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


Marco9966

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1 minute ago, DreamSaturn said:

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

I'm just using MCU as an example, I could use hundreds of different franchises as an example.

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If you use an exemple, it's normal that people use that as a base to talk. You have said "they should follow marvel's example" and talked about the MCU using example of how the stories are interlinked. So of course people will talk about that.

Mania being in another timeline than the other game have nothing to do with how it's complex, or even with quality. It's a branding decision. As they don't have a huge time-gap in the continuity like in Megaman that makes things easier. Basically, how they are doing it here, they have the possibility to have as many new things in the classic Timeline, have it pretty different than the Modern timeline. It basically give more potentiality, and even breaking some status quo in the future (it give also a lot of potentiality for funs what-if). So nope, it's not because they can't write.

 

And going to a more serialized story wouldn't be a great idea, for me. If I agree that a more focused framework for creating Sonic stories would be a great things. By that I mean that it wouldn't be some kind of complete encyclopedic lore to reuse in most games, but more some kind of a larger set of "basic rules of the Sonic universe/multiverse/whateververse". Things like the 7 chaos emerald (that they already have), how the planets works and their basic looks and rules (just something like "earth is a pseudo-earth à la Unleashed using its continents while Animal World is a bunch of islands full of magical funny colored animals", "GUN's is the military forces of Earth"), other basic rules… It would be a way to make sure that all stories can work in the same narrative universe, some kind of compatibility layer for stories.

But something I liked with Sonic games, it's how every game can tell it's own story (even during the Adventure era. They didn't make an attempt to serialize things, as basically we have a few sequels to SA2 and that's all). Even most of the numbered sequels tell a different story than the first game, in Sonic, and not really a followup to the previous story. For instance, take all the "big games", they all tell one story, from beginning to the end. Sometimes there is a "sequel" or a thing like that, but mostly, I like that we get with a game a complete story (and I often prefer games that are "Sonic et co. come into an existing problem with its own characters and stuff, because it works well if Sonic "traveler" character"). Adding prequels, stuff like that would be for me an hit and miss. Not to mention that we would loose how the game were accessible story-wise.

For me, it's more a question of having simply a better framework. Having the whole thing wrapped up in one game is way better, especially with the price of games 😛 (yeah because buying a ~40€ game isn't the same than going to a ~12€ cinema place), with sometimes some addition when the story is really good or have potential to reuse (and I would prefer if they didn't start again doing a lot of "story sequels" to a successful game, like they did with SA2… Even if I understand that it's a good way to advertise smaller games).

 

I would add (that'll may be an unpopular opinion time), that I would like if in Phase 4 Marvel did also that a bit more. That they let their different movies be different movies. The movies I liked the most (Black Panther, Spiderman Homecoming) was when the overarching plot wasn't too present in the story of the movie. I would like if they movies, later, shared more their narrative universe, while letting each movies go wilder without having to tie in with the story of another movie. I love the MCU, and I loved the big plot, but I think that it tied too much some movies.

Maybe that's why for me, tying always everything isn't always a good idea and have some downside that aren't to forget in a wave of nerding out for smart links. Having ties can be cool, but you have to let also every stories breath themselves. Especially in a set of what would often have been self-contained stories. ( of course, it's not an absolute, and it depends a lot of every case )

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I don't think it's realistic to expect something like that for Sonic, mostly the games.

But the comics? Sure, they are amazing, everyone loves them as Ian writes the characters correctly and there is quite the planning ahead with ongoing story arcs.

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4 hours ago, DreamSaturn said:

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.

That last part isn’t really true because the lore in Sonic Adventure doesn’t really ignore what was established in Sonic 3, it actually builds off from it. The Master Emerald never shattered and and thus kicked off the events with Chaos in 3 like it did Adventure.

 

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I think there's a somewhat inherent problem with the comparison, Sonic Team's continual incompetence on this ide or not, in the fact that Marvel is taking largely already written storylines from their history from their largely already existing characters and adapting them to a different medium; mostly pre-planned from the start for the kind of things that it has done since being started. Obviously that's not an inherent slam dunk for having a humongous and tightly-bound sprawling continuity, as DC's films can attest, but it is something that is a drastic difference between the two.

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But does it excuse Sonic Team from doing the most stupid simple mistakes? Keeping the moon full, changing Blaze, Eggman Nega and Classic Sonic's origin, and saying that it's 2 worlds when SA1, 2, Shadow and 06 showed otherwise.

