New Sonic game for 2015

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Re: New Sonic game for 2015

Post by G.Silver »

Locit wrote:If this is supposed to be the new 'Western' Sonic, just where the hell does that put the Archie comic?
Handily they've already got the Sonic Universe spin-off, I imagine regular Archiverse will keep going like normal and this will appear in Universe, (or in its own book). The Archie series has somehow managed to last so long and weather so many rises and dips in Sonic's popularity that it seems crazy to change it, unless the new series really takes off.

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Re: New Sonic game for 2015

Post by G.Silver »

So from the sound of this it WAS the game developers who made the design decisions, not the cartoon people? I wonder what the argument was for pants. Would they have given him a shirt, or did they just think Crash Bandicoot was the right way to go?

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Re: New Sonic game for 2015

Post by Malchik »

I'd like to know their reasoning for it. They appear to be are very attainment in giving them cloth.

They almost look like they wanted to give the cast a dystopian nomad look. That would actually be a neat Sonic game, actually.

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Re: New Sonic game for 2015

Post by FlashTHD »

I liked it more 48 hours ago, where you had two decades worth of simple common sense to justify having a chuckle at pictures of Sonic with blue arms. Suddenly it's a loaded subject. I've already had a couple of snippy people get on my case about it because it's just such mean behavior to express criticism/dislike of anything in new Sonic games, after all. (You know, the defensive "I dont see whats so different why are you so critical" sidesteps.)

I wonder, did it occur to the illustrators the kind of upheaval that would happen if they recolored something so fundamental? It's almost like deciding to remove Mario's gloves.

At any rate, I think the asthetic they're shooting for is ugly enough that i'd rather not even look at it.

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Re: New Sonic game for 2015

Post by Wombatwarlord777 »

Wow, I'm away for two days and this happens?

I'm torn on the new designs. I like that they're taking some steps to differentiate the basic designs of the main characters (like a bulkier Knuckles and... uh... I suppose that's it). I don't mind accessorizing the characters a bit - Sonic's often been drawn with a scarf or bandanna to accentuate his speed - but I think they when overboard with all the wraps, and it boggles my mind that Eggman isn't symmetrical anymore. Amy now reminds me of Sonia, and in a show chock-full of terrible character design, I disliked her's the most. The Tornado is now some sort of horrific alien biological construct.

What interests me the most is the perceived new personality of Tails. The main characters have always been bland, but Tails was especially egregious, in that he's Sonic's admirer and that's basically it. I'd love to see a more snarky side to him, in that I think it would lend itself to entertaining interactions and plots in a short comedy show like Sonic Boom, and that it's a plausible personality for a character that has superior intelligence but is still a second banana.

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Re: New Sonic game for 2015

Post by Tsuyoshi-kun »

Dunno how to feel about the new cartoon and game. On the one hand, I'm glad to see them finally venturing away from that increasingly hideous Yuji Uekawa art style that hasn't been remotely pleasant to look at in the past 12 years. (I've always disliked Uekawa's look for Amy, so the sassy new look of hers doesn't bother me.) I'm also glad to see the focus of the series finally venturing away from just Sonic himself. I got really sick really fast of the games being carried by just him and <insert gimmick here>, especially when said formula has been used for the past four damn console games. And the cartoon actually looks like it will follow somewhat the spirit of the games, as opposed to the ugly waste of airtime that was Sonic X.

On the other hand, I don't like Sonic with blue arms (which in theory I can understand them doing, since this new look Sonic has hair/fur and most of the cast aside from him, Amy, Cream, and Charmy have arms the color of their body/fur, but it still looks weird considering Amy still has flesh-colored arms), buff Knuckles looks idiotic, and the random bandages on the characters look really, really dumb. I've also never liked Crash Bandicoot or Jak and Daxter, so my interest in the new game itself is pretty low. That said, it's the first new Sonic game that's raised my eyebrows since Generations' first trailers came out.

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Re: New Sonic game for 2015

Post by Wombatwarlord777 »

They almost look like they wanted to give the cast a dystopian nomad look. That would actually be a neat Sonic game, actually.
I've always wanted this in a Sonic continuity, which is why I was so looking forward to Sonic Underground when it first came out. I think the new cartoon isn't going to adapt this kind of setting, what with the comedic tone and all (unless it's going for a hammy spaghetti-western vibe) but maybe the game will, with the lush levels being a sort of oasis in a world that's more harsh and hardscrabble than not.

