Sonic Generations

[Ritz]

SCD era Sonic is the definitive "tough and heroic" Sonic to me. It's a damn good look for him. I see crazy-eyed assbrow Nike-grinning modern Sonic and the only image that ever comes to mind is that of some fratboy douche itching to do a keg stand. It doesn't help that his personality suits the role. Yeah! Alright! Let's party!

[Kogen]

... but the power of friendship? We are Team Sonic? Extreme gear?

Such amazing concepts cannot simply be abandoned! (with Banjo and Kazooie)


Also Sonic should look like this ideally. I do not really enjoy the cold stare of a proctologist preparing for his ill deed.

[Rob-Bert]

You know, after all the constant discussion on here about how much better Sonic used to be, I honestly never thought them making a game where they revisit his 90s design would generate as many complaints as it has.

Granted, the character's look has nothing to do with the quality of the game but...really? Is Chubby 90s Sonic that bad?

[Crowbar]

You should know by now that this fanbase is literally impossible to please.

[Crisis]

I've always thought that the character design in the Sonic games has been consistently pretty good. Sure, there are too many unnecessary additions, but even the most unbearably pervasive ones (Shadow, Cream, Silver... Big) have at least some modicum of charm. Similarly, the core roster of Sonic/Tails/Knuckles(/Amy) has never looked terrible.

[Neo]

Knuckles [...] has never looked terrible.

This man has never played the original Sonic Adventure.

[Dr. BUGMAN]

Or Sonic R, for that matter.

[Radrappy]

This man has never played the original Sonic Adventure.

Or Sonic R, for that matter.

What we have now is pretty awful too.

You know, after all the constant discussion on here about how much better Sonic used to be, I honestly never thought them making a game where they revisit his 90s design would generate as many complaints as it has.

Seriously. I really thought we'd all be on the same page. It's pretty amazing to go to a place like Sonic Stadium and see that 100% of the people there voted for modern sonic. The whole poll really accentuates the fact that the people who enjoy the newer games(minus colors) are just a vocal minority that doesn't represent what gamers actually like/want. I hope this means we never have to see Shadow the hedgehog, cream the rabbit, rouge, or any of those other useless characters ever again. What sales the franchise loses from furries, it will gain tenfold from people with class. Providing the game is good anyway.

[FlashTHD]

Seriously. I really thought we'd all be on the same page.

I imagine this is a frequent comment made by other narcicists.

I on the other hand held out some slight hope that it wouldn't come down to shallow bullshit like this, but I guess that was asking too much.

[Ritz]

Narcissism? Really? Do you even read what you type anymore?

[Kogen]

I am on page three. You know, the page that tells you where the power button is on the console. It is a fairly good page, although a bit redundant.

As for Sonic Stadium... please examine this image to gain a greater understanding into the minds of the current Sonic fan base (viewer discretion advised): http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v94/Kogen/ssmb.jpg

[Isuka]

Wow... why is it that I'm not that surprised, or at least not as surprised as I think I should be?

SCD era Sonic is the definitive "tough and heroic" Sonic to me.

Seconded. Later depictions in 3/Knuckles and Jam are a tad bit too much on the cartoony side, but that one is perfectly balanced.

Knuckles [...] has never looked terrible.

This man has never played the original Sonic Adventure.

The only times in-game Knuckles looked genuinely good to me were in Sonic 3 [& Knuckles] and Adventure 2. As for his depictions in artwork, Uekawa's work in both Adventure titles is sweet but Takashi Yuda's design never looked that good to me.

As for mental health issues, I've been recently diagnosed with SPD while renewing my driver's license, and due to the new legislation it was suspended 'til I start caring 'bout things other than playing games, surfing the web, watching TV and cursing politicians and their blatantly bought-off pseudo-journalists.

[Farmer]

Bringing the tone right down, I never did like that "snapping the glove" pose. The last person I saw do that was a doctor, and what followed ain't pretty.

[P.P.A.]

Der Stachel ist noch spitz …

“The spike is still pointy…” This sounds even more suggestive in German.

Re: Isuka: Do you actually perceive this condition as something undesirable, personally?

[Isuka]

No, and that's my biggest problem, I'm generally happy the way I am. I definitely don't feel like having psychotherapy sessions for at least some six months just for fucking driving.

But I'm conscious it IS bad, and my lifestyle is NOT "normal", so...

[P.P.A.]

Hm… See, that’s exactly the thing I meant when I said earlier that to me it seems like these days, people are declared mentally ill in one way or another and thus need to be “fixed” just because they don’t conform to the standard and don’t function the way society wants them to. That said, I know little about your SPD—for example if it might prevent you from getting a job because you can’t muster up the interest or care to do anything at all. But say you would do fine in a job where you don’t have to interact with others much and can just do some more or less monotonous work in peace (or maybe even something you actually enjoy), then why exactly is this a problem? Who can judge how well you’ve developed if it’s not yourself, and how can it be said that your life is somehow not right when you’re happy with it and don’t cause anyone trouble? And what’s the point of “correcting” it if you don’t actually like living the normal way, or just don’t see it as much of an improvement? I might just be a bit too anti-establishment, but I really can’t shake my doubts on this matter…

To pretend that we’re staying on topic, this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VonhgARLb5U

[FlashTHD]

You should know by now that this fanbase is literally impossible to please.

To be more specific, this argument over which design is better is an ouroboros that never goes anywhere.* Having the Sonic fanbase be totally pleased is impossible and should never be attempted. (Unfortunately, depending on what the hell this game really is, they may be trying to do that with one game.)

