Seriously, why are Pontaff still writing for Sonic?

[Celestia]

7 minutes ago, Conquering Storm’s Servant said:

I don’t really think the version matters if he still cowers when the point was that he didn’t cower in the past fighting against a Chaos that was four times stronger than the base form.

It matters because (as far as we're aware) Pontaff weren't the ones who planned that scene. They just wrote the English script this time around. The game even has a credited Sonic Team writer (which I don't recall being the case for other post-Colours games, weirdly), though their name escapes me.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

5 minutes ago, RedFox99 said:

What I meant was that it seemed like you were using tails cowering a con against Pontaff when that's more Sonic Team's fault then their own.

I can see how, but I was really just listing the complaints.

4 minutes ago, Celestia said:

It matters because (as far as we're aware) Pontaff weren't the ones who planned that scene. They just wrote the English script this time around. The game even has a specific Sonic Team writer (which I don't recall being the case for other post-Colours games, weirdly), though their name escapes me.

I know that, I never really blame Pontaff for the scripts than I do Sonic Team holding the leash. Like i said earlier, it wouldn’t matter if you replaced them with someone more capable like Ian Flynn as long as ST is calling the shots.

[RedFox99]

To be honest, while I do think that the hate Pontaff is far too extreme, I do feel that people have fair arguments against the duo's track record with Sonic. Would the games' stories get better if they left? Probably not. Would the dialogue possibly be easier to listen to? Maybe. 

[Shadowlax]

Please correct me if Im wrong 

Doesn't one of them gotta family member workin at sega or something.

Maybe they are getting a great deal out of it.

Please someone tell me if im wrong its some stuff I've heard but never got verifacation on

That said while they do have their issues, alot of the fault lies with sonic team in japan. P and G ain't make forces plot so bad. But they aren't making it better either

[GentlemanX]

2 hours ago, Celestia said:

It matters because (as far as we're aware) Pontaff weren't the ones who planned that scene. They just wrote the English script this time around. The game even has a credited Sonic Team writer (which I don't recall being the case for other post-Colours games, weirdly), though their name escapes me.

Eitaro Toyoda. His early credits are as a level designer in stuff like SA2, Heroes, and ShTH but he's worked on various games after like Unleashed. He's been credited as "Sonic character supervisor" for Colors, Generations, and Mario & Sonic 2012 and 2014. His one other potential story credit was as "scenario supervisor" for Free Riders.

[Strickerx5]

I don't think it's that much of a surprise that I ask myself this exact question every time I see their names tied to this series. Sure, getting rid of them wouldn't solve all of this series's narrative issues in one swing but damn if they haven't only contributed to the issue. Doesn't help that this entire situation literally started coming about when they came on. Now I'll continue to praise them for their Sonic and Tails interactions (at least until the Sonic and Tails only shtick got old after Gens) but that's literally all I can give them. They've consistently prioritized getting cheesy jokes out rather than telling a meaningful story, building character, or hell, telling an actually good joke.

Getting rid of them won't solve everything (and I imagine it isn't in Sega's to-do list due to the reasons Celestia stated), but it'd be a damn fine start. Even as far as simple English adaptions are concerned, Flynn has shown a ton more competency in handling these characters than the duo ever have. These "tru dat", "torture", "baldy McNoisehairs", and whatever the hell Gens was aren't cutting it. RoL literally did a better job in that category and that hot mess of a game shouldn't have even been released. Maybe one day ST and Iizuka will further hold that little comment they made about moving more of their operations westward to action and move the in-game cutscenes and story folk over at ST to better communicate with these writers. Though, until then, moving Pontaff out is a great first step imo.

[Shaddy Zaphod]

The thing to understand here is that Pontac and Graff have a lot of moments. Good moments, bad moments, a lot of points that stick out like thumbs, be they sore thumbs or...not sore ones, hmm. The point is, people have a lot of easy and obvious dumb moments to point at when saying Pontaff are bad, and that in turn makes it really easy for people to breed more hate around them.

Contrasting with this are the Sonic stories of old, which are mostly bland and forgettable writing-wise, but that's considered better because there aren't any sharp edges on either good or bad moments. Look at Sonic Rush. Blaze is everyone's favorite, and it's because she doesn't have any really stupid and awful character moments attached to her in her debut game like most post-Genesis characters do. But she hardly has much memorable ones, her sole interesting dynamic being Cream's friendship opening her up to other people, and that's woefully underdeveloped. A story like Rush's is considered "fine" by most standards because even though it's not really that interesting and Eggman Nega is the most bland and stupid villain in the series, there's not really any "EPIC LUL CRINGE CULTURE" moments that people can point to as "le bad writing alert xddd". And I admit I'm guilty of it too, as I love the fuck out of Blaze.

