New Sonic Channel mystery picture

[Dasher]

EDIT: But to the untrained Eye its all fine and dandy, so if you cant see the differences its all good, lucky you.

I need a vacation.

[Malchik]

Fight Dasher, fight!

[Dasher]

I am not fighting just pointing out my endless observations as a researcher, which is tiring and makes me hungry! where my pizza?

[Crazy Penguin]

Metal Sonic's design tweaks (too small to be called a redesign really) are very conservative really. If he'd had anything more than a cameo role in the games from Sonic Adventure onwards we'd probably have seen this happen much sooner. The fact that the new look was first shown off for a profile on Sonic Channel and only used in Sonic Rivals 2 and M&S Winter Olympics since just shows that it must have been really bugging someone at Sonic Team!

In and of itself the old design is clearly better for its sleek simplicity alone. But that's not the issue at hand. The old design simply did not work very well alongside the modern Sonic design. Sonic's proportions and the shape of his torso were malleable enough to not really matter, as long as nothing too drastic was done with them. Metal Sonic is a different kettle of fishes, and it's all because of how reliant his design is on circles, specifically the round engine that is his "tummy". If it's changed then the whole design changes - even if just the blue part is elongated. The tiny torso and looong legs look in the Adventures just didn't cut it either.

Adding "hip joints" is a fair compromise that addresses the issue whilst doing the least amount of damage, I think. It looks a little awkward in the profile pic, where it isn't really doing its job properly, but in the new calendar sketch piece it's all fine and dandy.

The finger joints just make sense. It was a non-issue in the days of Mega-CD, Model 2 and Saturn, but on today's consoles it'd just look silly for him not to be able to so much as make a fist. Just look at how much they flat-out cheated in the Sonic OVA!

The additional details were unnecessary, but not particularly harmful either. They're the kind of additions that work well for a 3D model but come off as clutter in hand drawn art.

The only thing that does bother me with how Metal Sonic is drawn these days is how literal they are with how his "spines" look when viewed from the front - to the point where they stop looking even remotely like spines at all and his head is just a stylized triangle. That's exactly how Metal Sonic WOULD look, but not how he SHOULD look. Don't be afraid of a little artistic license, Sega! Or if you're going to be that anal retentive about it then at least just draw Metal Sonic from the angles he looks coolest.


(Not the best example, especially since it's a little bit of both angle and artistic license, but you get the idea.)

[Arcade]

Hey! I liked how Metal looked in Sonic Adventure DX!

[Isuka]

Maybe I'm wrong, but I think the stasis'd Metal's spines look longer because its 3D model was made of very few polygons, hence it couldn't achieve a more rounded shape. So, in fact, it'd be farther from a redesign and more into the technical limitation territory.

Also Dasher, what do you want me to do with all this modesty you don't seem to have any use for?

[Radrappy]

Metal sonic? You serious? If you really want to talk about who got fucked design wise through the years, look no further than a certain red monotreme.

Also Dasher, sonic has been seeing a slight return to the cuter model starting starting with Unleashed. So your complaints about their "edge" factor not lining up are kind of obsolete.

[CM August]

I think that Tails got the shorter stick in the redesign department really. He looks horrible now, hardly cute at all.

[Dasher]

You know, I just don't care anymore. Sonic is a different beast now as he has a different bestial director(s) now.

[Dr. BUGMAN]

Metal sonic? You serious? If you really want to talk about who got fucked design wise through the years, look no further than a certain red monotreme.

I remember when he used to sport high-tops.

[Dr. Watson]

No no no, it was neither Knuckles nor Tails that suffered the worst from the SA redesign, it was Sonic goddammit. And the reason for this is his eyes. Yeah, you see, so much of a characters personality comes from the eyes, and both Knuckles, Tails, Amy and Eggman got to keep their eyes largely unchanged by the redesign. Sonic on the other hand went from having big, beautiful eyes to thin, ugly eyes. When i look modern Sonic in the face i don't even feel like i am seeing the same character as the one from the Mega Drive days.

