What is Sonic's tone and style?

[Guergy]

I am sure most of us heard once in our lives, "This piece of Sonic media goes against Sonic's tone and style". With that said however what is Sonic's tone and style? What is about the rest of the non Sonic Team Sonic media that they fail to capture that style and tone? 

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

First off, there’s no such thing as a Sonic “tone”—people only talk about tone because they either dislike it for being darker with more heightened and drastic stakes like SA2 or for being toothless to the point of being boring like that of Colors (which, mind you, I personally liked) onwards, and all because certain games like ShTH and such did bad jobs trying to portray. It’s a petty binary that people would do better ditching entirely, because it’s no different to the stuff put out by Disney or Dreamworks.

Style however does have some bedrock, but even that is pretty varied—since the Genesis, Sonic has been in surreal grasslands, tropical forests, ruins, factories, real world inspired cities and settings, and bizarre dimension. 
 

If anything, “style” seems more synonymous with “aesthetics”, and to that I say if it doesn’t jar with how the character looks, that’s all that really matters. You wouldn’t put Final Fantasy aesthetics in a Disney setting and expect it to work without making modifications, for example—and before anyone starts, yes I know they did that with Kingdom Hearts because that was the freaking point I’m making here.

[batson]

I'd say that the main series games of the Mega Drive era did have a certain specific feel to them both in terms of sight, sound and story, but even then it was broader than certain other video game series.

The seeds to the series identity crisis were sown with Sonic Adventure. It's attempt at photorealism didn't mesh well with the earlier games in the series. I won't say that it's story was a break with the established Sonic universe though, as it was pretty much the first game in the series to really have a story. This was basically the point when Sonic Team needed to decide on what kind of series they want Sonic to be in terms of narrative going forward. The same was true for many classic video game series making the jump to 3D, cutscenes and voice acting. They all needed to find their identity in the next generation of gaming. And since the tone of the story in Sonic Adventure 2 was largely similar to that of Sonic Adventure 1(if a bit darker) it did seem that Sonic Team had indeed decided on what they wanted the series to be. Again, the whole "realism"-angle created a bit of a schism with the original entries in the series, but I think many of us could respect that this was the series new standrad identity, the one we could expect to see more of in the future.

But then along came Sonic Heroes, and this was the point when it became obvious that Sonic Team didn't really know what the wanted with the series. Gone was the realism, gone were the epic stories, gone was the tone of the Adventure games. And then in the very next Sonic Team-created game in the franchise, Shadow the Hedgehog, they once AGAIN created something that felt like it basically took place in a different universe than the previous installment. If not before, then at least now the writing was on the wall; Sonic Team had no idea of what they wanted the series as a whole to be.

And since then we've seen the series trying to be everything from Final Fantasy (06) to a saturday morning cartoon (Colors) to Mario (Lost World) to Neo-Sonic Adventure (Forces).

[Scritch the Cat]

16 hours ago, batson said:

I'd say that the main series games of the Mega Drive era did have a certain specific feel to them both in terms of sight, sound and story, but even then it was broader than certain other video game series.

The seeds to the series identity crisis were sown with Sonic Adventure. It's attempt at photorealism didn't mesh well with the earlier games in the series. I won't say that it's story was a break with the established Sonic universe though, as it was pretty much the first game in the series to really have a story. This was basically the point when Sonic Team needed to decide on what kind of series they want Sonic to be in terms of narrative going forward. The same was true for many classic video game series making the jump to 3D, cutscenes and voice acting. They all needed to find their identity in the next generation of gaming. And since the tone of the story in Sonic Adventure 2 was largely similar to that of Sonic Adventure 1(if a bit darker) it did seem that Sonic Team had indeed decided on what they wanted the series to be. Again, the whole "realism"-angle created a bit of a schism with the original entries in the series, but I think many of us could respect that this was the series new standrad identity, the one we could expect to see more of in the future.

But then along came Sonic Heroes, and this was the point when it became obvious that Sonic Team didn't really know what the wanted with the series. Gone was the realism, gone were the epic stories, gone was the tone of the Adventure games. And then in the very next Sonic Team-created game in the franchise, Shadow the Hedgehog, they once AGAIN created something that felt like it basically took place in a different universe than the previous installment. If not before, then at least now the writing was on the wall; Sonic Team had no idea of what they wanted the series as a whole to be.

And since then we've seen the series trying to be everything from Final Fantasy (06) to a saturday morning cartoon (Colors) to Mario (Lost World) to Neo-Sonic Adventure (Forces).