The problem arises in the comparisons between these putting one on a massive pedestal and the other down in the ditches, when in reality both are equally sinking into the mud, one's just way easier to see and the other's totally fuzzy. I wouldn't say any Sonic game has ever had a particularly great or thought-provoking story, or even many great character moments.

Why is this? Simple. Because it's Sonic. Because nobody cares. Sonic is sold as a brand, and as a game, not a story. We think everyone cares because we surround ourselves with loud angry people that want nothing more than for their personal vision of what the series' story is supposed to be and fuck anyone who thinks otherwise, but the truth is that SEGA and Sonic Team don't care much more about their storytelling, individually or long-term than a Mario game or whatever, despite how dialogue-heavy and complicated they compare. The most you're ever going to get out of a "really good" Sonic game story is everyone being portrayed with their correct personalities.

Part of the reason I loved the post-reboot Archieverse is because it went beyond this. Having characters actually be in-character is a day-one requirement for a storytelling medium that actually attempts to tell a story, and unless it was another stupid argument about Total Eclipse, that was never a discussion point, and it was focused on the worlds' built, concepts introduced and questions asked. It was a breath of fresh air for someone like me who literally never gave a shit about the story and couldn't see why anyone else did. It actually sparked my hatred of Shadow the hedgehog's plot, because I saw Shadow in the comics and knew what I was missing. The IDW comics are surely going to move toward this, but they've got a loooong way to go. In the meantime, I'd love to see Ian put on cleaning up the scripts for the games so that we have less dumb arguments about characterization, but you're never going to have an actually great story until you challenge the core way the series has been seen internally for the last 27 years.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

If we want to go into why they're still working, likely the reason many brought up before - SEGA/Sonic Team don't particularly care enough to get rid of them. In terms of criticism, unfortunately the story tends to be what gets the less hate unless it's cases where the gameplay itself is well-received. Otherwise, it typically gets overshadowed. It also wouldn't surprise me if it was considered "cheap" to keep them around so to speak since Boom which was a larger scale project focused entirely on jokes, story and everything else had completely different writers and even brought Ian Flynn on board a few times.

That said, in terms of their localization work, I find them completely obnoxious usually and while I understand the main plot that's typically bad is from Japan and ST's writing staff, the massive amount of awful jokes, bad characterization lines, mistranslated flubs that makes no sense and create contradictions in the story itself, and everything else gets on my nerves massively. Stuff like Boom!Knuckles being even dumber than in the main show itself (Boom!Knuckles has a kind of charm about his stupidity because he still had moments of genuine insight and clarity used for comedic effect...and then you have SC's exaggerated "Amy thinks I'm a piece of meat...WHICH IS AWESOME!!!!". Not to mention what Strick said above:

27 minutes ago, Strickerx5 said:

These "tru dat", "torture", "baldy McNoisehairs", and whatever the hell Gens was aren't cutting it. RoL literally did a better job in that category and that hot mess of a game shouldn't have even been released. 

 While I at least tolerated and even enjoyed some of the lines in Colours, it's gone so far downhill in total spectacularly awful fashion that I find myself actively loathing the story of the series. Forces is the first time in ages I've been interested and it's only because a few characters began getting back in character (Sonic, Knuckles, Silver), and even then, some of them were still localized absolutely terribly (Tails, Rouge). Lost World actively killed any enjoyment I had in Tails as a character and considering that he was literally one of my favourite childhood characters, my favourite for at least a decade, it speaks total volumes how much I actively despise their localization and on occasion - story writing. 

There's redeeming factors to their writing at points. Sometimes, there's a funny line or a joke that manages to land, but in comparison to everything else that got absolutely destroyed by them in terms of characterization, writing, and whatever else, Strick again put it best:

27 minutes ago, Strickerx5 said:

Getting rid of them won't solve everything (and I imagine it isn't in Sega's to-do list due to the reasons Celestia stated), but it'd be a damn fine start. 

 

[Wraith]

1 hour ago, SBR2 said:

I'd say how much I enjoy their stuff but in my experience anytime you defend them or say you like them you're just setting yourself up for people to tell you you're wrong and they suck so what's the point. 