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37 minutes ago, Marco9966 said:

But does it excuse Sonic Team from doing the most stupid simple mistakes? Keeping the moon full, changing Blaze, Eggman Nega and Classic Sonic's origin, and saying that it's 2 worlds when SA1, 2, Shadow and 06 showed otherwise.

Actually for some, it does. First because it's not a "mistake". It's not necesseraly that they "didn't know" or "didn't remember". It's sometimes changes of circonstances that made consistency less interesting than changing it. Sometimes there are things to do that are more important that simple "consistency". The only moment where there can't really be an option that can be more interesting to them than consistency is for changing the story of individual characters. But on other time, it's mostly a question of priority.

 

Let's take your list, and analyse it :

- The "full moon" is logical for creative reason. If every game have to be a complete story, having an unexplained element that would have to be explained or to link to another game a part of the background on every night would simply be a really bad idea for newcomers. It's just something to big to accept. The only game where it's a shame is Shadow the Hedgehog (as it's a true sequel). It's acceptable for a niche things like comics, not for games that aren't destined only to fans. Sonic X handled it better, though… but making a game just for changing a small thing for future games would be too much. Maybe that they should have introduced it in Sonic Advance, as the moon appears (or it would have been too soon before SA2, as it would basically need to link to an element of a game that have just been released) like with a mention in the Manual, or something like that. But all in one : keeping the moon destroyed would have made a need to remodel it with each game, for something that either wouldn't be understandable for new player (when Sonic is and have ever been pretty "casual" both in gameplay (except in Sonic 2 Game Gear) and story) or need to add some references. So not a really good RoI just to please some nitpicky fan , to be frank.

- The change of origin story is the only true "mistake" in your list. About Blaze and Nega, it could be solved out with an outer explaination, and for Nega it's really easy to accept as he is a manipulator. For Blaze, it's simply a clash of storyline : two game made in the same time.

- That's not a "mistake". They have made a choice, that doesn't work totally with an already incoherent world-building (hello having the planet shown at least 3 time with different faces). To begin with they have started Sonic and let having two separate canons. They even got different explaination for what was Sonic planet's "in canon" (sometimes it was our earth (but with the USA replaced, for some reason ?), sometime it was a pseudo-earth…). They made a choice, and it doesn't work with everything. Maybe they simply felt better working with such a framework than with another (let's be optimist and it be that they are doing a framework and that they won't change choice every n years again).


Remember one big difference between things like the MCU, comics and Sonic games : there is between 2 and 3 years between console "major" Sonic games. There are between two and three MCU movies per years (I do not count the series, as like the sidegames are to major Sonic games, they are a bit less popular than the incredibly popular movies). There is every month a new comic issue. The influx is not the same, not at all. That change many things for me, especially with a franchise like Sonic that'll get a certain amount of newcomers as it's often destined to teen and pre-teen.

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55 minutes ago, Kazhnuz said:

- The "full moon" is logical for creative reason. If every game have to be a complete story, having an unexplained element that would have to be explained or to link to another game a part of the background on every night would simply be a really bad idea for newcomers. It's just something to big to accept. The only game where it's a shame is Shadow the Hedgehog (as it's a true sequel). It's acceptable for a niche things like comics, not for games that aren't destined only to fans. Sonic X handled it better, though… but making a game just for changing a small thing for future games would be too much. Maybe that they should have introduced it in Sonic Advance, as the moon appears (or it would have been too soon before SA2, as it would basically need to link to an element of a game that have just been released) like with a mention in the Manual, or something like that. But all in one : keeping the moon destroyed would have made a need to remodel it with each game, for something that either wouldn't be understandable for new player (when Sonic is and have ever been pretty "casual" both in gameplay (except in Sonic 2 Game Gear) and story) or need to add some references. So not a really good RoI just to please some nitpicky fan , to be frank.

I disagree, they could keep it, in Rick and Morty, the floor becomes fissured in season 1, and it remains that way in all the seasons, and as we know the Rick and Morty episodes are pretty standalone on their own.

https://i.redd.it/csf5fohg97iz.jpg

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3 minutes ago, Marco9966 said:

I disagree, they could keep it, in Rick and Morty, the floor becomes fissured in season 1, and it remains that way in all the seasons, and as we know the Rick and Morty episodes are pretty standalone on their own. 

