sooo... what's the deal about sonic... holding a sword?

[Pengi]

They wouldn't have come into existence without the Wii. They were explicitly created with the Wii Remote in mind. 

[UberHoax]

To put it simply: It's just too much.

Sonic was never intended to use melee weapons, or anything other than isn't based on speed and agility. Sonic holding an extraordinarily large sword just doesn't fit too well with the Sonic most people know.

Also, have in mind that you're forced to use the sword from the beginning. Imagine if Flash was obligated to use a sword through an entire arch. Wouldn't that feel a little bit forced?

[iambitter21]

27 minutes ago, CommodoreGX said:

Also, have in mind that you're forced to use the sword from the beginning. Imagine if Flash was obligated to use a sword through an entire arch. Wouldn't that feel a little bit forced?

well Mario sunshine had you use a water jetpack and that didn't feel forced didn't it, and to add to this, to quote the wise words of JebTube said in his heroes review:

Quote

if you want to succeed, you need to use the mechanics the game lays out to you.

so to answer the question, no. I am not saying sonic should ALWAYS hold a sword each game, but I disagree to the notion that sonic at least holding one for a Spin-Off of an appropriate genre (such as Black Knight, for example) is "Forced" or "Too much".

[UberHoax]

8 hours ago, iambitter21 said:

well Mario sunshine had you use a water jetpack and that didn't feel forced didn't it, and to add to this, to quote the wise words of JebTube said in his heroes review:

so to answer the question, no. I am not saying sonic should ALWAYS hold a sword each game, but I disagree to the notion that sonic at least holding one for a Spin-Off of an appropriate genre (such as Black Knight, for example) is "Forced" or "Too much".

The thing is: The water jet-pack fits with Mario's goofy persona, so it wasn't difficult for most people to accept this change.
The whole idea of Sonic using an extraordinarily large and impractical melee weapon just feels out of place for most people.

[Wraith]

9 hours ago, iambitter21 said:

well Mario sunshine had you use a water jetpack and that didn't feel forced didn't it, and to add to this, to quote the wise words of JebTube said in his heroes review:

so to answer the question, no. I am not saying sonic should ALWAYS hold a sword each game, but I disagree to the notion that sonic at least holding one for a Spin-Off of an appropriate genre (such as Black Knight, for example) is "Forced" or "Too much".

 I agree. I think it's hard to fit intricate melee combat into the flow of a platformer, but I also think that people are being a little too conservative in this topic when it comes to the concept. A lot of your favorite pieces of Sonic lore, characters, art design, and mechanics started out as things that would have been alien to the franchise at the time or betrayals of what it had done up to that point.

The same is true for Mario. Mario Sunshine continues to be a controversial entry for a lot of reasons surrounding that decision to include the water pack even if it was received well by mainstream critics. 

[iambitter21]

1 hour ago, CommodoreGX said:

The thing is: The water jet-pack fits with Mario's goofy persona, so it wasn't difficult for most people to accept this change.

I mean I guess, even though in actuality he's nothing but a mere blank slate at the end of the day.

1 hour ago, CommodoreGX said:

The whole idea of Sonic using an extraordinarily large and impractical melee weapon just feels out of place for most people.

that's understandable, I can see a sword at that length could be quite questionable, especially when It was during that time of Sonic's life. I still think it's cool nonetheless, but I guess that's just me.

[Scritch the Cat]

It seems that gamers and game critics do have generally a more liberal attitude towards Mario trying a lot of different things, but this is born less of a problematic double-standard than a valid assessment of their track records.  
 

It’s only fair to remind people that if “what part of this character’s established kit do we have to nerf in order to make our new addition work” is bad game design, as was alleged above, then Mario is guilty of that many times over.  Quite a few times, he’s gained a new move in a new game, and then in a later game, dropped it.  He gained the ability to throw fireballs it in Super Mario Bros, lost it in Super Mario 64, gained a punch in that game, and then also lost that in future games.  Very little about Mario’s moveset is consistent, and plenty is quite arbitrary; while there is some truth to the idea that Mario using a hammer is more acceptable as he did it in his first game, the same can’t be said of changing size, throwing fireballs, and many other now-iconic Mario abilities.

