Megathread Archie Sonic Main Discussion

[DarkLight]

Yeah, I don't like how my slight disappointment with this new development suddenly counts as "whining" when I did state before I would see how this will go and try to be fair about despite said disappointment.

 

But no, I'm just being an unpleaseable game-purist who doesn't like change. Not questionable change, just change as a whole. That must be it.

[Mauro Fonseca]

EDIT: Had more post, but formatting's going bonkers, so I just leave this part.

Here's one more! If they're not going to bother to want to adapt Unleashed, going by your logic that they can change anything because it's not the games, why bother adapting Unleashed?

[Toby]

Because it's a good way to explore the comic's new world post reboot.

[Mauro Fonseca]

You know what else would've been a good way to explore the world post-reboot?

"The planet is damaged and we'll probably need the Chaos Emeralds to fix it, let's go".

Why shove the Unleashed elements? What is it adding if they're shoving them only to then get them w- altering them unnecessarily?

[Nepenthe]

Because it's a good way to explore the comic's new world post reboot.

 

... Wouldn't such a goal be more suited to an original story? If the comic's been rebooted and has shed a lot of the material that defined earlier iterations, why would your first thing be to adapt an existing game instead of further defining the world in the atmosphere of creative freedom you suddenly possess?

 

Even as much as I love Unleashed, if I were in Ian's position, adapting a game would be the last thing on my mind.

[SuperLink]

You know what else would've been a good way to explore the world post-reboot?

"The planet is damaged and we'll probably need the Chaos Emeralds to fix it, let's go".

Why shove the Unleashed elements? What is it adding if they're shoving them only to then get them w- altering them unnecessarily?

Unleashed was really popular. If the book was unsuccessful because it was too different to the games, what better way to advertise a reboot then "hey, you liked this game right? Well we re-wrote it in an interesting way and it'll be different and enjoyable on its own merits!"

 

If you're rebooting a comic and you want to draw in new audiences to coincide with that fact, adapting a popular game would be the first thing on your mind.

[Mauro Fonseca]

The book was never unsuccessful for being different to the games. And if it is, and you're defending using the name for sheer marquee value and then ignore what the game's actually about... Well, it's not worth defending, is it? Are we back to accepting Penders standards in this hypothetical situation (since I doubt that was the thinking since Unleashed was 6 years ago)?

[biznizz]

Oh, God. Mm'kay. I think I'm gonna put off what I was going to do today with my Iron Dominion recap and wait until all the drama from both sides calms down.

 

But personally, my two cents? I'd wait until we see how the rest of Chaotix Caper goes (with any further Knuckles-Chaotix/Chip bonding) before I say if it was good or bad, never mind until we actually get to see the Werehog & Sonic and Chip actually meet.

 

Hope this is done with by tomorrow.

 

See ya!

[SuperLink]

We all know that people lost interest in Archie for doing so few game adaptions, for having complex plots they didn't know where they began, and for characters who were too different from their SEGA counterparts.

 

Even if you (and me) personally disagree with that, and even if it was successful enough to "survive" as it was, SEGA apparently didn't agree? They came along with mandates and new guidelines we know this, the Archie fans have been putting up with the consequences of it for months. Be more like the game-verse, focus on characters from the game-verse. They don't want Archie Sonic to just "survive", they want it to be as successful as Sonic's games. They're all about Sonic as a "brand" nowadays, it's not that surprising that they would want to "brandify" Archie too.

 

SEGA are unmistakably trying to widen the appeal and audience of the book with these mandates, they are trying to turn Archie Sonic into something that every fan of the games will want to buy.

 

Knowing how SEGA have been with mandates, is it really surprising at all that SEGA would want them to start with an adaption of one of the most popular entries of the last decade? It's. It's really not weird at all. It makes copious amounts of sense.

 

What do you do, when trying to attract an audience from one medium to another? Original stories with unfamiliar territories and characters? Nope.

Familiarity.

Adaptions.

[Mega]

An adaptation does not have to be 100% faithful. Look at Disney movies, which take their own creative liberties with the source material but often create enjoyable tales all the same. While I understand the frustration with changing elements from the game, you must remember that this is an alternate continuity. It is not going to play out 100% the same.

Why adapt Unleashed if there are going to be changes? Because the premise of Unleashed has a lot of potential. A planet broken apart. Dark monsters attacking. I'd argue that Unleashed under utilzied its potential by having everyone react so calmly to the planet's destruction and only having Sonic, Tails, and Chip address the problem. The comics are getting far more characters involved, which to me makes far more sense. The Sonic 'verse has a plethora of characters and settings to expand on Unleashed and present a fresh new take on the plot.

[Mauro Fonseca]

Oh god, are we really going with the "This is all because of SEGA's mandates now"

If they really were opening with Unleashed (again, a game from 6 years ago that SEGA isn't even re-releasing) because SEGA demanded game publicity (instead of "somehow shove Lost World in" or "somehow shove Sonic Boom in", both more relevant products), why would SEGA then allow this Unleashed adaptation, made for publicity purposes, to start entirely different from Unleashed? The Unleashed elements adapted so far were Pickle, monsters, planet shattering, Chip. Otherwise, it's been a mix of original stuff and Sonic Adventure 2 of all things. Am I to assume SEGA is publicizing the Sonic Adventure 2 HD release?

