Do you think Classic Sonic should appear again in a Modern game?

[Skull Leader]

4 hours ago, Iko said:

I'm probably late to this thread, though, I agree with most people: Classic Sonic should not appear in Modern games, and they should start considering Sonic one single entity again.

Especially, the part that I dislike the most about this division, is the division in gameplay elements: there are elements that are considered classic, and elements that are considered modern; for example, you can't have a modern game that's completely 2D and sprite based, because that's considered classic stuff.

I would like "Classic" and "Modern" to disappear and be just Sonic once again, I wouldn't mind using the classic design for some games, but it should only be an artistic decision and not something that affects the plot of the game or the canon of the whole series.

I especially want to see classic-like physics and gameplay elements in modern games, I don't want Modern Sonic stuck with a flawed formula because those elements that may improve it are exclusive to the Classic side of the franchise.

Preach on.

I really loathe the idea that only Classic Sonic will have the world with charm and the better gameplay experience while Modern is abandoned and left at the mercy of Iizuka and Sonic Team's gameplay/story shenanigans.

Would really love nothing more than for the franchise to combine the best elements that each side has to offer instead of having three different takes of the same character at the same time: Classic Sonic, Modern Sonic and Boom Sonic. I personally don't recall any other franchise doing something like this.

Personally I'd be happy with something that has the charm of the classic aesthetics and it's much better defined gameplay identity, the more varied cast of the modern era characters (yes, even those like Shadow and Silver can join in too) with some actual balance so that every character can get a chance to shine and things like stories about adventures that pay off with a touch of character driven ones too (this last like seen in Boom TV)

However, I don't think any of this will happen unless the real root of the trouble is addressed: Sonic Team. It really says a lot of how clumsy they are with how they handle the franchise when instead of saying that they wanted to try different art styles/aesthetics between games, they instead claimed that Sonic magically travels between two different worlds... somehow... without even showing so. Like, was it necessary to complicate something that didn't need to?

[Almar]

It's embarassingly obvious that the decision to seperate Classic from Modern was just Iizuka and Co. overreacting to backlash. Same goes for there being two worlds with one furry and the other human.

[Razule]

1 hour ago, Almar said:

It's embarassingly obvious that the decision to seperate Classic from Modern was just Iizuka and Co. overreacting to backlash. Same goes for there being two worlds with one furry and the other human.

What backlash? They separated Classic and Modern Sonic because of Classic's positive reception. 

[Dr. Detective]

I don't see an issue with the two worlds being separate. I can't think of any drawbacks to that at the moment. Classic Sonic and his world seem to benefit the most when they have absolutely nothing to do with Modern Sonic. Meanwhile, my Modern Sonic experience feels a lot closer to home with him gone.

As for whether or not he's from the past, or another dimension, or just Sonic in a different art-style... I don't care. 

 

[Tarnish]

12 minutes ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

As for whether or not he's from the past, or another dimension, or just Sonic in a different art-style... I don't care.

Hard to have a coherent universe for the franchise when they can rewrite said universe when they feel like it. And I personally wish it was coherent instead of whatever they feel like at the given moment. It's hard to feel invested or immersed in something that's constantly changing everything. The thing you like might be changed by the next game just because they felt like it.

[Dr. Detective]

1 hour ago, Tarnish said:

Hard to have a coherent universe for the franchise when they can rewrite said universe when they feel like it. And I personally wish it was coherent instead of whatever they feel like at the given moment.

I don't care what they do or say about whatever Classic Sonic is at the moment. I want them to make sense out of what's going on with Modern Sonic and worry about that later if and when it becomes an issue again. Honestly, all three of those options seem like easy work arounds that don't affect too much in the grand scheme of things to me. If he's from another dimension, I just imagine the events of the past for Modern Sonic being similar to what happened in the Classics regardless. If he's from the past, nothing changes. If he's an alternate art-style for Sonic... nothing changes. 

The problem is that they can't make up their mind, which is bullshit, sure, but as for what he is in general? I really don't care. 

[Tarnish]

7 minutes ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

The problem is that they can't make up their mind, which is bullshit, sure, but as for what he is in general? I really don't care.

My problem is if they can't make up their mind about a simple issue like this, they won't be able to make up their minds about a god damn thing moving forward. One day they'll decide modern Sonic is a mutated version of classic Sonic after eating too many chili dogs or something.

[Dr. Detective]

1 hour ago, Tarnish said:

My problem is if they can't make up their mind about a simple issue like this, they won't be able to make up their minds about a god damn thing moving forward. One day they'll decide modern Sonic is a mutated version of classic Sonic after eating too many chili dogs or something.

Yup. That's certainly a problem. 

Oh well. 

Guess Mutated Chili-Dog Sonic is in our future. Certainly more creative than Legacy Sonic.