But no Mario game I can recall feels ill-conceived due to the changes it made to its hero’s abilities; all of them feel like full, well-designed games; not games where something else was shoved in just to be a gimmick.  I thus will contradict the notion that Mario using a sword would be called out as unwarranted; with how functionally similar it could have been to a hammer, people WOULD have been OK with it if it had been a sword.  It helps, of course, that Mario is much more vague as a character.  His only permanent noteworthy physical ability is jumping high, and when so many other platformer characters have gone on to do that, it’s arguably not noteworthy.  So they can do more without going against the nearly nonexistent fundamentals of what Mario is.  However, a big part of it is also that what Nintendo does with Mario, it does well and fully.  Nintendo likely won’t make a Mario shooter, but if they do, it’ll be a good shooter, built from scratch with the goal of being a shooter, which features Mario.
 

Compare that to Shadow the Hedgehog.  The issue with that game is not just that it contains guns and vehicles.  Rather, it’s that they’re shoved in where they fit in to what is still Sonic Adventure’s essential gameplay.  Nothing’s broken (unless you count alliances), but nothing complements other things, either.  Shadow stops moving forward when he shoots, and those weapons he shoots have such a dumbed down form of inventory that even gamers who LIKE guns will call it out.  Then the vehicles are sometimes used just remedy how his arbitrary inability to move forward with weapons.  It’s all basically a bunch of post-hoc attempts to justify things put in out of Rule of Cool.

And whatever you feel about Rule of Cool, it’s a mistake to imply that Sonic was conceived around it.  Sonic was conceived around a very particular thing Yuji Naka found cool; speed.  That’s why, out of several mascots tried for his game design, a hedgehog won.  Not because hedgehogs are inherently cool, but because they can ball up and stab with their quills, which let Sonic attack while moving.  And incidentally, what that was replacing was a projectile system that required too much stopping.

So if you’re wondering why people's reaction to Sonic with a sword was so negative, it’s mostly because they still remembered Shadow’s game.  They suspected the sword would hinder Sonic in kind, and while I haven’t played it so I can’t say if it did or not, it seems others think it did.  Moreover, though, it’s because aside from 06I, whose biggest problem was unanimously agreed to be that it was technically broken, the biggest objection to Sonic games for years has been that they contained gimmicky alternate play styles that felt at odds with Sonic’s original intended style.
 

Granted, various things have been introduced to slow down Sonic since it’s inception.  It’s hard to see Marble Zone as anything but an attempt to lengthen the game arbitrarily by keeping Sonic from running far.  Things would get better before they got worse, though.  It was only with fishing that people’s primary metric to judge how appropriate a play style was for Sonic to be “how fast is it?”

[JezMM]

I think the main reason people percieve Sonic with a sword as ridiculous is because they don't actually take in the entire context of the game's narrative.  REALLY, the game's concept is "Sonic goes to a medieval fantasy world and uses a sword because he's in a medieval fantasy world", but most people just saw the box art or whatever and are see the game's concept as "Sonic has a sword now".  They're imagining a normal Sonic game with Green Hill Zone and springs and Dr. Robotnik (because the majority of people with this slightly distant relationship to the series definitely still call him Dr. Robotnik) but he has a big realistic sword now for some reason and that's really funny and dumb-sounding.

Especially considering that to such folks, Sonic has a history of doing weird dumb things like this, seeing the government conspiracy superweapon storyline of Sonic Adventure 2 as utterly ridiculous to be in a Sonic game (much as it would be if Donkey Kong or Mario did the same thing suddenly now, today), or, Shadow with a gun, obviously.

People didn't take Sonic with a sword seriously because they didn't take Sonic doing anything outside of what the classic games did seriously, basically.

And this SOUNDS really fanboyish and critical of those who dare to not be into Sonic as much as we are but to be honest where they're coming from, frustrating as it is in concept, makes total sense with the information they have available to them.  And I just can't care that much because Black Knight was a big doo-doo game.

