What are you willing to sacrifice to make Sonic popular again?

[Splash the Otter]

47 minutes ago, Scar said:

The cast needs to be culled in a serious way. If merchandise is so goddamn important relegate them to the side lines. But let's be honest. Characters like Silver, Sticks, Big, Cream, Charmy, Bark, Bean, Fang (even Shadow, Rouge and the like to be brutally honest) etc. don't add anything to a franchise. Personally, I would slowly phase them out of existence. Stop mentioning their names, stop making their merchandise, and wait for them to fade out from our memories.

But what about the fans of those characters?

[Rabid-Coot]

Everything.

Sonic is now a 100 create your own character battle royal game.

[Lord-Dreamerz]

25 minutes ago, Splash the Otter said:

But what about the fans of those characters?

I wouldn't worry about SEGA doing that. SEGA wouldn't fully get rid of most characters from among the fairly overall popular side-cast even if they hard rebooted. They have to many fans and uses... and can't be simply swept under the rug after all this time easily anyways. They honestly don't hurt the series in any way.

[Shadowlax]

24 minutes ago, Splash the Otter said:

But what about the fans of those characters?

He doesn't care. 

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

I think it needs less sacrificing and more restructuring. Part of the problem seems to be that it been lacking that post-06 or Unleashed (heck, sometimes even then) when they try to have Sonic follow a trend or some random idea they had on the drawing board and never really integrate them seamlessly enough, if at all.

For example, the most they seem to stick with in full is the Boost mechanic, but they don’t make it versatile enough and have to resort to other things like the werehog, Classic Sonic, or the Avatar to balance it out.

[Shadowlax]

I don't think its defeatist. 

The iron for an adventure type stories that matter take on sonic is literally now. The iron has literally never been this hot. 

Lore

Storylines

A buncha characters that people like that do different stories that interconnect

World and stuff that you can have lore and secrets in

Its all super IN right now. Its never been more IN that's its ever been. There is no reason to believe sega on any level is paying attention to the world around them besides mario , because there's no indication that sonic team now does pay attention. Everything always seems after the fact with them, years down the line then they realize. So I don't think its defeatist, its just paying attention to who's in charge and taking notice it seems they aren't really good at.

 

[DabigRG]

9 minutes ago, Shadowlax said:

I don't think its defeatist. 

The iron for an adventure type stories that matter take on sonic is literally now. The iron has literally never been this hot. 

Lore

Storylines

A buncha characters that people like that do different stories that interconnect

World and stuff that you can have lore and secrets in

Its all super IN right now. Its never been more IN that's its ever been. There is no reason to believe sega on any level is paying attention to the world around them besides mario , because there's no indication that sonic team now does pay attention. Everything always seems after the fact with them, years down the line then they realize. So I don't think its defeatist, its just paying attention to who's in charge and taking notice it seems they aren't really good at.

 

That's actually a pretty good point, mate.

[McGroose]

I would sacrifice $59.99 plus tax from my wallet.

[PublicEnemy1]

4 hours ago, Scar said:

For starters, the cast. The cast needs to be culled in a serious way. If merchandise is so goddamn important relegate them to the side lines. But let's be honest. Characters like Silver, Sticks, Big, Cream, Charmy, Bark, Bean, Fang (even Shadow, Rouge and the like to be brutally honest) etc. don't add anything to a franchise. Personally, I would slowly phase them out of existence. Stop mentioning their names, stop making their merchandise, and wait for them to fade out from our memories. 

You're probably one of those people that think the game should only have Sonic and maybe Eggman, but mostly just Sonic.

[Skull Leader]

The developers at Sonic Team.

The characters, even the ones I'm not particularly fond of, can be redeemed if they were to be handled by people who are not only passionate about the franchise, but also talented and competent.

The IDW comic, as well as Mania Adventures show that these characters have endearing traits that are the reason why they have their fans. Sonic Mania (despite certain decisions) showed that the franchise can still deliver quality games.