Not the same public, not the same impact, not the same cost.

Basically, the two case are different, keeping a crack in a cartoon and keeping a shattered moon in a whole game series (basically if they had kept it, they would have had to keep it 17 years) doesn't have the same cost and repercution. Making a cartoon isn't the same as making a game. The cost of keeping the crack, both narratively and litteraly isn't really the same than keeping the shattered moon. As the public of Rick and Morty often will be more "nerdy" than a big part of the Sonic fandom (that as I said often target teen and preteen), and that a crack in the ground doesn't really have the same significance of having a broken moon, the difference of context change how much it's interesting for the Sonic Team and the people making Rick and Morty. The exemple you have shown doesn't have the same context of the Sonic franchise.

That's why I said it was a bad idea in the context of Sonic, not in general. For instance, that's the reason I said why it was easier to keep in the comic-book than in the videogame series.

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34 minutes ago, Kazhnuz said:

Not the same public, not the same impact, not the same cost.

Basically, the two case are different, keeping a crack in a cartoon and keeping a shattered moon in a whole game series (basically if they had kept it, they would have had to keep it 17 years) doesn't have the same cost and repercution. Making a cartoon isn't the same as making a game. The cost of keeping the crack, both narratively and litteraly isn't really the same than keeping the shattered moon. As the public of Rick and Morty often will be more "nerdy" than a big part of the Sonic fandom (that as I said often target teen and preteen), and that a crack in the ground doesn't really have the same significance of having a broken moon, the difference of context change how much it's interesting for the Sonic Team and the people making Rick and Morty. The exemple you have shown doesn't have the same context of the Sonic franchise.

That's why I said it was a bad idea in the context of Sonic, not in general. For instance, that's the reason I said why it was easier to keep in the comic-book than in the videogame series.

It's the same, all they have to do is keep using the same moon model, or just a picture of the moon since it's in the sky background ( Like they keep using the same character models and levels recycling!!!) In R&M the animators have to draw it in different angles and adapt the storyboards to it!

Also Rick and Morty is way more mainstream than Sonic, everyone I know watches it, it's not the same for Sonic. Just because we want a broad audience doesnt mean we don't care about the details. That's why MCU and Rick and Morty have more forums and facebook pages and engagement in general, becuase the creators care about their creation and reward their fans with continuity and references! Not jumping between target ages like Lost World did (compare this kiddie game to ShtH!).

Also the Sonic fandom is pretty "nerdy" even the kids, some 10 year olds came to the Q&A with Iizuka and asked him about some hidden soundtrack on S3&K, and hyper forms and Super Emeralds! Webber was impressed that they knew the lore!! Look at the old fansites eversonic, eggmanempire, les chao planete-sonic, sonic-system, all the skyblogs, the aminos, they keep talking about LORE first and theorizing about everything.

At least the IDW comics respect their fans.

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1 hour ago, Marco9966 said:

Not jumping between target ages like Lost World did (compare this kiddie game to ShtH!).

If I had to pick a game that was more in line tonally with say, Sonic 3 (you know, the original series), I’d go with Lost World over Shadow. Not that Lost World is good, it sucks, but I’d say Shadow is more of an example of jumping around target ages than that. Shit, that’s what it was meant to be wasn’t it? 

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Can we just pretend Sonic's World (or this fantasy version of Earth, since it's SA2) has multiple moons and we just never see the broken one again

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I'd argue the opposite. They were still clearly targeting kids. They saw kids being drawn to more violent action games and sought to emulate it, blindly. It's why everything feels so hamfisted and disingenuous. They just wanted the game to feel cooler and more mature to a younger person, but not much more than that since they still towed the line to get an E10 rating.

I don't think the tone of a work always has to do with it's target audience. Sonic has always shot straight about being for 6-12 year olds to the point where it'll alter itself to be like other things they like. That's where most if the art shifts in the series post SA2 come from

To that end, there's no more artistic merit in Lost World's approach than there is Shadow's to me. I dunno where the fuck the idea either game looks anything like Sonic 3 comes from or why that matters either.

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4 minutes ago, Wraith said:

I'd argue the opposite. They were still clearly targeting kids. They saw kids being drawn to more violent action games and sought to emulate it, blindly. It's why everything feels so hamfisted and disingenuous. They just wanted the game to feel cooler and more mature to a younger person, but not much more than that since they still towed the line to get an E10 rating.

