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Do you think Sonic Frontiers will change how fanservice is regarded/written?


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32 minutes ago, CrownSlayer’s Shadow said:

I think it's pretty obvious:

  • No realistic guns in Shadow's hands (you can have guns, just don't have Shadow using them)
  • Limit or remove cursing
  • Maybe do away with the amnesia sub-plot

That's it. You don't have to change the story much (which I would if I had the chance), just those three listed.

Because my aim was to eliminate the most obvious issues people focused on that were controversial over the ones that weren't, not make it a bigger meme than it already was for all the wrong reasons. "Anime energy blasts" is such a generic staple next to "Super Powered McGuffins" that anyone trying to make an issue out of that over the contrast of a cartoony hedgehog holding a realistic submachine gun is complaining for the sake of complaining.

I'd like to think people are capable of being more intelectually honest than that inspite of how easy it is for someone to using any random thing as a pretext to complain, much as people are all too eager to do over the internet.

Nothings stopping it from being entertaining, but what makes you think doubling down on the controversial aspects that led to the first noticable schism in this franchise would be an even better idea given how we already saw how that played out the first time? That would be akin to doubling down on the Elise kissing Sonic 06 by giving him full tongue in a potential 06 adaptation--an exaggeration, but you see what I'm getting at here.

Because we didn't already see how it played out. Like you keep emphasizing, the focus of realistic guns in Shadow's hand as an identity is the game's version of Elise's kiss. It's what draws everyone's ire, it's what makes the memes the memes, but it's also a component of the game that gives the story an identity to begin with. You don't remove Elise, you refine her to the point she works better, and actually gets across the more important idea that respects what it can of the intention while avoiding that pitfall. "doubling down" isn't keeping the framing the exact same here, it's retaining it as an element and enhancing beyond that in spite of itself.

Guns were never a problem for ShTH in truth due to the very nature of the gameplay. He picks up and uses everything in that game, everything. Realistic glocks aren't the identity of his character, but the marketing definitely tries to make them seem like it. What comes off as a cringe, tryhard new identity for the character becomes freeform and interesting as an approach with a simple shift in the spotlight. The people who dislike Shadow's identity revolving around a gun (who aren't looking to attach themselves to it as a bias) are assured by it being only a momentary use, and those who don't, or even want to see it because of the memes at this point, get to have a flash-in-the-pan of fanservice that might even come off as conveniently cool, as long as the execution plays it just right. Meanwhile all the rocket launchers, Eggpawn weapons, and alien tech he ends up using further dillutes the imagery and identity, since again, it's just Shadow being resourceful ala any B-movie protagonist. Framed in a context where that resourceful nature lends itself to over the top action that wouldn't be visually possible otherwise, it closes itself out with the justification everyone doesn't know they want until they get it - raw spectacle in absurdity.

Nobody wants Sonic to help out anime girls by default, in the same way. But outside of Elise, we've already seen that concept work multiple times over, in ways that actually do work to the media's benefit. Same as Shadow's guns, you'd want to reframe her into a context where she actually works, rather than remove that element completely.

 

Getting rid of all of that after all this time to attempt to placate the complaints that target-lock onto it as a concept, misses the forest for the trees when it would only be peeling back only one layer of the onion. Removing Shadow's realistic guns, removing GUN's realistic guns, removing the tone, removing the human soldiers, removing certain Black Arms enemies and areas, hell even removing Sonic & Co. for being offensive to the senses with how much higher their brightly colored contrast is to the game - whatever you end up with afterwards, depending on the degree of controversy that's acceptable, is just going to be a version of Shadow the Hedgehog that isn't making the best use of what identity it did have, likely in vain considering it's central premise on the edgy hedgy to begin with.

The reason why it's a better idea is because it actually asks the audience to engage with the content the game used, but in the context of a work that actually justifies it to the degree that hating it actually becomes hard to accomplish. If the problems people have with the ideas can no longer be justified as horrible due to how undeniably well they're pulled off, how much better does it reflect on itself as an adaption of those ideas?

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1 hour ago, The Deleter said:

Because we didn't already see how it played out.

Yes we did? 
 

ShTH was panned critically, Shadow himself was ridiculed to hell and back with the epithet “Shadow should’ve stayed dead” every chance a hater got to say it, and the entire franchise hit a massive reputational low point only succeeded by Sonic 06 coming in and making it worse with “Sonic’s Shitty Friends” becoming a decade long meme that we’re just now getting over. It was the most controversial thing seen in this franchise before it was even released on consoles and before Sonic 06 took its crown. What are you even talking about?

1 hour ago, The Deleter said:

Like you keep emphasizing, the focus of realistic guns in Shadow's hand as an identity is the game's version of Elise's kiss. It's what draws everyone's ire, it's what makes the memes the memes, but it's also a component of the game that gives the story an identity to begin with.
 