 

Yes, they've added mandates. As far as we know, none of which was about specifically adding game events to the comic, just "have the characters be the ones from the games".

 

I frankly think an Unleashed adaptation was coming for the usual continuity anyways (remember how Ian said before the crossover was planned, the Blue Emerald was going into the ocean?), and now this is a recycling of something made for a different continuity shoved into a continuity closer to the games. I think it makes copious amounts of sense, personally, more than "SEGA mandated a game adaptation with the reboot- and then didn't bother mandating that the adaptation actually were close to the games"

 

EDIT: Mega why adapt Unleashed, then. The premise makes sense, sure, it's a nice premise. They're not even using the same premise outside base elements (the planet was shattered and monsters appeared. Even the shattering method was different, which also screws up Eggman's motivations, but bah). They didn't pretend Treasure Team Tango was a Heroes adaptation, why not have the same thing here? Why burn a game, per se, instead of just reusing its premise?

[Nepenthe]

Knowing how SEGA have been with mandates, is it really surprising at all that SEGA would want them to start with an adaption of one of the most popular entries of the last decade? It's. It's really not weird at all. It makes copious amounts of sense.

 

This idea of united brand identity doesn't seem to gel well with the fact that Sonic has just received an entirely new, long-term branch that seeks to distance itself quite far from the Sega games in terms of design, characterization, locations, lore, storytelling focus, and ultimately gameplay, and is further being backed by a television show and toy line to showcase these elements in their natural habitat. Why pour all of this money into Boom and then mandate that a comic that has just taken a legal asteroid impact and thus has more creative freedom must now incorporate more SegaSonic elements to be more similar, especially from a SegaSonic game that wasn't popular enough to avoid that blacklisting maneuver they did with other badly-received games? That doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me.

 

An adaptation does not have to be 100% faithful. Look at Disney movies, which take their own creative liberties with the source material but often create enjoyable tales all the same. While I understand the frustration with changing elements from the game, you must remember that this is an alternate continuity. It is not going to play out 100% the same.

 

No one at all is asking for 100% faithfulness. -.-;;

[Sonic is a Care Bear]

An adaptation does not have to be 100% faithful. Look at Disney movies, which take their own creative liberties with the source material but often create enjoyable tales all the same. While I understand the frustration with changing elements from the game, you must remember that this is an alternate continuity. It is not going to play out 100% the same.

Why adapt Unleashed if there are going to be changes? Because the premise of Unleashed has a lot of potential. A planet broken apart. Dark monsters attacking. I'd argue that Unleashed under utilzied its potential by having everyone react so calmly to the planet's destruction and only having Sonic, Tails, and Chip address the problem. The comics are getting far more characters involved, which to me makes far more sense. The Sonic 'verse has a plethora of characters and settings to expand on Unleashed and present a fresh new take on the plot.

 

Perhaps people should stop thinking of this story as strictly an adaption and more of a retelling, like the Maleficent movie. 

[Gabz Girl]

Oof...yeah sorry I'm gonna have to agree with the side that says "Hell no!" to

Chip being named by Charmy and thus becoming friends with Team Chaotix and Knuckles, not Sonic.

oh sure Sonic might bump into him eventually but by then, the whole dynamic has changed and there isn't a bond or close friendship between the two characters anymore, not like in the games anyway. Of course I could be wrong since this is only the start of the Unleashed saga, but like Nepenthe I'm starting to get Sonic X Adventure adaptation vibes from this.

And that's no good!

[Mega]

I don't know, it seemed like at least a few people were hoping for closer adaptations. And again, that's fine, but I still don't really see the harm in what Archie's doing with the Unleashed arc as a whole. It's very different, but it's also pretty early into the arc, isn't it? Maybe once the Werehog shows up, we'll start to see more elements of the Unleashed narrative arise. Or maybe we won't. Since there's such a huge cast involved, it's still bound to have its share of differences.

[Your Vest Friend]

Big the Cat in this adaptation would be interesting, to say the least. He knows how to get from place to place easily and just see the sights.

[Mauro Fonseca]

But why are differences that actively change character development and dynamics acceptable, here? It's really not as though they NEEDED to do this. Introduce Chip later, clear Sonic sooner, whatever, bing-bang-boom they can meet as usual and still include the other cast. An added cast is not carte blanche for "well let's just change everything".

 

It wasn't accepted in Sonic X, why is this getting a free pass?

[SuperLink]

I didn't say united brand-identity, I said stronger brand identity. Sonic Boom is going to be heavily marketed and there will be strong pushes for it in both animation and games, but you don't really see that with comics? This isn't about creating unity, this is just the most efficient method to get your game audience to check out your comics. They'll probably do it with Boom too.

 

Look, when a franchise is typically known for its games, you know what a comic that does everything different to the games is gonna get by most game fans? Ignored. Not noticed.

