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ScubaWolf from South Carolina Since: Feb, 2020
#72501: Mar 29th 2023 at 10:50:03 AM

Traditional platformers in general do not really have good story. There HAVE been exceptions, but they're few and far between.

"In a move surprising absolutely no one"
wanderlustwarrior Role Model from Where Gods Belong Since: Jun, 2009 Relationship Status: What's love got to do with it?
Role Model
#72502: Mar 29th 2023 at 11:12:47 AM

Of those named so far, I'd say Mega Man's the only comparable one as it's a long running series. That's mostly everything outside of the "main" 2D games that are summarized as "Dr. Wily has 8 Robot Masters built by some combination of himself, Dr. Light, and Dr. Cossack, and is using them to hold the world ransom. Mega Man must beat them all up and then Dr. Wily to stop him."

Tomodachi Now a lurker. See you at the forums. Since: Aug, 2012 Relationship Status: Yes, I'm alone, but I'm alone and free
Now a lurker. See you at the forums.
#72503: Mar 29th 2023 at 11:35:37 AM

As a side note, Maekawa enjoyed Forces.

He's also highly unaware of what the fuck happened after his time on Sega, as he thinks Blaze is still dead.

Fun times.

To win, you need to adapt, and to adapt, you need to be able to laugh away all the restraints. Everything holding you back.
neoamon Mr from Planet Mobius S.T.C. (Experienced, Not Yet Jaded)
Mr
#72504: Mar 29th 2023 at 12:13:48 PM

Speaking of Blaze when Solaris was regone what happened with Iblis that was sealed inside her? Was it erased?

"May your heart be your guiding key"
erazor0707 (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Wishfully thinking
PhiSat Planeswalker from Everywhere and Nowhere Since: Jan, 2011
Planeswalker
#72506: Mar 29th 2023 at 12:32:48 PM

[up][up]The whole thing never happened, so it was probably Ret-Gone.

Oissu!
wanderlustwarrior Role Model from Where Gods Belong Since: Jun, 2009 Relationship Status: What's love got to do with it?
Role Model
#72507: Mar 29th 2023 at 12:34:15 PM

[up][up][up][up]Are we supposed to know who that is?

[up][up][up]Only the Rush games, Generations, and TSR are Blaze's confirmed canon appearances with lasting effects, IIRC, so it might be moot. Apparently whatever happened in 06 just "didn't happen", somehow? Except for introducing Silver to the series. She also shows up in Colors DS, fwiw.

So I guess Rivals is Silver's canon origin game?

Edited by wanderlustwarrior on Mar 29th 2023 at 2:36:53 PM

PhiSat Planeswalker from Everywhere and Nowhere Since: Jan, 2011
Planeswalker
#72508: Mar 29th 2023 at 12:36:14 PM

[up]Maekawa wrote Sonic and the Black Knight, a rare Sonic game that had a pretty well-praised story.

Shame the premise turned most people off to it. And the gameplay for others.

Oissu!
wanderlustwarrior Role Model from Where Gods Belong Since: Jun, 2009 Relationship Status: What's love got to do with it?
Role Model
#72509: Mar 29th 2023 at 12:38:24 PM

In any case, Blaze wasn't dead even while he was writing Black Knight, since Rush Adventure (2007) exists.

I'd honestly say the Sonic games tend to have better stories than most of the big platformer series.

Edited by wanderlustwarrior on Mar 29th 2023 at 2:39:00 PM

TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#72510: Mar 29th 2023 at 12:48:21 PM

I think it's hit or miss. Sonic stories are inconsistent.

With other franchises, you generally know what you're gonna get. Bowser is going to kidnap Peach and Mario has to save her. Mega Man XYZeroWalnuts has to fight robots to save the world from a maniacal madman who wants to conquer it. Samus Aran needs to kill a space bad guy and probably blow up a planet. A Belmont has to kill Dracula. Sonic has some of that; Dr. Eggman and his legion of robots are trying to do a thing and Sonic has to stop the thing from being done.

But Sonic's brand has a lot of "BUT ALSO". We have to stop Eggman BUT ALSO an ancient destruction god powered by Angel Island lore wants us to study echidna history. We have to stop Eggman BUT ALSO a primordial being from beyond time has broken the planet into shards and we have to help its ancient moral-axis opposing counterpart to reimprison it. We have to stop Eggman BUT ALSO a cosmic destroyer fueled by natural law was imprisoned in cyberspace by the aliens who brought the Chaos Emeralds to Earth and now it's going to end our world.

And this has a large effect on the kinds of stories that the Sonic brand tells. It often has higher highs than other recurring brands usually do, but also lower lows. Sometimes Shadow sacrifices himself in a tear-jerking moment that brings a close to a long and complex story arc, and sometimes Sonic makes out with his human love interest.

(And even that's not entirely true, as entries in other brands such as the Mega Man Zero quadrilogy or most Metroid titles exist. In fact, I'd say Metroid is probably the most consistently good at storytelling in platformer space.)

