Do you listen to the critics when it comes to the Sonic the Hedgehog games?

[Rabbitearsblog]

For me personally, I don't really listen much to what the critics say about the Sonic the Hedgehog games.  At the end of the day, I'm the one who's going to buy the game and I'm the one who's going to give out my own opinions about the games themselves.  However, if there's a critic that I do respect, then I do look over their reviews and see where they are coming from in reviewing the Sonic game as long as they are not being too harsh with their reviews or provide lots of misleading information about the franchise at large.

[GX -The Spindash-]

I listen to critics because I'm interested in the broader conversations surrounding the game. Now, I'm in position where I'm going to buy all games, even if I don't expect to have a good time, that's just part of the path of... academic interest I've set myself into.

That said, people online take reviews WAY too seriously, and I don't mean "You don't need to listen to reviewers." I mean, this is someone's opinion, and someone attempting to help someone who does not already know whether or not they are buying a game on whether or not they should buy that game. If you have personally committed to buy or not buy a game, you really don't need a review (unless you're just looking for insight).

There's also the element of, the majority of reviewers that you're going to be looking at have an audience that does not include Sonic fans. With me steeped as much as I am in this franchise, I generally know all the caveats that are going to be in play: the camera is going to prioritize a cinematic angle over a practical angle, there's an over-reliance on pre-scripted events, etc.... But someone looking at the franchise from the outside might not know it, especially with the movie doing so well and people having renewed interest, and I think there does have to be a voice for that.

[Rabbitearsblog]

8 minutes ago, GX Echidna said:

I listen to critics because I'm interested in the broader conversations surrounding the game. Now, I'm in position where I'm going to buy all games, even if I know that they will be bad, that's just part of the path of... cultural familiarity I've set myself into.

That said, people online take reviews WAY too seriously, and I don't mean "You don't need to listen to reviewers." I mean, this is someone's opinion, and someone attempting to help someone who does not already know whether or not they are buying a game on whether or not they should buy that game. If you have personally committed to buy or not buy a game, you really don't need a review (unless you're just looking for insight).

I agree with this.  I do think that some people do take some of these reviews a little too seriously.  At the end of the day, these reviews are people's personal opinions, so of course there's going to be opinions that not everyone agrees with.  I mean, even if it's not a critic that's reviewing the game, even people who are fellow Sonic fans who are also reviewing the game gets shade thrown at them too just for having a different opinion from the general audience.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

What not to listen to:

• Any complaints about Sonic's friends simply existing (and I mean actually "existing," as in being present but not actually being in the way). That “Sonic’s Shitty Friends” meme should’ve stayed dead even before Generations came around when Unleashed showed they weren’t the problem—bad ideas such as genre roulette was, which they did again with just Sonic.
• Sonic having a story

What to listen to:

• Anything else

Can't say I actually listen to critics, but ideally, I listen to critiques when they suggest improvements over flawed aspects, as in constructive criticism that seeks to help achieve what was intended. That's not to say this is possible with everything--given the Cyberspace levels in Frontiers, for example, I would not mind if those were flat out removed. But there's always room for improvements and iterations--you can't really fix something that's broken if you don't actually bother fixing it.

[Rabbitearsblog]

33 minutes ago, CrownSlayer’s Shadow said:

What not to listen to:

• Any complaints about Sonic's friends simply existing (and I mean actually "existing," as in being present but not actually being in the way)
• Sonic having a story

What to listen to:

• Anything else

Can't say I actually listen to critics, but ideally, I listen to critiques when they suggest improvements over flawed aspects, as in constructive criticism that seeks to help achieve what was intended. That's not to say this is possible with everything--given the Cyberspace levels in Frontiers, for example, I would not mind if those were flat out removed. But there's always room for improvements and iterations--you can't really fix something that's broken if you don't actually bother fixing it.

I agree with this.  Whenever you have some critics who complain about Sonic having a story or that his friends shouldn't be in the game, I tend to not take those reviews seriously because neither of those aspects really affect the gameplay itself.  What does Sonic's friends being in a game or the fact that Sonic has a story have to do with the gameplay itself?  I be much more willing to listen to a critic if they are criticizing an aspect of the Sonic game that's actually relevant to the gameplay.

[Zoomzeta]

To a degree, as I don't have limitless pockets. 

