How would you fix Sonic's lore, gameplay, narrative, and characters?

[Multikaris]

13 minutes ago, DabigRG said:

Since I don't have an easy means of drawing & uploading things, I have to ask: what would Zavok, Zik, and especially Zomom look like?

Zomom’d look like this:

 

 

But with the proportions of Storm the Albatross (and in yellow)

 

 

This for Zik, except with the proportions of Classic Knuckles.

 

Zavok would have multiple forms.

[Scritch the Cat]

1 hour ago, Conquering Storm’s Servant said:

I’m sorry, but this falls flat on its face when the likes of Mania and the revival of the Classic branch, while no less unapproachable for kids as the Modern branch, was without question marketed with older, adult fans in mind.

I’d almost go so far to say that Mania and what it brought was made primarily with older fans more than children given the former group was the one demanding it for the past decade, with Sega definitely trying (and failing) to cater to that group given what Sonic 4 was meant to be until the Mania team came along and delivered.

On top of that, there’s good marketing sense to have a broad demographic appeal for something like Sonic, and some would argue it’s downright stupid to ignore a potential market that would likely be interested in such a product if they expanded their horizon more given the amount of money that would bring. Funny enough, I’m pretty damn sure Sonic Team and Sega know this, but they unfortunately have bad practices or sense when it comes to delivering. The likes of Pontaff writing the games, for one, wasn’t decided by children complaining about the writing; the likes of Sonic being to dark and gritty than it could handle wasn’t decided by children criticizing the end results; the likes of Sonic-only gameplay sure as hell wasn’t decided by children annoyed by other characters; and the likes of a darker plot that Forces was sure as hell wasn decided by children annoyed by things that weren’t feeling like a challenge. Nor was bringing back classic Sonic gameplay decided by children complaining about Modern Sonic.

You’d probably argue “that’s the point,” but I argue that’s barely even touching the surface. Children will eat these things up regardless—give a 7 year old a copy of ShTH or Sonic 06 and I’m pretty sure they’ll have a TON of fun with it like a kid playing Sonic 3&K compared to a teenager adult who’s more picky and likely to find the obvious faults that bring it down or see that S3&K is a damn good game. But kids are not always the group going out to buy these products. And they certainly don’t have the income to buy them with such ease either unless their family is that loaded to give them everything.

Disney has done this almost consistently with their movies being catered toward a family audience—why do you think films like the Lion King, Beauty and the Beast, Mulan, Aladdin, among dozens of others are held as such classics to this very day by the same adults who used to be kids when it was released, or even those who were already adults at that time? Yeah, they have art and funny characters for kids, but they also engage adults with that and more, to the point that many of these films which are damn near three decades old can still be watched by grown men and women without them looking back on it as if it’s embarrassing to watch. Hell, even their newer movies, Zootopia, Moana, Wreck-It Ralph, and while I don’t care for it, Frozen, still continues to deliver and invite children and adults to enjoy them.

You know what this seems similar to? Classic Sonic. Although that can be debatable given the point I already made at the beginning.

These threads devolve into “"WHY CAN'T THE CORPORATE FRANCHISE FOR SEVEN YEAR OLDS CATER TO ME” because these people want to enjoy the franchise like the kids that others constantly rebuke as “it’s not for you, it’s for kids.” They want to enjoy something they’ve been a part of and want to continue being part of for years—that’s why they’re fans. And I’d wager that even Nintendo, creators of the very “kiddy” Mario and the go to example of a company the opposition likes to point at and insult them as a “kiddie company”—while still buying their damn games, ironically enough—would laugh in your face given all the games they’ve made for all ages to be a part of, each different from the other but all still playable and fun whether you 5 years old or 50. Yeah, Mario seems like the character designed for 10 year olds, but we still have plenty of 20, 30, even 40 year olds playing them who are far more vocal about it than the kids will be for that time. And whether we’re talking Megaman, Zelda, Pokemon, Disney, Marvel, and so forth (oh believe me, I have a huge list I can make for you) the entire idea is the same.

