Loud obnoxius critic reviews Sonic cartoons

[Crazy Penguin]

Mario has all ages appeal. There's no "adult" content in the games, nor is there anything condescending or childish. Sonic had the same all ages appeal, but he was faster and cooler to boot.

The more recent Sonic games have made the mistake of either being genuinely childish ("We're Sonic heroes!") or trying to be mature (Shadow with guns saying "damn") and failing miserably and seeming even more juvenile in the process.

The thing is though, that Sega still does know how to do an all ages Sonic that retains the character's trademark coolness:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CA9FQS4nMFI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7QOdvxWAac

Which leads me to believe that it'd be a huge step forward if Sega would stop having the characters talk so damn much. Can you imagine if Mario games had fully voice acted cut scenes between each stage?

[Shadow Hog]

Can you imagine if Mario games had fully voice acted cut scenes between each stage?

It'd be the beginning of Super Mario Sunshine?

[Kogen]

I don't remember Sonic X being marketed as a serious anime seeing that it aired on Sunday mornings in Japan, which is the Saturday morn equivalent there and Naka comparing the show as the Pokemon anime rival. As I said the franchise juvenillization started in the 90's with the advent of toys, comics/manga from kid-friendly publishers, and syndicated/SatAM cartoons. The only reason it didn't seem as bad back then as it did now is that the main-line games didn't feel childish, and that there weren't as many "M"-rated games in the mainstream back then as there are today.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueiYyvvv ... re=related

Watch this, it describes itself.

Hm.

Yosh!


I do not think Sonic characters talking is an issue. Ever since I have known the series, I have seen them talking in some form. I just think they need to stop talking so much and stop saying weird things, like Sonic with a squid on his head talking about Iblis Triggers.

Also I like how Tails fell over but the hover board ended up on his feet at the end anyway.

[Wombatwarlord777]

Crazy Penguin wrote...
Mario has all ages appeal. There's no "adult" content in the games, nor is there anything condescending or childish. Sonic had the same all ages appeal, but he was faster and cooler to boot.

True. Each of the 16-bit era 2D ganes were really just a bunch of creative and well-implemented ideas strung together, without necessarily trying to be cool or blantantly catering to a certain demographic. And Mario is really the same way.

If you think about the basic concepts of each (ie Transforming, floating blocks, turtle enemies, ect. for Mario, and rings, loop-de-loops, animal-like robots, ect. for Sonic), each franchise comes off as so bizzare, that attempting to mess with them to appeal to real-world audiences comes off as an absurd, perhaps impossible feat. Mario hasn't tried to do that to any great extent. Sonic has.

EDIT - At this point, it's probably impossible to mute Sonic and his pals in an attempt to make the player "become" them, like Mario or Link. I think that SA1and SA2 got it right, in which the voices were predominantly used only to advance the story in cutscenes, but when you actually got to play the character, they'd be mostly quiet, just like the old games.

[Crowbar]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueiYyvvv ... re=related

Watch this, it describes itself.

"I really want to receive your shoot."????

Wow, maybe it's for the best I wasn't able to watch a subbed version of this.

[Isuka]

What the FUCK?!
Of course it's not serious animu, it's an edutainment product, it's teaching kids to cope with grief and loss...

... Wow. I mean... wow.
It's, like, Sonic 2K6 wrong, only wronger.

And remember, many adults who buy Mario stuff were kids during the NES heyday, just to give the "MARIO HAS UNIVERSAL APPEAL!!" argument a little more perspective.
Mario kept being more or less the way he ever was, Sonic didn't. That's pretty much all there is to it.

[Kogen]

Mario did not stay the same, though. He got kiddy on Gamecube and stayed like that for a long time.

And remember kids, always have relationships with plants.

[Isuka]

Sentient plants.

And how was Mario "kiddy" on the GCN? I don't see him any kiddier than in SM64, which was just as kiddy as SMW, et cetera. Kiddiest Mario thing would be Baby Mario and all the baby versions of the franchise's characters that showed up over the years, but it doesn't change the original Mario character in any way.
Also, Super Mario Strikers.

[Wombatwarlord777]

Isuka wrote:
Kiddiest Mario thing would be Baby Mario and all the baby versions of the franchise's characters that showed up over the years, but it doesn't change the original Mario character in any way.

If you're talking about Yoshi's Island, then yes, aesetically speaking it is very bright, colorful, and perhaps juvenile, even by the standards of the rest of the Mario platformers. But it's also one of the most well-crafted, deep, and (if you're trying to accomplish everything) difficult platformers ever, something that everyone, not just the kids, can enjoy.