Edited by TobiasDrake on Mar 29th 2023 at 12:55:30 PM

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
BlackYakuzu94 CHADhan Player. from Easy Coast/NY Since: May, 2013 Relationship Status: Longing for my OTP
CHADhan Player.
#72511: Mar 29th 2023 at 1:07:21 PM

The Mega Man Zero series is wildly considered one of the best platforming stories ever. And even its not perfect.

Its kind of hard to construct compelling stories around platformers because it's a genre almost entirely rooted in gameplay.

Its why Mario gets away with all of its ridiculous shit because it doesn't even try to tie all of it together. It just...is. One day Mario is exploring Peach's castle and collecting Stars, other times he's traveling across the Galaxy to save the universe.

Sonic was certainly much more ambitious trying to tell a compelling narrative in these games, but that only opened them up to many problems, some of which to be fair they couldn't have seen coming.

Sonic's stories are like the video game equivalent of comic books; they're stories that, in theory, are meant to go on forever. But stories need to end at some point.

That's what the Mega Man sub series did; they told their stories and then ended. Sonic doesn't have that luxury so they have to keep scraping the barrel for new story ideas and somehow tie all of it together in addition to the gameplay.

A lazy millennial who's good at what he does.
KuroBaraHime ☆♥☆ Since: Jan, 2011
☆♥☆
#72512: Mar 29th 2023 at 1:39:11 PM

Maekawa didn't just write Black Knight, he wrote the stories for most of the major 2000s Sonic games. He wrote the scripts for Adventure 2, Heroes, 06, Secret Rings, and Black Knight, and assisted with the story for Riders: Zero Gravity (from what I can tell the script of that game was mostly written by a Sonic X writer who only worked on that one game). Like 85% of the Sonic games with a story people like was written by Maekawa.

BorneAgain (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#72513: Mar 29th 2023 at 1:40:15 PM

[up][up]The issue is also that broader stories often necessitate multiple main characters, which either has Sonic playable with the others prominent (which doesn't please a lot of people) or various multiple playable character (a concept whose execution has also not pleased a lot of people).

Basically in terms of doing narratives in a genre that doesn't often go for them, the Sonic series is juggling a lot different things and not always succeeding at it.

Edited by BorneAgain on Mar 29th 2023 at 4:41:22 AM

TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#72514: Mar 29th 2023 at 1:47:58 PM

I wish they'd take advantage of the large cast to do another Rashomon-story like Sonic Adventure 1, but really lean in to the idea that each character's campaign is a warped perspective reinventing the story through their biased lens.

Like, there's a point in the game where Sonic and Shadow have to compete for a thing. And who wins the competition depends entirely on who you're playing. Like, in Sonic's campaign, you narrowly beat Shadow. In Shadow's, you defeat Sonic and then rub his nose in it. In Rouge's campaign, Shadow very closely wins out over Sonic but the story doesn't dwell on it too much. In Tails's campaign, Sonic beats Shadow so hard that it's not even a contest; Just wrecks that poser.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Mar 29th 2023 at 1:48:20 AM

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
LoneCourier0 The Wandering Geek from A Diverse Land (Unitroper) Relationship Status: How YOU doin'?
The Wandering Geek
#72515: Mar 29th 2023 at 1:49:25 PM

Did that happen in Adventure 2 or just an hypothesis?

"Cynicism is not realistic and tough. It's unrealistic and kind of cowardly because it means you don't have to try."
KuroBaraHime ☆♥☆ Since: Jan, 2011
☆♥☆
#72516: Mar 29th 2023 at 1:52:21 PM

It happens in Adventure 2's boss fights, but their cutscenes basically line up with no inconsistencies, due to the Dark story not showing the aftermath to the final Sonic/Shadow fight and the Hero story showing Eggman snatch the last emerald as he's lying there defeated, giving a way for him to have it at the end of the Dark story even if he didn't win final Tails/Eggman.

BorneAgain (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#72517: Mar 29th 2023 at 2:29:08 PM

[up][up][up]It would be way too much work, but it would be amazing if such a game went for different aesthetic styles in each character's recollection. A cell shaded world with Amy, a slightly real is brown grounded view with Shadow, a Woolly World esque art approach with Cream, and maybe something very anime esque with Tails just found things off.

BlackYakuzu94 CHADhan Player. from Easy Coast/NY Since: May, 2013 Relationship Status: Longing for my OTP
CHADhan Player.
#72518: Mar 29th 2023 at 2:48:36 PM

I feel Sonic experimenting with different styles would work a lot better if the games were all pretty disconnected from each other.

That way if you didn't like what X did, you got Y to fall back on.

A lazy millennial who's good at what he does.
wanderlustwarrior Role Model from Where Gods Belong Since: Jun, 2009 Relationship Status: What's love got to do with it?
Role Model
#72519: Mar 29th 2023 at 3:02:49 PM

and sometimes Sonic makes out with his human love interest.
We all know that's not exactly what happened, right?