Shadow’s guns should not be the identity of that game, and you all and all do not need them to tell the same story. You’d be doing it a favor by removing them from Shadow’s gameplay.

Goes without saying that they didn’t bring them back given the reception they had until they revisited the idea with the Wisp-ons in Forces that matched the aesthetics much better.

1 hour ago, The Deleter said:

You don't remove Elise, you refine her to the point she works better, and actually gets across the more important idea that respects what it can of the intention while avoiding that pitfall.

Or you can remove the kiss scene, making it less controversial. Much the same way can do away with the guns and avoid the controversy that came with it as well.

1 hour ago, The Deleter said:

 

"doubling down" isn't keeping the framing the exact same here, it's retaining it as an element and enhancing beyond that in spite of itself.

Which you won’t be doing keeping the guns in ShTH. So you’re better off removing them.

1 hour ago, The Deleter said:

Guns were never a problem for ShTH in truth due to the very nature of the gameplay. He picks up and uses everything in that game, everything. Realistic glocks aren't the identity of his character, but the marketing definitely tries to make them seem like it.

You’re right. Guns aren’t the problem—the aesthetics are. And the aesthetics don’t fit. So remove the guns and make more use of his Chaos Powers instead. That would work leagues better and work with the character more appropriately.

1 hour ago, The Deleter said:

 

What comes off as a cringe, tryhard new identity for the character becomes freeform and interesting as an approach with a simple shift in the spotlight. The people who dislike Shadow's identity revolving around a gun (who aren't looking to attach themselves to it as a bias) are assured by it being only a momentary use, and those who don't, or even want to see it because of the memes at this point, get to have a flash-in-the-pan of fanservice that might even come off as conveniently cool, as long as the execution plays it just right. Meanwhile all the rocket launchers, Eggpawn weapons, and alien tech he ends up using further dillutes the imagery and identity, since again, it's just Shadow being resourceful ala any B-movie protagonist. Framed in a context where that resourceful nature lends itself to over the top action that wouldn't be visually possible otherwise, it closes itself out with the justification everyone doesn't know they want until they get it - raw spectacle in absurdity.

K, then do that without Shadow using guns. That’s not that difficult.

1 hour ago, The Deleter said:

Nobody wants Sonic to help out anime girls by default, in the same way. But outside of Elise, we've already seen that concept work multiple times over, in ways that actually do work to the media's benefit. Same as Shadow's guns, you'd want to reframe her into a context where she actually works, rather than remove that element completely.

So have Shadow use his Chaos Powers instead.

1 hour ago, The Deleter said:

Getting rid of all of that after all this time to attempt to placate the complaints that target-lock onto it as a concept, misses the forest for the trees when it would only be peeling back only one layer of the onion. Removing Shadow's realistic guns, removing GUN's realistic guns, removing the tone, removing the human soldiers, removing certain Black Arms enemies and areas, hell even removing Sonic & Co. for being offensive to the senses with how much higher their brightly colored contrast is to the game - whatever you end up with afterwards, depending on the degree of controversy that's acceptable, is just going to be a version of Shadow the Hedgehog that isn't making the best use of what identity it did have, likely in vain considering it's central premise on the edgy hedgy to begin with

So, here’s a question. 

How does “remove the guns from Shadow’s hands” (which was literally the first of only three whole changes i suggested for the entire idea of an adaptation) equate to:

  • Removing GUN weapons
  • Removing the tone
  • Removing the human soldiers
  • Removing the Black Arms
  • and literally everything else you stated that was not on my list of three changes?

Seriously, make that make sense. I know you read what I said given you directly quoted it to start grasping at extremes like this to argue for the sake of arguing.
 

I literally said in that exact same post you quoted you don’t have to change the story much, and you’re acting like you read the exact opposite dude.

1 hour ago, The Deleter said:

The reason why it's a better idea is because it actually asks the audience to engage with the content the game used, but in the context of a work that actually justifies it to the degree that hating it actually becomes hard to accomplish. If the problems people have with the ideas can no longer be justified as horrible due to how undeniably well they're pulled off, how much better does it reflect on itself as an adaption of those ideas?

Except you’re not suggesting a better idea. You’re suggesting a repeat of the shit hitting the fan back in 2005 that led to the start of controversy in this franchise. We’re in 2023, meaning we’ve had almost 20 years to learn the lesson from that—you want to adapt ShTH, don’t repeat the same mistakes that it was scorned for just to make a bigger meme of it. That didn’t go well in 2005 when it first came out, doing it again—and intentionally at that—almost 20 years later is a case study in insanity.

