Loud obnoxius critic reviews Sonic cartoons

[Isuka]

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 Knuckles not be playable in Sonic 3.

Fixed.

*conspirative thinkin'*

[Protodude]

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.

I could be wrong but I thought the original logo was just a plain silver color instead of the blue and red/black.

[RocketPunch]

I don't know which characters were originally intended to be playable in SA2, but I remember reading something about a fan backlash of some sort being the basis for putting 12 characters in Heroes. Unfortunately, I can't verify that either since it was so long ago. :\

...Which, theoretically, goes back to the original point that Heroes is where Sega began pandering to a specific audience. Go figure.

[Arcade]

Well lets see

Sonix X in japanese was kinda okey at first, but I freaking hate that kid, The French season was... it hurt to see it.

Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog was okey, when I was a kid, you cant really expect a toon targeted for small kids to be better than that. I kinda lost interest when they started to do time travel-

Sonic SatAM) was kinda cool, for only being based in two Sonic games, I lost interest when they swiched for "bad future" to magic and dragons.

The two ovas where good... I love them

[Arcade]

Ups forgot about Underground

Both "Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog" and "Sonic the Hedgehog" were severely flawed (to put it diplomatically), but had their charms. Sonic Underground on the other hand appears to be universally loathed!

I think Sonic Underground was more ignored than hated.

Kogen, m'boy... I take it you've never heard of 12chan... Lemme just say it's at least ten times as worse as the furries.

Fixed.

in a way Sonic Underground was like Dinosaur planet, a good idea using characters that dont fit in that type of story

But the green hog seems to have his fans...

[Neo]

Fixed.

I don't need you to fix my posts.

Knuckles was supposed to be playable in Sonic 3 from the very start. He was only removed when the game was split in half to help market Sonic & Knuckles. This is the opposite of what we're discussing.

I could be wrong but I thought the original logo was just a plain silver color instead of the blue and red/black.

It's a white Sonic and a black Sonic. Hmm, wonder what it means.

(Nevermind the yinyang-esque 2)

[Oompa Star]

RACIAL UNDERTONES

[Arcade]

RACIAL UNDERTONES

I think Shadow was suposed to have black and white fur or something...

[Isuka]

Knuckles was supposed to be playable in Sonic 3 from the very start. He was only removed when the game was split in half to help market Sonic & Knuckles. This is the opposite of what we're discussing.

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.

Yet they released the game regardless, and the story (while obviously incomplete) made sense. Even if you lock-on both games, Sonic and Tails' complete story makes sense.
Although of course you have a point in that they meant to make Knuckles playable from the get-go but couldn't due to time constraints, they could've very well developed SA2 without a playable Shadow and with either a less convoluted story, or the same one and additional/ longer cutscenes and come up with the same result (plotwise), but this time they had enough development time to put him in.

And I'm not even trying to enforce this particular theory, it's only that there isn't irrefutable evidence that Sonic Team USA meant to make Shadow playable from the very beginning available.

[Wombatwarlord777]

Isuka wrote:
...<T>hey could've very well developed SA2 without a playable Shadow and with either a less convoluted story, or the same one and additional/ longer cutscenes and come up with the same result (plotwise), but this time they had enough development time to put him in.

It would've totally been possible to have SA2 without Shadow as a playable character. For the vast majority of the story, Shadow is a villian, much like Metal Sonic's role in Sonic CD, and of course Metal Sonic wasn't playable in that game. Granted, Shadow is much more involved in the events of SA2, but it would be possible to remove many of his extraneous parts (such as the entire Sky Rail level, since it is Dr. Robotnik who eventually catches up with Sonic and company, not Shadow). The only problems I can see is his role in the last story, especially in the Final Hazard fight, although I suppose his part in those could be rendered non-playable if you messed with the story enough...

...Although I'm glad Shadow was playable. At least in SA2, Shadow was a surprisingly complex and deep character for this series, and while I can imagine Shadow being non-playable, I only think his story would be less believable as a result. I don't think his playability really detracted anything from the game, and he wasn't actually bad to use, this being before he was fucked over with guns and chaos powers.