It may be rather self-absorbed the way some subsets of this fandom go about it, but it’s not unusual. It’s not unreasonable to be upset about not feeling included in something, especially when they’ve long been a part of it for years—it’s the same kind of feeling many Classic fans have been vocal about until they finally got Mania. Why we’re now criticizing others for the same thing, or for wanting something damn near every major multimedia franchise does and succeeds in that Sonic keeps fumbling to achieve due primarily to bad and arbitrary decisions, reeks of a myopic view that one should really know better at this point. Kids may be enjoying the games, but they’re not the ones calling the shots, giving the inputs, or even only ones being catered to. This franchise’s wonky history is proof of that in itself.

EDIT: Oh, and for the record, I include Teens along with adults. A lot of people forget about them, but they’re usually just as picky in tastes as adults.

Nintendo isn't fully in the clear for me.  They're more technically competent than Sonic Team, for sure, but I don't like how they've put super guides and white tanuki suits in their games to reward n00bs for failing.  Add an easy mode or make a whole game either, but never reward failure.

Also Pokemon has lost its appeal to me; not so much because it's catered to children as it always feels catered to first-time Pokemon players, whatever their age, so for veterans like myself every game is an easy but tedious grind; made worse by shamefully and needlessly repetivive plots and nearly absent world-building.

[DabigRG]

3 minutes ago, Miragnarok said:

Zomom’d look like this:

 

 

But with the proportions of Storm the Albatross (and in yellow)

 

 

This for Zik, except with the proportions of Classic Knuckles.

 

Zavok would have multiple forms.

Da FOQ?

...Why...?

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

22 minutes ago, Scritch the Cat said:

Nintendo isn't fully in the clear for me.  They're more technically competent than Sonic Team, for sure, but I don't like how they've put super guides and white tanuki suits in their games to reward n00bs for failing.  Add an easy mode or make a whole game either, but never reward failure.

Also Pokemon has lost its appeal to me; not so much because it's catered to children as it always feels catered to first-time Pokemon players, whatever their age, so for veterans like myself every game is an easy but tedious grind; made worse by shamefully and needlessly repetivive plots and nearly absent world-building.

That doesn’t really refute my point tho, and I stopped playing Pokemon after Ruby and Sapphire were announced on the Gameboy Advance.

Honestly, things like that and the White Tanuki suit (forgive me if I get these things wrong, but I’m a little behind on some Mario titles) seem more like that’s the point with drawing in new audiences while the older ones still enjoy them. While I’ve never played a Pokemon game sense largely for gameplay and personal reasons, all that sounds more like Nintendo simply has a grasp of how to do something new without jumping the shark as Sonic Team did with ShTH AND 06, among a other fumbles with Sonic.

All in all, Nintendo has wide demographic appeal—Pokemon, Mario, Zelda, Donkey Kong, these are franchises for all ages. Sure they look like kids would enjoy them more, but like Disney and their movies, Nintendo makes their games appeal to as many as they without excluding people who would be interested. They may not get everyone, and they certainly aren’t trying to please everyone either, but they’re definitely trying to please and include those who are interested and know their audience isn’t exclusively kids that go out to buy and play them.

[Multikaris]

4 minutes ago, DabigRG said:

Da FOQ?

...Why...?

Maybe with less detail on their features, though. Still keeping the same sort of vibe as Void and Chaos design-wise.

[SBR2]

12 minutes ago, Miragnarok said:

Zomom’d look like this:

 

 

But with the proportions of Storm the Albatross (and in yellow)

 

 

This for Zik, except with the proportions of Classic Knuckles.

 

Zavok would have multiple forms.

Y'know I don't have the massive dislike for the Deadly Six but I'd be 100% down for them being straight up Sentai/Power Rangers Monsters. 