I would take defense of their work more seriously if it didn't always come with a jab at other Sonic games rather than defending the game on their own merits. 

To be honest, that's the only point made 9 times out of 10. That at least they're not edgy or whatever like that even matters when the games don't have the basic plot structure that they used to. 

[DabigRG]

1 hour ago, Celestia said:

That is a thing people say, yes. I wouldn't go that far personally but it's definitely not great.

I like a lot of the story beats (Sonic and Tails butting heads for example) but it's very haphazardly put together. At the time I was kind of curious to see more stuff from them since they supposedly had more control over that game's story, but at this point, ehhhhhh. It wouldn't hurt at all to get better scriptwriters and I'd even argue that someone who's into the series being in that position might be good for the stories if they had even an ounce of input.

Honestly, in hindsight, I think Lost World took too many risks and gambles in general, with them actually writing the story being unfortunate connective tissue plot-wise.

 

1 hour ago, Conquering Storm’s Servant said:

 

They were praised in Colors because they didn’t make such faults, all the criticisms over its humor aside. So it sounds more like people are upholding them to a standard that they fell from. Other faults, such as the non-use of other characters I think fall more to Sonic Team, but overall it seems to be a case of a standard not being met—and it isn’t really difficult to reach, funny enough.

I'd say that's because not only was Color's release at a pretty good timing, but out of all the games they've worked on(well, aside from Boom handhelds), it has the most complete story out of all of them.

What was the story? Sonic and Tails go up to Eggman's Interstellar Amusement Park a day early to check out it's authenticity and discover he's capturing & corrupting an alien race to use it's special powers for his next incognito scheme, so they link up with said aliens using Sonic's ability to tap into their Hyper Go-on energy and a translation program on the Miles Electric to save them and their world.

Putting aside the Classic games' parallels, it's a pretty simple but perfectly straightforward plot, filled up by Sonic and Tails having downtime between levels, Tails gradually perfecting on a new translator to communicate with Yacker, the effect Eggman is having on the planets he's managed to kidnap from across the galaxy, the true surprisingly morbid machinations of Eggman's plan with the Nega Wisp energy, a running gag involving making Cubot's voice less annoying, and commentary on both sides about the amusement park itself. 

The problem later games have compared to this is that they try to have deeper, more intense plots that tend to feel underdeveloped, inconsistent, and just plain incomplete.

1 hour ago, RedFox99 said:

Tails saying true dat 

Was dat really that bad?

[RedFox99]

From what I remember, the one boom episode they did with D-Fekt seemed to have fared much better than most of their other work in the series (though some could argue that that isn't much of an achievement).

9 minutes ago, DabigRG said:

Was dat really that bad?

It's just kind of obnoxious that they made Tails say that.

[The Deleter]

Because A) they make a decent enough story for kids to enjoy

And B) they are Sonic Team's effort to allocate their writing team for the language the IP sells the best in, I'm pretty sure. There have been translation teams before, but never anyone as involved as P&G have been, and that's an important distinction to have I feel. As long as they keep writing dialog well enough grounded in the English language, they're doing their job just fine, and I doubt anyone at Sonic Team actually cares for much outside that, as others have said.

[SenEDDtor Missile]

8 minutes ago, DabigRG said:

Honestly, in hindsight, I think Lost World took too many risks and gambles in general, with them actually writing the story being unfortunate connective tissue plot-wise.

I’d argue that they didn’t know whether to actually take risks or not for the story. Most of their plot points give the impression of taking risks but they often either did nothing with them or chickened out at the last minute and fell back on something safe instead.

[LongcrierCat]

I find that the writing of the games is more in how there's a total disregard for continuity in spite of using characters from the continuity. Compare it how you will to how some characters are treated as total jokes in other series. 

There's also that problem of there being too many cooks at the helm of the script. See, it should be easy to have one or two writers at the helm, but Pontac and Graff are mostly there to punch up dialogue, right? So the story is laid out first because they also need a plan for what to develop the game in mind for. Whoever is in charge of Scenario Creation is the one to blame then for characters acting out of character. 

That being said, I find it would be easier if someone who knows game design and storytelling and how to meld the two were in charge of Scenario Creation and writing. Maybe also get a job for someone to coordinate and make sure the "Timeline" or whatever of the continuity that us nerds care about is also intact. I think people wouldn't focus so much on continuity though as long as the character development was either consistent or if the characters had reasons for being the way they are in this or that story. 