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My bad derailing the topic. So like, I seriously forgot that IDW takes place after Forces (and thus most games in the series, meaning they already happened in IDW). Still, an adaptation is still a cool thing to explore, flaws and all.

To tie back to Frontiers, Shadow the Hedgehog's purpose as a game story is to explore Shadow's past and his decisions. The pathways, the last story, all of it. Its references to the past are solidified by both amnesia (flashbacks induced by Black Doom or trauma) and revisits of past locations (but with reason). Its retreads make sense while also introducing more elements (Black Arms, their transported ruins, expansion of Space Colony Ark, the human world, even Eggman's scale and deceit). There's absurd sincerity and what feels like a CEO's kid's wishlist is, but in a way that still feels, natural? Maybe Frontiers needs to sink in more for me but Shadow the Hedgehog, I legitimately think just does it better all around. I'm sure Frontiers is like the better game to play though.

Like I don't think there was any point where I thought "why did they reference this, this doesn't add anything other than a reminder to something that might be better". 

Though I do question why Shadow can swing a speed limit sign.

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Giving a Sonic character a gun, and giving the player free sway to decide Shadow's fate were the two reasons Shadow the Hedgehog existed.  Amnesia is the main thrust of the plot and the only reason Shadow gets involved. Removing those points only leaves you with the game's garbage story elements. Aliens that don't add anything to Shadow's backstory and a pretty generic 'invasion' subplot that didn't add anything to the series established characters and lore.

There was also more to the aesthetic that didn't fit beyond Shadow holding a gun: focus on generic looking soldiers vs equally generic looking aliens while Sonic and friends, represented by scraped together reused Heroes assets, are Ill fitting and lost in the shuffle. The world is represented by realistic cities and forests being destroyed in very generic "Hollywood" setpieces over the series's trademark artstyle and whimsey. It's just a really fucking ugly looking game on top of everything else wrong with it. 

 

You might as well just write a new story with Shadow in it and let the past be the past.

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5 hours ago, Wraith said:

Giving a Sonic character a gun, and giving the player free sway to decide Shadow's fate were the two reasons Shadow the Hedgehog existed.

You do not need to give a Sonic character a gun to decide Shadow’s fate.

5 hours ago, Wraith said:

Amnesia is the main thrust of the plot and the only reason Shadow gets involved.

You do know you can create a new reason instead, right?

5 hours ago, Wraith said:

Removing those points only leaves you with the game's garbage story elements.
 

How are guns and amnesia any less garbage than the whole game? They’re barely even the saving grace.

5 hours ago, Wraith said:

You might as well just write a new story with Shadow in it and let the past be the past.

And you know what, we could do that too, and use it as a retcon to his backstory since I’m more in favor of rewriting ShTH’s entire story. So that works out for me as the better option.

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23 minutes ago, CrownSlayer’s Shadow said:

You do not need to give a Sonic character a gun to decide Shadow’s fate.

Read that back and try again. 

23 minutes ago, CrownSlayer’s Shadow said:

You do know you can create a new reason instead, right?

How are guns and amnesia any less garbage than the whole game? They’re barely even the saving grace.

And you know what, we could do that too, and use it as a retcon to his backstory since I’m more in favor of rewriting ShTH’s entire story. So that works out for me as the better option.

If Shadow doesn't have amnesia, his allegiance and his fate are already decided. There's no temptation from Black Doom bring him the chaos emeralds in exchange for clarity or purpose, so there's no story there. What we're left is the aesthetic, which we've already established as ill fitting. 

If you have to change the core of the story like that, you might as well change the rest of it to match. There are a lot of interesting directions to take without the past as a burden. Even if you need to do another alien invasion story(which is imo, the last thing the series needs right now, much as I love them) it'd be better to start fresh. 

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Spoiler

 

9 hours ago, CrownSlayer’s Shadow said:

Yes we did? 
 

ShTH was panned critically, Shadow himself was ridiculed to hell and back with the epithet “Shadow should’ve stayed dead” every chance a hater got to say it, and the entire franchise hit a massive reputational low point only succeeded by Sonic 06 coming in and making it worse with “Sonic’s Shitty Friends” becoming a decade long meme that we’re just now getting over. It was the most controversial thing seen in this franchise before it was even released on consoles and before Sonic 06 took its crown. What are you even talking about?

Shadow’s guns should not be the identity of that game, and you all and all do not need them to tell the same story. You’d be doing it a favor by removing them from Shadow’s gameplay.

Goes without saying that they didn’t bring them back given the reception they had until they revisited the idea with the Wisp-ons in Forces that matched the aesthetics much better.

Or you can remove the kiss scene, making it less controversial. Much the same way can do away with the guns and avoid the controversy that came with it as well.

Which you won’t be doing keeping the guns in ShTH. So you’re better off removing them.