In contrast, the game developers at ST managed to make a mess of a game with Forces, which considering used the same core gameplay as titles like Colors and Generations, was pretty dissapointing. Then there's the way Pontac and that other guy write the characters, who hardly do anything memorable anymore. Even Tails, who in the last decade had the most spotlight, achieved nothing and was badly butchered through SLW (entitled jerk) and Farces (coward that can't do shit without a Sonic... Literally ANY Sonic, by his side).

[Tarnish]

12 hours ago, Rabid-Coot said:

Everything.

Sonic is now a 100 create your own character battle royal game.

Sorry, couldn't help myself..

[SBR2]

20 hours ago, Ryannumber1gamer said:

In my humble opinion, if you have to gut Sonic of everything that makes him Sonic, what’s even the point?

Sonic became a media icon for a reason, you don’t survive this long after so many blunders if something in the core concept isn’t good. it shows a disturbing lack of faith in him by executives if you feel the need to destroy everything unique that got him to this point to try make him a “multi media icon”.

This So Freaking Much! I'm so tired of every other thread lately being "Hey what if we drastically changed everything that makes Sonic Sonic." And also this is maybe a super unpopular opinion but I really don't give a shit if something I like is popular or not. Who cares? I'm enjoying myself for  the most part why do my interests need to be validated?

[Scar]

14 hours ago, PublicEnemy1 said:

You're probably one of those people that think the game should only have Sonic and maybe Eggman, but mostly just Sonic.

That's a pretty bold assumption to make, considering I directly addressed my policy regarding characters later in my post. I want characters that regularly feature in the game, to bring interesting gameplay to the table. Theoretically, you could manufacture a "unique" gameplay for every single existing character. Ideally though you'd want it to mesh with an underlying gameplay philosophy that is central to the franchise, with alternate play styles supplementing (or contrasting if its well designed) that central design philosophy.

I'm not opposed to other characters existing. They need to add something though. Are they interesting characters? Can they be interesting characters? How many characters do you need for a single story? How many characters are too many characters?

If they can be done well, fine.

Main point though, is gameplay.

19 hours ago, Splash the Otter said:

But what about the fans of those characters?

I don't know. If you can't come up with anything interesting to do with them in the first place, do they really need to exist? Aside from appealing to a certain subsection of fans?

The more characters you shunt into a game in a meaningless bid to appeal to their particular fans and to keep them relevant, the more bloated the story gets. If you try to focus on just a few characters in the interest of keeping a tightly focused narrative, then the sidelined characters are just window dressing. They add nothing to the story and may as well not be there. Then there is the issue of fans of those sidelined characters being upset that they were present, but not involved. What then? 

If keeping these characters is essential then make tiers. Core cast, primary supporting cast, secondary supporting cast, fringe characters, or something. But they don't all need to be involved in every game, or indeed in any game at all. Let them stay in comic books or as merch. 

More to the point though, the fanbase of this franchise is so goddamn divided that no matter what Sonic Team,SEGA or whoever does, some subsection of fans will be displeased with the direction they choose to go, because it happens at the expense of what they like.

Adventure fans have been crying for literally years about how classic fans got Sonic 4 and Mania and blah blah blah, and how Boost fans got Generations and Forces and blah blah blah. Before them, it was the classic fans who had seen their once beloved franchise fall down the shitter in the interests of an edgy black hedgehog with fucking guns. And they complained on the internet about how classic design philosophies had been abandoned. I'm fucking certain that if Sonic Team moves away from the boost, some boost fans will come out of the woodwork and start complaining about how they are disappointed they aren't getting another one of those games. Where does it stop?

If anything is to be sacrificed at this point, its the interests of some subsections of fans. 

The question of this thread was "What are you willing to sacrifice to make Sonic popular again?"