[DabigRG]

24 minutes ago, Miragnarok said:

Maybe with less detail on their features, though. Still keeping the same sort of vibe as Void and Chaos design-wise.

Uh huh...

Um, but Zavok-goro tho...?

 

EDIT: I just reread that it says forms rather than arms. My bad.

[MasterDisaster64]

35 minutes ago, Miragnarok said:

Zomom’d look like this:

 

 

But with the proportions of Storm the Albatross (and in yellow)

 

 

This for Zik, except with the proportions of Classic Knuckles.

 

Zavok would have multiple forms.

I like this. They look a bit goofy, but badass at the same time.

The issue with the Deadly Six isn’t just their looks, though. It’s also their one note personalities, their incongruous powers, their lack of context in the story, the generic name of their group... if you were to change them enough to work in a Sonic story, they’d hardly be recognizable.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

I doubt that. All you really need to do is fill in the gaps to make then more three-dimensional.

For starters, you could give them more background, or history, that gives them an establishdd presence like they did starting with Knuckles and his Island, Blaze for her dimension, or Shadow and his motives in SA2.

[DabigRG]

Expanding on or at least explaining the Deadly Six some more is definitely a priority when it comes to them. Particularly things like what the group as a whole is about per Master Zik's original intention and why Zomom & Zeena are in the group despite their normally counterintuitive temperaments & capabilities.

While we're talking about it, though, it sounded like they intended to follow up on them and/or the Zeti race in a later appearance.

[MasterDisaster64]

18 minutes ago, Conquering Storm’s Servant said:

I doubt that. All you really need to do is fill in the gaps to make then more three-dimensional.

For starters, you could give them more background, or history, that gives them an establishdd presence like they did starting with Knuckles and his Island, Blaze for her dimension, or Shadow and his motives in SA2.

That reminds me. The Deadly Six’s associated location would also need to be fleshed out. They could be natives of Little Planet, but if you wanna keep the idea of the Lost Hex, sure. Just give it unique worldbuilding.

Like, say the Lost Hex is a belt of planetoids around Earth/Mobius/Sonic’s™ World™ that only emerges in the event of an extreme chaos energy eruption. I know that sounds dumb, I came up with that in like two minutes, but you get the point. It could even be the origin of surreal landmasses like South and West Side Island.

And instead of the cookie cutter New Super Mario Bros biomes, why not build whole areas out of the few cool ideas the place does have? The honeycomb level was neat, so you could have a whole forest of weird floating trees like that. And have hives with some weird bee-like creature, and even a golden temple dedicated to them.

[Diogenes]

2 minutes ago, MasterDisaster64 said:

And instead of the cookie cutter New Super Mario Bros biomes, why not build whole areas out of the few cool ideas the game does have? The honeycomb level was neat, so you could have a whole forest of weird floating trees like that. And have hives with some weird bee-like creature, and even a golden temple dedicated to them.

Instead of using a theme that was in a Mario game, they could...use a theme that was in a Mario game?

[MasterDisaster64]

3 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

Instead of using a theme that was in a Mario game, they could...use a theme that was in a Mario game?

That was in Mario games less, I mean. And they could still put a Sonic twist on it with loops, corkscrews, some surreal-looking dirt and the temple/ruins I mentioned.

[DabigRG]

52 minutes ago, MasterDisaster64 said:

their incongruous powers,

Incongruous how?

33 minutes ago, MasterDisaster64 said:

That reminds me. The Deadly Six’s associated location would also need to be fleshed out. Just give it unique worldbuilding.

Oh yeah, that too. Honestly, the fact that Tails and especially Eggman knew what the Lost Hex was, combined with the Zeti's longevity, feels like it may have always been there.

33 minutes ago, MasterDisaster64 said:

They could be natives of Little Planet, but if you wanna keep the idea of the Lost Hex, sure.

You're not the first person I've heard suggest that. What's the logic there?

