Sonic Appears in OK K.O.! (Crossover Episode on August 4th)

[MetalSkulkBane]

46 minutes ago, Roger_van_der_weide said:

 Didn't spot any post 90's references outside of Tails communicator from Colors and one mention of Cream in this cartoon.
 

KO terrible drawing has Shadow and Olympics games (with Mario cameo)

Tails intro music is his SA1 theme.

Sonic attacks Darrell with homing attack.

Line "All right, Tails" is takes from SA1 Tails stages.

One of last lines of dialogue is "live and learn'

One of first poses KO does is Sonic's SA1 cover.

At one moment Sonic says he's 'the wooooooorst;, which might be reference to his Movie VA

And funny drawing of Knuckles is more of a Mania reference than Classic (as strange as it sounds)

 

[Lord-Dreamerz]

Finally watched the full episode. Is great stuff! The characters felt true to their core concepts, and in general the episode clearly was worked on by people who loved the Sonic franchise... unlike Sonic Boom or the upcoming live action movie which feels like everybody involved with those actively wanted nothing to do with the series legacy and tried to stray as far away as possible they were allowed. I loved how they managed to integrate a lot of the gameplay elements from the games into the story itself & visuals, for example rings, loops, spindash, homing attack, curvy wacky roadways... anybody who actually believes you can't ever mix gameplay & story ideas together have no idea what they are talking about I say. This was among the best made Sonic cartoons I've seen in a long time outside of the great Sonic Mania & Team Sonic Racing cartoon shorts a small while back. Bravo!

[StaticMania]

16 minutes ago, Lord-Dreamerz said:

...anybody who actually believes you can't ever mix gameplay & story ideas together have no idea what they are talking about I say.

You really can't...

Ultra surreal worlds just barely allow for that type of thing. It works here because it's actually used for a cool animated sequence, not because of the story.

[Red Hot Jack]

21 minutes ago, Lord-Dreamerz said:

Finally watched the full episode. Is great stuff! The characters felt true to their core concepts, and in general the episode clearly was worked on by people who loved the Sonic franchise... unlike Sonic Boom or the upcoming live action movie which feels like everybody involved with those actively wanted nothing to do with the series legacy and tried to stray as far away as possible they were allowed. I loved how they managed to integrate a lot of the gameplay elements from the games into the story itself & visuals, for example rings, loops, spindash, homing attack, curvy wacky roadways... anybody who actually believes you can't ever mix gameplay & story ideas together have no idea what they are talking about I say. This was among the best made Sonic cartoons I've seen in a long time outside of the great Sonic Mania & Team Sonic Racing cartoon shorts a small while back. Bravo!

This is definitely true, but it's not easy to find people who love the franchise who can work on it or official projects. But sometimes we get those, Mania is a labor of love, and the comics are also made by writers and artists who are fans and know Sonic well. The movie... mixed bag but IF Tyson Hesse is really working on it, I'd be pleased.

[Lord-Dreamerz]

35 minutes ago, StaticMania said:

You really can't...

Ultra surreal worlds just barely allow for that type of thing. It works here because it's actually used for a cool animated sequence, not because of the story.

Let me repeat myself, anybody who honestly thinks it can't work have no idea what they are talking about. You can totally mix gameplay concepts into the story instead of separating them with a brick wall between, I combine the 2 all the time in my own works. Also a action scene is still part of a story, they even mention the loop de loops when talking. Only bad writers can't figure out how to make the 2 work together. I agreed that surreal fantasy stories are more ideal for mixing gameplay into the story... and that is exactly what the Sonic series is ideally.

[StaticMania]

6 minutes ago, Lord-Dreamerz said:

Let me repeat myself, anybody who honestly thinks that have no idea what they are talking about. You can totally mix gameplay concepts into the story instead of separating them with a brick wall between, I combine the 2 all the time in my own works. Also a action scene is still part of a story, they even mention the loop de loops when talking. Only bad writers can't figure out how to make the 2 work together.

It's really forced, huh?

I wouldn't want to bad mouth the concept, but I see why it's often avoided and/or changed to something less...questionable.

Loops aren't really a game-play mechanic, but how say...would you implement the item TVs without having to give context for them?

The lack of context and convenience is what really drives it home.