For what this is worth, only the environments of the Adventure era looked like they were shooting for photorealism.  The humans looked like anime humans, with the exception of 06, where they looked like they were trying to be realistic but were way beneath the era’s standards at such.

On 12/17/2020 at 1:32 PM, CrownSlayer’s Shadow said:

First off, there’s no such thing as a Sonic “tone”—people only talk about tone because they either dislike it for being darker with more heightened and drastic stakes like SA2 or for being toothless to the point of being boring like that of Colors (which, mind you, I personally liked) onwards, and all because certain games like ShTH and such did bad jobs trying to portray. It’s a petty binary that people would do better ditching entirely, because it’s no different to the stuff put out by Disney or Dreamworks.

Style however does have some bedrock, but even that is pretty varied—since the Genesis, Sonic has been in surreal grasslands, tropical forests, ruins, factories, real world inspired cities and settings, and bizarre dimension. 
 

If anything, “style” seems more synonymous with “aesthetics”, and to that I say if it doesn’t jar with how the character looks, that’s all that really matters. You wouldn’t put Final Fantasy aesthetics in a Disney setting and expect it to work without making modifications, for example—and before anyone starts, yes I know they did that with Kingdom Hearts because that was the freaking point I’m making here.

I agree with all of this except for KH, where I’m not quite sure what you’re implying.  How much they altered the FF characters’ appearance to fit with that game, I’m not in a position to judge, but they clearly kept the individual Disney franchises looking like themselves, which occasionally meant not looking like each other.  This can’t have been too problematic or the series wouldn’t still be as big as it is.

I won’t say 06 is my ideal my how a Sonic game should look, but I get the feeling there wouldn’t be nearly so much talk about it’s jarring styles if far bigger problems hadn’t made the game so infamous.  The humans in the game look bad, but fitting Sonic or not, Crisis City was and is still a spectacular visual treat.

Also, S3&K is notably more realistic visually than its predecessors, so this is hardly a new phenomenon.  Not that you’d ever mistake it for photos, but it’s more like how Disney films would depict natural terrain than pop art would depict it.

[Multikaris]

Something along the lines of SNK’s fighting games, like Fatal Fury and KOF. Keep it balanced and cool. This is why a boat that sails between dimensions is acceptable, and a Paperclip TV isn’t really acceptable. Shadow was certainly edging on too dark at times, but it fit the aesthetic well. Same with Mania and lightness. 

[Natie]

Well if we just wanna be litteral...

Classic - lush yet surrealist geometric environments, simplistic round cartoon character designs, kid's adventure anime tone, full of visual humor yet takes its adventures with sincerity. Funky 90s Jpop music.

 

Adventure/2000s - late 90's teenage skate culture, shonen anime artstyle, large-scale high-stakes plots, teenage-level-appropriate content, rock and punk music, character-driven humor.

 

Modern - uhhm... techno music? Large focus on humor, sarcastic writing... lower stakes, takes elements from both previous eras... that's about the most I can say stays consistent, really.

 

Doesn’t help to be able to compare what the "right tone" is when there's been multiple, which is why nobody can agree on what sonic should be.

 

Overall - Jovial, energetic adventure series made for kids to teens, with cartoonish animal characters who face off against large threats, in places similar to our own, but littered with fantastical environments holding magical artifacts. Overall fun-loving tone that encourages living a life full of excitement and action.

I'd say that's the base style and tone that shouldnt be broken.

[StaticMania]

On 12/18/2020 at 11:40 PM, Scritch the Cat said:

but they clearly kept the individual Disney franchises looking like themselves, which occasionally meant not looking like each other.

The Disney characters not being changed much to befit with the FF style was the idea they were getting at...

Square didn't do that and that's not how Sonic should handle its aesthetic.

[Dr. Mechano]

Sonic's tone and style is all over the place.  And maybe that's not (always) a bad thing.

Tonally, having some stories that are goofier or lower-stakes than others can prevent the series from falling prey to serial escalation. Having ups and downs in terms of urgency lets us see Sonic's world in different contexts and - ideally - makes us more invested in the characters and setting. (Or at least it would if the writing were a little better, I'd argue.) If it's the apocalypse all the time, I think people would grow indifferent, basically.

Stylistically, I think from the very beginning Sonic's left itself plenty of room for variety; Sonic 1 has fantastical environments like Green Hill Zone with its checkered hills and Spring Yard Zone with its gigantic pinball elements. But it also has Star Light Zone, which is honestly a pretty normal-looking modern city. 

I think the series has dropped the ball more often than not when attempting to do more "serious" stories, but that doesn't mean they just inherently can't be done well.