So. If it were up to me, I'd go for a clean slate. Culling the cast is just one aspect of this. An initial small group of characters say, Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Amy and Eggman are much easier to develop and characterise properly, than a sprawling mess of 30 characters who have 30 fucking years of baggage associated with them. Fuck, even this "core cast" needs to probably be sat down and rewritten so they're not as shallow as they currently are. Sonic shouldn't just be the cocky, impatient asshole. Tails shouldn't just be the boy genius. Knuckles shouldn't just be a strong dumb fuck. Amy shouldn't just be the obligatory love interest/female character. Boom, for all the shit it gets, at least tried to do something interesting with them, even if I don't like the trend of Knuckles continually being a simpleton. They can also bring with them some unique gameplay that is both in keeping with a design philosophy, and yet sufficiently diversified to add some nice variety.

If this is starting to get a little thin, then you can reintroduce old favourites, but with similarly retooled characters (and backstories if need be), and maybe introduce a few new characters that have been given proper consideration. I don't want more Silver' or Infinites. I know Shadow is basically far too popular to ever be retired as a character and admittedly, I even have a soft spot for him. To "reintroduce" him, I wouldn't even mind a complete and total atomic reconstruction of SA2 (but better in every way) to preserve, or improve his backstory. But this should all take time. Sonic games should be once every 4-5 years. The big budget 3D ones at least.

If Whitehead wants to collab and make Mania-type games on the side for $15 a piece in between major releases, sure. If there are karting games, sports games or other spinoffs in between, fine. In fact, I'd be more than happy to relegate most of the side cast to appear in these all-stars type games.

I've already talked at length in many other threads, about how I'd like Sonic Team to go away and approach the gameplay. In a nutshell - go look at the classics, what made them great, what was the essence of that design philosophy. Go look at Adventures, what was good, what was bad. Go look at boost, what was good, what was bad. Take all that in and try coming up with a brand new 3D gameplay paradigm that brings all that knowledge together. Take as much time as is needed.

[Rowl]

Hard to say... we can not sacrifice the characters, since a lot of them, even the most useless ones like Charmy Bee and Sticks, have their fans. We also can not sacrifice the nostalgia elements from the past, since this series most remind the audience how good Sonic was 30 years ago. And we also can not get rid off all the buttrock music, since it is the most popular soundtrack of the franchise.

There is nothing really that can be sacrificed. Sonic's whole existence very depends on everything: Characters, music, nostalgia etc. The only thing that we could maybe sacrifice to make Sonic popular again, for the 4th time already, would be some of the key items like the golden rings, chili-dogs, the springs, and even the Chaos-Emeralds. Those are the only elements that I can see were no longer a part of the franchise if we have to sacrifice at least one thing. Maybe Sonic can have another trademark favorite food like roasted chicken or something, the rings can be replaced by... I don't know... marbles I guess and the Chaos Emeralds can be replaced by some other powerful objects like coins, crystals, burgers whatever.  

[Splash the Otter]

48 minutes ago, Scar said:

I don't know. If you can't come up with anything interesting to do with them in the first place, do they really need to exist? Aside from appealing to a certain subsection of fans?

The more characters you shunt into a game in a meaningless bid to appeal to their particular fans and to keep them relevant, the more bloated the story gets. If you try to focus on just a few characters in the interest of keeping a tightly focused narrative, then the sidelined characters are just window dressing. They add nothing to the story and may as well not be there. Then there is the issue of fans of those sidelined characters being upset that they were present, but not involved. What then? 

If keeping these characters is essential then make tiers. Core cast, primary supporting cast, secondary supporting cast, fringe characters, or something. But they don't all need to be involved in every game, or indeed in any game at all. Let them stay in comic books or as merch. 

More to the point though, the fanbase of this franchise is so goddamn divided that no matter what Sonic Team,SEGA or whoever does, some subsection of fans will be displeased with the direction they choose to go, because it happens at the expense of what they like.