Rings existing in special stages and even flying out of Warp Rings is something you can work with automatically.

Crates in Crash, Pac-Dots (Not Power Pellets) in Pac-Man, Samus finding her equipment on random planets (excluding Zebes), Link finding rupees and items in Grass (Minish Cap aside)...it's all that stuff.

[Lord-Dreamerz]

13 minutes ago, StaticMania said:

It's really forced, huh?

I wouldn't want to bad mouth the concept, but I see why it's often avoided and/or changed to something less...questionable.

Loops aren't really a game-play mechanic, but how say...would you implement the item TVs without having to give context for them?

The lack of context and convenience is what really drives it home.

Rings existing in special stages and even flying out of Warp Rings is something you can work with automatically.

Doesn't feel forced to me. It flows naturally when keeping both in mind from the start. Item boxes wouldn't need much explaining, hitting one gives a power up, it's pretty easy to understand. Why does everything need to be explained in vast detail within a story in order to work? the answer is not everything needs to be. Do we question why Sonic is blue and can run super fast in the stories? Some folk might do so, sure... but hardly anybody really feels like it truly matters either. Mixing the 2 only seems like a jarring idea because we are not used to seeing that kinda thing in films often. I think the problem more lies with the fact many writers are afraid of doing unusual ideas without even trying to see if it works. That problem is how we get soulless monsters such as the upcoming live action movie because the devs had no trust in the source material and believed they had to rip the soul of the series away and transform it into something ultra cliche in order to sell it.

[StaticMania]

Without context, how natural could Broken TVs that gives Sonic items be made?

That's what was asked.

Sometimes the weird world just isn't enough, some people won't accept everything thrown at them.

I don't need explanations, but I'll watch anything.

[Lord-Dreamerz]

4 minutes ago, StaticMania said:

Without context, how natural could Broken TVs that gives Sonic items be made?

That's what was asked.

Sometimes the weird world just isn't enough, some people won't accept everything thrown at them.

I don't need explanations, but I'll watch anything.

I'm not sure how power-up monitors make more logic in a gameplay setting then a story setting myself. When playing the games does that stuff make perfect logic just because it is a game? being apart of gameplay doesn't give something a free pass to me. Also I am not trying to say ALL gameplay concepts should to be integrated into a story... just enough of the ones that can be made to work. If needed within a longer running Sonic story could have item boxes be quickly explained away, maybe Robotnik actually leaves them around for his bots to use and Sonic takes advantage of that. Anyways not everybody needs to accept everything in a story, some ideas people will learn to accept and others just won't. And personally I believe many gameplay concepts "not all of them" work fine in more stories then people would give credit to.

[StaticMania]

1 minute ago, Lord-Dreamerz said:

And personally I believe many gameplay concepts "not all of them" work fine in more stories then people would give credit to. 

Believe it or not, but it's a lot harder than one would think to find game-play mechanics that wouldn't work in a Mario "story" with writing and stuff.

But I'll chalk that up to years and most of the things actually having decent explanations/workarounds.

It's pretty cool.

[Austroid]

Very fun episode overall, with plenty of goodies for fans to look for! I had some problems with how cocksure Sonic was here, and I wish we could put the "Knuckles is an idiot" trope behind us. 

The numerous remarks regarding Eggman really had me wishing he appeared here alongside Boxman; it would've added a lot more imo. Also I kind of expected it to be longer due to how it was being built up at SDCC and stuff. That being said, I'd be lying if I said I didn't really, really want a new Sonic cartoon at this point between this and all the Mania/TSR shorts!

I wonder how many takes Ian Jones-Quartey did doing Scratch's laugh, and of Jim Cummings saying "Prrromotions are in order!" lol

[StaticMania]

9 minutes ago, Austroid said:

...I wish we could put the "Knuckles is an idiot" trope behind us.  

It won't be put away until people realize it's a core part of his character.

Irony.

[Plasme]

Im just really, really bored of fan nods and references, especially in Sonic, which has been self-congratulating for over a decade.

For just once, I want to see something entirely new. 

As flawed as Colors was, at least it was fresh. We haven't had a Sonic game with that level of originality since.

[Kuzu]

You can't expect a series that's almost three decades old to not call back to itself at all.

