General Sonic The Hedgehog thread

What? I've only ever played that game (specifically 3) multiplayer and didn't even know until like a year or so ago that anyone even really cared about the story in the series.

I've only ever played the multiplayer once or twice as well but everyone everywhere was so obsessed about that series for the first few installments that I figured everyone who had an even passive interest in the gaming community around they time new about it.

Admittedly, that's not a very difficult perception to grasp given multiplayer being Halo's primary gimmick. But, yes, there is a fairly impressive amount of story and lore built into those games.

It's just, people enjoy teabagging and Firefight more.

...which really doesn't help my "story matters as much as,if not more than gameplay" stance...

edited 1st Feb '15 11:56:07 AM by FOFD

Wouldn't you have different expectations and priorities depending on the kind of game you're playing though?

i've forgiven average or subpar gameplay in games if other aspects are intriguing or enjoyable (Nie R, one of my absolute favorite games ever, comes to mind), but even as a person who looks at games as 'experiences' which are composed of several factors besides gameplay, the idea that story should matter just as much or more than gameplay in a GAME seems a difficult argument to make as far as I'm concerned. especially when we're still learning how to craft stories for games, but actually making games is something the industry knows a lot about as it is.

edited 1st Feb '15 12:24:52 PM by wehrmacht

Xenogears has one of the best stories of any game I've played, but I wouldn't call it good video game storytelling. It feels like the makers of that game really wanted to make an anime, but had to settle for making a video game. The story interrupts the gameplay all the time, and while the on-foot fighting was enjoyable, the robot fights were less so. The actual gameplay almost feels like an afterthought.

the "frustrated film-maker" thing is unfortunately quite common in the videogame industry. to put it succintly, videogames can and sometimes even should ape aspects from film to great effect, but they are not movies, and should not be treated that way.

this talk of storytelling actually reminds me of Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Broterhood and how hyped everyone was for that because Bioware was making it. the reception to it doesn't seem to be as warm as you'd have expected (that soundtrack was embarassing).

It probably didn't help that EA bought out BioWare during the production of Chronicles.

It also probably didn't help that BioWare really wanted to get to work on Dragon Age: Origins ASAP.

edited 1st Feb '15 1:15:40 PM by TrashJack

i was unware that the buyout happened during development. talk about unfortunate timing.

Not that EA would ever get their hands on him, but they're one company I would NEVER want to see own sonic, or any franchise I care about. As it stood there was ONE franchise i even cared about from EA (Dead Space) and they eventually ruined that and shot the franchise like a rabid dog because it didn't fill their overbloated sales expectations with the third game.

edited 1st Feb '15 1:50:11 PM by wehrmacht

The story vs gameplay debate is best taken as a case by case basis. No one would complain that, say, Angry Birds has no story or Flappy Bird. In another case, no one seems to mind the minimal amount of story in Mario as it's supposed to be a game and it stops there.

When it comes to Sonic specifically... well, it's a franchise with more interpretations than Zelda, or even Mario, so it's in the boat where it can pretty much do anything and someone will complain.

Unrelated to the current conversation, I personally like how the Egg Pawns were implemented in Lost World. Very basic 'slowly charge at you' behavior, but takes two seperate hits to defeat them (unless you kick them).

Also unrelated, I personally dislike...

-how Archie made every important character a "mecha version" at one point or another. I was looking for a Mecha Shadow and was amazed to find that he doesn't exist... yet. Kind of redundant, since we have the "Shadow Androids".

Which makes the whole "Mecha Scourge/Amy/Knuckles/Tails" idea seem kind of stupid, since the Shadow Androdis actually resembled their inspirations.

Metal Sonic was unique and scary, being an even more powerful doppelganger of Sonic. Yet, "Mecha Amy", "Mecha Tails"? What's the point? Why not just build a hammer bot, or a flying robot?

Granted, Eggman's schemes often lack of a great deal of sense, but eh. I just dislike the whole "Mecha Series". The "Metallix" I'm okay with, but "Team Metal", nah.

I find it less ridiculous than the sheer number of people who have super forms granted by the Chaos Emeralds. Even more, if you include Enerjak and the Master Emerald. Still, the army of mecha versions is very similar.