Getting somewhat off-topic from the current discussion, do any of you think that Shadow's time in the limelight is coming to an end? His role in the current games seems to be fading, being a minor character in Chronicles, an optional playable character in Black Knight, and completely uninvolved in Unleashed. Personally, I think he'll become like Metal Sonic, maybe making a cameo here and being an optional multiplayer character there, but will never become involved in the series to the extent he once was. I think that's for the best.

[FlashTHD]

And I'm not even trying to enforce this particular theory,

And pay no heed to that innocent "fixing" of his posts too. Yeah, right.

It's only that there isn't irrefutable evidence that Sonic Team USA meant to make Shadow playable from the very beginning available.

Nor is there any to confirm the opposite either, beyond a mystery rumor from eons past that no one knows the true source of. Which is not, shall we say, a good leg to stand on, but here y'all are going in circles based on what ultimately amounts to bullshit. Way to go.

[Neo]

It's still the goddamn opposite of Sonic Adventure 2. Knuckles was supposed to be playable, the fact that he remained in the cover even though he was cut is just a massive cocktease.

Yet they released the game regardless, and the story (while obviously incomplete) made sense. Even if you lock-on both games, Sonic and Tails' complete story makes sense.

How is this a valid argument at all? Knuckles' story doesn't even start until Sonic's has finished! Of course the story makes sense, it makes sense with or without Knuckles' story in the end!

Although of course you have a point in that they meant to make Knuckles playable from the get-go but couldn't due to time constraints

I assume that by "time-constraints" you mean the game was cut in half to increase sales and simply to just release something already instead of holding off the game further, which would itself retract from sales (oh Sega, you selfish businessmen).

they could've very well developed SA2 without a playable Shadow and with either a less convoluted story, or the same one and additional/ longer cutscenes and come up with the same result (plotwise), but this time they had enough development time to put him in.

You're still missing the point. Wouldn't you feel cheated if you didn't get to play as Shadow? He's not like Metal Sonic, who is "silent" throughout all the game (all his actions are merely an extension of Eggman's), and only appears in like, two levels. He's a major character with speaking roles and a will that he sets out to accomplish, making him a fair bit more than a plot device. Now, could Rouge have been cut without any consequence? Absolutely!

And I'm not even trying to enforce this particular theory, it's only that there isn't irrefutable evidence that Sonic Team USA meant to make Shadow playable from the very beginning available.

There also isn't a shred of evidence that they intended otherwise.

it would be possible to remove many of his extraneous parts (such as the entire Sky Rail level, since it is Dr. Robotnik who eventually catches up with Sonic and company, not Shadow).

This is entirely obvious. Early screenshots showed that Sky Rail was Sonic's level at one point. No wonder it's completely extraneous.

[Isuka]

It's still the goddamn opposite of Sonic Adventure 2. Knuckles was supposed to be playable, the fact that he remained in the cover even though he was cut is just a massive cocktease.

He wasn't cut from the game, much of the game's story revolves around Knuckles slowing down Sonic's progress.
The ability to play as him in the single player story mode was cut.

I assume that by "time-constraints" you mean the game was cut in half to increase sales and simply to just release something already instead of holding off the game further, which would itself retract from sales (oh Sega, you selfish businessmen).

Is there any proof of this, either? I think it was SEGA's policy of churning out new installments of its hit franchise as fast as
they possibly could, just like Sonic 2 and its own cut Hidden Palace Zone and Sonic CD's Desert-themed Round. That's what I'm calling "time constraints" here.

You're still missing the point. Wouldn't you feel cheated if you didn't get to play as Shadow? He's not like Metal Sonic, who is "silent" throughout all the game (all his actions are merely an extension of Eggman's), and only appears in like, two levels. He's a major character with speaking roles and a will that he sets out to accomplish, making him a fair bit more than a plot device. Now, could Rouge have been cut without any consequence? Absolutely!