[SBR2]

8 hours ago, Roger_van_der_weide said:

Ah, was a fun episode.
Disliked the first half with it just being a grocery list of references and the "hyper happy fanboy" angle I'm not fond of, but when the plot started moving it became a lot better.
It's energetic, that immediatly helps.

But man, that last joke with Sonic Sez surprised me. Sonic lecturing against sleeping or you'll miss out on adventure, was that a stab at Boom Sonic?
Sonic being more itnerested in eternal napping rather then any adventuring has been one of my key complaints about that show, the lack of energy.
I mean heck, that visual of the main characters being asleep/ irritated while there's obnoxious "FREE ICECREAM!!!!!" signs everywhere for fake excitement is the exact kind of visual I'd use to sum up the worse Pontaff/ Boom moments.
 

...What the hell are you talking about? 

[thumbs13]

8 hours ago, Roger_van_der_weide said:

Ah, was a fun episode.
Disliked the first half with it just being a grocery list of references and the "hyper happy fanboy" angle I'm not fond of, but when the plot started moving it became a lot better.
It's energetic, that immediatly helps.

But man, that last joke with Sonic Sez surprised me. Sonic lecturing against sleeping or you'll miss out on adventure, was that a stab at Boom Sonic?
Sonic being more itnerested in eternal napping rather then any adventuring has been one of my key complaints about that show, the lack of energy.
I mean heck, that visual of the main characters being asleep/ irritated while there's obnoxious "FREE ICECREAM!!!!!" signs everywhere for fake excitement is the exact kind of visual I'd use to sum up the worse Pontaff/ Boom moments.


Also, can't help but notice that practically every fanservice parade we had this decade besides Generations is squarly focused on 90's Sonic with Sonic Adventure being the cut off date for further references. Only exception being a stab or two at Shadow/ Sonic 06. Even Forces didn't step beyond Sonic Heroes, outside of Zavok, Orbot and Cubot's cameo's.
You'd think the younger audiences want to see the Sonic games THEY grew up with to be represented, like Colors or Boom (Sonic Boom's 5 years old now, that's an eternity from the perspective of a kid) Didn't spot any post 90's references outside of Tails communicator from Colors and one mention of Cream in this cartoon.
 

I thought the lazy Sonic who doesn't do much no matter what goes on was X Sonic. The usual problem people have with him is how much time he spends napping.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

5 hours ago, StaticMania said:

It won't be put away until people realize it's a core part of his character.

Irony.

Not really? 

Knuckles is gullible, not dumb. There's a major distinction between those two personality traits, and it's one that SEGA has mixed up for years since the shift to a more comedic tone. 

Case and point, Knuckles in S3&K and SA1/2 didn't display any qualities of "dumb", or hell, even in the former - didn't display any qualities of gullible. He'd never met Eggman before and had been so isolated for all of his life that it made sense why he believed Eggman hook line and sinker, especially since in that situation, Eggman was shot down onto the island and easily could've bullshitted a story about Sonic unjustly attacking him for the Chaos Emeralds.

Throughout the rest of the game, Knuckles is constantly one step ahead of Sonic, throwing him through trap after trap, constantly playing the island against him, and acting far more like a trickster than anything else. If Knuckles being dumb was such a core element of his character, he sure as hell wouldn't be using the island, and it's various traps so much against Sonic instead of just running straight after him to get into a brawl. 

Even in later games, when Knuckles did start getting more gullible (Adventure, and X in particular), the former didn't have the greatest story telling and likely just wanted to concoct a nonsense reason to get Knuckles engaged into the story, while the latter is portrayed as a paranoid nut who likes to shift blame onto Sonic whenever he could. Advance also had a really weird aspect that's still debated if Knuckles was helping Eggman, or if Knuckles was trapped inside an Eggman mech, but since it's a GBA game, it's never explained.

Hell, Adventure shows off Knuckles' duty as guardian, and other personality traits much more than gullible or dumb. He smashes the master emerald in a quick moment of thinking to stop Eggman from abusing it's power, stopping both Eggman and Rouge from stealing it then and there, Adventure plays up a lot more of his serious side, while adding in different aspects of goofy (his borderline fear of ghosts), and even keeping in some aspects of him being dim-witted that didn't make him look out and out stupid (Sonic basically tricking him into getting the keys to Eggman's base by using Knuckles' ego to his advantage). 