I actually don't remember much of the fan reaction when the Adventure redesigns were introduced. Was there a similar sort of response? Looking back, those redesigns really aren't that much of a radical change aside from the emphasized irises and the slightly lankier proportions. But Uekawa's art did have a tendency to accentuate and exaggerate the differences, and it's his art I first remember from that particular period of the franchise.

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Re: New Sonic game for 2015

Post by Tsuyoshi-kun »

When Uekawa's designs of the Sonic characters were first shown, my mother reacted by asking "Why does Sonic look so scary now?", and I kind of agreed with her. I remember it taking until Sonic Adventure 2 for the redesigns to gel with me.

I really dug (and still do) Uekawa's designs of the characters that were drawn in 1997 for the covers and promotional art for the Japanese versions of Sonic Jam and Sonic R. I thought it was a great middle ground.

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Re: New Sonic game for 2015

Post by big_smile »

Tsuyoshi-kun wrote:When Uekawa's designs of the Sonic characters were first shown, my mother reacted by asking "Why does Sonic look so scary now?", and I kind of agreed with her. I remember it taking until Sonic Adventure 2 for the redesigns to gel with me.
My mum thought that too, she thought it was a new evil Sonic character!
I actually don't remember much of the fan reaction when the Adventure redesigns were introduced. Was there a similar sort of response?
I think people started petitions to get them to change it.
"The clothing argument was a big one," said Rafei, leaning back in his chair in Big Red Button's conference room. "The most surreal moment in my life occurred when I was conveying with passion through a translator to the 'Sonic' team in Japan why Sonic needed to wear pants. Looking back at it, I'm glad they didn't go for it. Sonic wouldn't really be Sonic with pants on."
This is a bit concerning (in a overly pedantic nit-picky fan way). Surely, Rafei should have decided what Sonic really is, before making a passionate argument for something he ultimately didn't agree with it. It sounds like they are forcing Sonic to fit an ideal instead of building something new around the character. (Although, it's too early to make that judgement).

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Re: New Sonic game for 2015

Post by big_smile »

Even serious newspapers such as The Guardian are covering this:
The Guardian wrote:The emphasis of the game will be on how the characters collaborate through each level. Sonic has speed (duh), but Knuckles has strength, Tails has his gadgets, and Amy wields her usual gigantic hammer. On top of this, the studio has added a new mechanic, the ‘ener-beam’ a sort of elastic force that links the two player characters together. This is clearly a way of preventing players from straying too far apart on screen, but it can also be exploited in useful various ways – for example, stretching the link to its limit in order to catapult one character over a chasm or into an enemy. It’s a weird concept, it sounds sort of awkward, but at least it is new.
The return of Chaotix!

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Re: New Sonic game for 2015

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Image

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Re: New Sonic game for 2015

Post by Locit »

Ok, to restate, I'm 100% fine with this as a fun, experimental (probably doomed) direction for the franchise. But the arms bug the hell out of me because they've basically been a default indicator for the past two decades of whether someone had ever actually payed the slightest attention to the content of any Sonic games before they tried to reproduce their main character in any way.

Like, imagine some kid next to you during free draw period in art class at kindergarten kept doodling Mario, but every time he did, he switched the colors of Mario's shirt and overalls so they were blue and red, respectively. So you knew he didn't actually pay very close attention to the actual character design. But you kept seeing that same color switch in every half-assed representation of Mario in any other medium for the next two decades. And then one day, Nintendo did that too. But they didn't do it for Luigi!

Augh!

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Re: New Sonic game for 2015

Post by Rob-Bert »

Er...

Image

It really wouldn't be that much of a stretch if they went back to that color scheme for Mario, honestly.

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Re: New Sonic game for 2015

Post by Locit »

Yeah, I eventually looked it up and found out that pre-SNES Mario was all over the place:

Image

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Re: New Sonic game for 2015

Post by G.Silver »

Nintendo's marketing couldn't keep it straight either. Mario's colors are swapped between the cover and the game for Mario 2:

Image

Despite the differences between the US and Japanese art, Sonic has been very consistent from the very beginning.

Also once when I was in kindergarten or the first grade or something I was drawing a picture of Garfield and some other characters. My drawing of Jon was just two circles and four rectangles (this was how I drew humans) filled in with sloppy crayon, but when I showed it to someone else it was pure outrage--not at the quality of the drawing, but that I had given Jon blue pants. My suggestion that perhaps he had more than one pair of pants was met with fanaticism: "JON'S PANTS AREN'T BLUE!" I remember his emphatic bellowing to this day.

