Sonic Team should follow Marvel's example for a COHESIVE UNIVERSE

[Marco9966]

Marvel created an impressively well-connected universe, that takes into considerations all the previous events and lore of its movies. And they tie everything together.

For example: Captain Marvel will be set in 1995 and will expand on the story of Nick Fury, Captain Marvel will appear again in Avengers 4. They could do the same with the NEW CLASSIC GAMES, make them take place in Sonic's past.

If Marvel can set Captain Marvel and Black Widow and Captain America to the past, why couldnt SEGA do so with Sonic Mania with minimal effort because it's mainly about gameplay, not complext story.

[Failinhearts]

That's not something really exclusive to Marvel. Many franchises have installments that take place in the past. Star Wars, Transformers, even Mario to a degree with games like Yoshi's Island. I don't see particularly what makes Marvel so special here in regards to that. That isn't what they're known for.

What Marvel focuses on is crossing over and merging the tones and events of individual franchises, something that Sonic doesn't do since it primarily just focuses on the hedgehog.

I mean, it's one thing to ask for a coherent story, but I dunno if you should really follow what Marvel's doing specifically.

[SaturnWolf]

2 minutes ago, Failinhearts said:

That's not something really exclusive to Marvel. Many franchises have installments that take place in the past. Star Wars, Transformers, even Mario to a degree with games like Yoshi's Island. I don't see particularly what makes Marvel so special here in regards to that. That isn't what they're known for.

What Marvel focuses on is crossing over and merging the tones and events of individual franchises, something that Sonic doesn't do since it primarily just focuses on the hedgehog.

I mean, it's one thing to ask for a coherent story, but I dunno if you should really follow what Marvel's doing specifically.

Basically this. Sonic's continuity is already kind of a mess, and Marvel's bread and butter is to let the heroes do their own thing for a while before bringing them together to stop the world/universe ending threat but that's not exactly exclusively a Marvel thing either.

If that's what you're asking for, well, then no. Part of Sonic's problem is that Sega doesn't keep him on tight enough of a leash, and I don't think throwing even more at that wall is the solution here.

[MadmanRB]

Another issue is.... they kind of tried this with the Adventure era 1998 to 2006.

You know what game killed this initiative of course

[Wraith]

Marvel didn't invent prequels. 


It'd be neat if they did something like that but it wouldn't tangibly affect much unless they started doing more long term plotting/stories. Not even Marvel really does that. They just make things up as they go along and throw out a contrivance or two to pull it together later. The story being told in the moment is overwhelmingly the focus. 

It's not something I really want the franchise to limit itself with, anyway. Let's stay spontaneous. 

[UpCDownCLeftCRightC]

Sonic cant pull a marvel, because unlike marvel, the sonic franchise is centered around a single character.

[Mountaindewandsprite]

1 hour ago, UpCDownCLeftCRightC said:

Sonic cant pull a marvel, because unlike marvel, the sonic franchise is centered around a single character.

This. With Marvel, each character has their own story/movie to build up for a crossover. Sonic is the titular character. It would be different if the franchise was named something like Freedom Planet or whatever.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Not going into what others are saying about it being focused on one character (and sometimes even despite that).

You need good writers before they can even begin to entertain that idea, nevermind a good development team to integrate the whole thing. As much of a broken record me saying tha That has been Sonic Team’s core problems post-SA2, and the only arguable exception since that time would be Unleashed.

The only thing closest to accomplishing that would be the Archie Sonic’s Universe series with it shifting focus on other characters aside from the Blue Blur.

But all in all, unless the folks behind the franchise step their literary game up, or get someone who does without them pulling the chain too tight—and as an extra side mention, stop giving the finger to ideas and other aspects of the franchise just for whatever arbitrary whim they decided to have—the same problems will persist no matter what idea you bring up to deal with the conundrum.

[Heckboy]

Eesh, no thanks. The less inspiration taken from the MCU the better.

And that goes for anything, not just Sonic.

[MadmanRB]

1 minute ago, Ivo the Coldsteel said:

Eesh, no thanks. The less inspiration taken from the MCU the better.

And that goes for anything, not just Sonic.

Well considering that the MCU did inspire the bad copycats like it did, I mean I think the the MCU is mostly fine but unforutunately its copycats fail to see what made the MCU work for its fans.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

And honestly, what the MCU does isn’t exactly unique to it anyway. It’s really just an idea to springboard off of.

DC has done it with their animated works to great success compared to their faulty live-action movies of the DCEU. Nevermind their comics that have done this before it became even more mainstream. And Disney also somewhat does this with their other works, namely with Kingdom Hearts with Square Enix (messy backstories aside, a lot people seem to enjoy them hence it’s success). So it’s not a bad idea in principle.