Knuckles being dumb is only a thing that really began becoming evident in recent years when let's face it - a ton of characters faced flanderisation and began getting written worse. Knuckles isn't the only victim, and I'd argue that both him and Tails were the ones affected most by the change. In the games, a lot of Knuckles' other personality traits have been erased to make way for him simply being stupid. Treasure Hunting isn't mentioned anymore, his duty as guardian is almost non-existent unless it's being used as a joke for how dumb Knuckles is for giving it away when in the past, he'd actually fiercely protect it, and until Mania and Forces, his appearances in the games was heavily limited to just sight gags, especially in Lost World. Boom especially - despite having tons of fun moments for Knuckles is possibly the most out of character and missing of the point depiction of him, and despite being a fun character in that series - is IMO about as in name only as you can get to his prior characterisation.

This is also why you'll find Mania, Mania Adventures, Archie, and IDW getting a lot of praise. Because they still play around with the aspects of Knuckles being dim-witted or gullible without making him full on stupid, or removing the rest of his personality traits. Mania still depicts him as fiercely protective of his duty, and also a massive power-house, capable of one-shotting Super Metal Sonic in Mania Adventures, but it also portrays Knuckles not only as goofy, and careless, but it makes him super paranoid, which works well-enough with his previously defined traits. It stops him from being outright dumb, but just makes it so that he distrusts basically everything.

Mega Drive also took a different approach. That still made him gullible, but it also added the fact that Knuckles is also super egotistical and too confident in his own abilities, which makes sense for why he clashes with Sonic personality wise, because of the fact Sonic himself is also quite egotistical. Knuckles also quickly joins up with Sonic in Mega Drive after everything is cleared up between them.

Archie and IDW are probably the best examples because in both of those, Knuckles is portrayed as a combination of everything. He is portrayed correctly in the fact that he's not dumb, he's gullible. He is still a immensely powerful character who has a strong sense of duty, to the point he was willing to fight Shadow to a stand-still to stop Shadow and G.U.N from trying to hijack the Master Emerald for their own needs.

A lot of his other traits are still shown, including mentions of him still being a treasure hunter, and his ego coming into play, especially when Sonic and Knuckles begin teasing each other. Knuckles even mentions in Issue 3 of IDW that after Eggman fell, the Resistance basically just became a bunch of busy-work that he's not good with, and he'd rather be leading the action. So it still shows that Knuckles still isn't smart, or interested in doing all of the busy work that requires rebuilding after Eggman's taking over the world, but he's still portrayed as having decent enough intelligence.

As I said at the beginning, it's a fine line of working with it, there's different kinds of intelligence, there's different personality traits, etc. The worst depictions is usually when they ignore all of the other aspects of the character to just pretend he's just completely dumb, when that's only really been a thing that's happen in the last ten years, and even that's due to downright flanderisation, which affected other characters as well. 

[Kuzu]

I hate that we still have to debate about this...

 

Look, I get that Knuckles has other personality traits that generally get ignored, but even in spite of that, he has never been particularly smart or bright. You can make up any damn excuse that you want, but the end result is that he keeps making boneheaded decisions because he's a fucking meathead. That's literally the entire point of the character, and serves to contrast him with Sonic, who is much more down to earth and self-confident. 

Almost every damn appearance, Knuckles does some dumb shit; yes, his guardian duties were taken more seriously before but he was still doing dumb shit even when that was the case. Because, once again, Knuckles is a fucking meathead. So yea, it's not wrong to call him stupid. Does he have other personality traits that are generally ignored? Absolutely. But he's still not very smart, he's never been that smart. 

 

Like, I get that people hate it when he's treated like a joke more often than not and wish he did something worthwhile in newer material, but we also need to stop assuming Knuckles was some deep, philosophical character who's been "ruined". He's never been bright since the very beginning. Should they start focusing on other parts of his personality? Absolutely. But stop trying to rewrite history. 