33 minutes ago, MasterDisaster64 said:

 

Like, say the Lost Hex is a belt of planetoids around Earth/Mobius/Sonic’s™ World™ that only emerges in the event of an extreme chaos energy eruption. I know that sounds dumb, I came up with that in like two minutes, but you get the point. 

 

You're right--that does sound what the fuck.

38 minutes ago, MasterDisaster64 said:

It could even be the origin of surreal landmasses like South and West Side Island.

 

That brings to mind that "Pieces of Sonic's World that mysteriously broke off" explanation I couldn't find the source for.

33 minutes ago, MasterDisaster64 said:

And instead of the cookie cutter New Super Mario Bros biomes, why not build whole areas out of the few cool ideas the place does have? The honeycomb level was neat, so you could have a whole forest of weird floating trees like that. And have hives with some weird bee-like creature, and even a golden temple dedicated to them.

 A temple for bees?

I like the idea of combining level tropes to create a distinct world area; in this case, a desert with ancient temples & Beetlejuice sandworms in some places and floating cacti-trees housing beehives that function off of cactus flowers.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

1 hour ago, MasterDisaster64 said:

That reminds me. The Deadly Six’s associated location would also need to be fleshed out. They could be natives of Little Planet, but if you wanna keep the idea of the Lost Hex, sure. Just give it unique worldbuilding.

Like, say the Lost Hex is a belt of planetoids around Earth/Mobius/Sonic’s™ World™ that only emerges in the event of an extreme chaos energy eruption. I know that sounds dumb, I came up with that in like two minutes, but you get the point. It could even be the origin of surreal landmasses like South and West Side Island.

How about Lost Hex was once a part of the Earth (fuck “Sonic’s World,” I’m sticking with Earth or Mobius) prior to Dark Gaia’s awakening in ancient times when it broke off into a floating piece whose existence was lost to the known world and existed in legend, hence the name “Lost Hex”?

Would basically be a second Angel Island.

[ThePrinceOfSaiyans]

Lore: Honestly, I'd try to keep things fairly simplistic. Sonic and Tails try to stop Eggman when he tries to industrialize things. Knuckles wouldn't be the guardian of the Master Emerald as that just makes it hard to incorporate Knuckles into stories that don't involve the Master Emerald. Honestly, I'd just make Knuckles a resident of the island who doesn't know anything about his history. As the games progress he learns more about the Echidnas, whom I would make responsible for the creation of the Master Emerald and Chaos Emeralds. For them, the "Chaos Force" would be a sort of god. The Chaos Emeralds would be created to harness the power of said god, but in reality, the Chaos Force is just a pool of limitless energy like it is in the main continuity. Wars held over the use the Emeralds eventually lead to the extinction of the Echidnas and Knuckles is a remnant. For Shadow, I'm not entirely sure what I'd do. Maybe I'd make him a clone like ShayMay suggested, but the problem with that is Metal Sonic sorta fulfills that role in a more thematically appropriate way.  I could just make Gerald Robotnik evil from the get go. He could be working on Shadow before he's stopped by the military. Shadow could be left in some underground portion of his lab the military didn't notice, and Eggman could stumble upon it and finish Shadow himself, unleashing it on Sonic. Shadow would be an experiment based on the mural we see during Sonic's confrontation with Knuckles from S3&K. Also, regarding Super forms, everyone has one, and they all have actual god damn color changes! Sonic is gold, Tails is a light blue, Knuckles is green, Amy is red, and Shadow is white.

Gameplay: Just do what the classics did, but in 3D. If it is necessary to script certain things, do so, but try to shy away from scripting in general. The characters would play generally the same, but with their own quirks. Sonic would have the spin dash, drop dash, the homing attack, and shield abilities. Tails would have flight, a motor rev using his tails that would act as a spin dash, and maybe some gadgets given he's supposed to be genius. Knuckles could spin dash, climb, dig, glide, and punch. Amy would have her hammer, with which she could bash enemies, do a charged slam that destroys multiple enemies on the ground, and get extra air from using it on springs. Shadow would have the spin dash, homing attack, teleportation for extra height, and chaos spear. 

