How SA2 got away with... pretty much whole story?

[Wraith]

I have never heard a gunshot in that scene before today lmao. Whatever it was it wasn't in versions of the game that most people played.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Yeah, there’s a gunshot heard in SA2.

Not sure why it wasn’t heard in Kuzu’s video, and I thought it was just a difference between Japanese and English versions, but I’ve heard Maria getting shot in every version so far.

Now, I’m more shocked other people didn’t know that after all this time. 

[Kuzu]

4 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

Ok I have no idea why there's no gunshot there because it's in every other video of the scene that I've ever seen.

I think...maybe it's still there but very low? Skimming through random vids it seems like some of the later ports have reduced the volume until it's barely audible, I can't tell for sure if it's in that video or if I'm just imagining it.

Most versions, though, it's very obvious.

Rewatching the video I posted, yea its there, but its almost completely inaudible due to the BGM. You literally have to turn the BGM off to actually hear it though. 

I can't tell if that was intentional censoring or just SA2's terrible sound mixing, but it's probably the latter. 

 

 

But lmao, there actually was a gunshot, go figure. 

[Wraith]

Yeah every time I've ever played this game Shadow's theme is playing loudly over that flashback so I probably didn't catch it because of that.

I guess I should chime in on the discussion. I figured she died but my first assumption wasn't actually that she was shot. I was five years old though so that may not mean much. I missed a lot of obvious things back then.

 

Spoiler

It's not a huge deal either way. More people were killed in the game before this.

 

[Diogenes]

Man what kind of Berenstain-ass shit is this, how many people's views of the game were different based on whether they heard this one sound effect

[Kuzu]

Damn, can't believe my whole argument just fell apart due to terrible sound mixing :V

 

Interestingly, I did rewatch all of SA2's cutscenes from that channel, and yea, the tone of the entire game changes drastically when the BGM is off in certain areas and you get a proper translation for the dialogue versus the mangling of the English dub. Compare Gerald's speech in the English dub with music blaring versus the scene in with Windii's translations.

 

English Dub

 

Japanese Dub

 

 

3 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

Man what kind of Berenstain-ass shit is this, how many people's views of the game were different based on whether they heard this one sound effect

 

How the fuck is anyone supposed to know she was shot in that scene man without that Sfx? I was eight when I first played this game bro, I didn't even know she was supposed to have died until the Last Story said it outright. 

[Wraith]

It's a fun "quirk" of the Adventure games being so unpolished and having so many different versions.

This is a tangent but I had a friend from the UK that swore the Sonic stages in SA2 was trash for a long time and pinned it on the controls. I always thought he was talking out his ass. They aren't perfect, obviously, but they're reliable. Sonic does what you want him to do when you press the buttons....riiiight?

...Turns out there's a bug in the PAL version of the game exclusively, where the game will register one press of the A button as two, which is enough for Sonic to careen off of a cliff and die. It's enough for Knuckles and Rouge to get stuck on walls ala 06, though not as bad. Imagine how absurd it is for a core function of the game to just randomly fail like that, even if it only happened 1% of the time. You become more sympathetic quickly.

It's not even really worth it to defend these games sometimes. I never know what fucked up shit sega sold people.

[Kuzu]

No wonder this game got progressively worse reviews, it gradually gets worse each time its ported. The very fact that someone who played SA2 on the Dreamcast can have a very different experience from someone who played it on the Gamecube less than a year later is so fucking stupid, but looking at Sonic Colors Ultimate, that is absolutely something I can believe happening to Sonic. The only way to make these games even close to functional is literally mod it. 

God fucking dammit man...

 

 

[Dr. Mechano]

I've been trying to put my finger on why ShtH feels so much more like a "tryhard dark" game than SA2 for me, even if objectively they both have similar levels of violence/death/etc.

One of the differences that really comes to mind is that SA2 invented new characters out of whole cloth to die rather than depicting familiar characters dying. Maria getting shot and Gerald getting executed are still pretty intense for a kids' platformer series, but I feel like both of these things are less shocking than seeing it happen to characters we know - like Eggman dying in those three non-canon endings, or Sonic keeling over in agony in the game's intro (where he may or may not have died; that always felt unclear to me).

[Kuzu]

Unless you're an overly emotional type of person, or a literal child, there's literally no way you could believe they would actually kill off the main hero and villain respectively. Hell, the character you just mentioned, they brought back in literally the next game lol. 