[Ryannumber1gamer]

16 minutes ago, Kuzu the Boloedge said:

Like, I get that people hate it when he's treated like a joke more often than not and wish he did something worthwhile in newer material, but we also need to stop assuming Knuckles was some deep, philosophical character who's been "ruined". He's never been bright since the very beginning. Should they start focusing on other parts of his personality? Absolutely. But stop trying to rewrite history. 

For one, I never stated he's a "deep philosophical character". It's Sonic the Hedgehog, and the idea of any of these characters getting anywhere near "deep and philosophical" is silly as hell, so stop taking my post to a ridiculous logical extreme.

Secondly, I also never said he was smart or bright. At best, Knuckles has a average to below average intelligence. Several parts of my post outright point out that the positive depictions of him usually still play into him being dim-witted. The key difference is that when he's portrayed as dim-witted in places like Mania, IDW, or Archie, it's because he's either balanced out with other personality traits, or he isn't flanderised into being a complete dumbass. It's the same way that a large part of Tails' character arc in earlier games was learning to jump out of Sonic's shadow and standing out on his own, and then he got so far flanderised into his sidekick role that he was literally useless for a massive portion of Forces unless Sonic was around.

I don't mind Knuckles being portrayed as gullible, or goofy, or whatever, but he was never a full-on total dumbass. But I want it to either be balanced out, or it to be actually charming, like how Mega Drive, Mania, or Archie did it. It really doesn't have to be one or the other.  

[Shadowlax]

7 minutes ago, Kuzu the Boloedge said:

I hate that we still have to debate about this...

 

Look, I get that Knuckles has other personality traits that generally get ignored, but even in spite of that, he has never been particularly smart or bright. You can make up any damn excuse that you want, but the end result is that he keeps making boneheaded decisions because he's a fucking meathead.

I didn't think he was a meat head at all, I thought he was weird because he was raised on an island by himself and didn't know a lot. Which is why I find his portrayals of him being outright stupid strange. He's not dumb he's ignorant and gullible for a reason and I don't think its changing history to note that. I would argue the approach you are taking now is how these characters are allowed to get flandereized. People get tired of discussion declare that these characters were never " that deep " and just brush off criticism in regards to how they have been made worse. their characterization slowly erodes and then years later they are either wondering what happened, or said " they always sucked anyway '

[Osmium]

Yeah, I'm not liking Sonic and Tails' personalities in this. It seems out of character to me for Sonic to be bragging about his achievements so much and the way he asks KO to be his "little buddy" right in front of Tails and be serious about it is really strange. Tails is too insecure in the shitty LW way as well, obsessed over having the title of "Sonic's friend/sidekick" instead of just acting naturally as his friend as he would in older games. 

This is the exact sort of thing I was talking about. These guys might be good at referencing a million obscure things for shits and giggles but when it comes to actually important things like writing the characters correctly they fall short. 

[Kuzu]

1 minute ago, Shadowlax said:

I didn't think he was a meat head at all, I thought he was weird because he was raised on an island by himself and didn't know a lot. Which is why I find his portrayals of him being outright stupid strange. He's not dumb he's ignorant and gullible for a reason and I don't think its changing history to note that. I would argue the approach you are taking now is how these characters are allowed to get flandereized. People get tired of discussion declare that these characters were never " that deep " and just brush off criticism in regards to how they have been made worse. their characterization slowly erodes and then years later they are either wondering what happened, or said " they always sucked anyway '

Knuckles` isolation has never been used to explain his gullibility, ever, at least in game. Maybe in character profiles, but when do those ever translate to the game itself? I'm not saying "this character always sucked", I'm stating something that's been there from the very beginning. People only started to cite his isolation to justify his characterization where "he was good" because everyone has started to convince themselves that he was smarter than he actually was, when he never was that smart to begin with lol. 

Yes Knuckles has been flanderized..but you know what Flanderization means right? 

Quote

 

The process by which one of a character's traits is overstated and exaggerated to the point where it becomes the character's only trait.

You can't exaggerate something that's not there. I'm not arguing that Knuckles` lack of intelligence hasn't been exaggerated and consumed, I agree that it has. But it's always been there, and there was never any attempts to justify or handwave it. He was just dumb because that's who he was. Did he have OTHER character traits? Absolutely, but he was always portrayed as not being that intelligent and nothing about his isolation was used to justify it. 