Hey folks, remember when Iizuka said "Legacy Sonic" was a thing? 

Uh-huh.

[Skull Leader]

6 hours ago, Razule said:

What backlash? They separated Classic and Modern Sonic because of Classic's positive reception. 

A reception that only existed because Classic was still not plagued with the ridiculous shonen/edgy stuff that was later added in the Modern era, and which sadly haunts it to this day, Forces not exactly helping because of ST either giving in to the temptation to do it again or just wanting to appeal to "those" fans that complained about the stories of Colors, Gens and Lost World (sure, they had some rough edges, but when compared to stuff like 06, at least it didn't felt embarrassing), providing them in very typical ST fashion with something that was more than they could chew with their poor storytelling skills and undeserved messages of friendship.

Funny how once you get rid of that crap, Modern can deliver good things like the Advance series or the Rush games, which could grow to be better with some extra polish. Heck, you could have perfectly fine Genesis style games using the modern cast of characters, something that would help improve the perception of the modern Sonic, which is very needed at the moment... instead, we got a game that only panders to the selfish side that wants to stay in the past.

I think the Classic era should serve only as a guide and inspiration for doing things right, otherwise it simply holds down the future of the franchise. And let's not add how unfocused the efforts would be with wanting to keep two or three version of the same franchise, all of which co-exist at the same time.

[Marco9966]

5 minutes ago, Skull Leader said:

A reception that only existed because Classic was still not plagued with the ridiculous shonen/edgy stuff that was later added in the Modern era, and which sadly haunts it to this day, Forces not exactly helping because of ST either giving in to the temptation to do it again or just wanting to appeal to "those" fans that complained about the stories of Colors, Gens and Lost World (sure, they had some rough edges, but when compared to stuff like 06, at least it didn't felt embarrassing), providing them in very typical ST fashion with something that was more than they could chew with their poor storytelling skills and undeserved messages of friendship.

Funny how once you get rid of that crap, Modern can deliver good things like the Advance series or the Rush games, which could grow to be better with some extra polish. Heck, you could have perfectly fine Genesis style games using the modern cast of characters, something that would help improve the perception of the modern Sonic, which is very needed at the moment... instead, we got a game that only panders to the selfish side that wants to stay in the past.

I think the Classic era should serve only as a guide and inspiration for doing things right, otherwise it simply holds down the future of the franchise. And let's not add how unfocused the efforts would be with wanting to keep two or three version of the same franchise, all of which co-exist at the same time.

Agreed, I think a good example is Sonic Heroes (there was no shohen/edgy stuff except at the end), do you think it delivered good things for Modern Sonic like the Advance series?

[Tracker_TD]

I’d like to keep Classic around, simply because I prefer the designs, aesthetic and generally gameplay that comes with it. That’s not to say a Modern couldn’t do Classic style gameplay, but it’s nice to have the Classic style around for those who want it and the Classic gameplay makes the most sense for it. If having that preference makes me “stuck in the past” that I didn’t even live through, so be it. Something new doesn’t equal better and if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. 

I am however pretty sick of Classic showing up in Modern’s games, for reasons already said a million times in this thread. Namely that Sonic Team just can’t seem to get the gameplay right, resulting in a ‘Classic Sonic experience’ that the games would be better without. Though saying that, I was fine with it for Generations because it felt fresh and made sense for an anniversary title. So I guess my beef mostly lies with Forces.

[Marco9966]

3 minutes ago, Tracker_TD said:

I’d like to keep Classic around, simply because I prefer the designs, aesthetic and generally gameplay that comes with it. That’s not to say a Modern couldn’t do Classic style gameplay, but it’s nice to have the Classic style around for those who want it and the Classic gameplay makes the most sense for it. If having that preference makes me “stuck in the past” that I didn’t even live through, so be it. Something new doesn’t equal better and if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. 

I am however pretty sick of Classic showing up in Modern’s games, for reasons already said a million times in this thread. Namely that Sonic Team just can’t seem to get the gameplay right, resulting in a ‘Classic Sonic experience’ that the games would be better without. Though saying that, I was fine with it for Generations because it felt fresh and made sense for an anniversary title. So I guess my beef mostly lies with Forces.

Yeah it made sense for Generations for the occasion, but in Forces it was unnecessary and useless to the story.

[A person, that exists]

Honestly, splitting Sonic up into Classic and Modern was a pretty bad idea. Like, it's essentially the same character with a slightly different design. Sure, the universes are SLIGHTLY different, but, hey, it's a game about talking animals, so why should anyone care?

That's like if Capcom split the Japanese Megaman and the American Box Art Megaman. 

[Salamander]

Well, perhaps more like if they split Mega Man and Mega Man X.

[A person, that exists]

7 minutes ago, FFWF said:

Well, perhaps more like if they split Mega Man and Mega Man X.