I haven't played Yoshi's Story or Yoshi's Island 2, so I can't judge those games of the Baby Mario / Yoshi series. Perhaps they are more shallow.

[Kogen]

Sentient plants.

And how was Mario "kiddy" on the GCN? I don't see him any kiddier than in SM64, which was just as kiddy as SMW, et cetera. Kiddiest Mario thing would be Baby Mario and all the baby versions of the franchise's characters that showed up over the years, but it doesn't change the original Mario character in any way.
Also, Super Mario Strikers.

Cleaning up sludge with the sunshine cannon on a purple console that has a handle.

It is simply gay.

[Isuka]

If you're talking about Yoshi's Island, then yes, aesetically speaking it is very bright, colorful, and perhaps juvenile, even by the standards of the rest of the Mario platformers. But it's also one of the most well-crafted, deep, and (if you're trying to accomplish everything) difficult platformers ever, something that everyone, not just the kids, can enjoy.

Oh, I totally meant the character, not the games.

Cleaning up sludge with the sunshine cannon on a purple console that has a handle.

It is simply gay.

Oh. Well, put like that... yeah, it's real gay. And pretty kiddie at that.
While the bee suit is certainly queer looking, at least the Wii itself isn't as aesthetically unpleasant, methinks.

[Wombatwarlord777]

Kogen wrote...
Cleaning up sludge with the sunshine cannon on a purple console that has a handle.

It is simply gay.

I realized I'm probably making a mountain out of a molehill, but the GCN never really struck me as "gay" based upon its appearance. I suppose that if it had neon pink casing, exhaust vents equipped with thyme-scent releasers, and an extra function that organized your wardrobe to be FABulous, I might have noticed.

Hate to get off topic, but if there was one thing that drove me nuts about the GCN, it had to be certain 3D models on SADX. Just look at Amy's animation once you pick her on the character select screen. It's the small, sloppy things like which I loathe.

[Ngangbius]

How is that the GCN's fault? Wouldn't that be more of the programmers' faults especially seeing that SADX wasn't a good job of a port?

[Wombatwarlord777]

You're right. I was trying to link SADX and the Gamecube together, to not seem to get too off topic. Here's how it ought to be written...

I (re)wrote...
Hate to get off topic, but if there was one thing that drove me nuts about the SADX, it had to be certain 3D models in the game. Just look at Amy's animation once you pick her on the character select screen. It's those small, sloppy things which I loathe.

And when I make blunders like this.

[Frieza2000]

I'm gonna have to go with Ngangbius on this one... The reason why people of all ages buy the main games of the Mario series is because Mario really doesn't try to appeal to a particular audience. The same could be said of the Sonic games, up to about SA2. As usual, the trouble really started with Heroes...

I was thinking about this last night. Heroes really is where the team started to pander to one notion or another in the fan community. I hear that after SA2 a lot of people were complaining about the realistic direction the series had taken, and that's why Heroes had checkered hills, Metal Sonic, and a simple plot. ShTH was literally in answer to fan letters, and 2k6's RPG motif was probably also based on the perception that it's what most of them wanted. I can't think of anyone who would've wanted Sonic to turn into a werewolf (unless they got calls for STC/Sonic X's idea of Evil Super Sonic confused with monster Sonic), but Black Knight is straight from Deviantart.

Little else but money could explain going from SA2, the darkest game in the series when you think about it, to Heroes, the most childish game I hope it ever sees, in just two years. I want to blame it all on the merger, but Heroes came out 5 months before that was officially announced. Could Sammy have been exerting their influence this early, demanded that they target a more lucrative demographic, or was it Sega's own desperate plan to deal with the monetary issues after the failure of the Dreamcast and the death of Isao Okawa? It seems to have been a purposeful strategy at the time as it also coincided with the release of Sonic X, the first season of which was definitely aimed at bringing the younger crowd into the series. It's also when Naka made his famous money>good games statement, which always seemed like a boneheaded thing to say in an interview; could he have been speaking for the ears of higher ups pressuring him to focus more on profit?

[RocketPunch]

I was thinking about this last night. Heroes really is where the team started to pander to one notion or another in the fan community.

Actually, didn't it start with SA2? Originally Tails and Knuckles weren't supposed to be in it, but there was a fan backlash and Sonic Team responded by including the shooting/treasure hunting levels. I can't verify this, it's just what I heard.