Narrative: The narrative would depend on the game. Like I said above though, keep it relatively simple. 

Characterization: I'd start by making everyone silent like they were in the classics. Don't get me wrong, I think Sonic can function with a voice cast. SA2 Sonic is probably my favorite version of Sonic, but there's simply less of a chance to screw up Sonic's characterization if he doesn't speak. Maybe that'd be a hard sell for kids, but I doubt it's a deal breaker. So, Sonic is cocky, Tails is intelligent but shy, Knuckles is naive and headstrong, Amy is a fanatic, and Shadow is a loner.

[MasterDisaster64]

46 minutes ago, DabigRG said:

Incongruous how?

You're not the first person I've heard suggest that. What's the logic there?

That brings to mind that "Pieces of Sonic's World that mysteriously broke off" explanation I couldn't find the source for.

I mean that the powers of the Zeti don’t match their appearance or personality. The crazy one has a moon that shoots stars... for some reason. The girl one has killer snowmen... for some reason. And the EMP powers are just convenient to keep the badniks as enemies.

The logic of Little Planet and the Zeti... well, LP and the Lost Hex are both surreal locations? (Though I’d say LP is more tasteful for the Sonic universe.) We don’t see the natives of LP, and the Zeti look alien enough to fit in there.

My idea is basically the opposite of that theory. Bits of the Lost Hex fell onto Earth.

[Multikaris]

1 hour ago, MasterDisaster64 said:

That was in Mario games less, I mean. And they could still put a Sonic twist on it with loops, corkscrews, some surreal-looking dirt and the temple/ruins I mentioned.

And making the colors totally different from what Mario used, too. Lost Hex’s apparent connection to Westside Island could be further established through stage design as well. 

[DabigRG]

2 hours ago, Conquering Storm’s Servant said:

How about Lost Hex was once a part of the Earth (fuck “Sonic’s World,” I’m sticking with Earth or Mobius) prior to Dark Gaia’s awakening in ancient times when it broke off into a floating piece whose existence was lost to the known world and existed in legend, hence the name “Lost Hex”?

Would basically be a second Angel Island.

Again, I saw something that basically said that at one point, but can't for the life of me track it down.

2 hours ago, MasterDisaster64 said:

I mean that the powers of the Zeti don’t match their appearance or personality. The crazy one has a moon that shoots stars... for some reason. The girl one has killer snowmen... for some reason. And the EMP powers are just convenient to keep the badniks as enemies.

 

To be fair, that has more to do with the mechs and/or location themselves than the actual Zeti.

I believe only Zavok and Zor have confirmed elemental powers, unless  you wanna count being psychic as one for Master Zik.

2 hours ago, MasterDisaster64 said:

 

The logic of Little Planet and the Zeti... well, LP and the Lost Hex are both surreal locations? (Though I’d say LP is more tasteful for the Sonic universe.) We don’t see the natives of LP, and the Zeti look alien enough to fit in there.

 

Hm.

What even was Little Planet, while we're on the topic?

2 hours ago, MasterDisaster64 said:

 

My idea is basically the opposite of that theory. Bits of the Lost Hex fell onto Earth.

Huh. That's sounds kinda interesting.

It'd put Zavok's plan in a whole nother light.

[MasterDisaster64]

5 hours ago, DabigRG said:

It'd put Zavok's plan in a whole nother light.

How, though? Wasn’t his plan just to suck the life energy out of Earth to get revenge on Eggman?

[DabigRG]

2 hours ago, MasterDisaster64 said:

How, though? Wasn’t his plan just to suck the life energy out of Earth to get revenge on Eggman?

Pretty much.

And whether he'd realize it or not in this scenario, he'd essentially be taking back what "belonged" to the Zeti long ago and then some.