To be fair, Megaman X made more sense. X is a late-model Megaman, so it makes sense canonically.

This feels more like separating Zero from Megaman Z and Zero from Megaman X.

[Salamander]

No, I mean if they were to suggest Mega Man and MMX were now completely separate universes with nothing to do with one another, Mega Man's timeline no longer leading into X and X's timeline no longer leading out of Mega Man (such that X's backstory no longer made a lick of sense).  You're right that Zero is perhaps a clearer example because it's still one character, but the same principles apply either way: To act as if the two series are suddenly mutually exclusive would be absurd.  Actually, the way Capcom has historically handled the Mega Man and X series is, while probably initially rather baffling, a good or at least a better model for what Sega should be doing with Sonic: Recognising that Classic and Modern have stylistic, atmospheric, and narrative differences which merit two parallel series, but without ever forgetting and in fact rejoicing in the fact that those two series are narratively contiguous.  Continuity enriches them.

[Dr. Detective]

6 hours ago, Skull Leader said:

A reception that only existed because Classic was still not plagued with the ridiculous shonen/edgy stuff that was later added in the Modern era, and which sadly haunts it to this day, Forces not exactly helping because of ST either giving in to the temptation to do it again or just wanting to appeal to "those" fans that complained about the stories of Colors, Gens and Lost World (sure, they had some rough edges, but when compared to stuff like 06, at least it didn't felt embarrassing)

Colors was embarrassing. Massively so actually. It's really hard watching Sonic not only say an unfunny joke at a robot that can't talk back but then endlessly stretch it to the point where it looks like a desperate grab for attention. I'll always consider it on par with 06 and Shadow in the embarrassment department as an example of how going the total opposite direction can backfire too.

Generations I didn't care about though. Lost World's cutscenes I actually liked. It was just the fact that the narrative collapses when you put them all together in a sequence because the actions the characters take directly contradict themselves so much. One scene, Sonic's complaining about how he has to team up with Eggman and Tails isn't offering much input. Literally, the very next scene, Tails is saying that Sonic trusts Eggman more than him. It's a shame that game had so many great individual scenes. I think the scene where the Zeti finally betray Eggman might be one of my favorite scenes in the series, along with the one where Zavok taunts Sonic about turning Tails into a robot. If only it meant more in the grand scheme of things.

And of course, there's a difference between what everyone considers to be "edgy" and just telling an action-adventure story that combines moments of levity and drama. Forces could have been that, despite the awesome idea of having it be about Eggman finally taking over the world but... nah. Instead we got this really confused mess that prattled on about friendship and sprinkled some random "dark" dialogue in, sometimes in areas where there originally wasn't any. 

If there's one thing I actually admire the Classic era for it's definitely how consistent and comfortable in it's own skin it feels.

[Marco9966]

13 minutes ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

Colors was embarrassing. Massively so actually. It's really hard watching Sonic not only say an unfunny joke at a robot that can't talk back but then endlessly stretch it to the point where it looks like a desperate grab for attention. I'll always consider it on par with 06 and Shadow in the embarrassment department as an example of how going the total opposite direction can backfire too.

Generations I didn't care about though. Lost World's cutscenes I actually liked. It was just the fact that the narrative collapses when you put them all together in a sequence because the actions the characters take directly contradict themselves so much. One scene, Sonic's complaining about how he has to team up with Eggman and Tails isn't offering much input. Literally, the very next scene, Tails is saying that Sonic trusts Eggman more than him. It's a shame that game had so many great individual scenes. I think the scene where the Zeti finally betray Eggman might be one of my favorite scenes in the series, along with the one where Zavok taunts Sonic about turning Tails into a robot. If only it meant more in the grand scheme of things. 

And of course, there's a difference between what everyone considers to be "edgy" and just telling an action-adventure story that combines moments of levity and drama. Forces could have been that, despite the awesome idea of having it be about Eggman finally taking over the world but... nah. Instead we got this really confused mess that prattled on about friendship and sprinkled some random "dark" dialogue in, sometimes in areas where there originally wasn't any. 

If there's one thing I actually admire the Classic era for it's definitely how consistent and comfortable in it's own skin it feels.

One mighty even consider SA1 till Sonic Heroes, games that are before Shadow and 06 (especially SA1) consistent with the classic era quality because of their consistency.

[Diogenes]

20 minutes ago, FFWF said:

Actually, the way Capcom has historically handled the Mega Man and X series is, while probably initially rather baffling, a good or at least a better model for what Sega should be doing with Sonic: Recognising that Classic and Modern have stylistic, atmospheric, and narrative differences which merit two parallel series, but without ever forgetting and in fact rejoicing in the fact that those two series are narratively contiguous.  Continuity enriches them.

