "hip"  and "act cool" to stay relevant, rather just just exuding coolness from doing inherently awesome things.

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8 minutes ago, UpCDownCLeftCRightC said:

The most annoying thing about the modern interpretation of classic sonic is this business about him being "cutesy". Sonic was just as much of a reckless, arrogant prick during the classic days and was always considered a teenager. His classic version would be the same exact age as the modern version. His entire schtick during the 90s was just a 'tude character that spawned dozens of copycats. Almost all of the media portrayals of him were as someone that was inherently cooler than Mario. 

WKlQIQc.png?1

So. Much. 'tude.

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12 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

So. Much. 'tude.

Where did you dig that image up from?

If it wasn't on the SEGA Genesis or if it never made it to the West, then it wasn't relevant to Sonic fandom in the '90s. Ask anyone who was alive.

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2 minutes ago, BaronGrackle said:

Where did you dig that image up from?

It made it to the west...

It goes where all concept art goes...in the compile.

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3 minutes ago, StaticMania said:

It made it to the west...

It goes where all concept art goes...in the compile.

Ah, is that the Schoolhouse in the background?

There were also cutesy images in those Game Gear racing titles.

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When the characters win the GP? I guess...when Amy wins.

None of the Sonic Drift artwork could be described as cutesy besides Amy's.

image.png.bb6b4594df311669b0beb262ecd2defb.pngJust look at her.

Sonic Jam is stuffed with entirely cute Sonic art...no attitude at all. The anti 'tude game.

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23 minutes ago, BaronGrackle said:

Where did you dig that image up from?

If it wasn't on the SEGA Genesis or if it never made it to the West, then it wasn't relevant to Sonic fandom in the '90s.

Sonic the Hedgehog The Screen Saver.

http://info.sonicretro.org/Sonic_the_Hedgehog_The_Screen_Saver

It's official art that originated from various printed media like calendars and Sega's internal magazine, Harmony.

http://info.sonicretro.org/Harmony

This art can also be found in Sonic Gem Collection's art gallery.

Ol8N4WR.jpgti2pxzp.jpg8n0GKxW.jpg

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