The problem this time is, since they just dropped that CG snippet with only a tease of actual information later, they are pretty much daring the argument to start, and thus have, wittingly or not, pit their high-strung fanbase against itself. If they aren't trolling, what're they trying to do, create black holes on the internet?

Speaking of which, let me spell out why this looks like trolling for those who haven't caught it yet:

I can't imagine a scenario where they can't have been aware of the fervor over "green eyes", wherever the hell that spawned from. Logically, if they knew what they were doing, they would have been aware that releasing that teaser would have caused some sort of uproar. So at the least, they didn't care, and at the worst, they timed its' release on purpose to generate the biggest burst of attention they could sustain until the actual reveal - aka, trolling everyone. Now, that's also just marketing doing its' job of course (recklessly), but what qualifies this as vindictive is that whatever attention they create, if in the end it sells enough to profit then they laugh all the way to the bank. And then they start this process up again next game because their customers are this gullible. Further, if these are the same marketing staff who worked on Sonic 4, then they have plenty of experience stringing people along for months.

(* the franchise is also pretty much spinning its' wheels of late. coincidence?)

[P.P.A.]

These naive fools, don’t they realise that getting upset about, bickering over the tiniest details in brief glimpses of, and nitpicking to no end new Sonic games is the only reason we still stick around and they’re practically giving us all the fun for free?

[G.Silver]

Bringing the tone right down, I never did like that "snapping the glove" pose. The last person I saw do that was a doctor, and what followed ain't pretty.

I always interpreted this as a "tightening" of the glove, like he's just making sure they're on good and tight, before he does something awesome, the way a martial artist or boxer might. Sonic's gloves don't look like the sort that would "snap."

[Crisis]

Hm… See, that’s exactly the thing I meant when I said earlier that to me it seems like these days, people are declared mentally ill in one way or another and thus need to be “fixed” just because they don’t conform to the standard and don’t function the way society wants them to.

I can't really comment much further without knowing specific details, but you should probably be aware that this is a massive controversy in the field of clinical psychology at the moment, and at the very least, isn't something that's been decided trivially. The debate is centred more around what is considered "healthy" rather than "normal", although both of those are highly ambiguous. Let's not forget that homosexuality was once considered a "disease" with penalties much worse than a revoked driving licence. Psychiatrists are fallible too, and a lot of research has gone into it, most famously the Rosenhan experiment. Things have changed since 1973, of course; psychologists are now much more wary about handing out diagnoses (telling someone they have schizophrenia is a bit like telling them they have cancer), but there's plenty of debate as to how accurate or helpful many disorder labels actually are.

Sadly, the upcoming revision to the DSM (the definitive manual of mental health disorders) is being written in secret (for the first time) by a team almost exclusively composed of investors the pharmaceutical industry (another DSM first). It's no surprise, then, that most of the proposed changes involve more inclusive diagnostic criteria and all-new disorders like "hypersexuality", which when combined will inevitably result in more psychiatric patients. I guess what I'm saying is that, although it's the best we have at the moment, current clinical psychological methods are far from perfect and this kind of thing is taken very seriously. I imagine in 50 years time, we'll be as horrified at certain current diagnostic criteria as we are of homosexuality diagnosis in the 1960s.

[Neo]

I always interpreted this as a "tightening" of the glove, like he's just making sure they're on good and tight, before he does something awesome, the way a martial artist or boxer might. Sonic's gloves don't look like the sort that would "snap."

Yeah, but now I can't unsee it. Sonic the Proctologist.

ASSMAN

[Locit]

The more I think about it the funnier Fat Sonic's inclusion in this game is. It's an anniversary game, meaning they couldn't make new buddy characters, and they couldn't fall back on wisps the now requisite cuteness of the series. So they made Sonic his own buddy.

We have come full circle.

[cjmcray]

SCD era Sonic is the definitive "tough and heroic" Sonic to me. It's a damn good look for him

You got me there. The Sonic CD version of the character is pretty badass looking. I didn't take him into account. (And yet I have him as my avatar. Silly me.)

Granted, the character's look has nothing to do with the quality of the game but...really? Is Chubby 90s Sonic that bad?

I never said I hated classic Sonic. I love them both, I just feel the current Sonic is an improvement over his former look. The Sonic Adventure intro movie had a really cool scene at the end of Sonic overlooking the damage of Station Square. IMO, it was the single most badass image of Sonic ever created.

I find it funny how everyone is sick of the current "melodrama" of the Sonic franchise, and want a return back to a more silly and lighthearted tone/feel. Yet we get games that do exactly that (Heroes, Unleashed, Colors, the Storybook titles) and everyone still complains.

[cjmcray]

We have coverart. Oh, and there's a new Mario & Sonic, but nobody cares about that. (TSSZ News link, deal with it.)

http://www.tssznews.com/2011/04/13/rumo ... es-leaked/

I see crazy-eyed assbrow Nike-grinning modern Sonic and the only image that ever comes to mind is that of some fratboy douche itching to do a keg stand. It doesn't help that his personality suits the role. Yeah! Alright! Let's party!

Sonic's always had an assbrow. And he's always been a laidback, thrill-seeker. If he spoke in the Genesis games, "Alright! Let's Party!" wouldn't be an out-of-character thing for him to say.

[P.P.A.]

I like how Classic Sonic looks like some kind of disfigured gnome next to Modern Sonic there.

That said, I actually liked the original SA and SA2 designs in Uekawa’s drawings. They really were “cool” and “hip”, and a tasteful modernisation of the character. The problem is that that was the last time they actually used 2D artwork (save for Sonic Riders, where—not coincidentally, I actually approved a little more of the designs, SUNGLASSES aside), and their 3D renders aren’t nearly as expressive or flexible.