So maybe that's just my experience. It's kind of a big change but if a kid wants to draw Sonic with blue arms that's ok with me.

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Re: New Sonic game for 2015

Post by Dr. BUGMAN »

The problem here isn't so much with consistency, but function. Sonic's arms being a different color from his body provided contrast so the player/audience could effortlessly discern the parts from the whole. It's the very same reason Mario has overalls (regardless of color), and it's also the reason Mega Man has bulgy, differently hued forearms (and calves). Sonic's eyelids also served a similar function in keeping his features distinct even when his eyes were shut, but no-one was really bothered since blinking is such an incedental thing.

It also makes charaters that much more dynamic:

Image

Image

Image

ETC.

That's not to say it's requisite; Tails and Knuckles (etc.) lack 'em ('Though in the latter's case it would just clash with his dreadlocks). But when you elminate a bit of flair, you'd best have a damn good reason to do so (they don't).

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Re: New Sonic game for 2015

Post by big_smile »

I saw this fan rendition that had the arms in brown:
Untitled-1.jpg
Untitled-1.jpg (108.85 KiB) Viewed 24318 times
I think it actually looks better in blue. With extra bandages and the scarf, the brown arms make it too busy. Although, really, either way, it seems far too trivial a change to care about.

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Re: New Sonic game for 2015

Post by G.Silver »

The problem here isn't so much with consistency, but function. Sonic's arms being a different color from his body provided contrast so the player/audience could effortlessly discern the parts from the whole. It's the very same reason Mario has overalls
Oh yeah, I totally agree with this, it's really weird to change them for this reason (whereas with Mario, I mean, if I look at different Marios for very long I start to forget what the modern color scheme is). This would be like having Mario's sleeves be the same color as his overalls. Mario is always described as having been a product of the low resolution graphics that he started with, but the fact is that even when you can have a zillion pixels and full color on the screen, readable design like that is still really important and his design is just as useful today as it was then.
big_smile wrote:
Untitled-1.jpg
I think it actually looks better in blue. With extra bandages and the scarf, the brown arms make it too busy. Although, really, either way, it seems far too trivial a change to care about.
The composition here really favors the blue arms. If the background behind him weren't nearly the same color as his arms, I bet you'd feel differently.

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Re: New Sonic game for 2015

Post by Esrever »

Here's the thing. The primary way you are supposed to make arms read clearly is with strong poses that keep them distanced in relation to the body. (As they are in the original version of that image.)

If you can achieve that, you then do want the arms to be the same colour as the character, so they never read as being "disconnected" from the body, no matter what coloured background they are standing in front of. (Which, as Silv points out, is a problem with that fan edit image, and would continue to be an issue anytime Sonic stood in front of anything brown ever.)

Using different colours is a good secondary tactic, for when you know you can't avoid depicting parts overlapping. It's why Mickey's huge hands are in white gloves. It's also why different-coloured arms are so common in the designs of early game characters like Mario, Megaman, and Bomberman, whose low-res sprites necessitated arm overlap.

And it was necessary for nearly all of Sonic's designs, past and present, sprite and artwork, because his back spines created a constantly large blue area behind his arms at 3/4 angle. If this guy had blue arms, you'd never see them:

Image

None of the other Sonic characters have this issue, why is why they mostly all have same-coloured arms. And now that they've made Sonic lankier and shrunk down his one backspine, I guess they feel he can have them now, too. It drives me crazy because blue-armed Sonic has always been an abberation, but I can't deny that blue arms on the new Sonic make total sense from a design rules standpoint.

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Re: New Sonic game for 2015

Post by Frieza2000 »

Malchik wrote:They almost look like they wanted to give the cast a dystopian nomad look. That would actually be a neat Sonic game, actually.
At that point you might as well just make Sonic Chronicles 2.

Oh man, Sonic Chronicles. I remember complaining about the careless lore mistakes they made in what seems to have been an otherwise unusually well-scripted game. Oh well, don't know what ya got 'til it's gone!

I know what you mean though - I get that same desert-bandit/post-apocalyptic vibe from the bandages too. I think they're evoking memories of Fist of the North Star.

I tried to find some awful fan art of a Sonic/Fist of the North Star crossover to go along with this post, but all I got was a 25ft tall furry wearing a diaper. I apologize for this lost opportunity at Internets humor.