You’re right. Guns aren’t the problem—the aesthetics are. And the aesthetics don’t fit. So remove the guns and make more use of his Chaos Powers instead. That would work leagues better and work with the character more appropriately.

K, then do that without Shadow using guns. That’s not that difficult.

So have Shadow use his Chaos Powers instead.

So, here’s a question. 

How does “remove the guns from Shadow’s hands” (which was literally the first of only three whole changes i suggested for the entire idea of an adaptation) equate to:

  • Removing GUN weapons
  • Removing the tone
  • Removing the human soldiers
  • Removing the Black Arms
  • and literally everything else you stated that was not on my list of three changes?

Seriously, make that make sense. I know you read what I said given you directly quoted it to start grasping at extremes like this to argue for the sake of arguing.
 

I literally said in that exact same post you quoted you don’t have to change the story much, and you’re acting like you read the exact opposite dude.

Except you’re not suggesting a better idea. You’re suggesting a repeat of the shit hitting the fan back in 2005 that led to the start of controversy in this franchise. We’re in 2023, meaning we’ve had almost 20 years to learn the lesson from that—you want to adapt ShTH, don’t repeat the same mistakes that it was scorned for just to make a bigger meme of it. That didn’t go well in 2005 when it first came out, doing it again—and intentionally at that—almost 20 years later is a case study in insanity.

 

Most of your confusion here could be solved if you just read my post again. We haven't seen what "doubling down" on the game's ideas looks like because of how flaccid both Shadow and 06 were in execution; neither of them used their ideas well enough execution-wise to be considered "good". Just like a "bad" character that is universally panned but "could be used well", the elements never really come together or are utilized in a way that becomes largely enjoyable to the audience. Doubling down on their conceit attempts to fix that without abandoning its identity in the process.

The onion layers that I'm referring to, that you're also being confused by somehow, are the many-many aspects of the game that draw just as much controversy as guns, in their absence. Remove one and you're just left with a lower, more intrinsic controversy. Remove them all and you're left with nothing.

Everything else is just repeated insisting that guns are the main problem for adaption of Shadow the Hedgehog's game without addressing any of the points in the multiple quotes spliced. No reason to respond to any of that when you don't want to respond to my thoughts in full, but at the very least you can envision fixing Elise by removing/changing the resurrection scene without removing her completely. You understand the premise at least.

 

9 hours ago, jungle_penguins said:

My bad derailing the topic. So like, I seriously forgot that IDW takes place after Forces (and thus most games in the series, meaning they already happened in IDW). Still, an adaptation is still a cool thing to explore, flaws and all.

To tie back to Frontiers, Shadow the Hedgehog's purpose as a game story is to explore Shadow's past and his decisions. The pathways, the last story, all of it. Its references to the past are solidified by both amnesia (flashbacks induced by Black Doom or trauma) and revisits of past locations (but with reason). Its retreads make sense while also introducing more elements (Black Arms, their transported ruins, expansion of Space Colony Ark, the human world, even Eggman's scale and deceit). There's absurd sincerity and what feels like a CEO's kid's wishlist is, but in a way that still feels, natural? Maybe Frontiers needs to sink in more for me but Shadow the Hedgehog, I legitimately think just does it better all around. I'm sure Frontiers is like the better game to play though.

Like I don't think there was any point where I thought "why did they reference this, this doesn't add anything other than a reminder to something that might be better". 

Though I do question why Shadow can swing a speed limit sign.

I think the main thing that aids Shadow here is that, by nature of being a spin-off focusing on a character made for a specific game, they can get away with following those plot threads and locations being direct follow-ups a lot more easily. Every Sonic game basically makes its own take on the world it runs through and the aesthetic that accompanies it, so stuff like Frontiers doesn't mesh well with following up on past game worlds like Angel Island, but stuff like Forces doesn't feel like the locations make sense in its execution, either. Shadow on the other hand could care less about avoiding those as a direct focus on the character's identity, and dove even further into the grit that SA2 was peppered with in terms of locations and accompanying worldbuilding. GUN isn't going to appear in any future games due to how poorly they fit the individual worlds intentions, but Shadow lets them dive all in on expanding them as a military force due to their direct tie to him as a source of his past.

If future games want to make the same use of that kind of natural interconnectivity, the main conceit of their creation have to revolve around what's been established in the past to the same degree, either for a character or a location specifically. Which is why Shadow stands out as such an anomaly; even SA2 had very little in common with SA1, in spite of trying to tie elements that came before in to the story as well.

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5 hours ago, Wraith said:

Read that back and try again.

'K. You said:

10 hours ago, Wraith said:

Giving a Sonic character a gun, and giving the player free sway to decide Shadow's fate were the two reasons Shadow the Hedgehog existed.