[Shadowlax]

I feel like " Lets make Shadow quite literally a clone of sonic " is a really bad idea that should stop being suggested? I dunno feels like getting rid of... one of the entire points people like the character, he's kind of his own thing and can do his own stuff. Even though they were thematically pitted against each other in SA2 it was coincidence they never had any real significant meaning to each other and shadow's games goes out of the way to make that extra clear. I feel like " what if a clone " is just a severe lack of imagination.

If you want to simplify it, just do a simple " Gun took a hedgehog away from his parent's because he was special or something and they wanted to experiment on it, killed paren'ts he saw it it messed up up, experiments didn't work, locked him away " Or any tragedy where he looses someone, that's the important part. Trying to key him into the world so hard you make him related to the main character is seriously lacking in imagination.

 

Bam, not everything in the universe needs to be connected, that's like the first step to making shit super stale

[Dash Speed]

Problem with Shadow, he's far too popular to shaft into Sonics narrative Willy nilly. I'm positive he'd be off better in his own spin off series, and someone who plays Sonics main rival in serious sonic stories as well. Shadow has been marketed poorly and pushed from his potential since his game flopped, Sega does Not know what to do with him while they clearly have a confident direction. With the main four and eggman.

[Shadowlax]

2 hours ago, Dash Speed said:

Problem with Shadow, he's far too popular to shaft into Sonics narrative Willy nilly. I'm positive he'd be off better in his own spin off series, and someone who plays Sonics main rival in serious sonic stories as well. Shadow has been marketed poorly and pushed from his potential since his game flopped, Sega does Not know what to do with him while they clearly have a confident direction. With the main four and eggman.

I think you missed the point of what i'm saying? I'm not saying he can't just be in stories with sonic , he totes can. Though A shadow character action game would be neat, he can function around sonic fine. Though I would like him to interact with different characters, but that's a different discussion.

What i'm saying is, a lot of peoples first ideas are " What if Shadow was sonic's ancestor " Or " what if shadow was sonic's clone " like shadow and sonic need to be connected in some way, shadow's just some dude who exists. I mean how he came to exist is a concluded mystery that may need some trimming, he can just be... a dude. Sonic's cool and all but he doesn't really need everything connected to him. And that's where my criticism lies

I even feel away about that mural on knuckles's island , if I were in charge of sonic and got to reboot it, that would be gone too. I like sonic just... kind of being a dude and not exactly preordained to do anything. 

[Diogenes]

4 hours ago, Shadowlax said:

I feel like " Lets make Shadow quite literally a clone of sonic " is a really bad idea that should stop being suggested? I dunno feels like getting rid of... one of the entire points people like the character, he's kind of his own thing and can do his own stuff. Even though they were thematically pitted against each other in SA2 it was coincidence they never had any real significant meaning to each other and shadow's games goes out of the way to make that extra clear. I feel like " what if a clone " is just a severe lack of imagination.

If you want to simplify it, just do a simple " Gun took a hedgehog away from his parent's because he was special or something and they wanted to experiment on it, killed paren'ts he saw it it messed up up, experiments didn't work, locked him away " Or any tragedy where he looses someone, that's the important part. Trying to key him into the world so hard you make him related to the main character is seriously lacking in imagination.

 

Bam, not everything in the universe needs to be connected, that's like the first step to making shit super stale

I'm not going to say that one should be a clone of the other or they should be biologically related or whatever, but like...the whole point of SA2 was a Hero/Dark mirror kind of thing? And the game was explicitly comparing Sonic and Shadow, saying they look alike and have the same abilities to the point that Shadow inadvertently framed Sonic, and they develop this rivalry over which one is real and which is fake?

Like there is (rather, was) absolutely, 100%, no denying, a deliberate thematic connection between the two. How much of a physical connection there should be is debatable, but it's not unreasonable to suggest that there be something, rather than deciding that all of that is a coincidence and they're two completely unrelated people who just happen to be very similar.