Adventure fans have been crying for literally years about how classic fans got Sonic 4 and Mania and blah blah blah, and how Boost fans got Generations and Forces and blah blah blah. Before them, it was the classic fans who had seen their once beloved franchise fall down the shitter in the interests of an edgy black hedgehog with fucking guns. And they complained on the internet about how classic design philosophies had been abandoned. I'm fucking certain that if Sonic Team moves away from the boost, some boost fans will come out of the woodwork and start complaining about how they are disappointed they aren't getting another one of those games. Where does it stop?

If anything is to be sacrificed at this point, its the interests of some subsections of fans.

You could accomplish the same thing without upsetting anyone by rotating the cast. I agree that not everyone needs to be in every game, but that doesn't mean we should abandon them entirely.

[SupahBerry]

12 hours ago, Scar said:

I'm not opposed to other characters existing. They need to add something though. Are they interesting characters? Can they be interesting characters? How many characters do you need for a single story? How many characters are too many characters?

If they can be done well, fine.

Main point though, is gameplay.

The more characters you shunt into a game in a meaningless bid to appeal to their particular fans and to keep them relevant, the more bloated the story gets. If you try to focus on just a few characters in the interest of keeping a tightly focused narrative, then the sidelined characters are just window dressing. They add nothing to the story and may as well not be there. Then there is the issue of fans of those sidelined characters being upset that they were present, but not involved. What then? 

If keeping these characters is essential then make tiers. Core cast, primary supporting cast, secondary supporting cast, fringe characters, or something. But they don't all need to be involved in every game, or indeed in any game at all. Let them stay in comic books or as merch. 

If Whitehead wants to collab and make Mania-type games on the side for $15 a piece in between major releases, sure. If there are karting games, sports games or other spinoffs in between, fine. In fact, I'd be more than happy to relegate most of the side cast to appear in these all-stars type games.

While I don't think no bad Sonic character should ever come back despite popularity, I agree they also don't have to all be major playable characters in every single new mainline game. The questions people should ask on what characters need to be playable should boil down to if they can work with the game's mechanics and/or story. Give as a reason why their here. Fan pandering is not a real reason. If there's a character who's normally not know for going fast or rolling into a ball, you've got to make'em go fast and do something that feels like rolling.

If I'd really wanted to play as a character despite having no reason for them to be there, I'd just have them be exclusive to side games outside the main story. Look at Adventure 2 and Black Knight's multiplayer modes. No one is baffled on why Tikal and Chaos are shown to be alive or why Shadow is fighting his storybook self because they know that it's just a non canon gamemode and it's all just for fun. It doesn't have to be just for multiplayer. There are many ways to play as a character without ever intervening with the story.

Say that there's a new classic game, and it has you're basic Sonic, Tails, Knuckles and Eggman, that's all good. But then you get to the end and watch the credits roll, and then--

"Ta-Da! You've can now play as Shadow/Blaze/Silver in Time Attack and Competition!!"

Or you get a more modern styled game and get all the emblems or medals--

"Ta-Da! You can now play Classic Sonic mode! Play the same as regular Sonic but everyone looks retro, you got a more limited moveset, there are no voices or cutscenes, the sounds go all beep-and-boop, etc."

These are different twists on how the game normally plays out, but you're still playing the same way that you in the normal mode, pacing and all. 

It's like how Kirby Star Allies handles fanservice. You got favorite heroes and villains from past games that help Kirby in the story mode and are the main characters in their extra modes, but they have no real effect on the story itself since most of them are just "Dream" Friends. While not to the same scale, Sonic can be inspired by that in how it handles charcters. Sure, Kirby games don't a RPG deep story with great character depths, but you know what? Classic Sonic games don't either. If it wasn't for Sonic Team's labeling of who's allowed in what "world," I don't think there'd be a real problem if there were over ten playable characters in the game. Just as long as they play like they're from Sonic.

 

TLDR: Only put in characters who'd fit in with the gameplay and story, put popular characters that don't into optional sub-games so fans will still be happy.