The British comics only had Metal Sonic and a robotic Knuckles (both named Metallix, for some reason). The Knuckles Metallix was first mentioned (with blueprints) in issue 72. The writers must have immediately forgotten about it, since it made its first real appearance in issue 108. That's a year and a half later!

Weren't those mecha-Amy and Tails apart of the Mega-man cross-over, I'm pretty sure they were just to be a kind of robot master type of thing.

Otherwise...the Mecha Sonic and Mecha Knuckles were just used for the characters who got roboticized.

There's a Metal Scourge...but it's literally another Metal Sonic with a new paint job and shades.

There was a mecha-Shadow in the Megaman crossover.

F'ck all kinds of duck.

Hmm, you're not wrong. Still. There were 5-6 different Metal Sonics, including Silver Sonic. There's Mecha Sally, Mecha Robotnik. Mecha Scourge was a recolor due to Eggman losing his sanity, IIRC.

Huh? Sonic can't be the only person affected by the Chaos Emeralds, heck, he uses their power more than Knuckles, which I always found a little funny.

At least one continuity tried to say that only "Sonic" could use the Power Rings, but I never liked that idea - I think it was Sonic X. Sonic might be the main hero, but he doesn't need to be the only one allowed to be super special awesome.

edited 2nd Feb '15 3:35:39 PM by FOFD

The "Mecha Shadow" was actually Shadow Man. The crossover had Dr Wily and Robotinik collaborate with each other, which apparently meant combining their styles into a new series of Robot Masters.

There hasn't been a Mecha Shadow in the style of Metal Sonic, though. As far as I can tell at least.

There was also a Chaos Devil, which sounds like it'd be horrible to face if it showed up in a Mega Man game.

edited 2nd Feb '15 3:51:53 PM by Customer

Wait, but there's already a Shadow Man in Mega Man.

edited 2nd Feb '15 3:51:46 PM by Beaver

Indeed, and the two characters apparently teamed up during the crossover.

I'm pretty sure an Off-Panel lampshaded the case of Names The Same, yes.

Either that, or it was lampshading Vector Man and, well...

It's actually pointed out more than once in the crossover proper. Eggman decides to send out Shadow Man, Wily wonders which one he's talking about, they decide to send both. Mega Man and Sonic briefly get confused over which Shadow Man that the other is targeting, and accidentally get each other caught in the crossfire. When Mega Man and Sonic destroy Wily's Shadow Man and free Shadow the Hedgehog, Orbot reports that Shadow Man has been destroyed, Wily again questions which one he's talking about, and Orbot responds with "Yes" (which prompts Eggman to Dope Slap Orbot).

As for Vector Man, Sonic tries to come up with snarky nicknames for the Roboticized Master versions of the Chaotix, but can only think of a garbage collector when he gets to Vector Man. The video game Vectorman starred a cleaning robot that gets caught up in violent hijinx.

edited 2nd Feb '15 4:07:27 PM by TrashJack

Dammit, I have all of those issues, why haven't I read them? That sounds like exactly the kind of stuff that drew me to the Sonic comics in the first place.

The Sonic / Megaman crossover was easily the best Sonic-related story I've read in a long time. Unfortunately I didn't much care for the stuff immediately afterwards with the "Genesis Wave" rebooting continuity but with some characters still remembering the old continuity and constantly discussing the changes and then bringing in all the old cartoon characters I'm unfamiliar with with little introduction and trying to make all the games canon except Sonic Unleashed, which it was doing an adaptation of for some reason...

Yeah, the post-Megaman crossover wasn't as good a jumping-in point for new readers as the comic writers seemed to believe.

edited 2nd Feb '15 4:50:23 PM by spashthebandragon

It's a shame they didn't really have a choice by that point.

Also, I heard that Archie can't use Matilda the Armadillo. But, I'm pretty sure she was created by Ian Flynn, so how could she be off-limits?

They trying to not use all the original characters created pre-reboot...I believe.

I'm not sure if she counts or not, but any characters created by Ian Flynn that are derivatives of other writers' work are also in the off-limits list (e.g. if he created a new echidna member of the Dark Legion, the Legion was still created by Penders, so that new character would have to go too; however, Penders himself would not have the rights to use that character).

In addition, other characters by non-Flynn writers also had to go. For example, Zonic the Zone Cop was a creation of current Spider-Man writer Dan Slott, and Mammoth Mogul was created by Scott Fulop. However, both also had to go.