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General Sonic The Hedgehog thread

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TargetmasterJoe from Velocitron Since: May, 2013 Relationship Status: I like big bots and I can not lie
#67001: Sep 18th 2022 at 10:27:22 AM

Don't forget Brina Palencia, man.

Fixed it. Sorry about that.

BlackYakuzu94 CHADhan Player. from Easy Coast/NY Since: May, 2013 Relationship Status: Longing for my OTP
CHADhan Player.
#67002: Sep 18th 2022 at 10:31:43 AM

Look, I'm just happy Japan is interested for once. And to expand of Yakuzu's point, this game has none of the "popular characters" aka it doesn't have pandering to the fandom with meaningless extras just to keep them quiet like it happened with Forces or Colors DS. It's a straight up new experience for a new audience, and I'm all for it.

Tails, Knuckles and Amy are still present though. The literal most popular characters in the franchise barring Shadow.

Its the former three lack the baggage the latter has when he shows up.

I don't think Sonic's design is inherently more appealing to the West than to Japan. Yuji Naka has talked about how Sonic was made, and basically the idea behind Sonic was that they wanted to make a game that they could say was popular in America so they could advertise it in Japan. They wanted Sonic to be popular in America, but not for it's own sake. Their main goal was that they wanted to boost Mega Drive sales in Japan. The team at the time didn't know much about America and mostly went off of stereotypical knowledge. Sonic was less designed for America, and more designed to look American for Japan. That's why he does stuff like speak random English in Japan, it's seem hip and cool to Japanese kids

You'd think at some point, they would have thrown in the towel and just focused on the American market but no...

You have any additional sources on this, I wanna read about it.

Edited by BlackYakuzu94 on Sep 18th 2022 at 1:33:16 PM

A lazy millennial who's good at what he does.
Tomodachi Now a lurker. See you at the forums. Since: Aug, 2012 Relationship Status: Yes, I'm alone, but I'm alone and free
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#67003: Sep 18th 2022 at 10:36:34 AM

Yeah, but, Tails and Amy are main characters. They are bound to appear. Knuckles, I just hope he has a reason for showing up.

To win, you need to adapt, and to adapt, you need to be able to laugh away all the restraints. Everything holding you back.
randomness4 Ghost '11 from The Land of Inconvenience Since: Sep, 2011
Ghost '11
#67004: Sep 18th 2022 at 10:39:06 AM

Did Knuckles standing on Angel Island in the rain not interest you?

Did the "teaser" fail?

It worked for me, because Knuckles is only cool in the rain.

Edited by randomness4 on Sep 18th 2022 at 1:40:28 PM

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BlackYakuzu94 CHADhan Player. from Easy Coast/NY Since: May, 2013 Relationship Status: Longing for my OTP
CHADhan Player.
#67005: Sep 18th 2022 at 10:39:22 AM

I feel like it's more that Sega sees them as Sonic's sidekicks than anything. And yes, that includes Knuckles as well given he is often grouped with Tails and Amy as sidekicks.

So if you wanna have a Sonic focused story, it makes sense to focus on him and his closest sidekicks.

Edited by BlackYakuzu94 on Sep 18th 2022 at 1:40:19 PM

A lazy millennial who's good at what he does.
KuroBaraHime ☆♥☆ Since: Jan, 2011
☆♥☆
#67006: Sep 18th 2022 at 10:56:57 AM

You'd think at some point, they would have thrown in the towel and just focused on the American market but no...

You have any additional sources on this, I wanna read about it.

I'm mainly going off of this interview with Yuji Naka. https://news.denfaminicogamer.jp/megadrivecx/kibe2

It's all in Japanese, so I don't know how much that helps you though.

I'll try and quickly summarize the relevant points though. Naka and a team of 5 people got together to come up with a way to sell consoles and beat Nintendo. They came up with making a game that could advertise as "big hit in America!", reasoning that made a good hook for people to choose Mega Drive over Super Famicom. So they had to make a game that was popular in America first, but Naka says none of them had really been to America. So Naka says he gave some pretty vague orders to the designer like making Sonic have a "west coast-felling" and "look CG-ish", and they made Sonic a bright color because they thought Americans liked bright colors.

Also, apparently the games was harder at first, but late in development someone from Sega of America played the game and said it would be too for Americans and asked if they could make it so "you can win with just 1 ring", which lead to the current system of avoiding death if you have rings when you're hit and getting a change to pick some of them back up.