To which I reiterate, you do not need guns in a Sonic character's hands to decide Shadow's fate.

In simpler terms, you don't need the guns in Shadow's hands. Period.

5 hours ago, Wraith said:

If Shadow doesn't have amnesia, his allegiance and his fate are already decided. There's no temptation from Black Doom bring him the chaos emeralds in exchange for clarity or purpose, so there's no story there. What we're left is the aesthetic, which we've already established as ill fitting.

You could give Shadow fake memories, tying into his confusion over Maria's wish from SA2 while still remembering everything else, and still have a temptation from Black Doom bringing him the Chaos Emeralds in exchange for clarity and purpose and make the exact same story with it since Shadow wouldn't know what about his life is even real or not. Shadow didn't need amnesia to make that story work.

5 hours ago, Wraith said:


If you have to change the core of the story like that, you might as well change the rest of it to match. There are a lot of interesting directions to take without the past as a burden. Even if you need to do another alien invasion story(which is imo, the last thing the series needs right now, much as I love them) it'd be better to start fresh. 

The core of the story involves Shadow finding out about his past and the lengths he's willing to go to find them. There was a better take on this--and without guns (and waaay before they brought in the Black Arms)--done in the Archie Comics involving this exact same scenario of Shadow trying to rediscover his past, and that was done during Pender's era (I don't remember if he wrote anything for it, but I do know he was around at that time) before it was finished by Ian Flynn...then things got rebooted.

And that's still less drastic than my preference of doing the whole thing from scratch. Again, you don't have to change much for ShTH, you can get rid of the guns, the amnesia, and tryhard script, and you can stilll make it work.

1 hour ago, The Deleter said:

Most of your confusion here could be solved if you just read my post again.

Is that so?

Because I made my case the first time on making an ShTH adaption work, and it only came down to three simple things:

  • No realistic guns in Shadow's hands (you can have guns, just don't have Shadow using them)
  • Limit or remove cursing
  • Maybe do away with the amnesia sub-plot

With my case being that we saw how controversial some of these elements played out the first time, so making taking away these three simple things would make it less so--notable, because I'd would rather rewrite the whole story entirely instead of limiting it to those three simple things, but that's not what I'm suggesting.

You directly quoted that very post, with these three simple things, only to later frame it like this:

12 hours ago, The Deleter said:

Getting rid of all of that after all this time to attempt to placate the complaints that target-lock onto it as a concept, misses the forest for the trees when it would only be peeling back only one layer of the onion. Removing Shadow's realistic guns, removing GUN's realistic guns, removing the tone, removing the human soldiers, removing certain Black Arms enemies and areas, hell even removing Sonic & Co. for being offensive to the senses with how much higher their brightly colored contrast is to the game - whatever you end up with afterwards, depending on the degree of controversy that's acceptable, is just going to be a version of Shadow the Hedgehog that isn't making the best use of what identity it did have, likely in vain considering it's central premise on the edgy hedgy to begin with.

Of which, only one of these (the part I highlighted) is among the three things I suggested doing to the entire adaptation.

And this comes after asking:

13 hours ago, The Deleter said:

Why not do what the Sonic series already does best at and just... double down on the ridiculousness to the point no one has a problem with it, like the entire opening for SA2. The guns are a gameplay mechanic that comes from stealing the enemy's weapon; throw john wick action into the mix and there is a significantly higher chance of people losing their minds in the same way the GUN truck works. Anime energy blast attacks is just another form of edge that "doesn't fit" Sonic to begin with; why even touch ShTH to begin with if you want to avoid what doesn't fit the series normally?

To which my response was:

13 hours ago, CrownSlayer’s Shadow said:

Because my aim was to eliminate the most obvious issues people focused on that were controversial over the ones that weren't, not make it a bigger meme than it already was for all the wrong reasons. "Anime energy blasts" is such a generic staple next to "Super Powered McGuffins" that anyone trying to make an issue out of that over the contrast of a cartoony hedgehog holding a realistic submachine gun is complaining for the sake of complaining.

I don't see where there's any confusion on my end given what I was saying at the start.

1 hour ago, The Deleter said:

We haven't seen what "doubling down" on the game's ideas looks like because of how flaccid both Shadow and 06 were in execution; neither of them used their ideas well enough execution-wise to be considered "good". Just like a "bad" character that is universally panned but "could be used well", the elements never really come together or are utilized in a way that becomes largely enjoyable to the audience. Doubling down on their conceit attempts to fix that without abandoning its identity in the process.

But we sure as heck saw how it played without it doubling down on the games ideas. Doing them them again and "doubling down" on them after people panned it the first time isn't exactly a smart idea, especially when there are alternate ways of doing that or avoiding them entirely--because do you really need phrases like "Where's that DAMN fourth Chaos Emerald?", Shadow getting amnesia, and going on a crusade with a submachine gun to make a story like ShTH work?