[Diogenes]

Not that the classic/modern split was a great thing, but at this point what's there to be gained by forcing them back together? The series barely cared about its own continuity even at the best of times and the two sides have diverged so much they hardly even seem like the same series. If Modern Sonic is going to continue being a shitheap I'd rather Classic have his own continuity to hopefully not get fucked up.

[Lord-Dreamerz]

I prefer Classic Sonic and gang to remain a alternate universe and not be Sonic's past. They are just a different art style/take on the characters visually... can we please stop trying to make Classic Sonic into kid Sonic already?

As for the topic question. Sonic doesn't need to follow Marvel... they just need to get dedicated skilled writers who are interested in making good stories and love the Sonic franchise in general. No reboots or any other over drastic nonsense is really required in my opinion.

[Wraith]

15 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

Not that the classic/modern split was a great thing, but at this point what's there to be gained by forcing them back together? The series barely cared about its own continuity even at the best of times and the two sides have diverged so much they hardly even seem like the same series. If Modern Sonic is going to continue being a shitheap I'd rather Classic have his own continuity to hopefully not get fucked up.

There's a financial gain on Sega's side to tying these games more closely together. There will be more incentive to play the next game with a hook from the last game tying it together. It's how comics, movies and even other game series have worked for decades. Funnel the kiddies that liked Iron Man toward Captain America. 

It doesn't change anything as far as things I give a shit about, though whether they stay separate or not. Sonic 3's narrative doesn't actually get any better or worse if you cut off the idea that Sonic Heroes happens later. There are tangible changes that need to be made under the hood of Sonic 3 for that to happen.

I don't see why continuity and consistency are priorities in an episodic series that's going to naturally change hands anyway. It's never going to line up, and I don't really see why it has to. 

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

48 minutes ago, Lord-Dreamerz said:

I prefer Classic Sonic and gang to remain a alternate universe and not be Sonic's past. They are just a different art style/take on the characters visually... can we please stop trying to make Classic Sonic into kid Sonic already?

And ignore Sonic Team’s bad habit of making inconsistencies in the franchise?

I don’t know about everyone else, but I for one am gonna say “No” to that.

 

[Lord-Dreamerz]

26 minutes ago, Conquering Storm’s Servant said:

And ignore Sonic Team’s bad habit of making inconsistencies in the franchise?

I don’t know about everyone else, but I for one am gonna say “No” to that.

You don't see Disney trying to make classic Mickey Mouse into the kid version of modern Mickey Mouse... they simply leave them as purely different art styles of the same characters, and the different stories often don't tie together at all. There is nothing wrong with alternate universe versions of characters/stories if they have vastly different things to offer.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

1 hour ago, Lord-Dreamerz said:

You don't see Disney trying to make classic Mickey Mouse into the kid version of modern Mickey Mouse... they simply leave them as purely different art styles of the same characters, and the different stories often don't tie together at all. There is nothing wrong with alternate universe versions of characters/stories if they have vastly different things to offer.

I also don’t see Mickey Mouse having successive titles largely connected to each other by referencing past events in previous titles for well over 25+ years, giving the impression or even outright confirmation that they were all on the same world and time period, before the team behind it suddenly deciding at a whim to break that and say they’re in separate dimensions for practically no reason, which prior to Forces is what Sonic actually did do. And I mean that in full, not in fragments.

Nor do I see Mickey Mouse with an incompetent development team that doesn’t have a clue how to run their franchise.

That sudden departure out of the blue is the problem, not alternate settings—this wasn’t even the case until recently last year.

But you know what I do see them doing with Mickey Mouse? For all intents and purposes, acknowledging them as the same character regardless of where he happens to be or what style he’s in instead of separating his whole character entirely as “Classic” or “Modern” Mickey—he’s simply Mickey Mouse. Period.

The style or time period doesn’t separate the character. The only thing different is (literally) the hat or title he has in said alternate universes (i.e. King Mickey, Wizard Mickey, etc.) and the context that comes with them, which can differ per setting.

[Meta77]

Why people still try to seperate the two i have no idea. Classic sonic is modern sonic. He is literally sonic younger. Just cause the art is different means noting really.

[Lord-Dreamerz]

19 hours ago, Meta77 said:

Why people still try to seperate the two i have no idea. Classic sonic is modern sonic. He is literally sonic younger. Just cause the art is different means noting really.