I dunno, maybe my brain is just too logical for this, but seeing Sonic or Eggman die doesn't really affect me in any way, because I know for a fact that it's not going to stick. Like, once you look past the shock value, it's nothing which is why nobody really cares to talk about it. 

 

Its the typical shlock Comic Books pull to entice readers into buying their stuff, and it works every time because every issue is somebody's first just like how every Sonic game is somebody's first. 

[Wraith]

It "affected me" in the sense that I thought it was cool and raised the stakes. Up until those two games, Sonic felt invincible. It was the ultimate way to sell a new threat.

Now, obviously, after seeing this same trick over and over again in all media aimed at teenage boys it comes off a bit cheap. It's the obvious thing to do, and it's compounded by the fact that you know it'll never last, so it's noncommittal alongside being boring. They tried to bare their fangs but they only showed us that they were toothless.

[Kuzu]

I feel like this is point when I should probably remember that adolescent boys are and have always been Sonic's primary demographic when they do shit like that. Because its the type of thing only that specific demographic would buy into as a believable plot point as opposed to cheap shock value. 

It's very easy for us to scoff at it, because we're all adults who have consumed so much media and have seen these tricks so many times that we've become jaded to them whenever they show up. Especially when speaking in hindsight. Yes, everyone mocks and lambasts Shadow's game as a tryhard game, but show that shit to an adolescent that isn't already completely jaded by media and it would probably excite them. 

 

Its very easy to forget that Sega don't design these games in mind for a bunch of adults on the Internet arguing among themselves, they design them for the children who like to see Sonic blow up shit up while flashing a toothy smile. Like yo, we can mock it all we want, but Shadow is still a major figure in the franchise to this very day in spite of that because Sega didn't care about the opinions of a bunch of adults and decided the series needed a new face. It succeeded at that for better or worse. 

[MetalSkulkBane]

13 hours ago, CrownSlayer’s Shadow said:

No. Because we’re only talking about reception in terms of the story and narrative here. Not the gameplay

That intrigues me.

I don't think I ever heard about good games with story that everyone agrees is bad (except few FPS, but come on).

I mean some with argue about Final Fantasy or Metal Gear, but there always will be defenders of those games.

So I wonder if fun gameplay makes you like story more and vice versa.

[batson]

4 hours ago, Kuzu said:

Its very easy to forget that Sega don't design these games in mind for a bunch of adults on the Internet arguing among themselves, they design them for the children who like to see Sonic blow up shit up while flashing a toothy smile. Like yo, we can mock it all we want, but Shadow is still a major figure in the franchise to this very day in spite of that because Sega didn't care about the opinions of a bunch of adults and decided the series needed a new face. It succeeded at that for better or worse. 

Good observation. I think we live in a time when many adult nerds with a pop culture interest likes to imagine that what's appealing to a child and what's appealing to an adult is pretty much the same thing, and that as a consequnce the things aimed at children should also have adult tastes in mind. I see statements like "If a kids show isn't also entertaining to older audinces, then it's not a good kids show" all the time, but history has proven that this is not the case. Something like the original He-man show or the original Ninja Turtles show are corny and stupid to most adults, but in their respective eras they became some of the biggest phenomenons among children that the world has ever known. Or take classic childrens picture books like Curious George. Would any adult get any kind of entertainment reading Curious George books by themselves? Probably not, but the books are obviously great for little kids since the continue to be popular generation after generation. I kinda shake my head whenever I see adult cartoon fans say something like "I cannot believe that The Owl House isn't more popular and yet Paw Patrol is making billions in merchandise, what is wrong with consumers today?". Well, the consumers in this case are kids, and puppies that drive transforming cars are apparently more appealing than whatever Owl House is (I honestly don't know since I haven't seen the show).

Shadow is/was a good example of this phenomenon, especially as he appeared in his own game. Everyone over 16 laughed at the game but those under that age (or in this case, at least males under that age) apparently loved it.

[MetalSkulkBane]

Too some degree, I guess? But I'm not sure I agree.

Paw Patrol demographic is 2-4 year old, of course adults won't like it. Same way I can see kids not liking Young Justice. But those are extremes.

80s cartoons like TMNT or He-Man are bad for today standards, but are still best cartoons of their era. I checked 80s Thundercats. Most of it aged terribly, but some moments?

 

As an adult I stil find it quite cool. Something I can't say about IDK Mega Man Fully Charged.

And while I can't prove it, I don't think modern 10 year old would love old TMNT as much as 80s kids.

[Wraith]

2 hours ago, MetalSkulkBane said:

So I wonder if fun gameplay makes you like story more and vice versa.