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

2 hours ago, Rabbitearsblog said:

I agree with this.  Whenever you have some critics who complain about Sonic having a story or that his friends shouldn't be in the game, I tend to not take those reviews seriously because neither of those aspects really affect the gameplay itself.  What does Sonic's friends being in a game or the fact that Sonic has a story have to do with the gameplay itself?  I be much more willing to listen to a critic if they are criticizing an aspect of the Sonic game that's actually relevant to the gameplay.

I mean, that’s not saying they can’t criticize characterizations or how the story works. I do a lot of that myself more than I do the gameplay, and lord knows I’ve been anal about not explaining why Knuckles is not guarding the Master Emerald (which is actually shown and explained for Frontiers, so that gets a fucking glowing ovations because it was that fucking simple)  and recently on Shadow’s portrayal in IDW. I don’t discourage that in games.

What I mean is dumb shit like what some critics did for Generations—“Cream the Rabbit is in this game, so that’s a negative” or “They had levels from games that came after the Genesis titles” or (which hasn’t been happening for a long while, but takes  the cake as one of the pettiest gripes ever) the complaints over the mad doctor’s name being “Eggman” over “Robotnik.”

That shit shouldn’t get an ear or eye from anyone.

[Wraith]

I don't listen to any mainstream critics about any  titles because I already know I don't have the same tastes as they do. It's not a personal thing or a question of their credibility. I just know my tests are eclectic and stick to critics who share them.

As far as Sonic specifically goes, I think the common critiques of the series are iworth listening to if SEGA and Sonic Team are serious about expanding their audience and reclaiming their former glory, but I don't have any personal investment in that happening.

[Rabbitearsblog]

1 hour ago, CrownSlayer’s Shadow said:

I mean, that’s not saying they can’t criticize characterizations or how the story works. I do a lot of that myself more than I do the gameplay, and lord knows I’ve been anal about not explaining why Knuckles is not guarding the Master Emerald (which is actually shown and explained for Frontiers, so that gets a fucking glowing ovations because it was that fucking simple)  and recently on Shadow’s portrayal in IDW. I don’t discourage that in games.

What I mean is dumb shit like what some critics did for Generations—“Cream the Rabbit is in this game, so that’s a negative” or “They had levels from games that came after the Genesis titles” or (which hasn’t been happening for a long while, but takes  the cake as one of the pettiest gripes ever) the complaints over the mad doctor’s name being “Eggman” over “Robotnik.”

That shit shouldn’t get an ear or eye from anyone.

Yeah, those types of arguments are not really necessary to the actual gameplay and those are aspects that have been in the franchise for a long time like the "Eggman" and "Robotnik" names.  But then again, I've seen a lot of critics pull out criticisms towards the franchise that are inaccurate to how the stories and the characters actually act.

[batson]

This might be a little of topic, but regarding the whole conversation of peoples inclination to listen to critics, I'd say that the relationship between professional reviewers and the general population in general is at an interesting point right now. I don't think we've ever been at a point before when so many people outright take the stance that professional reviewers in general are bought-and-paid for shills who look at products not from an entertainment angle but from the angle that one might take when writing an essay in sociology. It happens over and over again these days that a product will either have a high score from professional  critics but a low score from audiences, or vice-versa. Granted though, this is more true regarding criticism of movies and television. The video game medium seem to, for one reason or another, not have developed the same mistrust between consumers and critics. Maybe because it's actualy easier to distingush good and bad gameplay from good and bad storytelling in a semi-"objective" way.

As for me I find that in the cases where critics and the public disgree on a work, I sometimes agree with one side and sometimes the other. Which I know is kind of a "yeah, no shit" statement but what I mean is that I really can't tell which side I even tend to agree with. It really seems like 50/50 to me. I agreed with crictics when it came to The Last Jedi. I thought that was the only Disney Star Wars movie that actually did something new and interesting. But I very much agreed with consumers when it came to the 2016 Ghostbusters movie. I thought it was garbage and I can't see why so many critics were so lenient on it other than "sends a good message".

Oh but speaking of which, there is one set of movies where I disagree with both critics and audiences so bad that I feel like I'm living in a nut house whenever I think about it. These are the Sonic the Hedgehog movies. Consenus among both critics and fans seem to be "They're actually kinda good!". And I gotta say, I really don't get what everyone is seeing in these god damn films. To me the Sonic films so far have been lowest-common denominator shovelware. They do the absolute minimum and nothing more. There are TONS of really good childrens movies out there these days (mostly fully animated ones) but the Sonic movies to me feel like a throwback to those godawful live-action-cartoon adaptions of 20-10 years ago. Whenever someone who hasn't seen the Sonic movies ask me how they are I reply "If you liked the live action Chipmunks movies, you will like the Sonic movies". This is espcially true of the first Sonic movie. I mean my god, if people weren't already attached to the Sonic brand I swear people would watch that movie and 6 months later they would have lost all memory of ever having seen it. It feels like it was literally written by studio executives rather than actual screenwriters, by people who only wanted to make the safest least-ambitious family movie possible. It's a direct-to-Disney channel movie with a sighlty higher budget and Jim Carrey desperately trying to make his ultra-bland scripted lines work.