I can tell you straight up, no, you don't. You can take out the cursing in the script, Shadow's amnesia, and replace his use of guns with a use of Chaos Powers, and you can still tell the exact same story that was ShTH with less of the problems that came with the first attempt.

1 hour ago, The Deleter said:

The onion layers that I'm referring to, that you're also being confused by somehow, are the many-many aspects of the game that draw just as much controversy as guns, in their absence. Remove one and you're just left with a lower, more intrinsic controversy.

Such as what specifically?

1 hour ago, The Deleter said:

Remove them all and you're left with nothing.

Who said "remove them all?"

1 hour ago, The Deleter said:

Everything else is just repeated insisting that guns are the main problem for adaption of Shadow the Hedgehog's game without addressing any of the points in the multiple quotes spliced. No reason to respond to any of that when you don't want to respond to my thoughts in full, but at the very least you can envision fixing Elise by removing/changing the resurrection scene without removing her completely. You understand the premise at least.

Justin Timberlake What GIF

Let's see about that then.

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9 minutes ago, CrownSlayer’s Shadow said:

'K. You said:

To which I reiterate, you do not need guns in a Sonic character's hands to decide Shadow's fate.

In simpler terms, you don't need the guns in Shadow's hands. Period.

You could give Shadow fake memories that have nothing to do with amnesia whatsoever, and still have a temptation from Black Doom bringing him the Chaos Emeralds in exchange for clarity and purpose and make the exact same story with it since Shadow doesn't know what about his life is even real or not. Shadow didn't need to forget anything to make that story work.

 

Why emphasize removing the amnesia so hard, just to replace it with something that's functionally the same thing? 

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3 minutes ago, Wraith said:

Why emphasize removing the amnesia so hard, just to replace it with something that's functionally the same thing? 

Because it connects a lot better than having someone forget only to make a lame story attempt to "relearn" everything all over again.

Rather than have amnesia, Shadow's memories were likely never real to begin with. So he goes out to find the truth, which Black Doom offers to lie about help clarify over as he manipulates him to his own devices.

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1 minute ago, CrownSlayer’s Shadow said:

Because it connects a lot better than having someone forget only to make a lame story attempt to "relearn" everything all over again.

So you don't understand what the actual problems with the story are, lol. 

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4 minutes ago, Wraith said:

So you don't understand what the actual problems with the story are, lol. 

Mate, I played the game, got the final story, and defended it on these forums when I shouldn't have the day that shovelware came out.

I know what the actual story problems are.

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8 minutes ago, CrownSlayer’s Shadow said:

You directly quoted that very post, with these three simple things, only to then frame it like this:

Imagine reading a post within its own context without breaking down individual words and sentences, and you might have a better time. Because I solemnly swear to you I did not acknowledge your concept of only three simple things as the central premise, I was referring to the context in my own post. Guns being a problem are the springboard, me and wraith are talking about problems beyond what you listed.

Quote

Such as what specifically?

.....

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2 minutes ago, CrownSlayer’s Shadow said:

Mate, I played the game, got the final story, and defended it on these forums when I shouldn't have.

I know what the actual story problems are.

Your idea of "removing the amnesia subplot" was just keeping the subplot almost entirely the same and changing the wording. 

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25 minutes ago, The Deleter said:

Imagine reading a post within its own context without breaking down individual words and sentences, and you might have a better time. Because I solemnly swear to you I did not acknowledge your concept of only three simple things as the central premise, I was referring to the context in my own post. Guns being a problem are the springboard, me and wraith are talking about problems beyond what you listed.

I'm not concerned with the problems beyond what I listed. I'm concerned only with the problems I listed.

If I was concerned with anything beyond that, then I'd suggest rewriting the entire thing from scratch.

23 minutes ago, Wraith said:

Your idea of "removing the amnesia subplot" was just keeping the subplot almost entirely the same and changing the wording. 

The difference being, Shadow wouldn't have amnesia because his memories were never real to begin with (you can't forget what wasn't real). Because as I said from the start, you don't need to change all of ShTH to fix the problems.

You could, and I would prefer to, but I gave a simpler solution that avoids that instead.

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2 minutes ago, CrownSlayer’s Shadow said:

 

The difference being, Shadow wouldn't have amnesia.

You're missing the forest for the trees. The subplot about foggy memories and needs to removed entirely, since it's too similar to his SA2 storyline at it's core. 

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12 minutes ago, Wraith said:

You're missing the forest for the trees.

I can burn the whole forest down and plant trees for a new forest in its place by doing the whole thing from scratch then. Wouldn't bother me since a full-on rewrite would do the story better instead.