This is something that Mr. Flynn is exceptionally good at but that's also because he's the only one writing most of the time and the staff around him is tight and made up of people sharing the vision. 

That gets muddled up when you simply have...

 

 

But I mean. I've seen us argue story and character tone. I've seen how divided we are on that. If we could come to a solid compromise that doesn't sacrifice the strengths of the arguments from every which way then that'd be great. 

So uh... Well defined characters that have good character dynamics that builds funny moments and chemistry and stories where things happen (regardless of if it's small or huge in the context of the series) instead of characters standing around to talk? I mean. That's kind of the thing Flynn does so that's why he's been asked for the most to replace these two. One of my things is also having a world that feels consistent in its rules. 

[DabigRG]

3 hours ago, ShadowSJG said:

 probably included the 'Who's your daddy, Shadow

What...?

58 minutes ago, GentlemanX said:

 His one other potential story credit was as "story supervisor" for Free Riders.

Oh-hohoho, well that's telling of something!

21 minutes ago, Josh said:

I would take defense of their work more seriously if it didn't always come with a jab at other Sonic games rather than defending the game on their own merits. 

To be honest, that's the only point made 9 times out of 10. That at least they're not edgy or whatever like that even matters when the games don't have the basic plot structure that they used to. 

Yeah, admittedly, there's been a couple of posts out there that unfortunately start to detract from the actual point by doing that sort of thing a lot.

12 minutes ago, RedFox99 said:

From what I remember, the one boom episode they did with D-Fekt seemed to have fared much better than most of their other work in the series (though some could argue that that isn't much of an achievement).

 

Really?

Wasn't D-Fekt essentially their character?

13 minutes ago, RedFox99 said:

It's just kind of obnoxious that they made Tails say that.

I mean, I realize that Tails probably shouldn't be the one saying that, but there seems to be a fair amount of focus on that line in particular.  

4 minutes ago, SenEDDtor Missile said:

I’d argue that they didn’t know whether to actually take risks or not for the story. Most of their plot points give the impression of taking risks but they often either did nothing with them or chickened out at the last minute and fell back on something safe instead.

Either way, I can't help but imagine that SEGA handed them the Deadly Six and possibly the Lost Hex and/or Extractor and told them to write a story around that. With an ambiguous amount of input, reinforcement, and/or pushback on what the duo churned out, mind.

Like, from what I remember from an interview after the game's release, I believe one of them straight up suggested they ran out of time or something to that effect.

[StaticMania]

46 minutes ago, Josh said:

I would take defense of their work more seriously if it didn't always come with a jab at other Sonic games rather than defending the game on their own merits.

"I like X, because it's better than Y" is too common a thing in general...

It's gonna happen, a lot of people do it, it should just be ignored.

[Badnik Mechanic]

4 hours ago, ShadowSJG said:

1: I don't even get why they were hired in the first place.

2: Most of the games stories they've been written haven't been well received and they messed up the Forces localization

I'm on my mobile so doing that why I've edited your quote like that.

Anyway.

1: They were hired because the writing before they took over was somewhere between bad and awful.

When they took over there was  noticeable jump in the quality of it.

2: That's probably because they don't actually write the game story.

Whoever writes the story is someone in Sonic Team Japan and given the size of a typical Sonic game, I'm going to guess it's multiple people.

The second point to remember here. Do either P&G speak or even real fluent Japanese?

If Yes, they have to not only interpret the script, but also do so in a way that appeals to a western audience over multiple continents.

If No. And something tells me they don't. They have to do the above... but through a third party who may or may not even know what a Sonic is.

 

I see Ian Flynn is getting another social media push this week because of course he is.

Yeah he's written some good stuff, even with his criticisms that a lot of his comic strips even when they try a fresh start are just re-runs of his old good material.

If he's writing for a game, he's not writing the game, he would be interpreting the script which has been created by a Japanese team in Japan. 

Which I'm guessing would also have to be done through a third party translator.

 

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

30 minutes ago, LongcrierCat said:

I find that the writing of the games is more in how there's a total disregard for continuity in spite of using characters from the continuity. Compare it how you will to how some characters are treated as total jokes in other series. 

There's also that problem of there being too many cooks at the helm of the script. See, it should be easy to have one or two writers at the helm, but Pontac and Graff are mostly there to punch up dialogue, right? So the story is laid out first because they also need a plan for what to develop the game in mind for. Whoever is in charge of Scenario Creation is the one to blame then for characters acting out of character. 