Gameplay can do a lot to endear you to characters and create narrative outside of cutscenes. IMO, most Resident Evil games have bad stories, but the narrative of helping your guy get a leg up in this tense life or death situation is still satisfying and that mostly happens in game.

1 hour ago, batson said:

Good observation. I think we live in a time when many adult nerds with a pop culture interest likes to imagine that what's appealing to a child and what's appealing to an adult is pretty much the same thing, and that as a consequnce the things aimed at children should also have adult tastes in mind. I see statements like "If a kids show isn't also entertaining to older audinces, then it's not a good kids show" all the time, but history has proven that this is not the case. Something like the original He-man show or the original Ninja Turtles show are corny and stupid to most adults, but in their respective eras they became some of the biggest phenomenons among children that the world has ever known. Or take classic childrens picture books like Curious George. Would any adult get any kind of entertainment reading Curious George books by themselves? Probably not, but the books are obviously great for little kids since the continue to be popular generation after generation. I kinda shake my head whenever I see adult cartoon fans say something like "I cannot believe that The Owl House isn't more popular and yet Paw Patrol is making billions in merchandise, what is wrong with consumers today?". Well, the consumers in this case are kids, and puppies that drive transforming cars are apparently more appealing than whatever Owl House is (I honestly don't know since I haven't seen the show).

Shadow is/was a good example of this phenomenon, especially as he appeared in his own game. Everyone over 16 laughed at the game but those under that age (or in this case, at least males under that age) apparently loved it.

I was only around 8 years old when it came out so I thought it was legitimately great when I first played it, but we can't ignore the fact that a lot of what it was doing was shallow, derivative and not executed all that well. There are some games that I consider good but just grew out of like Kirby or Pokemon, but Shadow is one case where you just realize it isn't anything special when you gain a wider reference point. There are a lot of edgy platformers with guns that are better than this one. Other kids even tried to tell me about them at the time, but I wouldn't listen! It's not like this game was a banger among my age group or anything. A couple of people liked it, but they'd just go back to Jak II or Ratchet: Deadlocked at the end of the day anyway!

Think about what kind of uniquely 'Sonic' games they could have made with those resources. Maybe it still wouldn't have been great, but it would have stuck out more than chasing some trend they weren't even equipped to handle properly. Experimenting with Sonic's core gameplay might have given the series some ideas that they could use in future games too, instead of the new ideas being stuff they'd immediately have to throw away once it stopped being cool. The game sold well on all platforms, but that's really the only good thing you can say about it. The only gains they made were short term, and it's very hard to see that and say they made a reasonable decision in hindsight.

[Kuzu]

I'd argue that's been consistent problem with how Sega handles Sonic since the first game. The series was literally conceptualized as the "cooler" alternative to Mario. And while that helped in the short-term, you can't sustain an entire franchise on being "cool" or chasing after trends, and you would think they would have understood that by now, but here we are about to get a Breath of the Wild clone because that's what is cool right now. 

And the irony of this is that I say you can't sustain a franchise on being cool..and yet Sonic is still somehow relevant in 2022 about to get a second theatrical release. 

 

I honestly cannot tell if Sega are stupid or just secretly geniuses....

 

 

[E-122-Psi]

20 hours ago, Wraith said:

It's a fun "quirk" of the Adventure games being so unpolished and having so many different versions.

This is a tangent but I had a friend from the UK that swore the Sonic stages in SA2 was trash for a long time and pinned it on the controls. I always thought he was talking out his ass. They aren't perfect, obviously, but they're reliable. Sonic does what you want him to do when you press the buttons....riiiight?

...Turns out there's a bug in the PAL version of the game exclusively, where the game will register one press of the A button as two, which is enough for Sonic to careen off of a cliff and die. It's enough for Knuckles and Rouge to get stuck on walls ala 06, though not as bad. Imagine how absurd it is for a core function of the game to just randomly fail like that, even if it only happened 1% of the time. You become more sympathetic quickly.

It's not even really worth it to defend these games sometimes. I never know what fucked up shit sega sold people.

I remember it CONSTANTLY setting off during the Egg Golem, I could just jump normally for some reason. Maybe the big boss took a toll of the framerate even worse in 50hz or something.

19 hours ago, Dr. Mechano said:

I've been trying to put my finger on why ShtH feels so much more like a "tryhard dark" game than SA2 for me, even if objectively they both have similar levels of violence/death/etc.