12 minutes ago, Wraith said:

The subplot about foggy memories and needs to removed entirely, since it's too similar to his SA2 storyline at it's core. 

Not really? Just keep it and expand upon it. It's supposed to connect to his SA2 storyline anyway.

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I must say, the aggressive shitstorm this thread has become since I made my point about a Shadow adaptation has done nothing but solidify my opinion against it.

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5 minutes ago, Scritch the Cat said:

I must say, the aggressive shitstorm this thread has become since I made my point about a Shadow adaptation has done nothing but solidify my opinion against it.

And it's funny, because that was just over small changes made without changing the overall story. I can only imagine what rewriting it as a retcon would cause if you went the whole mile.

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17 minutes ago, Scritch the Cat said:

I must say, the aggressive shitstorm this thread has become since I made my point about a Shadow adaptation has done nothing but solidify my opinion against it.

Be careful, that's "Sonic's shitty friends" pipeline adjacent lol

1 hour ago, Wraith said:

You're missing the forest for the trees. The subplot about foggy memories and needs to removed entirely, since it's too similar to his SA2 storyline at it's core. 

I do want to ask why this would be a legitimate issue though. It's disappointing for "Shadow spin off" that could explore new ground, sure, but is it actually a critical issue? It builds so much off of his original depiction and handling in SA2 that I'm having a hard time understanding it as a flaw worth discarding; of all things that could offend viewers/players/readers in the concept, it's not what I would put up there at all

 

 

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23 minutes ago, The Deleter said:

 

I do want to ask why this would be a legitimate issue though. It's disappointing for "Shadow spin off" that could explore new ground, sure, but is it actually a critical issue? It builds so much off of his original depiction and handling in SA2 that I'm having a hard time understanding it as a flaw worth discarding; of all things that could offend viewers/players/readers in the concept, it's not what I would put up there at all

Builds off of it how? Most of the additions make his backstory worse, not better.

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I have personally never been a fan of new entries to a series making adjustments to backstories that already felt over and done.  It just clutters things up to keep saying, "Oh, by the way; there was someone else being experimented on in the Weapon X labs" or "Around the time Ninjago was created, this other event happened that I've never told you about until now."  Probably it was inevitable of the Sonic series to fall into that trap as it got more and more Lovecraftian, but that's also a sign it should have stopped getting so Lovecraftian.

As an extension of that, my opinion of Shadow's story is it was concluded well enough already.  I never quite joined the crowd that declared Shadow should have stayed dead, partially because when I got back into the series I wasn't even aware that Shadow had ever been dead, and I was one of those people who liked Shadow just for his personality and unique aesthetics, but he certainly didn't need to be a big focus of the plot anymore.  Nobody realized in advance just how stupid Shadow's self-titled game would be, but when it was revealed it immediately fed back into an already large backlash against the character, who by then was seen as mostly just bling put on the series for a gothic/emo-leaning periphery fandom, maybe.  Of course, when we actually played the game the ire only increased, as it mucked up what had been one of the few things people still liked about Shadow, his original story arc.  I can say for sure that at the time, nobody was saying things like "If only Shadow didn't use guns, swear, or repeat his plotpoints from earlier games, this game would have been good."  Certainly, without those contentious elements, the game would not have become such a cringeworthy target for mockery, but it would still have very little to justify its existence, and it would still make Shadow the poster child for all of the angry rants that Sonic was losing the spotlight in his own series.

Time has given me more perspective on this all, for what that is worth.  These days, I tend to think the Sonic series tends to break most of what it accomplishes in characters' debut arcs when it also attempts to keep those characters around and plot-relevant, so I don't think it's worth whining about Shadow anymore; what happened to Tails and Knuckles is a more recent and sorer point.  But if anything from his past has to be revisited or retold, I'd actually prefer making his character arc in SA2 a bit more detailed and gradual, not have deliberate brainwashing be why he was mad, and not have his final redemption be simply triggered by Amy saying something.  I see nothing remotely of value to keeping the Black Arms a part of that.

 

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5 minutes ago, Wraith said:

Builds off of it how? Most of the additions make his backstory worse, not better.

Well I've said it before but "Shadow pulled in multiple directions based on who manipulates his memories" directly draws from how Gerald was manipulating Shadow with being selective of said memories to begin with, and Maria's wish subsequently recontextualizing it and forcing him to change mindsets. I think it was done in a very disjointed, oftentimes broken way in the actual game's execution, but the concept is still there without that execution to bog it down. That's "building off of" SA2 Shadow's premise in the most literal sense, just expanding the options that he can take to explore him, sometimes not meaning anything meaningful besides what conclusions Shadow can draw from himself, but also sometimes exploring elements that make him who he is that wouldn't be explored otherwise.

