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I gave the Digital Trends review a crack since the score seemed like a big outlier and um, whew

image.png.3b88e3a37ab256bb17ebc3a326835c4a.png

I try to keep an open mind but some of the complaints here seem very much out of the mid-2000s.

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2 minutes ago, ZinogreVolt said:

I gave the Digital Trends review a crack since the score seemed like a big outlier and um, whew

image.png.3b88e3a37ab256bb17ebc3a326835c4a.png

I try to keep an open mind but some of the complaints here seem very much out of the mid-2000s.

Critics will never like Sonic stories and its time we got over that. 

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3 minutes ago, ZinogreVolt said:

I gave the Digital Trends review a crack since the score seemed like a big outlier and um, whew

image.png.3b88e3a37ab256bb17ebc3a326835c4a.png

I try to keep an open mind but some of the complaints here seem very much out of the mid-2000s.

I'm sure there's criticisms you could make of the game's story, but admittedly, the Dunkey part & the insistence that it'll only live on in YT comps is pretty damn cringeworthy.

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Looks like Frontiers is the game I'm looking for since Sonic Heroes. Maybe not so polished and with some minor glitches, but still with an interesting story and good direction for the franchise.

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17 minutes ago, Kuzu said:

Critics will never like Sonic stories and its time we got over that. 

Even the stories the fandom generally enjoys mainstream critics either don’t care, outright hate it or pull this “why is cartoon character doing *serious thing*” card. In fact seeing responses like that once again is it any wonder why we got the meta era in the first place?

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Not bad. Decent reviews all around, if this is meant to be the foundation for the next couple Sonic games I just hope they can improve on it without ignoring any criticisms of the game.

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19 minutes ago, Kuzu said:

Critics will never like Sonic stories and its time we got over that. 

 

4 minutes ago, Soniman said:

Even the stories the fandom generally enjoys mainstream critics either don’t care, outright hate it or pull this “why is cartoon character doing *serious thing*” card. In fact seeing responses like that once again is it any wonder why we got the meta era in the first place?

Nope. Big nope from me.

Arlo review touched on this perfectly. He's someone who can buy into cartoon stories and enjoy them, and he laid out all of his criticisms of the story perfectly well. Inconsistent presentation, dialog that sometimes made him feel something but also sometimes felt relatively cringe, wallows too much in one tone that doesn't speak to him in a broader sense, etc

The sooner we start criticizing these stories for how well they can actually engage their audiences the sooner we can move on from this mindset

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Metric wise, it appears that the vast majority of reviews so far are definitely positive. Less than a quarter are mixed. And the pure negative ones are in quite the minority. 

22 minutes ago, Kuzu said:

Critics will never like Sonic stories and its time we got over that. 

Look, if they're going to include it in their criticism and judgment of the games, the least they can do is actually critique stuff instead of just laughing it off as silly animal affairs. 

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8 minutes ago, Soniman said:

Even the stories the fandom generally enjoys mainstream critics either don’t care, outright hate it or pull this “why is cartoon character doing *serious thing*” card. In fact seeing responses like that once again is it any wonder why we got the meta era in the first place?

To be fair, even that’s not fully true. There’s a lot of reviews that while yes, weren’t a fan of the tone - did actually enjoy the dialogue and character interactions (IGN and Gamespot mention it I think), and commented positively about dynamics with Knuckles, and new stuff for Tails.

This just feels like the extreme. The same thing as saying Sonic was never good in 3D, or what have you. Just someone still stuck in the tired rut of “lol why cartoon try to be serious” as if that isn’t a thing other similar games was doing as far back as the mid 2000s with Ratchet, Sly, or even Kirby (Forbidden Land in particular, sure). And the bizarre jab at Dunkey in the middle of all this just makes it even weirder. 

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1 minute ago, The Deleter said:

Nope. Big nope from me.