Except he literally isn't younger. Canon wise Classic Sonic is 15... just like how modern Sonic is 15... almost no time has actually pasted in the Sonic story universe. And as SEGA now counts them as separated into their own universes of course certain fans like me accept that idea, and personally i prefer it.

[Marco9966]

My point IS NOT about having many characters crossovers, consider that MCU is about only one character, MCU still really cares about continuity, their fans will watch a movie because IT'S CONNECTED to the other movies, if any inconsistency shows up (like Obama mentionned in Luke Cage although he was never the president in that universe, or Spider-man's wrong number of years after Avengers 1), the fans will come up with hundreds of theories to fix this and send compaints to Marvel. And Marvel doesnt play the lazy card and make it "a parallel dimension" like SEGA did did.

Now here, we just accept what SEGA shits to us and just accept that there's 2 Sonics, imagine if there was 2 Tony Starks or 2 Peter Parkers (not talking about 2 Spidermans which are different persons). We just accept the cringy humor meddled with the excessive darkness, we just accept the thoughtless fan-fiction writitng. Marvel fans did not like Iron Fist season 1, and Marvel knew that, so they decided to change the showrunner in Season 2 to get a much better seasons and fans were happy! They forgot about the one-year old season 1's bad quality, but we did not forget about a certain game that came out 12 years ago!

 

[SaturnWolf]

50 minutes ago, Marco9966 said:

consider that MCU is about only one character,

But it isn't? Sure in certain story arcs certain characters are certainly more important than others, but they all share the spotlight a good deal and there isn't really one character the overarching story is really about.

Sonic games, even at their best, never really care that much about continuity. Most Sonic games are fairly self-contained. Honestly, it sounds like your main problem is just bad writers which, yeah, I totally get and agree with, but your point here doesn't make a lot of sense. Do we focus in more on Sonic? Because we've been doing that since 2008. Do we give more attention to other characters? I guess that could work with better writers?

[Marco9966]

1 minute ago, DreamSaturn said:

But it isn't? Sure in certain story arcs certain characters are certainly more important than others, but they all share the spotlight a good deal and there isn't really one character the overarching story is really about.

Sonic games, even at their best, never really care that much about continuity. Most Sonic games are fairly self-contained. Honestly, it sounds like your main problem is just bad writers which, yeah, I totally get and agree with, but your point here doesn't make a lot of sense. Do we focus in more on Sonic? Because we've been doing that since 2008. Do we give more attention to other characters? I guess that could work with better writers?

My point  is about destroying the lore by making Classic Sonic a different character. The least they could do is not destroy pas stories.

[MetalSkulkBane]

Oh Marco9966, always full of optimism and then we all reply with jaded cynicism.

Let's start by pointing out that Sega are masters of copying something that worked/ is popular and messing it up (Mario Galaxy to Lost World, God of War to Unleashed, etc), even when it comes to their own product (Forces failing to be as good as Generations). So one thing I would like to copy from MCU is just budget, effort and talent.

The only specific idea I see here is continuity, which like many pointed out, is not MCU trademark. More than that:
does Sonic need tighter continuity and care for details? Absolutely yes.
does Sonic need continuity similar to MCU? Absolutely no.

MCU continuity only works because every movie they made is good (according to masses at least). Meanwhile Sonic keeps making bad games, so tricking people to buy it for continuity sake will be a douchebag move. In fact Forces-Mania did it. And wasn't that a great move?

Lastly Sonic doesn't have complicated arcs and stories, it 3 games won't build up "Chaos War" or something like that. It's a game selling on it's gameplay.I know, WE love Sonic's world, but that's not the main selling point.

[Marco9966]

Yeah I dont mean make Sonic like the MCU, just give it the same level passion and care and consistency. SEGA doesn't do that, and it shows with Sonic Forces.

MCU always searches for the best directors and writers, 60 directors were considered for Black Widow before choosing one, meanwhile SEGA won't even hire Ian Flynn, someone who knows Sonic so well, and keep writers who never heard of Sonic Adventure.

[SaturnWolf]

3 minutes ago, Marco9966 said:

My point  is about destroying the lore by making Classic Sonic a different character. The least they could do is not destroy pas stories.

Again, even the best of Sonic games kind of ignore the lore of past games. Remember how Eggman cracked open the Earth in Unleashed? Well, he did the same thing in Advance 3 was there was no Gaia monster. Remember basically everything about Angel Island in Adventure? Almost completely different from how it was in Sonic 3.

Does the lore need cleaning up? Sure.

Does Sonic need better writers that pay more attention? Absolutely.

Is the MCU a good example to follow for this? Absolutely not.