[Dr. Detective]

I'm not sacrificing shit. Especially not the characters. Speaking of Thanos, Infinity War made a really good, goddamn movie with a ton of characters more than any movie should reasonably have with a point of view split in pretty much three ways. Yeah, put Sonic on Titan, Knuckles in that place where the axe is being made, and Tails on Wakanda. Then let everyone do their thing with only three playable characters while the story happens. 

Yeah, fuck sacrificing stuff. How about we get rid of the laziness? Let's try that. Can we get rid of the laziness and the assertion that the problem is any one element and not their inability to comfortably lie in the bed they've made? Maybe they should get to cleaning and sterilizing that mattress so those bed bugs stop infesting it.

[Foxthefox1000]

The thing with these characters is that they all have a purpose in the story and despite not being lightning fast, are STILL superhuman in their speeds. Sonic Dash shows that basically everyone can fit the boost formula and Sonic Forces Fever or whatever shows that this kind of stuff, conjoined with power-ups like in Rivals, can also function as an online experience. I would absolutely not be surprised if they have a sub-game with internet functionality that's literally just 100 Sonic characters duking it out online or like with the Avatar, they include OCs in an online hub world where you go to different characters for different tasks.

SEGA may be setting the foundation, or at least, testing it out for a game that'll be their most ambitious yet.

Though I doubt it and I'm just reading into it too much.

As for the whole "they have to fit into the story" thing yet a time-travelling hedgehog that continually comes to the past to fix everyone's mistakes LITERALLY being his whole shtick amd reason while Knuckles has basically abandoned his Angel Island keep for protecting the Emerald because otherwise, it'll demand he, a core character everyone knows, would be absent in most titles is being treated like he needs to stay when he's arguably not even a good character anymore (sending in 80% of your army in an all-out assault in the spur of things is dumb and they got wiped out because it was dumb) and they're basically writing him as the dumb one for no other reason than stereotypes is weird to me. At this point, the side characters at least have a little flair to them that's given them more characterization than Modern, or I guess I should say, Boost Era Knuckles. His Guardian role is only ever spoken of in spin-offs or in character bios that have no plot importance at all, and while he has shrunk the ME before, we're never told that he's just always doing that nowadays, and even then, wasn't the ME's power being channeled into Angel Island preventing it from falling? Why doesn't it fall now? It even got freaking shattered in SA2 and Angel Island wasn't even mentioned. It's like they discreetly wrote it out of existence without telling us directly, but also lead us to believe the opposite in offical bios! What even is this character anymore?!

Blaze, as popular as she is, is from another dimension. Her being in the story has about as much sense and meaning as Classic Sonic now that he's apparently "from another dimension", and she only comes to Sonic's world because of something that threatens her own dimension or something like that (so why wasn't she in Forces?). But realistically, there's more threats to the future of a modern society we always percieve in the games than the rare multi-dimensional or interdimensional stuff.

Vector could have a Wario thing going on where he goes on adventures for loot and stuff, but he's not popular so that ain't happening even if they started considering other characters for playability.

Espio is a ninja, so why not have a stealth section with him? Have him and Rouge team up to infiltrate a base and gather intel or something like that?

Speaking of Rouge, have her be like the Black Widow of the Sonic Universe where she's a multi-talented, borderline gifted woman who can kick butt, undergo spy missions, and maybe steal a few things. She's got a LOT of potential given she's got the canon training for basically anything the other characters can do besides maybe speed-based stuff, if that. She doesn't need to be fast for the gameplay to be fun, either. I dunno why we can't have a little Sly Cooper with Rouge. 

Amy could have the potential for her own little side adventure, but given her reoccurring set of abilities and characteristics, it may be a very simplified form of Sonic's "Adventuring and finding friends along the way" unless they find a new purpose for her character. 

 

 

[Skull Leader]

When it comes to defining who the core cast is, I think it boils down to just the following: Sonic and Eggman (literally the two most important characters of the franchise) followed by Tails and Amy. More than that is simply being ridiculous, as the rest of the characters either don't have the desire to follow Sonic on every single adventure or don't have much reason to be involved.