Naka then laments that even though they succeeded in making the game a hit in America and were able to use that "big in America" tagline, they failed to make it big in Japan.

BlackYakuzu94 CHADhan Player. from Easy Coast/NY Since: May, 2013 Relationship Status: Longing for my OTP
CHADhan Player.
#67007: Sep 18th 2022 at 11:00:05 AM

That is such a big brained line of logic lmao. "Alright, so to beat Nintendo, we'll make a new mascot that's popular in America in order to sell him in Japan...how do we do that?" The more history I learn about Sonic's conception, the more it makes me feel like his entire success was just a happy accident lol.

"No, he wasn't supposed to be more popular in America!!"

A lazy millennial who's good at what he does.
WillKeaton from Alberta, Canada Since: Jun, 2010
#67008: Sep 18th 2022 at 11:03:10 AM

"The game was harder at first, so they toned it down because they thought Americans would find it too hard."

This is the strangest thing in the world. Not that Japanese games were sometimes changed to make it easier for Americans, but the fact that sometimes other Japanese games were made harder for Americans.

"This game is too hard. Americans are terrible at video game and can't play it. Make it easier. But this game is too easy for Americans, who are really good at video games, so you need to make it harder."

Like, make up your mind. Pick a side instead of switching back and forth.

Edited by WillKeaton on Sep 18th 2022 at 12:26:44 PM

BlackYakuzu94 CHADhan Player. from Easy Coast/NY Since: May, 2013 Relationship Status: Longing for my OTP
CHADhan Player.
#67009: Sep 18th 2022 at 11:05:03 AM

That's the insane part, it was Sega of America who said that to begin with. And the game ended up being too hard for Japanese audiences anyway lol.

Like goddamn, no wonder Sonic is such a mess of a franchise with this type of back and forth.

A lazy millennial who's good at what he does.
BorneAgain (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#67010: Sep 18th 2022 at 11:17:20 AM

Honestly the more one dives into Sega in the 90s the more one realizes how remarkable it is that the company achieved any big success, let alone challenging Nintendo in the West. By the time 95/96 rolled around, So A & So J successfully working together on a bake sale would have been too much of an ask, let alone the roll out of a video game console.

Edited by BorneAgain on Sep 18th 2022 at 2:17:38 PM

KuroBaraHime ☆♥☆ Since: Jan, 2011
☆♥☆
#67011: Sep 18th 2022 at 11:21:35 AM

I don't think I'll be able to find the source, but I also remember a different interview about the making of Sonic where the one being interviewed talked about how part of why they wanted to make Sonic seem more "American" was so he seemed more "mature". Like these kind of animal characters in Japanese media are only really in stuff aimed at super young kids that no one in even late elementary school or older would want to be associated with, but Western characters like Mickey Mouse are different. Mickey Mouse is "cool" and even adults would wear something with Mickey on it. They wanted Sonic to have that same cool energy as Mickey so he could be popular with all ages.

I think they may have mentioned Sonic's gloves being taken off of how characters like Mickey and Bugs Bunny wear gloves.

BlackYakuzu94 CHADhan Player. from Easy Coast/NY Since: May, 2013 Relationship Status: Longing for my OTP
CHADhan Player.
#67012: Sep 18th 2022 at 11:29:44 AM

How popular is Mickey Mouse in Japan actually?

A lazy millennial who's good at what he does.
KuroBaraHime ☆♥☆ Since: Jan, 2011
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#67013: Sep 18th 2022 at 12:28:01 PM

Disney in general is huge in Japan, and that includes Mickey Mouse.

BlackYakuzu94 CHADhan Player. from Easy Coast/NY Since: May, 2013 Relationship Status: Longing for my OTP
CHADhan Player.
#67014: Sep 18th 2022 at 12:31:11 PM

So we just have a very specific scenario where Sega's consoles just were not very popular in Japan compared to Nintendo's. And any of their attempts to get popular just have not worked.

What the fuck...

A lazy millennial who's good at what he does.
KuroBaraHime ☆♥☆ Since: Jan, 2011
☆♥☆
#67015: Sep 18th 2022 at 12:44:00 PM

I don't think this any big reason Sonic isn't as popular, but I saw a couple different Japanese comments suggesting it so I guess it's food for thought. They suggested that maybe Sonic isn't as appealing to young boys in Japan because the popular shounen protagonists are more the ones that start off weak and relatable and grow stronger over the course of the story, unlike Sonic who's the coolest and strongest from the start.