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Re: New Sonic game for 2015

Post by G.Silver »

Esrever wrote:If you can achieve that, you then do want the arms to be the same colour as the character, so they never read as being "disconnected" from the body, no matter what coloured background they are standing in front of.
I can't deny that blue arms on the new Sonic make total sense from a design rules standpoint.
Those design rules can go eat a dick, or at least slavish adherence certainly can.

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Readability vs Appeal!

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Re: New Sonic game for 2015

Post by big_smile »

If this guy had blue arms, you'd never see them:
I don't think it's true that the brown arms are for visibility. Shadow & SIlver have spines and arms that share the same colour. Plus, on the early UK merchandise, Sonic often had blue arms and they could be seen just fine.

For me, the brown arms are essential for 'proper' Sonic as they break up the blue and make him appear streamlined. They draw attention to his arms and so suggest he is an active 'dooer' (something Oshima's artwork capitalised on with the finger wagging). They also visually push his chest forward and so make him look confident and self-assured.

It's almost like he's wearing a waistcoat. People in waist coats* always look dynamic and active, which is why the brown arms work so well.

More importantly, they create dynamic contrast with Sonic's legs, and emphasise them, which in turn brings a wonderful sense of kintetic tension. Even when Sonic's in a static pose, the colour contrast between his arms and legs makes him look like he is ready to jump off the page.

"Boom Sonic" has bandages around his arms. These suggest he is careful, prepared and thoughtful (because his anticipating danger and so wants to protect himself in advance). A bandage is inherently constraining device. That's why the brown arms don't really work, as it's creating a mixed message. The brown arms are dynamic and say "go! Go! GO!" while the bandages send the opposite message.

Plus, I think the blue arms make Sonic look more American, as US icons such as Bugs Bunny, Mickey Mouse and Felix the Cat all have arms that match their body (the latter 2 examples even have different coloured tummies). Most of the different coloured examples in this thread are Japanese in origin.

*I think in the US they are called vests? I'm not talking about the garment that has long tails.

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Re: New Sonic game for 2015

Post by Esrever »

Well, Shadow and Silver have terrible character designs, so I don't know if they are the best examples. But also, in their games, you primarily see them from behind, so a different arm colour wouldn't necessarily provide much of a benefit.

Smile, I am glad Sonic's peach arms give you all those emotional feelings and insights about his character and personality, but I guarantee you none of that was even remotely intentional and the reason they are peach is actually really honestly truly just so you could see them better. This is also true of Mario and Megaman and many other classic game characters. It was never a deliberate design choice. Mario wouldn't even have overalls at all if it hadn't been necessary on a pixel level.

Silv, obviously there are always times to make exceptions, for stylistic reasons or fashion or function whatever else. I do it all the time in my own work. But that just isn't the case with Sonic. He had pink arms for one reason only, and that was readability, not appeal. Same-coloured arms make more sense from a design and appeal perspective, which is why every single other character in the franchise has them, as does every other classic "rubber hose" character than served as inspiration for him. The blue arms only bother us -- and I am including myself in this group too, they drive me mental -- because we're so used to the pink ones, and because the blue ones were such a common colouring error.

Case in point, imagine if this new Sonic design was purple, and actually a brand new character. It's not Sonic at all, it's Scarfy McBandages the purple Hedgehog. I mean, we'd hate Scarfy, but not because of his arms. No one would think the purple arms were strange or unappealing or anything else, just like they didn't with Tails or Knuckles or Shadow or on and on and on.

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Re: New Sonic game for 2015

Post by Tsuyoshi-kun »

There is one other nice thing about the new designs that no one has noted yet - the hands. They shrunk them, and I'm glad they did so.

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Re: New Sonic game for 2015

Post by Yami CJMErl »

G.Silver wrote:
Locit wrote:If this is supposed to be the new 'Western' Sonic, just where the hell does that put the Archie comic?
Handily they've already got the Sonic Universe spin-off, I imagine regular Archiverse will keep going like normal and this will appear in Universe, (or in its own book). The Archie series has somehow managed to last so long and weather so many rises and dips in Sonic's popularity that it seems crazy to change it, unless the new series really takes off.
I think Archie has already gone on record to state that they are, in fact, going to have a separate series just for this new show. (So that would make THREE distinct Sonic comic lines, not counting the new Super Specials or Super Digests.)

also in b4 you realize that they recently changed ALL THE CANON following the Sonic/MegaMan crossover because ken penders

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