General Sonic The Hedgehog thread

The Dark content in Shadow the Hedgehog wasn't received well because it seems the writers cared more about making it dark rather than telling a legit story that simply needed to be dark in order to be effective and actually benefit the story.

Basically, it's darkness over substance.

edited 16th May '18 1:12:40 AM by GarnetRebeller96

At least it gave closure to Shadow's character........

Even better, it gave 10 different closures

edited 16th May '18 12:10:44 AM by Nintendork64

Yet everyone praises the dark themes in Sonic Sat AM. Probably for a good reason.

More out of nostalgia and that show being a Sacred Cow of sorts.

Just speaking for myself personally, but Sat AM was an easier sell because it was a self contained fantasy world like Mobius that had a certain thematic continuity with the setting.

Seeing anthropomorphic hedgehogs in a real world setting is inherently silly, but them battling paramilitary groups like GUN, interacting with the President, and wielding modern weaponry just gets hard to take seriously after while.

It contrasts a bit with something like Mario Odyssey which felt like it played up the inherent visual comedy of more cartoonish character like Mario interacting with realistic humans and cities.

edited 16th May '18 7:40:54 AM by BorneAgain

It contrasts a bit with something like Mario Oddyssey which felt like it played up the inherent visual comedy of more cartoonish character like Mario interacting with realistic humans and cities.

I never got that impression, or felt it was any different from what Sonic Adventure did. Can you explain why it feels that way to you?

The thing is, darker themes and stories can work in mascot platformers. Third person shooter mascot platformers can work and so can vehicles in them. But Shadow's game was not well made. The gameplay was just Heroes' with only Shadow and guns and vehicles slapped on and in trying to make so many branching paths they flat out hand waved a lot of possible story progressions with excuses like Teleportation Misfire.

edited 16th May '18 8:23:51 AM by PhiSat

Admittedly this all could be a big inference on my part in terms of direction, but the nature of most of the missions in Metro Kingdom felt deliberately mundane and low key in expectation do what you'd expect of in a modern urban level. Mario arrives in realistic city for the first time in a mainline game and gets the power moons... via RC car driving, parking a scooter, jump rope, and chatting to a guy on a bench.

Its not utilizing New Donk for anything serious (which is a given in most Mario games), but it also doesn't try to make its design into an overtly thrilling or intense level like Sonic games do pretty consistently do with city levels (and Mario design is capable of that sense of feeling as seen in the Galaxy games). Its a level theme that's less escaping a paramilitary group chasing you or avoiding enemy missiles on the streets and more hopping on the heads of a crowd of people in business suits.

Sonic games don't necessarily make real world settings dark, but they do have had a feel of something with more significance and seriousness than what Mario did with New Donk City.

Agreed. Dark themes, when utilized correctly, can also make a story more interesting rather than for the sake of being edgy.

Also, shouldn't Shadow be vehemently opposed to using guns, since, you know, that's what killed Maria?

Don't be ridiculous. That'd be like Batman being opposed to guns because...

...

That'd be like Superman being opposed to technology because an evil AI blew up his homeworld. Just because Shadow's best friend in the world was killed by a man from GUN using a GUN doesn't mean he hates all gun...

....hehehehehe. Oh my lord.

edited 16th May '18 10:04:11 AM by Soble

I don't think Shadow has ever had a problem with firearms per se. I can easily buy him not wanting anything to do with GUN ever since they were at fault with Maria, but I mean Sega wrote that off so...

It also gets silly when just body slamming the enemies does more damage than said guns.

edited 16th May '18 10:02:45 AM by PhiSat

Or maybe because they just think it's good?

I mean, what would be the odds of that?

I've seen a few episodes of Sonic Sat AM. And while it had an dark & edgy vibe to it, I felt that it was mostly too random to be taken seriously. In fact, I think Shadow the Hedgehog handled it better, even if they made the guns more useful than the traditional attacks.

I never got into Sat AM as a kid, and coming into it later I've always seen it as more standard 80's / early 90's "licensed property into action melodrama" fare. Kind of like a discount mix of ThunderCats and Gummi Bears.

I first watched both at around the same time in reruns as a teenager, and given the choice I always gravitated more towards AOSTH, because I felt the frenetic, Looney Tunes esque humor, while not really great (Boom nails how to best make the characters funny), at least fit Sonic the character and his world as a whole a lot better.

edited 16th May '18 4:05:34 PM by KnownUnknown

Adventures might be closer, but Satam looks like a better product. The animation for Adventures is so bad.

I learned a long time ago that - contrary as it sounds - you can't always judge a good animated series by the quality of its animation. If the animation is awful, sure, that's a big hit, but if it's difference between gorgeous and simply cheap, it's not always going to be the number one indicator of quality. A lot of good series have had simplistic animation.

My favourite ending is the one where Shadow declares that 'I am Shadow Android' and that he'll 'now lead Eggman's empire and androids will rule!', on account of it being absolutely hilarious when you realise that, no, Shadow is in no way an android and Eggman was just quickly bullshitting him.

The true ending.

Nah...AOSTH is the betting product.

Betting product? What are you going to bet it for?

But Adventures has a quality problem too, in regards to writing and everything. It's quality is basically So Bad, It's Good.

edited 17th May '18 6:46:28 AM by GarnetRebeller96

I think the main things SATAM had going for it over AOSTH is

1. a story arc
2. seriousness

As far as anyone, like, maybe 14 and up are concerned, it's not enough for a cartoon to just... be a cartoon anymore; it's gotta have those two things if it wants to avoid being shit on anytime someone brings it up.

This isn't even exclusive to AOSTH either; I see this shit all the time in WA fandom. I'm honestly sick of it.

"I see this shit all the time in WA fandom."

What show is that?

I'm guessing it's literally any WA show that promises an overarching storyline. I hear fandoms like Steven Universe's are a massive pain to deal with.

edited 17th May '18 7:25:33 AM by TargetmasterJoe