One of the comments said that they went to an IRL Sonic event, and they felt like half the fans there were girls and wondered if Sonic's portrayal appealed more to them. Which did make me wonder, since I've seen things that suggested that a bigger percentage of Japanese Sonic fans are female. Out of curiosity, I did some searching to see if I could find anything more on that. I didn't find anything concrete, but I did find on Twitter a shocking number of Japanese girls declaring their (romantic) love of Sonic and Shadow...

WillKeaton from Alberta, Canada Since: Jun, 2010
#67016: Sep 18th 2022 at 12:45:05 PM

The whole reason anime characters have big eyes in the first place is because Disney characters also had big eyes. Though, I'm not sure if Mickey Mouse is still as popular as he once was. The younger generations may not be as familiar with him.

Edited by WillKeaton on Sep 18th 2022 at 1:57:11 PM

Vertigo_High Since: May, 2010
#67017: Sep 18th 2022 at 1:50:11 PM

"the classic games are remembered as too hard and based too much on rote memorization"

I'm sorry but this just hurts to read. These dudes need to git gud jk but this does remind me of how during Heroes I think it was said some of the newer devs couldn't beat chemical plant in sonic 2 lol.

MightyMatilda Mr. Clueless from New Jersey, USA Since: Jan, 2015
Mr. Clueless
#67018: Sep 18th 2022 at 1:55:29 PM

Many people complain about the high speed combined with Sonic being in the exact center of the screen makes it very easy to run into things.

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BlackYakuzu94 CHADhan Player. from Easy Coast/NY Since: May, 2013 Relationship Status: Longing for my OTP
CHADhan Player.
#67019: Sep 18th 2022 at 1:55:47 PM

Its a difference of expectations; if you pay attention to Japan's most popular games, you'll see the type of games they prefer and how Sonic doesn't really fall in line with that.

A lazy millennial who's good at what he does.
randomness4 Ghost '11 from The Land of Inconvenience Since: Sep, 2011
Ghost '11
#67020: Sep 18th 2022 at 2:00:41 PM

[up][up]Yeah, Sonic 2 does indeed exist...

And it is a problem considering that game has the worst enemy placement of the 3 games.

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BorneAgain (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#67021: Sep 18th 2022 at 2:10:17 PM

The thing about the Classic games is also that they're harder to get into if your muscle memory is more attuned to traditional platformers. I basically grew up with both 2D Mario and Sonic and was able to adjust to both, but if most of your experience is with titles in the former's mold, it can be tricky to adjust to the momentum based emphasis of the latter.

BlackYakuzu94 CHADhan Player. from Easy Coast/NY Since: May, 2013 Relationship Status: Longing for my OTP
CHADhan Player.
#67022: Sep 18th 2022 at 2:16:20 PM

...So is Sonic a popular unpopular franchise or an unpopular popular franchise?

A lazy millennial who's good at what he does.
PushoverMediaCritic I'm sorry Tien, but I must go all out. from the Italy of America Since: Jul, 2015 Relationship Status: watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ
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#67023: Sep 18th 2022 at 2:26:29 PM

Unpopular Popular. Sonic is still a cultural touchstone mascot, and that will literally never change no matter how many bad or mediocre games come out.

Vertigo_High Since: May, 2010
#67024: Sep 18th 2022 at 2:34:04 PM

I find the complaints a bit silly because Sonic's ring system is SO much more generous than life point systems in most games in that it allows you to make plenty of mistakes you couldn't afford to otherwise, which balances the not being able to see 100 ft in front of you at high speeds. Only times when it's unfair is stuff like crush kills or wing fortress' pits.

I feel Sonic 2's difficult is backloaded with metropolis and wing fortress/death egg, and chemical plant 2's water section. Aside from that it's the easiest of the classic games save for CD.

FOFD Since: Apr, 2013
#67025: Sep 18th 2022 at 2:34:56 PM

this game has none of the "popular characters" aka it doesn't have pandering to the fandom with meaningless extras just to keep them quiet like it happened with Forces or Colors DS. It's a straight up new experience for a new audience, and I'm all for it

[tup]

Just want to say I enjoy Shadow, Big the Cat, Cream, Rouge, Blaze, and Silver.

But. Also. F-ck Big the Cat, Shadow, Cream, Rouge, Blaze, and Silver.

Edited by FOFD on Sep 18th 2022 at 5:35:54 AM


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