So, I wanted to ask you guys: what kind of tone do you think works best for the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise? A dark and serious tone (Sonic Adventure titles and Shadow the Hedgehog) or a more lighthearted and comical tone (Sonic Colors and Sonic Generations)?
I love animation, TV, movies, YOU NAME IT!Neither of the Adventure games are dark and serious...
So yes, the Adventure games.
Rules of the Internet 45. Rule 45 is a lie. Check out my art if you notice.For all their faults, those are a good middle ground for tone; dramatic moments and overall high stakes, but it's magic and comic book superscience thwarted by the power of teamwork, and there isn't really any attempt to pretend otherwise.
An overly dark and self-serious mood fundamentally does not work for a series about a bright blue Felix the Cat knockoff wearing Michael Jackson shoes and fighting an obese clown in a mobility scooter. The weird confused art direction from Adventure onward is bad enough—we don't need blood and Glocks and awkward swearing and clumsy attempts at drama on top of it.
Edited by Chortleous on Feb 8th 2023 at 1:16:38 PM
I agree that the Shadow the Hedgehog game took things too far when they tried to have the characters have guns and swear constantly. I don't mind dark themes showing up in the franchise, but with the Shadow the Hedgehog game, all that edginess just felt forced to me.
I love animation, TV, movies, YOU NAME IT!The Sonic games have never had really good dramatic writing outside of maybe E-102 Gamma's story, so I'd rather err on the side of Lighter and Softer, or at least "Simpler and Speedier". The series has a long Narm page for a reason. If they have to have a serious moment, they should at least keep Tails out of it so he doesn't say something stupid.
Edited by Negacube on Feb 9th 2023 at 4:13:47 AM
That...doesn't seem right.
Rules of the Internet 45. Rule 45 is a lie. Check out my art if you notice.The story being bad would be less forgivable because there's nothing else to fall back on...
Rules of the Internet 45. Rule 45 is a lie. Check out my art if you notice.Shadow the Hedgehog's tone was bad because it tried to make it's goofy alien invasion story this gritty teen fantasy in order to fit in with the Darker and Edgier turn that era of gaming (2002-2005) was going it. On the otherhand, Sonic Forces' tone was an issue with Mood Whiplash, presenting this Eggman dominated setting ripped straight out of SatAM but acting like at best the situation isn't any worse than what Eggman was doing in Sonic Colors.
Speaking of Colors, that was fine as an intentionally light hearted romp, but Lost World tried to have serious story moments and character conflict while keeping Color's saccharine writing for the rest of the game. It's the opposite problem Forces had.
So the Adventure Era games are more or less the best tone the games had as far as balancing drama and levity when needed, outside a few duds.
The IDW comic from what I've seen is basically Force's tone done right.
When it comes to tone with Sonic, it ultimately comes down to preference.
But they've botched their "serious" stories more often than not, so I can understand the logic of not really wanting them to do that very often.
Sonic Adventure 2 may be the most vocally loved game on the internet but that game isn't exactly narrative perfect either.
A lighthearted game won't get ad much scrutiny as much as a "serious" one would....aside from super hard-core fanbase who are into the latter anyway.
A lazy millennial who's good at what he does.Cool is extremely subjective and what's cool to one is cringe to another...
Which might explain a lot about why Sonic is such a polarizing franchise when it practically lives off the Rule of Cool.
A lazy millennial who's good at what he does.

Did they patch up the Sonic Colors: Ultimate game or does it still play the same as it did during the launch?
I love animation, TV, movies, YOU NAME IT!