The canon "vs" events in Adventure 2:

  • Knuckles and Rouge meet, stalemate, and Knux breaks the Master Emerald to keep it from Eggman's clutches, since he can always reassemble it.
    • Sidenote, maybe he just breaks the emerald whenever he wants to get off the island, since its power is useless in that state and he can always track down any stolen shards.
  • Shadow meets Sonic cutscene: Shadow styles over Sonic with Chaos Control, then leaves him to be caught again by GUN's Colorblind Squad.
  • Tails vs Eggman 1: Tails rescues Amy, Eggman mentions he misses his wife and flees to set the island to explode... in enough time for Prison Lane, Security Hall/Metal Harbor, Green Forest, and White Jungle all to happen.
    • In Eggman's version, he wins, but then it abruptly cuts away right after. His dialogue after Tails' version of their second fight implies he hadn't lost to Tails before.
  • Sonic vs Shadow 1: Stalemate. Eggman's message to Shadow causes them both to retreat.
  • Rouge and Shadow track down Tails (Route 280 and Sky Rail): They find him, but it doesn't really matter since he was flying to Eggman's base anyway, and Eggman picked him up on radar and prepared for their arrival. Wow... these stages were kinda pointless to the overall story.
  • Team Sonic assaults Eggman's base: Sonic defeats Egg Golem, driving it Berserk, then Eggman has to defeat it again.
  • Knuckles vs Rouge: Stalemate. Rouge trips and falls, and Knuckles saves her from "falling" (she can fly...) into lava. Rouge gives him the emerald shards anyway.
  • Tails vs Eggman 2: In Tails' version, Tails wins. Eggman recovers the emerald while he's distracted anyway. In Eggman's version, Eggman wins and just walks off with Tails' emerald.
  • Sonic vs Shadow 2: Depends on version, either Sonic slam dunks it in there and blows up the cannon, or Shadow stops him. Either way, the cannon doesn't fire thanks to Gerald's plan.

So none of the above actually ended with a canon decisive victor (except for vs Egg Golem), but also none of it mattered anyway. Also, Eggman just left Tails and Amy alone twice without finishing the job.

Whowho Since: May, 2012
#72520: Mar 29th 2023 at 3:17:32 PM

Sonic has had environmental story telling since pretty much the start. CD explicitly let's you explore the past present and possible futures of zones, and a lot of Sonic 3 & Knuckles zones get destroyed or sabotaged by Robotnik as you progress through them.

The fast pace means it's a different type of environmental storytelling to Metroid where you get this feeling of isolation.

I feel like you could have a cast of characters radio in to talk in Sonic's ear as he rushes through a level, just aim for it to be more seamless than Shadow The Hedgehog (2005)'s system. You want the dialogue to react to gameplay (what route you manage to take, choosing inaction to let things play out), but the gameplay has to then be paced that you're not cutting off what characters are saying, or boring segments to facilitate lengthy dialogue.

KuroBaraHime ☆♥☆ Since: Jan, 2011
PhiSat Planeswalker from Everywhere and Nowhere Since: Jan, 2011
Planeswalker
#72522: Mar 29th 2023 at 3:45:06 PM

Interesting that he wrote both 06 and Secret Rings, because from what I remember Sonic Team was essentially cut in half midway through 06's development to work on Secret Rings because there was no way they were going to be able to get 06 to function properly on the Wii, causing both teams to be severely hampered in what they could accomplish. Thanks Sega.

I'm just picturing Maekawa scrambling to finish 06's story, resulting in all the plot holes and awkward contrivances, then writing Secret Rings.

Edited by PhiSat on Mar 29th 2023 at 4:45:33 AM

Oissu!
Tomodachi Now a lurker. See you at the forums. Since: Aug, 2012 Relationship Status: Yes, I'm alone, but I'm alone and free
Now a lurker. See you at the forums.
#72523: Mar 29th 2023 at 5:19:01 PM

06 had three writers. From what I remember reading, most of the story was written by Kiyoko Yoshimura, who wrote for Unleashed and Sonic X.

To win, you need to adapt, and to adapt, you need to be able to laugh away all the restraints. Everything holding you back.
KuroBaraHime ☆♥☆ Since: Jan, 2011
☆♥☆
#72524: Mar 29th 2023 at 5:31:56 PM

[up]It was mostly a collaborative effort between Maekawa and Yoshimura. According to Maekawa in an interview how it basically went down was, Shun Nakamura (who was the game's director and is credited for "Game Story") came up with the idea for Silver and time travel being involved and basically just told Maekawa to write a story "similar to SA2" involving those elements and has Sonic, Shadow, and Silver storylines. Maekawa wrote how all the scenes went and "key dialogue" in them, and then Kiyoko Yoshimura wrote in the rest of the dialogue and details.

erazor0707 (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Wishfully thinking
#72525: Mar 29th 2023 at 5:37:42 PM

Not their best work, that's for sure.


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