I don't think the tone of a work always has to do with it's target audience. Sonic has always shot straight about being for 6-12 year olds to the point where it'll alter itself to be like other things they like. That's where most if the art shifts in the series post SA2 come from

To that end, there's no more artistic merit in Lost World's approach than there is Shadow's to me. I dunno where the fuck the idea either game looks anything like Sonic 3 comes from or why that matters either.

I was using Sonic 3 as an example of the established tone/audience of the series, and why I thought Shadow was jumping around compared to it. That said, I see your point about ShTh’s audience really not being that much different to usual. 

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4 hours ago, Marco9966 said:

It's the same, all they have to do is keep using the same moon model, or just a picture of the moon since it's in the sky background ( Like they keep using the same character models and levels recycling!!!) In R&M the animators have to draw it in different angles and adapt the storyboards to it! 

First, they don't use the same models, they are modified to games needs. And the shattered moon haven't even been modelised in SA2. So nope, it's still work, and basically it's work for something that'll have less return on investissement in the concept of the fanbase.

4 hours ago, Marco9966 said:

Also Rick and Morty is way more mainstream than Sonic, everyone I know watches it, it's not the same for Sonic. Just because we want a broad audience doesnt mean we don't care about the details. That's why MCU and Rick and Morty have more forums and facebook pages and engagement in general, becuase the creators care about their creation and reward their fans with continuity and references! Not jumping between target ages like Lost World did (compare this kiddie game to ShtH!). 

Difference between quantity and properties. Rick and Morty handle their niche better than Sonic handle their mainstream public. And yet again you isolated only one part and ignored every other arguments. TBH if you go to people I know, there is only my "internet friends" that looks at Rick and Morty. It's dedicated to a specific public, that'll laugh at the science joke and stuff like that. That's not a bad thing, but that's not "mainstream" (and its fanbase are the first one to remember that to people humorously with their memes).

4 hours ago, Marco9966 said:

Also the Sonic fandom is pretty "nerdy" even the kids, some 10 year olds came to the Q&A with Iizuka and asked him about some hidden soundtrack on S3&K, and hyper forms and Super Emeralds! Webber was impressed that they knew the lore!! Look at the old fansites eversonic, eggmanempire, les chao planete-sonic, sonic-system, all the skyblogs, the aminos, they keep talking about LORE first and theorizing about everything. 

Only a fraction of the player go on website dedicated to something, and only a fraction of those who read website engage in forum and stuff. The "fandom" is only a part of the people that consume Sonic. Heck, you use IDW as an exemple, but it's the very exemple of "let's not put too much lore-fanservice to keep the story available to newbies". Even the second continuity of ArchieSonic only shown the broken moon in some space shot, the exact same explanation that Iizuka did.

And this community isn't really a proof the importance of having a more complete lore that works well, or even a basic framework like I want. The fanbase kept being pretty active until around Colors (in France so it might be different between other countries). In this period, the canon was already pretty inconsistent and changed from a fan to the other. Some remarks that I can make are :

- The moon was already full again(I think that even in Advance we see that it's full).

- SEGA already had basically erased all the classic characters like Bean, Bark, etc.

- There were people believing that Shadow was an android, even after Shadow there were doubt for some fans, until this plot point were forgotten.

- The Blaze/Nega problem happened.

- Unleashed changed Earth map entirely, and didn't reuse any canon location.

- There were already some people believing that the Sonic X canon was canon in some form (with stuff like the two world, but also sentiments between Amy and Sonic).

- There were many people thinking that some elements from the Archie were canon (often they didn't read it, and found elements on Internet, like for instance Knuckle's familly)

- There were also the dispute between fans of the American vs the Japanese canons (we still got some "it's Robotnik" today). For people that were 1-world (i agree that they were dominent, though), there were a lot of discussion around Mobius and Earth, even if it was the word "Earth" that was used on SA2. 