Wow. that turned into a rant. But bottom line... I'm not even sure, I lost my train of thought.

[Dummy Bear]

I've become more or less disillusioned by game reviews in general as I have a more "I enjoyed it/didn't enjoy it" mindset and I'm starting to see games from a more artistic subjective view.

Reviews are supposed to be a guideline and far too often, I see people parade these numbers as objective proof of why their favorite game is a masterpiece that can never be questioned, or why your favorite game is proof of why nobody should take your opinions seriously. It feels like way to many people care about the reception about the work than the actual content of the work itself and it gets exhausting when you want to talk about games that have great ideas but not a great reception.

[SpeedOfSound]

Nope, because my opinions wildly differ from critics. 

 

For example, I greatly dislike Sonic 3 & Knuckles. I think Sonic 2, Sonic CD and even Sonic 3D Blast were better games.

I didn't like Sonic Mania, I thought they ruined the older levels and made them less fun to play. 

I actually kind of like Forces too and Frontiers is my favorite since Adventure 2.

 

So as you can see I don't agree with most critics so why would I care? 

[Rabbitearsblog]

3 hours ago, Slash said:

I've become more or less disillusioned by game reviews in general as I have a more "I enjoyed it/didn't enjoy it" mindset and I'm starting to see games from a more artistic subjective view.

Reviews are supposed to be a guideline and far too often, I see people parade these numbers as objective proof of why their favorite game is a masterpiece that can never be questioned, or why your favorite game is proof of why nobody should take your opinions seriously. It feels like way to many people care about the reception about the work than the actual content of the work itself and it gets exhausting when you want to talk about games that have great ideas but not a great reception.

I agree.  Sometimes with some game reviews, they don't really get into detail about the stories that the games have to offer or go into detail about the game mechanics and how to improve on them.  It's like some reviews are just describing things at base levels and if I want to take a review seriously, I need to know about how good the content of the game is, whether than just focus on one aspect of the game.

[Dummy Bear]

7 minutes ago, Rabbitearsblog said:

I agree.  Sometimes with some game reviews, they don't really get into detail about the stories that the games have to offer or go into detail about the game mechanics and how to improve on them.  It's like some reviews are just describing things at base levels and if I want to take a review seriously, I need to know about how good the content of the game is, whether than just focus on one aspect of the game.

Problem is that some people view games as either simple toys or an investment, and $60 isn't exactly chump change these days.

For some like me, these aren't just sources of fun, but also sources of inspiration.

[Rabbitearsblog]

4 minutes ago, Slash said:

Problem is that some people view games as either simple toys or an investment, and $60 isn't exactly chump change these days.

For some like me, these aren't just sources of fun, but also sources of inspiration.

That's an issue with how I see people view video games in general.  It's like I get very annoyed when many people think that video games are not allowed to be story driven or are not allowed to have stories and I'm thinking to myself that some of the best video games out there have engaging stories.  So, why can't video games have engaging stories?

[SpeedOfSound]

4 minutes ago, Rabbitearsblog said:

That's an issue with how I see people view video games in general.  It's like I get very annoyed when many people think that video games are not allowed to be story driven or are not allowed to have stories and I'm thinking to myself that some of the best video games out there have engaging stories.  So, why can't video games have engaging stories?

Games can have awesome stories and that adds to it, but if I only want a good story I'll read a book or watch a movie. A game needs to be good aside from the story to be a good game. Just my 2 cents. 

[Rabbitearsblog]

1 hour ago, SpeedOfSound said:

Games can have awesome stories and that adds to it, but if I only want a good story I'll read a book or watch a movie. A game needs to be good aside from the story to be a good game. Just my 2 cents. 

Oh most certainly.  I agree that gameplay is much more important to get right than the story because even if the game doesn't really have a story, the game would still be considered good because the gameplay is good.  Like you can argue that Sonic Generations don't really have an in-depth story, but the gameplay is the most memorable thing about the game and many people (including myself) think that Sonic Generations is a really good game because the gameplay was really fun.