So was Chaos. Infact, both Chaos' and Tikal's story is what the main plot of Adventure 1 revolves around and possesed abilities greatly different than those of the playable cast, yet we didn't get to play as them (and it's just as "easy" to tack on a Chaos story mode as it was Shadow's own, think E-102 Gamma's story progression). Knuckles' presence and actions were also pivotal for 3's plot development too, yet his presence as a playable character was excised from (half) the game without as much as a flicker and the game was still fully playable and it made sense with Knuckles being just a NPC since Knuckles' own story is little more than a reenactment of Sonic's.
As for the personal aspect of your question, I don't whink I would have felt "cheated" by not being able to play as a Sonic doppelgänger with next to no exclusive abilities of his own and whose importance as a mere plot device doesn't particularly add anything to the game's various mechanics or systems.

And I'm not even trying to enforce this particular theory, it's only that there isn't irrefutable evidence that Sonic Team USA meant to make Shadow playable from the very beginning available.

There also isn't a shred of evidence that they intended otherwise.

*sigh*



OK then.

[j-man]

I want to see some conclusive proof that that's really a circle.

[Dr. BUGMAN]

I heard Biolizard's first form was meant to be fought with Knuckles. I have no irrefutable evidence to back this claim, but it seems plausible.

I also heard Luigi's Mansion was orignally a Resident Evil game during pre-production.

I hear a lot of things.

[DackAttac]

I heard Biolizard's first form was meant to be fought with Knuckles. I have no irrefutable evidence to back this claim, but it seems plausible.

I have no idea what stage that would have been planned for, but it seems like beating that thing without a homing attack would be comparable to trying to conceive without testicles.

[Dr. BUGMAN]

That depends on the manner in which they originally intended Biolizard whould be fought--There really is no way of knowing this. The whole shooting eggs out its body could've been a late addition to facilitate the homing attack. I dunno. There's really no point in arguing about beta elements--what's done, is done.

[Yami CJMErl]

Maybe Knuckles was meant to punch those balls of energy the Biolizard fired from its' mouth so that they rebounded and hit the power core, a la the OoT Phantom Ganon/Ganondorf boss fights.

[Esrever]

I'm pretty sure Sonic Adventure 2 was always intended to have its six playable characters. The Hero/Villain theme and gameplay spilt is way too heavy-handedly telegraphed by the game's plot to have been added as an afterthought. The whole concept of the story is about two trios of perfect foils working against one another. I don't know how you can look at that and think the plan was ever to only play as two of one trio and one of the other. Shadow and Rouge are "dark" but otherwise basically identical versions of Sonic and Knuckles for you to play as in the "evil" half of the story. That's why they are there. In Rouge's case, it's the ONLY reason she's there.

That said, I'm sure they shuffled some of the stages around between characters during development. I'd always assumed that Sky Rail was originally intended to be a Sonic stage, not just because of those old screenshots, but because of its Sonic-styled rock background music.

[Ngangbius]

Going back to the Sonic cartoons a bit, someone recently uploaded a pilot or a promo of Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog on Youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EZ54vXrcVU

Notice that it has much more elements of the games such as the familar designs of the zones, enemies, and Eggman's vehichles. Also it has much better animation than the final product.

[Wombatwarlord777]

Robotnik sounds similar to his SaTAM counterpart, voiced by Jim Cummings, in that pilot, especially in the part where he addresses his robots. I wonder if they used his voice for some reason?

[K2J]

Yep.

[CM August]

If only it could have been animated like this throughout the whole series. :( An impossible notion, but what a difference it makes animating in-house with renowned industry professionals.

[Protodude]

Wow, the scene where Robotnik's first shown is very reminiscent of the Continue screen from Mean Bean Machine. I wonder if they got it from this.

[Oompa Star]

I'm wondering why they didn't put in more game references in the actual series.

Also, Cumming's Robotnik voice doesn't really fit with the tone of AoStH.