Arlo review touched on this perfectly. He's someone who can buy into cartoon stories and enjoy them, and he laid out all of his criticisms of the story perfectly well. Inconsistent presentation, dialog that sometimes made him feel something but also sometimes felt relatively cringe, wallows too much in one tone that doesn't speak to him in a broader sense, etc

The sooner we start criticizing these stories for how well they can actually engage their audiences the sooner we can move on from this mindset

You completely misread what I was trying to say, by normal casual audience standards sonic stories are nothing worth engaging with so we shouldn’t be surprised when reviewers aren’t into it when this pretty much always happens, regardless of how good or bad we find the stories on a personal level. You’re never gonna hear ign sing the praises of Black Knight’s narrative is what I’m saying

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2 minutes ago, The Deleter said:

Nope. Big nope from me.

Arlo review touched on this perfectly. He's someone who can buy into cartoon stories and enjoy them, and he laid out all of his criticisms of the story perfectly well. Inconsistent presentation, dialog that sometimes made him feel something but also sometimes felt relatively cringe, wallows too much in one tone that doesn't speak to him in a broader sense, etc

The sooner we start criticizing these stories for how well they can actually engage their audiences the sooner we can move on from this mindset

 

2 minutes ago, Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon said:

Metric wise, it appears that the vast majority of reviews so far are definitely positive. Less than a quarter are mixed. And the pure negative ones are in quite the minority. 

Look, if they're going to include it in their criticism and judgment of the games, the least they can do is actually critique stuff instead of just laughing it off as silly animal affairs. 

Its literally the same reason the movies got their scores. If you're not already into Sonic or just mascot platformers in general as a narrative concept, then you're gonna find it hard to get invested.

The TMNT movies have struggled with that for years with mainstream critics.

The stigma against cartoons is hard to shake.

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Just now, Soniman said:

You completely misread what I was trying to say, by normal casual audience standards sonic stories are nothing worth engaging with so we shouldn’t be surprised when reviewers aren’t into it when this pretty much always happens, regardless of how good or bad we find the stories on a personal level. You’re never gonna hear ign sing the praises of Black Knight’s narrative is what I’m saying

Ironically, IGN and Gamespot actually did have positive things to say about the narrative in Frontiers.

1 minute ago, Kuzu said:

Its literally the same reason the movies got their scores. If you're not already into Sonic or just mascot platformers in general as a narrative concept, then you're gonna find it hard to get invested.

The TMNT movies have struggled with that for years with mainstream critics.

The stigma against cartoons is hard to shake.

That doesn't make it right.

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It's looking pretty positive so far overall. That's encouraging. 

I think the important thing is that Sonic Team take the basis of this game and build upon it - specifically what works well. They gained good enough traction with the boost series of titles that when Generations popped it's head around it became the pinnacle of that era's best gameplay aspects. 

What I don't want is to go through another Sonic Lost World again - so much lost potential here. However, judging from the interviews with Sonic Team it appears that this really will lay the foundation for their next generation of titles. So we have some hope. 

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27 minutes ago, Kuzu said:

Critics will never like Sonic stories and its time we got over that. 

Yeah, the stories cater very strongly to Sonic fans only. Personally I don't ever see Sonic having a critically loved story since the modern industry has moved towards cinematic style games and Sonic isn't really about that. You also have the obvious critique of where critics would say "Why is a blue hedgehog trying to have a serious story?" and it gets mocked for it. On the other side you can also do minimalist stories that Sonic has succeeded with in the past but leaves the fans starving for better use of its world and lore.

Sonic should never try to appeal to critics storywise but should also keep in mind not everyone who plays it is going to know who the Chao are or Knuckles' backstory.

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29 minutes ago, Kuzu said:

Critics will never like Sonic stories and its time we got over that. 

I'm cool with if they don't, but I wish they'd do more in breaking down the Whys for the ways in which the stories don't resonate with them (like what Arlo did, as mentioned). No story in Sonic is flawless, but the Digital Trends review felt like it was criticizing the story simply for trying to be something at all, rather than criticizing it for its own merits and flaws.

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As always my favorite professional review channel's review is the one the feels the most balanced and devoid of bias. They say the story does a good job with what it wants to do, but most likely you have to be already a fan of the franchise to get the most out of it, which is probably true so that's fair:

 

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The whole critic of "why is Sonic trying to have a story?" is so pointless and weird. If a game has a good story, that's a positive aspect to be added to the overall experience. A good story will not make a good game bad, but a good game will definitely worse if the story is lame. Does anyone really think Sonic Colors and Generations would be worse games if they had better dialogue? And I don't understand why a cartoon hedgehog cannot have a serious story. Is this written on the bible?
 