Tails is the character that Sonic feels more at ease with, and his intelligence offers a valuable asset when dealing against a villain who is by far much more skilled than Tails when it comes to making gadgets, but who often overlooks the small important details that only Tails more careful and patient outlook can spot and give Sonic the edge he needs to foil Eggman's plans. Plus Tails also needs Sonic because he was the very first person who saw something special in him instead of mockinh his twin tails like the other bullies that tormented and hurted his self-confidence.

Amy may not be as impressive as Tails, however she can play a very important role too as her much lower profile allows her to move without Eggman noticing her actions and help Sonic even if he does not notice her contributions. Also, don't forget that on occassions, some of Sonic's enemies will be characters like Shadow who just can't be beaten through force/fighting due to them being just as determined as Sonic. Here is where Amy enters as she can approach these type of characters and win them over, gaining newfound allies that join Sonic's cause. On top, Amy complements some of Sonic's aspects, like how while Sonic believes in himself because he has what it takes to save the world by himself, Amy instead believes in those whom she befriends so they can become better persons... While Sonic acts on the more grand scale and saves the world, Amy works on a smaller, more intimate scale where she saves people, sometimes even from themselves.

None of the other characters have a particular bond to Sonic to justify them being regulars, plus they often have their own things to do that unfortunately, are not directly linked to the conflict between Sonic and Eggman and lack the needed versatility. To add them to stories "just because" can only lead to them ending up like Knuckles through the entire modern era.

That being said, I don't oppose them showing up, as long as they have a good reason to be there and actually contribute to the story with something unique that only they can do. Likewise, while Tails and Amy have the justification in that they are the two characters who care the most for Sonic, they don't need to always be there, as other characters also need the chance to have room to shine and be the focus.

At least that's how I see things when it comes to storytelling. As for gameplay, here I care more about what the characters can bring to enrich the gameplay experience.

[Wraith]

Nailing down the "main cast" so hard has felt kinda weird to me because there might be times Knuckles, Amy, Tails or even Eggman might not need to be in a Sonic game that much if at all. 

This is the hardest case to make for Tails since he literally follows Sonic around but for the other 3 I could see it easily since there are a lot of games where they just end up feeling like loose ends anyway.

[Multikaris]

I think we need to officially divide the Dreamcast era from the modern one for good.  There’s already a few inroads to it, and I think firmly cutting off the bark would be a good way for the Modern branch to get their head on straight. Admittedly there’s a fair few characters only kept around for memes and whatnot at this point, like Big, Silver, and Vector. Things like Runners and the anniversary comic served as a sort of last hurrah for many things the new, more conservative Sonic Team fails to even acknowledge. Also, would have to get even stricter on other media, in order to prevent something like the movie. Would probably have the Comic/Web/etc team work in direct conjunction to the games to prevent character appearance discrepancy. 

[Skull Leader]

On February 23, 2019 at 11:19 AM, Wraith said:

Nailing down the "main cast" so hard has felt kinda weird to me because there might be times Knuckles, Amy, Tails or even Eggman might not need to be in a Sonic game that much if at all. 

This is the hardest case to make for Tails since he literally follows Sonic around but for the other 3 I could see it easily since there are a lot of games where they just end up feeling like loose ends anyway.

Tails following Sonic doesn't make him automatically more useful, given how in the last few games he became the guy who just delivers exposition, as well as there being times in he was just there. Still, I would say that he and Amy have the strongest case for making regular cast members by far (not even Knuckles comes close despite ST insisting on the trio thing) given what their main motivation has always been and the supportive nature of their roles. Them having a place in a story or in some cases not being properly used (*cough*Forces*cough*) is a different matter, though I do agree that they don't need to show up all of the time.

As for Eggman, he's basically the No. 1 instigator that kicks off every series of events that provides Sonic with a constant source of adventures. He's so important to the franchise that you have to wonder who would Sonic be without him. Of course, having other villains would be nice but the problem is that none of them live up to the high bar set by the doc.