Basically, the canon and it's representation in the dedicated fanbase was already pretty weak at this time. Basically everybody made their own thing and discussed about the possibilities. You got tons of differents maps, that contradicted each other. I remember some maps that disregarded completely place like South and Westside Island while using, maps that placed everything on these island on the contrary… There were explanation and theories to work around discrepancies, etc. And, of course, all of us thought that we were entirely 100% rights and every other people that have a different idea just didn't understand the canon XD. There were a lot of verbal fights and disagreement. And a lot of "nowaday the Sonic Team don't care, look at how they forgot the classic games and characters", nihil novi sub sole (yeah I wanted to look fancy, it's just "nothing new under the sun" xD).

So I don't think that it's a question of "how much lore there is", or how much things are consistent. I think it's purely a question of that they game doesn't give enough food for though (and that a lot of fan like you doesn't like as much as we did in our era work around problems). The problem why people aren't discussion about the world canon isn't "they changed to two world". It's that there isn't enough thing to say about the world now. (actually for me the two world is even the only interesting things to happens since a while, so xD But maybe because I'm one of the few person dumb enough to be happy to rewatch all Sonic Rivals 2 cutscene just to think of where it's happening).

Even if I actually want a better lore, I don't think that it's the main problem of the serie right now, nor that this lore should tie too much the game (it would be unconstructive for the franchise). That's why I'm more for a framework that would have the bases, and games using new or returning locations according to their needs. After that, what framework, it's up to them to decide. "Mobius", "Earth", "Future Earth", "Planet Freedom", "Two world", it's just an implementation details of how the different place works together, imo. What's important it's that they finally choose a framework, and stop being undecided. And have a better writing team. As for current Sonic Team member, I'm interested about Eitaro Toyoda, who worked both on the final japanese version of Forces (he removed some of the dumb things of Forces) and on the cute anniversary comics, IIRC. I think he have an interesting vision of the characters and the universe, and thus have a lot of potential.

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On 11/16/2018 at 7:18 PM, Conquering Storm’s Servant said:

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.

I agree with the bit about the writers, disagree about the SA2 bit. SA2 is far from an example of a good story. In fact, the story really sucked despite the popularity and affinity people have for the characters.

In general I'd add that the writing for stories in the sonic franchise have never ever been great, even in the classic era, but they do have the potential to be great stories. The biggest problem here is that SEGA is stuck in a divide between its fans: the ones that want sonic to be a simple story and straightforward narrative as it was created to be in the genesis days vs those who want the plots to be more "complex" with intricate details and heavy dialogue, with the focus not centered around sonic as much. These are the people that are deluded into thinking the series can be anything remotely like marvel, and that the series is not about sonic primarily, and instead him and his friends as though it's primarily a team oriented franchise like the super friends or something (its not).

I'd argue that the latter has NEVER worked even once and that SEGA should run far away from like they did after '06.....but I also do think that increasing the amount of effort of storytelling in terms of the series' central themes and action driven narrative could pay off in a big way. Sonic could use more storytelling elements especially in its 3D games and it could be done in a way that increases casual interest in the series and in a way that is accessible to an audience of all ages...and this is where good writers come in.

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7 hours ago, UpCDownCLeftCRightC said:

I agree with the bit about the writers, disagree about the SA2 bit. SA2 is far from an example of a good story. In fact, the story really sucked despite the popularity and affinity people have for the characters.

In general I'd add that the writing for stories in the sonic franchise have never ever been great, even in the classic era, but they do have the potential to be great stories. The biggest problem here is that SEGA is stuck in a divide between its fans: the ones that want sonic to be a simple story and straightforward narrative as it was created to be in the genesis days vs those who want the plots to be more "complex" with intricate details and heavy dialogue, with the focus not centered around sonic as much. These are the people that are deluded into thinking the series can be anything remotely like marvel, and that the series is not about sonic primarily, and instead him and his friends as though it's primarily a team oriented franchise like the super friends or something (its not).

I'd argue that the latter has NEVER worked even once and that SEGA should run far away from like they did after '06.....but I also do think that increasing the amount of effort of storytelling in terms of the series' central themes and action driven narrative could pay off in a big way. Sonic could use more storytelling elements especially in its 3D games and it could be done in a way that increases casual interest in the series and in a way that is accessible to an audience of all ages...and this is where good writers come in.

You sound really upset a bunch of people like a different version of sonic

 

" Deluded " nah man, folks just like different stuff , calm down.

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Sonic Team just tries to be like Nintendo in that it tries to make Sonic a series where the characters are just actors playing parts but they also pretend that it's really a series with continuity (see Chaos in Sonic Forces). They flop at this. Show that once again Sonic has no solid direction.