Trying to figure out how the franchise went from genetically engineered evil hedgehogs to deviantART inspired furry knights is quite the undertaking. I've never really asked that question before reading this thread, and I can't imagine where to even begin. I imagine some of the factors that led to the current series can go all the way back to the Saturn era, which is enough of a headache all by itself.

One thing I've wondered is why the original team doesn't regroup at Sega and take on the Sonic series themselves. After watching the GameTap retrospective, it's obvious to see that they still care for the character and the franchise. And it's not like any of them have gone onto bigger, better, and more lucrative projects. My guess is that their current salaries, their relationships with Sega higher-ups, and the one game every two years deadlines are what's holding them back.

[Kogen]

The rumour of that is that the game was going to be Sonic, Knuckles, and Eggman only.

Personally I think it is bullshite. How could they have did the stories and levels for three more characters in like 6 months to a game far into development?

[j-man]

Well they didn't really, did they? The play styles and a hell of a lot of the levels were straight up duplicates.

[Kogen]

So do you think Eggman would have the same music as Tails in the city level? To me it seems like from E3 to the game's release, there would not be time to replan everything (music, voice work, story plot, and so on). And why would they even have Shadow and Rouge there if they were not meant to be part of it? The story seems so based around it. From what I see in the newer games, the voice work and story are done well in advance (as you would expect).

[Blount]

From what I've read, the plot was mostly unchanged because Shadow and Rouge were already in it. I have no clue as to how true this old story holds, but I guess it would explain what J-man pointed out. But if this really is true, I'd bet they still had a different story for Tails at first, if any. After all, it's pretty obvious he only used a mech to be a gameplay duplicate of Eggman. If he was originally meant to be an NPC, it would seem odd to suddenly stick him into a mech for no reason.

On the other hand, Kogen does have a point. There are still many plot elements in the game that wouldn't have worked out if all those characters weren't playable, and that implies some extra voice acting to be done. Oh well, we'll probably learn the truth about this a few years from now, when one of the developers blurts it out in a random interview. It's been an effective plan so far.

[Wombatwarlord777]

I was under the impression that the story for the early version of SA2 involved all six characters, even if Sonic, Knuckles, and Eggman were the only playable characters.

That said, I don't know how much more work Sonic Team would have to go through to make all six playable, but since they duplicate gameplay styles and apparently had everyone involved in the story, it surely couldn't have taken nearly as long as it would to create three more characters from scratch. If this is true, they probably even had 3D models of Rouge and Shadow for cutscenes, which could be used for the playable characters with relative ease.

I don't remember the source of this information. It could've come from Wikipedia, so take this with a grain of salt.

[Kogen]

It is just a 'fan rumour', the same type of people who argue Tails is a girl because he was in Spain.

[Neo]

The rumour of that is that the game was going to be Sonic, Knuckles, and Eggman only.

And the basis behind this is that the first video ever released only showed said characters in their levels (Sonic in Green Forest and Sky Rail, Knuckles in Pumpkin Hill and Eggman in Iron Gate). Could I suggest that the other levels simply weren't ready to be shown yet?

The first time we were ever treated to a character selection screen the cast was already the same as the final, split into three gametypes and hero/dark sides. There is really no proof at all that Sonic, Knuckles, and Eggman were the only characters, though I must admit it does make a bit of sense. Sonic and Knuckles carried over their gameplay from the first game, and Eggman fits like a glove in Gamma's game.

It would also justify the presence of so many duplicate levels (Green Forest/White Jungle, Egg Quarters/Death Chamber to name a few), but then again Sky Rail was clearly present side-to-side with Pumpkin Hill. Maybe the whole thing was planned from the start in order to save time and resources.

It's possible they hadn't figured out how to make the other characters work, and ended up just making half as many gametypes and doubling them up via the hero/dark system. I just can't figure out a way for them to have made the game without Shadow being playable.

[K2J]

Why? He had the least amount of levels (4) of any character in the final game. He could have easily just been an antagonist that even Eggman didn't understand, a la Chaos. His interactions with Eggman could easily be enough character development (and opportunities for flashbacks) for his eventual change of heart.

[Neo]

That's not what I mean. I can't imagine Sega releasing a Sonic Adventure 2 which introduced Shadow but didn't let you play as him. It's... I dunno, it's like having Blaze not be playable in Sonic Rush. Sure, the story could've easily progressed via simple cutscenes, but they're obvious marketable characters that I can't see them not capitalizing on.

EDIT: I mean, the whole Sonic/Shadow parallel was on the logo from the very start. Chaos was never on the logo or the cover, just the general (vague) water theme. There's a difference in terms of character level.