Quote

"Only realistic characters can have serious stories, John 16:33".



This is a dumb assumption, it doesn't make any sense. This is like saying Batman cannot have good stories because he is a man with a bat costume, and this would never be taken seriously in the real world. Having story is an important aspect of Sonic's brand. If a reviewer cannot understand that and keep wanting Sonic to be something else, I don't think their opinion should be considered relevant.

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1 minute ago, pppp said:

As always my favorite professional review channel's review is the one the feels the most balanced and devoid of bias. They say the story does a good job with what it wants to do, but most likely you have to be already a fan of the franchise to get the most out of it, which is probably true so that's fair:

A Sonc game for Sonic fans. Now that's what I like to hear.

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I don’t really think it’s wrong to break down what’s wrong with a story in family-friendly franchises, honestly. I’m a Ratchet fan, that’s been going on since at least the Future trilogy and especially with Rift Apart and PS4, and for what it’s worth, Arlo’s review (I haven’t seen it myself) sounds like it does that. It’s important to keep in mind that his taste isn’t gonna reflect everyone’s, but it sounds like he did acknowledge parts that did make him feel something, on top of the bad. For a Sonic game, and especially if you haven’t been touching IDW, or whatever, it is a drastically different tone, and I can see why people would divisive on that compared to the dialogue of interactions (which Ian excels at).

It’s a different matter, and a completely different extreme to ridicule a game for even trying to take itself seriously. It’s a take that’s literally right stuck smack bang in the middle of the early 2000s, and a take that has been consistently and constantly shut down since then. Where even the likes of Ratchet 1 in 2002 was a cynical fairly serious jab at consumerism and a galaxy full of cynical jerks. It’s one thing to not like it’s plot and break down why, it’s another to act it’s terrible for even trying, and it’s that mindset that got us into a decade of stories that was pointless, boring fluff.

I’m sure I’ll hear about why Sonic should stick to cartoony fluff and boring nonsense, but I don’t know man. That writing has not gotten any sort of warm fuzzies from critics since Colours (and even that hasn’t aged much outside of the Eggman announcer lines), and most fans even less so. The closest we’ve got is Archie/IDW, and that’s because both of those aimed for a adventurous tone that could take itself seriously, even if it wasn’t all of the time. Even if you need to be a fan to appreciate the story (and I’m sure you do to get all of the references and big deals with certain mandates being dropped), I feel like that’s gotta be better than displeasing everyone, fan and critic alike with another badly written comedic affair that doesn’t give a shit about itself.

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Yea I'm giving a hard no for that Digital Trends quote. Stop judging the stories based on who is saying them and just judge the stories fully on its own merits.

Would Frontier's story be suddenly considered better just because it's coming out of Kratos's mouth now, for example? That's the impression they're giving. It's such a flawed way of reviewing, and that alone makes me just not take whatever the rest Digital Trends has to say seriously. They and the like minded reviewers alike are the ones that need to get with it. We're too many generations in the gaming space with so many different ways games are being made to still be thinking this way.

Everyone else seems to be fair about reviewing Frontiers tho, so that's atleast good

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1 minute ago, Jay_Senju said:

Lol that digital trends review.

Oh yeah, the Digital Trends review was laughably terrible. 

Criticizing a game for simply trying to have a story will rarely, if ever hold up as legitimate criticism. 

If the story is bad, that's one thing, but critics dismissing stories for their  simple presence is out-of-bounds in terms of basic sense.

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Honestly ngl not bad at all. imo I fell like sonic team did a decent job with this game for a first attempt I hope they improve this formula for a bigger and better game in the future but honestly knowing sega and sonic team who know if they will stick with the open zone formula lol.

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People and companies like Digital Trends are the reason why we have games like Sonic Colors where the story and writing was dumbed down hard. Terrible.

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1 minute ago, Jake_LeOFFICIAL said:

People and companies like Digital Trends are the reason why we have games like Sonic Colors where the story and writing was dumbed down hard. Terrible.

This kind of critics usually only criticize the existence of story if it is in a Sonic game. If it is any other franchise, they don't

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