One of the differences that really comes to mind is that SA2 invented new characters out of whole cloth to die rather than depicting familiar characters dying. Maria getting shot and Gerald getting executed are still pretty intense for a kids' platformer series, but I feel like both of these things are less shocking than seeing it happen to characters we know - like Eggman dying in those three non-canon endings, or Sonic keeling over in agony in the game's intro (where he may or may not have died; that always felt unclear to me).

I feel like SA2 was the franchise original sin, in that it started this trend of being 'tryhard dark' and attempting to turn Sonic into more of an edgy anime type setting, but still had SOME toes dipped in the old stuff. Like SA2 is really the start of Sonic beginning to feel like an alien in his own world, his cartoony design and characterisation kinda clashing ridiculously against the realistic humans and backdrops without any sense of irony about it, along with things that maybe get 'too real' like a little girl getting fatally gunned down, but I guess there stuff like that isn't ever present. There's still a lot of Sonic-y type whimsical level design, especially in how they developed the Chao world and what not, while ShTH and Next Gen feel like total sellouts in that regard, ripping nearly ALL of Sonic's former identity to appeal to the dark sci fi 'epic' trend.

I still think SA2 went a bit TOO far in regards to its backstory and lore and some signs of pretentiousness in terms of not thinking of the ramifications (like the world's military is corrupt and murderous and we're just...fine with that in the end, huh?) not to mention how the actual story was awkwardly engraving the photo realistic humans as the dominant species with just a dozen cartoon anthros for some reason, but it wasn't as in your face sellout 'I'm a big boy story' like later cases were. I still think SA1 was the better example of a more high stakes dramatic Sonic story since, while it had some tone and aesthetic changes, it was still tied by its core to the old Sonic lore, like the echidnas, the Chaos emeralds and Eggman's badniks. It still felt like the 'darkness' was still developed around Sonic's universe instead of vice versa.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

9 hours ago, MetalSkulkBane said:

That intrigues me.

I don't think I ever heard about good games with story that everyone agrees is bad (except few FPS, but come on).

I mean some with argue about Final Fantasy or Metal Gear, but there always will be defenders of those games.

So I wonder if fun gameplay makes you like story more and vice versa.

For me, I judge them separately, tho they’re great when they’re integrated together. The reason why is because you never know what might catch you more despite the game being…well, a game. Games, to me, are above all an experience—I want to immerse myself in the game, not just play it, much like the same way I read a novel or watch a movie, as video games are combinations and amplifications of just about every form of media out there, but differs by giving you the driver’s seat of the Experience.

See, I’ve played massively fun games where the lore was all over the place and was in need of retcons to further centralize them—League Of Legends I’ve played since 2009 when it was first introduced, and it has had more retcons than you could count before they centralized everything they needed to tell a story with Arcane. In cases like these, story (or rather lore in this case) has ups and down.

I’ve played average games where their best parts were their stories—Super Paper Mario and Twilight Princess (because BotW made that game feel so dated despite my love for it) comes to mind here—and played them over again because I liked their stories and settings that much.

Games that I found bad or uninteresting I tended to avoid unless I really needed to learn something from it—case example being Sonic 06, where despite hearing and seeing the state of the game, I bought for the experience and to learn what the problems were in its story (and gameplay too, but I’m trying to stick to the topic).

And games whose stories and lore that I found interesting and insightful, but massively overwhelming —Eve Online comes to mind for this one—I mainly use their alternate media to get into, such as comics, their wikis, watching Let’s Plays, etc.

Then there’s games like Mass Effect—I was on the hype of the original trilogy, but looking back at it with a different eye has made me see areas some parts need improvement.

And then there are games I just flat out don’t play because I’m not a fan of the genre, like Horror games or damn near any turn-based RPG game where I have to wait for the enemy to attack me (with a few exceptions, such as the first two Paper Mario games).

You’d be surprised at what faulty storytelling gets overlooked because the game is considered good, and I’m talking violations such as “Tell, don’t Show” or straight up info-dumping.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

2 hours ago, E-122-Psi said:

I feel like SA2 was the franchise original sin, in that it started this trend of being 'tryhard dark' and attempting to turn Sonic into more of an edgy anime type setting, but still had SOME toes dipped in the old stuff. Like SA2 is really the start of Sonic beginning to feel like an alien in his own world, his cartoony design and characterisation kinda clashing ridiculously against the realistic humans and backdrops without any sense of irony about it, along with things that maybe get 'too real' like a little girl getting fatally gunned down, but I guess there stuff like that isn't ever present. There's still a lot of Sonic-y type whimsical level design, especially in how they developed the Chao world and what not, while ShTH and Next Gen feel like total sellouts in that regard, ripping nearly ALL of Sonic's former identity to appeal to the dark sci fi 'epic' trend.