That being said, I find it would be easier if someone who knows game design and storytelling and how to meld the two were in charge of Scenario Creation and writing. Maybe also get a job for someone to coordinate and make sure the "Timeline" or whatever of the continuity that us nerds care about is also intact. I think people wouldn't focus so much on continuity though as long as the character development was either consistent or if the characters had reasons for being the way they are in this or that story. 

This is something that Mr. Flynn is exceptionally good at but that's also because he's the only one writing most of the time and the staff around him is tight and made up of people sharing the vision. 

That gets muddled up when you simply have...

 

 

But I mean. I've seen us argue story and character tone. I've seen how divided we are on that. If we could come to a solid compromise that doesn't sacrifice the strengths of the arguments from every which way then that'd be great. 

So uh... Well defined characters that have good character dynamics that builds funny moments and chemistry and stories where things happen (regardless of if it's small or huge in the context of the series) instead of characters standing around to talk? I mean. That's kind of the thing Flynn does so that's why he's been asked for the most to replace these two. One of my things is also having a world that feels consistent in its rules. 

I hear this a lot, and I don’t think it’s without merit.

However, I think that doesn’t take into account of having things well planned from thr start, with people like Pontaff being involved in the narrative afterwards instead being on board on in the process from the start. If Pontaff often takes helm after the plot is already made, then it’s less a matter of too many cooks and more a matter of the cooks not knowing what they’re doing while the waiter gets blamed for the mess up.

Sonic Archie Comics post-Flynn have had several writers in the form of not just Ian, but Aleah, Tracy, and others, and while Ian does the bulk as the head writer, the others actually manage to forge stories that still work cohesively with the whole continuity.

Multiple writers can be a great way of having a brainstorm session while some organize the whole picture, freeing up time for one writer or allowing others to proofread and edit so long as they can keep the overall picture intact. It just takes good leadership, which I don’t think we need to spell out with Sonic Team.

4 minutes ago, StaticMania said:

"I like X, because it's better than Y" is too common a thing in general...

It's gonna happen, a lot of people do it, it should just be ignored.

It would still help if it was explained what makes X better than Y instead of, “because Y sucks.” Or straight up lies about X or Y.

And that should be a given for both sides. I feel that things would be a lot less hostile and more amicable if that were the case. Not that we still won’t have people trying to stir shit, but I’m just saying.

[Multikaris]

1 hour ago, GentlemanX said:

Eitaro Toyoda. His early credits are as a level designer in stuff like SA2, Heroes, and ShTH but he's worked on various games after like Unleashed. He's been credited as "Sonic character supervisor" for Colors, Generations, and Mario & Sonic 2012 and 2014. His one other potential story credit was as "story supervisor" for Free Riders.

I thought it was Morio Kishimoto.

[GentlemanX]

Kishimoto is the game's director, as he was for Sonic Colors and Sonic Lost World.

[Plasme]

I'm mixed on Pontaff writing Sonic. On one hand, dialogue in Sonic games was atrocious before they came aboard. They definitely improved the character interactions. On the other hand, they are responsible for taking Sonic in the meme parody route which he's firmly fixed in now. This was particularly bad in Lost World.

[Kuzu]

I'm still not very fond of their writing for the series, but at this point I've just learned to make peace with it and take what I get. Which leads me to my point; I understand the writing for the series has become a contentious subject overall, but I am really not comfortable with the hate they get when their only crime is *gasp* having a less than a stellar script for a video game series.  From how the fanbase treats them though, you'd think they have committed some type of murder against some of these guy's family members or something. And it's reactions like that that only reinforce the already negative image this fanbase has. 

As for the OP's question? They're still writing because Sega thinks they're good enough and that's all there is to it. No don't care how much we bitch and moan about it, because all of the bitching and moaning is a vocal minority at best. The actual reality is more than likely that people outside of the most diehard of fans do not give a shit about the story or lore of Sonic the Hedgehog, and that's the straight truth. They don't give a shit the same way they don't give a shit about Mario's lore. Its just a video game series to occasionally pick up and have fun with and not some type of epic that the fanbase tries to make it seem like it is. 

It's why I can't be bothered to argue in favor of this series` lore anymore, not only am I tired of parroting the same arguments I've been saying for years, I've honestly grown so apathetic and mostly satisfied when the game is functional and characters aren't completely stupid. So yea, that's my take. 

[EmmBee]

I think it's important to remember that Sonic games are primarily made for kids and their writing is pretty typical for something intended for kids.