Of course the real reason why I feel like it builds off of SA2 Shadow is because of what it does in respect to his character depth in SA2, juxtoposed to how he ended up before he died; I feel like I've talked about that before on here but I'm not sure, if not I can expand on it.

Black Arms being added as an aspect of Shadow's backstory, I'll easily concede, arguably makes his backstory worse. Hell I might as well extend that aspect to the GUN commander, since he's a backstory addition as well. But exploring routes involving Maria, Gerald, GUN, and even Eggman as a part of his past were all valid explorations of the aspects of Shadow they had at the time imo; even if the Shadow androids weren't used to the fullest extent in that game.

Amnesia as a story route didn't inherently mean backstory additions, just the aspect of the story where he's being drawn down those paths by the respective parties, which is why it strikes me as odd to point to as a critical flaw. Black Arms, GUN commander story, Gerald's deal, they could technically be taken out as additions if you wanted, either to be replaced or remain omitted by theoretical reconstructions of the game, but the aspect of Shadow being influenced by multiple parties still remains perfectly intact without those additions. I don't see the problem with that itself.

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10 minutes ago, The Deleter said:

Well I've said it before but "Shadow pulled in multiple directions based on who manipulates his memories" directly draws from how Gerald was manipulating Shadow with being selective of said memories to begin with, and Maria's wish subsequently recontextualizing it and forcing him to change mindsets. I think it was done in a very disjointed, oftentimes broken way in the actual game's execution, but the concept is still there without that execution to bog it down. That's "building off of" SA2 Shadow's premise in the most literal sense, just expanding the options that he can take to explore him, sometimes not meaning anything meaningful besides what conclusions Shadow can draw from himself, but also sometimes exploring elements that make him who he is that wouldn't be explored otherwise.

Of course the real reason why I feel like it builds off of SA2 Shadow is because of what it does in respect to his character depth in SA2, juxtoposed to how he ended up before he died; I feel like I've talked about that before on here but I'm not sure, if not I can expand on it.

Black Arms being added as an aspect of Shadow's backstory, I'll easily concede, arguably makes his backstory worse. Hell I might as well extend that aspect to the GUN commander, since he's a backstory addition as well. But exploring routes involving Maria, Gerald, GUN, and even Eggman as a part of his past were all valid explorations of the aspects of Shadow they had at the time imo; even if the Shadow androids weren't used to the fullest extent in that game.

Amnesia as a story route didn't inherently mean backstory additions, just the aspect of the story where he's being drawn down those paths by the respective parties, which is why it strikes me as odd to point to as a critical flaw. Black Arms, GUN commander story, Gerald's deal, they could technically be taken out as additions if you wanted, either to be replaced or remain omitted by theoretical reconstructions of the game, but the aspect of Shadow being influenced by multiple parties still remains perfectly intact without those additions. I don't see the problem with that itself.

To me, 'shadow gets manipulated and lead down a dark road by a cloudy past and third parties manipulating his emotions' is a road already traveled by SA2. Getting the chance to do another Shadow story and doing the same thing, but more is a tad redundant to me without even getting into the execution of it(the execution was very bad). I understand that we're talking about a hypothetical rewrite, but we didn't put parameters on how widely sweeping we want the changes to be.

If you told me to write a Shadow story post SA2 there are a lot of better roads to travel. Shadow reached self actualization at the end of SA2. "Give them a chance...to be happy." He already has his mission. What now? Shadow may be unequivocally good now after everything that's happened to him, but he was just public enemy number one and tried to destroy the world right before that. Even if he wants to be good, does the world trust him to? If they don't, how far would he have to go to earn it?

This isn't to say that fleshing out his past entirely is off the table, but they need to be new addition that actually service him and the other characters that took place there. There are like four different takes about Shadow's past across different mediums and not once have I learned anything of substance about Maria. I had to wait for Sonic Channel to touch on that, and she's the reason he's doing all of this shit. Priorities? Who the fuck wants to hear about aliens instead of that? Not me.

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Hey y'all, nice to see the convo moving past the aggression from earlier but I am going to pop in here and give a few warnings.

1. Please make sure you read a user's post fully if you plan to reply to them. If you don't understand a certain part of it, ask for clarification. If you find yourself consistently missing the mark, maybe remove yourself from the discussion for a bit and give yourself some time to analyze what's actually going on.

2. If a user doesn't seem to have grasped what you posted, attempt to leave the snark behind and reiterate your point clearly. I know it sucks to repeat yourself but I guarantee you it's better than raising the aggression levels of a topic. Which lead perfectly into the next one...

3. Axe the aggression and snarky jabs. There's a number of them in this thread already so I'm going to really hope I do see anymore past this post.

If you truly believe you're being fucked with, send a report instead of responding.

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