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9 hours ago, UpCDownCLeftCRightC said:

I agree with the bit about the writers, disagree about the SA2 bit. SA2 is far from an example of a good story. In fact, the story really sucked despite the popularity and affinity people have for the characters.

And others would disagree in kind and say it’s the last good story before the writing started to blatantly suck on day one for almost every game since.

But my point isn’t concerned with personal tastes than it is reception and success in much the same way we look at SA1 despite the problems in its story. And to that same degree, SA2 was still considered a good story, and is still argued as such to this day even before some sub-sets of the fandom considered otherwise almost 20 years in hindsight, as hardly any Sonic game’s story since then has gartered SA2’s degree of reception in spite of that until arguably Unleashed was released. And regardless of how anyone feels about the game, it’s story doesn’t carry most of the flaws or criticisms that games after it have been having.

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The problem with this is that the MCU and other comic book film franchises are pulling from 60+ years worth of material, with each character having his own long list of individual stories and lore.

Any franchise not just Sonic would love this level of depth of story to choose from.

I'm not making excuses for Sonic Team's wishy-washy back and forth take on Sonics whole universe but they are creating it as they go , the MCU isn't, its all already there for them to work with.

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At this point Sonic Team kinda needs to have a new backstory for the entire Modern Sonic era, now that the Classic series is treated as a separate universe and not as events happen in the past. We have to now how Sonic meat Tails and Amy, if Knuckles is in the modern era still the guardian of the Master emerald, if Silver is still from the future and how Shadow is created. 

I personally think that they have to reboot the Modern Sonic era with a brand new game that establishes the new lore for this universe.

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1 hour ago, Rowl said:

We have to now how Sonic meat Tails and Amy, if Knuckles is in the modern era still the guardian of the Master emerald, if Silver is still from the future and how Shadow is created.  

And all of these are things that have been shown after the Classic era (even the meeting between Tails and Sonic & Amy and Sonic), so that aren't concerned by Classic series treated as another universe.

And the Master Emerald and references to the Knuckles clan have appeared in the Forces webcomics (that were scenarized by Sonic Team and approuved for an official use), and several references to stuff done post-98 appeared in the anniversary strips. So tbh, even if a reboot was needed (something I'm not convinced of, it would be kinda be "let's try to improve the canon by making one that will work" and as a result would be just one supplementary canon to be forgotten, basically the storytelling version of https://xkcd.com/927/) , this wouldn't be because of that, because that didn't change.

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21 hours ago, Conquering Storm’s Servant said:

And others would disagree in kind and say it’s the last good story before the writing started to blatantly suck on day one for almost every game since.

But my point isn’t concerned with personal tastes than it is reception and success in much the same way we look at SA1 despite the problems in its story. And to that same degree, SA2 was still considered a good story, and is still argued as such to this day even before some sub-sets of the fandom considered otherwise almost 20 years in hindsight, as hardly any Sonic game’s story since then has gartered SA2’s degree of reception in spite of that until arguably Unleashed was released. And regardless of how anyone feels about the game, it’s story doesn’t carry most of the flaws or criticisms that games after it have been having.

Again I just flat out disagree and dont think its retroactive criticism to say that that story sucked. Many people noted problems with that within the first year of the games release, so it's really far from a subset of fans...thats just not true at all. Only diehard SA2 fans hold it up as ant sort of standard whatsoever.

The thing is, the story is not SA2's biggest problem. Had its gameplay issues been worked out to a larger degree, most people (myself included) would not care in the slightest about how stupid the story is. And the thats largely because sonic games have never been known for great storytelling in the first place. An SA2 with more polish and less alternative gameplay issues would have seen a far better legacy regardless of the story. 

I still think the stories can and should be much better and can see how it would help the franchise's 3D games, and on this major point we agree so I too dont want to get caught up on this smaller point.

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4 hours ago, UpCDownCLeftCRightC said:

The thing is, the story is not SA2's biggest problem.

But the story is the whole point of this topic, regarding more than just SA2, which you’re talking way more personally about its gameplay than what my point is about, dude.

And it is a subset of fans. This whole fandom isn’t one huge mass, or even split on two sides given those more ambivalent that aren’t diehard fans, but don’t dislike the game or it’s story. . Nevermind how the reception actually was the first year of the game.

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