[Scritch the Cat]

58 minutes ago, JezMM said:

I think the main reason people percieve Sonic with a sword as ridiculous is because they don't actually take in the entire context of the game's narrative.  REALLY, the game's concept is "Sonic goes to a medieval fantasy world and uses a sword because he's in a medieval fantasy world", but most people just saw the box art or whatever and are see the game's concept as "Sonic has a sword now".  They're imagining a normal Sonic game with Green Hill Zone and springs and Dr. Robotnik (because the majority of people with this slightly distant relationship to the series definitely still call him Dr. Robotnik) but he has a big realistic sword now for some reason and that's really funny and dumb-sounding.

Especially considering that to such folks, Sonic has a history of doing weird dumb things like this, seeing the government conspiracy superweapon storyline of Sonic Adventure 2 as utterly ridiculous to be in a Sonic game (much as it would be if Donkey Kong or Mario did the same thing suddenly now, today), or, Shadow with a gun, obviously.

People didn't take Sonic with a sword seriously because they didn't take Sonic doing anything outside of what the classic games did seriously, basically.

And this SOUNDS really fanboyish and critical of those who dare to not be into Sonic as much as we are but to be honest where they're coming from, frustrating as it is in concept, makes total sense with the information they have available to them.  And I just can't care that much because Black Knight was a big doo-doo game.

Don’t presume to speak for all of us.  I love Sonic Adventure 2, and while I haven’t played SATBN to compare it, a plot wherein Sonic is partially fighting the government instead of just Eggman in no ways mandates Sonic’s moveset changing much.  A plot in a fairy tale world where characters’ abilities are altered to meet its mores, certainly does much more.

I wouldn’t classify myself as a purist, but I do think there are some things Sonic should maintain.  For what it’s worth, though, I think one such thing is the use of momentum and terrain to build up speed, so the boost is also suspect in my opinion.

[JezMM]

4 minutes ago, Scritch the Cat said:

Don’t presume to speak for all of us.  I love Sonic Adventure 2, and while I haven’t played SATBN to compare it, a plot wherein Sonic is partially fighting the government instead of just Eggman in no ways mandates Sonic’s moveset changing much.  A plot in a fairy tale world where characters’ abilities are altered to meet its mores, certainly does much more.

I wouldn’t classify myself as a purist, but I do think there are some things Sonic should maintain.  For what it’s worth, though, I think one such thing is the use of momentum and terrain to build up speed, so the boost is also suspect in my opinion.

I didn't have anything to say about movesets, I'm saying the general attitude of Sonic with a sword being bad seemed to be the very concept and how silly it looks, not the execution or how it affects gameplay.  The impression I got around the time was that most of the "haha Sonic with a sword, what the hell!?" people were those who had no intention of ever playing the game and only played Sonic games once in a blue moon if ever.

It's worth mentioning my post was more of responding to the OP's initial question with my own thoughts rather than any direct response to the conversation in the thread overall.

[Shadow Chaos Control]

On 7/18/2020 at 3:11 PM, iambitter21 said:

just a quick question about this because I simply just don't see what's stupid about this:

in fact, I find it to be really cool (and what is sonic?: cool! that's what) and what did it do to Sonic's abilities? not much, it did give him a cool spin sword move that blows my mind to this day. Sam from Sam Procrastinates said that it "Handicaps" sonic, or it's "out of left field" like dude, it's a spinoff, not a mainline game, you're on rails for most of the game so what is handicapped? and when you think about it, sonic himself is already "out of left field". secondly, he said that Mario has items that improves Mario, like a cap. just forget that Mario also had THIS in the RPG's:

 

and what did it do to Mario's abilities? literally NOTHING. it's literally an attack that you can do and it does nothing to Mario. Sonic's sword is literally the same thing, just on an on-rails game. in fact, Sonic's sword is like the answer to Mario's Hammer if you think about it: RPG'S usually have Weapons of sorts, Mario and Luigi use hammers since their heavier and get the job done easier, but at the cost of waiting. What will sonic use? well sonic is more cocky and impatient, he has no time for a slow hammer, he'll need something more agile, something more nimble, something more aerodynamic, something more....sharp. and boom sonic has a weapon that suits him well: a sword. if sonic ever get's an RPG however, using his hands and feet isn't a bad option either if he doesn't get a sword (but GOD I'd love sonic to get one someday). so how about you guys? what's your deal with sonic holding a sword?

There is a Sword that predates Sonic’s Black Knight adventure. It is called The Sword of Acorns and belongs to Sally Acorn’s royal family;