[Dummy Bear]

2 hours ago, SpeedOfSound said:

Games can have awesome stories and that adds to it, but if I only want a good story I'll read a book or watch a movie. A game needs to be good aside from the story to be a good game. Just my 2 cents. 

An advantage to gaming over something like a book or a movie is the interactivity factor. With a movie when you look at a story, it's the same every watch through.

With a game, you have control over the main character which gives you potential in how you move the story along. You could play the hero, the villain, save some NPCs, kill others, and sometimes it could affect the outcome of the story. Sometimes it can be an incentive for the player to see what happens next or just to see their favorite characters interact. To me, story and gameplay is not some zero-sum where it needs to be one or the other. Yes, GAMEplay is important part of a GAME but not everyone wants to eat pepperoni pizza all the time, no matter how good it is. Toppings never hurt anyone.

[Rabbitearsblog]

5 minutes ago, Slash said:

An advantage to gaming over something like a book or a movie is the interactivity factor. With a movie when you look at a story, it's the same every watch through.

With a game, you have control over the main character which gives you potential in how you move the story along. You could play the hero, the villain, save some NPCs, kill others, and sometimes it could affect the outcome of the story. Sometimes it can be an incentive for the player to see what happens next or just to see their favorite characters interact. To me, story and gameplay is not some zero-sum where it needs to be one or the other. Yes, GAMEplay is important part of a GAME but not everyone wants to eat pepperoni pizza all the time, no matter how good it is. Toppings never hurt anyone.

I agree with this.  While the gameplay is important, the stories give the game characters a sense of identity and make the audience even more invested in the game if they want to see how the game character reacts to the situation in front of them.

[SpeedOfSound]

On 11/16/2022 at 6:10 PM, Slash said:

An advantage to gaming over something like a book or a movie is the interactivity factor. With a movie when you look at a story, it's the same every watch through.

With a game, you have control over the main character which gives you potential in how you move the story along. You could play the hero, the villain, save some NPCs, kill others, and sometimes it could affect the outcome of the story. Sometimes it can be an incentive for the player to see what happens next or just to see their favorite characters interact. To me, story and gameplay is not some zero-sum where it needs to be one or the other. Yes, GAMEplay is important part of a GAME but not everyone wants to eat pepperoni pizza all the time, no matter how good it is. Toppings never hurt anyone.

 

Well, I don't disagree with anything you said. I agree it's not as simple as only one or the other. 

 

I would say though that to feel like you're interacting with the story there needs to at least be some basic level of competent gameplay and at the most extremes I would personally take amazing gameplay and no story over the reverse. 

[Rabbitearsblog]

4 hours ago, SpeedOfSound said:

Well, I don't disagree with anything you said. I agree it's not as simple as only one or the other. 

I would say though that to feel like you're interacting with the story there needs to at least be some basic level of competent gameplay and at the most extremes I would personally take amazing gameplay and no story over the reverse. 

To be honest, I don't mind the classic games just being all gameplay and no story.  For the most part, the gameplay was really entertaining.

[Starnik]

As long as good arguments are made, it’s fine to listen to fans and critics. Unfortunately some people are not great at presenting their case for why they hate or love something. Sometimes the review and the score don’t seem to match.

 

[Rabbitearsblog]

2 hours ago, Starnik said:

As long as good arguments are made, it’s fine to listen to fans and critics. Unfortunately some people are not great at presenting their case for why they hate or love something. Sometimes the review and the score don’t seem to match.

I've seen this happen all the time with both critics and the fans reviewing the games.  It seems like every time they review the games, they either lean too heavily on one side of the argument and just end up sprouting things that don't make any sense or they seem conflicted on how they should rate the games, which happens far too often.

[SpeedOfSound]

On 11/18/2022 at 1:12 PM, Rabbitearsblog said:

To be honest, I don't mind the classic games just being all gameplay and no story.  For the most part, the gameplay was really entertaining.

Same, but I think for most people today there has to be some sort of story. You didn't expect an epic story back then, it was told through the ganeplay and stage design if at all. 

I might not personally need any story, but a lot of people do. 

 

 

[Rabbitearsblog]

8 hours ago, SpeedOfSound said:

Same, but I think for most people today there has to be some sort of story. You didn't expect an epic story back then, it was told through the ganeplay and stage design if at all. 

I might not personally need any story, but a lot of people do. 

Yeah.  Many video games these days rely on stories to carry them over.