[Mad Convoy]

I'm not gonna deny that a lot of their work on the games is awful. I'm also not gonna deny that I'd rather have Maekawa helming the story for Sonic games than Pontaff.

But at the same time, something seems kinda off to me. In part because it seems the more control they get over the actual story, the better quality work they produce, and I do know that giving people who are outright incompetent or otherwise terrible writers more creative freedom typically results in worse quality work, not better.

In regards to Sonic, I'll note that Sonic Colors DS was a little side title that was outsourced to Dimps for most of the work. I could be wrong but that doesn't seem like the kind of title Sonic Team and Sega would scrutinize and meddle with as thoroughly as, say, Colors Wii. And lo and behold, the dialogue in the DS version is miles ahead of what Colors Wii is doing, and while the other members of Sonic's cast are used more for side missions, they're actually portrayed very well. (Well that and IMO a game that centers largely around Sonic and Tails's friendship doesn't need to have a lot of extras around as more than cameos. Just... the writers shouldn't keep using their relationship as a plot center over and over again to the point of tedium and neglecting other characters.) True there was another writer there to help them out-- but his only other story credit is Free Riders, he was in a leadership position for that game, and he had significant creative freedom. With that in mind, I strongly doubt that that man alone carried the trio to success-- it was probably a result of good collaboration between him and Pontaff that happened to nicely iron out most of their writing flaws coupled with some extra freedom for plotting and dialoguing.

And for Sonic Boom, seriously, their one episode was awesome, and that's a case where Sega and Sonic Team were certainly not involved in the story writing process. It continues from where Fire and Ice left off without confusing people who hadn't played it, and reuses characters well. Sure there's a few lame jokes thrown in, but they aren't annoying because they're actually the set up for Eggman and others to rag on said terrible jokes and its kept short. Plus its actually important to the progression of the plot since it causes Tails to offhandedly mention that he shouldn't take it personally because Eggman is mean to all his rejected robots-- when D Fekt wasn't aware that Eggman had other rejected robots wandering around. Spoilers beyond that, but its really good, plus the episode villain is morally grey which is a breath of fresh air. I won't claim the episode is perfect but considering the actual creative freedom they got, I honestly think that stuff like this episode is reflective of what they want to write for the series. And what they want to write is actually really good.

So my question is-- what's stopping them?

Its probably Sonic Team. They're responsible for most of plotting, with Pontaff doing translations. I give Pontaff credit for trying to have fun with some of the stupider dialogues or trying to give a situation actual emotional weight (which is why I don't actually hate the idea of Tails being really terrified in Forces-- sure there's a million ways it could have been handled better, but having a character get a long term emotional response to something really really bad? I'm all for it.), but they seem like they're under a lot of restrictions that make their job more annoying and tedious than it has to be. They may well be writing just to amuse themselves to save time and/or boost morale-- which isn't good for Sonic game localization, but given the situation, I also don't cast any negative judgement on them for doing so.

Its kind of an awkward Ryan Drummond moment for me-- in the case of Ryan, I don't like his Sonic voice at all (IMO it reeks of many problems old 3D game voice acting had and hasn't really improved with increasing modern standards), but knowing how badly he's been screwed over by Sega over the years it seems unfair to me that he hasn't had any opportunities to reprise his role. If nothing else, to at least give the man a chance to put on his best performance in a professional environment. I kinda feel the same way about Pontaff-- have Maekawa take over eventually, but let Pontaff have one last title where they can do their best work. I feel that Pontaff deserves the basic dignity to end their writing with Sonic on a good note, since they're quite clearly capable of it.

Of course, this is assuming an ideal situation. Even Maekawa could only get so far if the rest of Sonic Team's writing staff is terrible-- I just think the stories have a better chance in terms of entertainment value if its being helmed by somebody who knows Japanese culture very well to leverage himself in negotiations and discussions, and isn't afraid to take risks but also makes sure said risks get proper vetting before being brought beyond the conceptual stage.

[Multikaris]

Kuzu, even if they mostly ignore the past lore, it would still be nice to see little nods to the lore (other than the classics because they’ve been done to death and then decomposition at this point) in the script. Like someone wonders why certain characters didn’t participate in Forces, whatever happened to the little planet, etc.  Stuff non-fans would just write off as a noodle incident rather than get confused over. Maybe the level designers could also hide stuff in the levels as references too. 

 

At the very least, a “Hyrule Historia” type book could be done.