Okay, we’re not doing this “blame SA2 for things I don’t like” shtick again.

One, if you want to talk “original sin,” that would be SA1’s fault. It started the trend with realistic humans and backdrops, and the anime stuff, etc. And if you’re going to excuse that for SA1, you shouldn’t be blaming SA2 for continuing it. (Frankly, I like Unleashed’s style much better, but that’s besides the point)

Two, damn near every level theme down to the color scheme is something you’ve already seen in games prior to SA2. In fact, SA2 shares a lot more in common with games like Sonic 3&K in this area than you think. The Ark levels to the Death Egg, Pyramid Base to Sandopolis, the forest levels to Angel Island or Marble Garden; about the only levels you could call out different here would be the city and highway levels, but even Prison Island wouldn’t look out of place to something like Scrap Brain Zone, or even the Final Egg from SA1z

Three, it’s fucking 2022. Sonic has been all over the damn place at this point. We’ve had Forces, a game that tries to go beyond SA2 with dark sci-fi elements and what not, but fails for completely different reasons. We’ve had Sonic in medieval kingdoms, an adaptations of 1001 Nights, visiting real world analogues, fight demons and gods of various proportions and realisms and cartoony designs, and a live action movie set in the real world.

Storywise, yes, it does do things that hadn’t been done before. Gunning a little girl down is shocking, but this franchise has gone into much darker areas than that since then.

Edit: no merge here either? How does that work, really?

[Kuzu]

Its amazing how much people claim Sonic Adventure 2 drastically changed the tone of Sonic when its honestly just a culmination of everything up to that point.

Like everything people accuse those games of doing were already present in Sonic 3 lol. Like the only thing you can argue that pushing it was Maria getting shot, but that's honestly been so overstated at this point.

[Wraith]

The shift starts with Sonic the Hedgehog 3, where they moved away from the artificial look and started embracing realistic textures and backdrops. I don't think anybody has to like it, but "Sonic is a cartoon hedgehog that exists in an approximation of the real world" was a goal pretty early in the series's life.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

23 hours ago, Wraith said:

...Turns out there's a bug in the PAL version of the game exclusively, where the game will register one press of the A button as two, which is enough for Sonic to careen off of a cliff and die. It's enough for Knuckles and Rouge to get stuck on walls ala 06, though not as bad. Imagine how absurd it is for a core function of the game to just randomly fail like that, even if it only happened 1% of the time. You become more sympathetic quickly.

I'm actually really surprised about this because the PAL GC version of Battle is how I first played Adventure 2 as a kid and I don't recall that being a thing. Granted, I played it on Wii, but I doubt that would have much of an effect unless I was playing on a 60hz TV at the time, which I can't for the life of me remember. That said, I remember later levels of SA2 being a nightmare for me, in particular - Crazy Gadget, Final Chase, and Final Rush, which thinking about it - are levels that heavily utilise the homing attack in particular. Imagine trying to jump rails and such only for a homing attack to suddenly activate and send you flying to your death. This bug would be a really easy way to chalk up why those levels were far harder back then.

And I would chalk it up to normal "not being as good at the game as a kid", but I never had any problems with DX from what I remember, nor did I have anywhere near the same trouble when I finally got the PS3 port of Adventure 2. Makes me wonder if I was being hit by this or not.

What's more bizarre is I always thought SEGA was one of the companies more forward thinking with this stuff. Heroes for example was my very first Sonic game as a kid, and right out of the box on our side, that comes with the option to choose between a 50hz mode, or a 60hz mode, along with a testing functionality to see if your TV can support 60hz or not. To hear that they managed to screw the pooch this bad is insane.

[Dr. Mechano]

1 hour ago, Wraith said:

The shift starts with Sonic the Hedgehog 3, where they moved away from the artificial look and started embracing realistic textures and backdrops. I don't think anybody has to like it, but "Sonic is a cartoon hedgehog that exists in an approximation of the real world" was a goal pretty early in the series's life.

Ehh, I mean...

Even setting the giant mushrooms aside, this cliffside still has the same kind of artificial-looking patterning as Sonic 1, 2, and CD.

S3&K's zone had less of that, perhaps, but I'm still not sure "real world" is what they were going for.

[Kuzu]

Stages like the Death Egg and the Ark levels are virtually indistinguishable.