 

Like I said, this is not about SEGA trying to make everything the same, this is about SEGA trying to make the book appeal to a wider audience by inviting the big game crowd to check it out. Sonic Boom is a game and a TV show, even if it's radically different the game fans will pay attention to it, and fans of the show will pay attention to it, and fans of the games will check out the show. Comics are a different breed, they're low brow, they don't get noticed unless you're specifically looking for them, they don't stand out unless you know what they're doing. You know?

 

It's not "all because of SEGA mandates", it's "all because" SEGA are trying to make the Sonic brand in general more popular and stronger by using facets from each medium to market and appeal to the other. Unleashed was the last Sonic game that fans, for whatever reason, enjoyed the plot of. A Generations adaption was already done in some form recently, and Colours wasn't exactly enjoyed for its plot. Unleashed was basically the best choice in terms of saying "hey look here's a plot adaption of a really popular Sonic game that had a plot".

 

 

But why are differences that actively change character development and dynamics acceptable, here? It's really not as though they NEEDED to do this. Introduce Chip later, clear Sonic sooner, whatever, bing-bang-boom they can meet as usual and still include the other cast. An added cast is not carte blanche for "well let's just change everything".

 

It wasn't accepted in Sonic X, why is this getting a free pass?

It's acceptable because it's perfectly possible that it'll be better now? Or at the very least entirely interesting on its own merits. It wasn't exactly life-changing in Unleashed, and it is an adaption, not a retelling.

 

And again, it's acceptable because Sonic X was badly written, and Archie isn't? Archie's writing is pretty darn good sometimes, it's been getting increasing amounts of praise from both fans and critics the last few years, which is something that can't be said for Sonic's games or Sonic X.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Yeah, I don't like how my slight disappointment with this new development suddenly counts as "whining" when I did state before I would see how this will go and try to be fair about despite said disappointment.

But no, I'm just being an unpleaseable game-purist who doesn't like change. Not questionable change, just change as a whole. That must be it.

DarkLight, dude, you are practically the only person disappointed with this that no one on the other side of the fence has directly called out over this debacle.

I'm sure people are aware of those that are simply disappointed, but waiting to see how this will turn out from those that are more rigid over this whole discussion and I think people can tell the difference between the two.

No one at all is asking for 100% faithfulness. -.-;;

Well they certainly aren't convincing us of that in this discussion.

[Celestia]

I suddenly want Big and Chip to meet.

 

Come on, they're perfect for each other. BFFs for the...rest of Big's life while Light Gaia lives on forever. :c

 

It wasn't accepted in Sonic X, why is this getting a free pass?

I was going to talk about this before but was busy being mad about people being unreasonable, so here we go. I'm pretty sure most were upset about the infamous changes in X because, well, it involved the most consistently hated character in the franchise, not because of an inherent problem with a role being assigned to a different character. Or, that's how I always interpreted the general fandom's problem with it.

 

Personally I like seeing changes in adaptations. As long as they're good, anyway. I'm neutral on this particular issue, but I admit I'll be disappointed if this arc doesn't have Sonic and Chip become friends. It'd be nice to see an expansion on that aspect of Unleashed, which is why people are wary of this I imagine.

[DarkLight]

Technomage made a post about the people 'whining' about this change and I didn't like how I was being associated with being the "whining brigade."

 

EDIT: Obviously before he edited it out.

[Mauro Fonseca]

Unleashed was the last Sonic game that fans, for whatever reason, enjoyed the plot of. A Generations adaption was already done in some form recently, and Colours wasn't exactly enjoyed for its plot. Unleashed was basically the best choice in terms of saying "hey look here's a plot adaption of a really popular Sonic game that had a plot".

 

Unleashed got bad reception and Colours was constantly praised by its plot. I know not in SSMB, but pretty much everywhere else you went it was. I'm sorry, I'm not buying SEGA demanded a game adaptation here. Doesn't fit with what we know SEGA's pattern has been anyway from what Ian has said before, and even if it did, it'd make no sense in terms of the choice of game. SEGA DID ask Archie to use Unleashed- IN 2008. And Archie ignored them beyond a quick tie-in.

 

Bah.

[SuperLink]

I'll also admit that I'll be disappointed if it plays out that Sonic and Chip don't have a strong friendship in Archie. My argument is based on the (imo) likelihood that their friendship will have a different, but equally strong if not stronger basis and that Archie will explore Sonic and Chip's friendship in a much more interesting way than the game did.

 

But, if Sonic and Chip's friendship is kaput, I admit I will be disappointed. I just don't think it's gonna happen and I don't think Chip being named by someone else is the harbinger of that.

[Potada]

Honestly, I don't really see a problem with this development. Maybe it's different from Unleashed, but it could prove to be interesting in it's own right.

Granted, my only exposure to the story in Unleashed was from Youtube, so...

[Sega DogTagz]

Wait, the ghosts had Official Names?

 

Not that I am aware of.

 

The two ghost buddies remain nameless, while "Raa" was the text found on a piece of Concept art of our Mermaid gal pal. So some people just ran with that. ^^