7 minutes ago, Osmium said:

Yeah, I'm not liking Sonic and Tails' personalities in this. It seems out of character to me for Sonic to be bragging about his achievements so much and the way he asks KO to be his "little buddy" right in front of Tails and be serious about it is really strange. Tails is too insecure in the shitty LW way as well, obsessed over having the title of "Sonic's friend/sidekick" instead of just acting naturally as his friend as he would in older games. 

This is the exact sort of thing I was talking about. These guys might be good at referencing a million obscure things for shits and giggles but when it comes to actually important things like writing the characters correctly they fall short. 

What pray tell is "in-character" then, or rather how SHOULD they have acted since apparently this 11 minute short was such a betrayal of the two. 

[Osmium]

2 minutes ago, Kuzu the Boloedge said:

What pray tell is "in-character" then, or rather how SHOULD they have acted since apparently this 11 minute short was such a betrayal of the two. 

Um, I explained it. Sonic's not even a bragger like this and Tails is doing his old LW shtick of flying off the handle when Sonic decides to befriend/trust someone else for five minutes. 

Game Sonic would probably be offput by someone acting so obsessive over him like that and he would probably just try to write himself off as a normal person and Tails shouldn't be so fucking bitchy over nothing. 

[Kuzu]

18 minutes ago, Ryannumber1gamer said:

For one, I never stated he's a "deep philosophical character". It's Sonic the Hedgehog, and the idea of any of these characters getting anywhere near "deep" is silly as hell, so stop taking my post to a ridiculous logical extreme.

Secondly, I also never said he was smart or bright. Several parts of my post outright point out that the positive depictions of him usually still play into him being dim-witted. The key difference is that when he's portrayed as dim-witted in places like Mania, IDW, or Archie, it's because he's either balanced out with other personality traits, or he isn't flanderised into being a complete dumbass. It's the same way that a large part of Tails' character arc in earlier games was learning to jump out of Sonic's shadow and standing out on his own, and then he got so far flanderised into his sidekick role that he was literally useless for a massive portion of Forces unless Sonic was around.

I don't mind Knuckles being portrayed as gullible, or goofy, or whatever, but he was never a full-on total dumbass. But I want it to either be balanced out, or it to be actually charming, like how Mega Drive, Mania, or Archie did it. It really doesn't have to be one or the other.  

I wasn't trying to hyperbole your post, I'm just kind of tired of this same debate that keeps popping up.

And yes, I agree that when they use Knuckles` dimness in different ways that its better, rather than just him being dumb and that's the end of it. I was merely stating that him being dumb isn't just something that was magically invented, and has in fact been a part of his character even in his more positive portrayals as you have pointed out. 

Just now, Osmium said:

Um, I explained it. Sonic's not even a bragger like this and Tails is doing his old LW shtick of flying off the handle when Sonic decides to befriend/trust someone else for five minutes. 

Game Sonic would probably be offput by someone acting so obsessive over him like that and he would probably just try to write himself off as a normal person and Tails shouldn't be so fucking bitchy over nothing. 

Welp, alright then. I really don't agree with this, but you've made up your mind it seems about this. 

I'm just gonna drop my impressions on the episode here, leave it at that.

 

[Diogenes]

48 minutes ago, Ryannumber1gamer said:

Case and point, Knuckles in S3&K and SA1/2 didn't display any qualities of "dumb", or hell, even in the former - didn't display any qualities of gullible. He'd never met Eggman before and had been so isolated for all of his life that it made sense why he believed Eggman hook line and sinker, especially since in that situation, Eggman was shot down onto the island and easily could've bullshitted a story about Sonic unjustly attacking him for the Chaos Emeralds.

A Very Not Gullible Person: Oh boy this guy whose face is on the "dragon's egg" that is supposed to bring doom to my island is totally trustworthy! I should beat up the stranger he tells me is bad.

A Very Not Dumb Person: Oh boy this guy who brought doom to my island, including stealing the thing I'm supposed to guard and electrocuting me when I tried to stop him, is totally trustworthy! I should beat up the guy who saved the Master Emerald and my island last time, because he said so.

Knuckles. Is. Dumb. He's not a drooling idiot, he's not incompetent in every area, but he consistently performs below average in matters of common sense.