I'm not so sure about that. I'm not exactly a Megaman continuity expert so I can't say I know everything that cross-subseries continuity has given it, but from what I do know I'm not sure if it's actually worth it. Like, maybe X and Zero and ZX (maybe? that's around where my knowledge is weakest) work well as an interlinked thing, but the connections between classic and X never seemed especially important to me, and as someone who's more a fan of classic Megaman I'm not too fond of its colorful, goofy world eventually being replaced with angsty anime drama. And Legends is supposedly connected to all of this but I can't think of a single plot point where that actually mattered. And then there's Battle Network, which actually was a completely separate timeline off doing its own thing, and I don't think it's any worse for it.

And then talking about applying this to Sonic, there's a huge difference in distance. Most of the Megamans may be all part of one continuity, but they're separated by hundreds or thousands of years; you've got different Megamans with different supporting casts in functionally different worlds. But with Sonic, it's the same characters and the same world only about a year or so apart. It doesn't make sense for things to be so different between them, and they're always going to be constrained by each other's decisions.

If there really are enough "stylistic, atmospheric, and narrative differences" that it's worth having both, maybe just let them be different and develop freely instead of having these differences always fighting each other.

[Razule]

11 hours ago, Tarnish said:

One day they'll decide modern Sonic is a mutated version of classic Sonic after eating too many chili dogs or something.

But that's what he was before

[Multikaris]

If Modern is to be like classic and only have Nintendo-ish dark moments (ala the monster bosses in Kirby), should there be a separate series that indeed takes the mega Man approach to dark content?

[RidersDX]

Like many others have said beforehand, classic needs to stay out of modern games. There's no reason for Sega to do anything that detracts from refining the experience of the modern games as much as possible, especially when they have the Mania series to feed the hunger for the classic era.

Now, I don't really mind having a classic and a modern Sonic. The Sonic series has many types of fans and it's near impossible to have one game that pleases almost everyone in the fanbase. It's nice having a game for those that crave something new, and another game for those that want something that more closely resembles older games. I think that is better than alienating one side of the fanbase and trying to get everyone on board with one idea. (I say this as someone who is not a huge fan of the classic games.)

[Skull Leader]

7 hours ago, FFWF said:

Well, perhaps more like if they split Mega Man and Mega Man X.

Aren't Classic Megaman and X two completely different characters?

In contrast, Classic Sonic and Modern are just the same exact character with some design tweaks to modernize the character's designs. Only the people at Sonic Team could in all of their infinite "wisdom" come with the idea thay they're actually two separate beings.

And while we're on the Megaman series, I strangely prefer the aesthetics of the old days, but when it comes to gameplay, I find it painfully simplistic compared to the more evolved style of the X series which introduced things like dashing, clinging to walls and Zero's saber that changed the game from a run-n-gun to a hack-n-slash.

Further, while there are actual canon reasons that justify the separation between X from Classic Megaman such as one taking place in the future, the Sonic franchise never had one such reason besides Iizuka opening his mouth like with the "two worlds" thing that was nothing more than them wanting to try different aesthetics and which never needed to be explained in the first place. Like, what's next? Him explaining with his particular brand of  "logic" things that don't need to like why hedgehogs have the co-joined eye design (a cartoon aesthetic) while other characters have separated eyes?

[Sonic Fan J]

I was going to say that as well @Skull Leader. Megaman at best would be an example to use for having multiple series in multiple timelines if anything.

Another thought on Classic Sonic that should be asked though, is SEGA even using him right? Naka himself is on record as saying that Sonic was intended to be impertinent and cheeky, leading to the Adventure redesign in the first place, yet SEGA insists on the image that Naka attempted purge. Does such a cute and cheerful vision of Sonic really even fit the tone used for Sonic today? It's not that Oshima's design doesn't, (if anything Naka's intended personality for Sonic would probably rub Modern Sonic the wrong way), but does the personality and expressions match who we the audience know as Sonic the Hedgehog? Even regardless of the answer, if the whole point is to justify using a certain gameplay style for particular levels why? Did Sonic suddenly forget how to curl into a ball and Spin Dash?

No matter how many times I go over it I just can't come up with a satisfactory reason to include both in the same game beyond a skin or a "classic" filter. I'm not against the divide if they are going to do something with it, but if all they want to do is use it as an excuse to keep plugging their facsimile of Oshima's design into games as a selling point then it needs to go.

[mrtwommr]

I mean, I'm not against universe crossovers in future, but for now I would give Classic and Modern universes time to develop their characters, especially Classic one. But eh, our voices still don't matter: SEGA sees that we supported a fan game that they've spent very little money on and reused old assets to the point of level segments and even the whole level designs, and all of it is just because of never ending nostalgia, so this evil company will indeed put it everywhere it can possibly fit.