Oh, and like Dasher said, Metal Sonic's eyes changed to (just not nearly as drastically as Sonic's). His old, completely round retinas were much cooler than his new oval ones, partly because they made his eyes unique among the other characters and also because they somehow gave him this creepy "psycho-stare".

[G.Silver]

I didn't even notice how small and not-round his eyes are now! (to be fair I've kinda stopped looking for things that are less-good about Sonic games) The round eyes are also important as a robot, it gives the idea that they eyes are "cameras," and even harkens back a bit to the Gundam series' Zaku mono-eye.

And people say we don't talk about Sonic! :O

[FlashTHD]

No no no, it was neither Knuckles nor Tails that suffered the worst from the SA redesign, it was Sonic goddammit. And the reason for this is his eyes. Yeah, you see, so much of a characters personality comes from the eyes, and both Knuckles, Tails, Amy and Eggman got to keep their eyes largely unchanged by the redesign. Sonic on the other hand went from having big, beautiful eyes to thin, ugly eyes. When i look modern Sonic in the face i don't even feel like i am seeing the same character as the one from the Mega Drive days.

If this ain't Dasher parody then methinks you should take a minute to soak your head. I mean, wow, what?

[Dasher]

I didn't even notice how small and not-round his eyes are now! (to be fair I've kinda stopped looking for things that are less-good about Sonic games) The round eyes are also important as a robot, it gives the idea that they eyes are "cameras," and even harkens back a bit to the Gundam series' Zaku mono-eye.

And people say we don't talk about Sonic! :O

Metal sonic was not the only one.



I think they're trying to Sonic-tise all the other characters or just make em dumb looking so Sonic stands out, yeah that's it. Look at Sonic X and you will understand, Shadow and Silver are not affected by the Sonic virus and are considered worthy to have fun...this reminds me of another anime show where a certain race became so strong and over used that the other once cool characters end up being useless in the end.

[Shadow Hog]

Dear God that plushie is off-model.

I swear it's making Downs Syndrome Sonic look good.

[gr4yJ4Y]

I think they're trying to Sonic-tise all the other characters or just make em dumb looking so Sonic stands out, yeah that's it.

I think you're kind of right there.

People stopped caring about Sonic as much as Tails and Knuckles when he didn't have anything that could help him get to different areas in Sonic 3. Tails could fly. Knuckles could climb and glide. Sonic's air double-jump just wasn't as interesting. So Knuckles and Tails became more popular.

Since SA I feel like there's been this overreaction of trying to make Sonic the coolest character in the series by changing all the other characters. Each character's place in the story has changed so much (other than Sonic being the main hero). It's similar to what Warren Spector said about Disney dividing up Mickey's character into other characters. Tails has been changed into this engineer, boy genius and his sidekick status has been given to a bunch of different expendable characters (see: Chip). Sega doesn't know what to do with Knuckles. Shadow pretty much took his role as Sonic's rival.

I think Sega needs to cut the fat and reinstate the older characters' roles in the games. If there's significant places for the surplus of other characters then they could add them back.

[Opa-Opa]

I still don't see that much of a difference between the old and new Metal Sonic, apart from the hip and fingers. Looks pretty cool to me in the Winter Olympics videos. And frankly, I never reminded that Metal Sonic in the SA green tube being so hideous. Dasher, you must be out of your mind. And I think we all know that "edgier" isn't a good thing. It was cool in SA2 when we had Shadow as an "edgier" character but then they just lost it.

I think Sonic's model in Unleashed is pretty spot-on. He doesn't have those freakish long legs anymore, and seems to be slowly going back to something more cute like Mickey or Felix.

[Dasher]

When I said edgier i meant it sarcastically, And maybe you dont see what I see in the Metal in the tube, perhaps you didn't noticed his "up to date" spikes and other features like his intact circle camera pupils! but none of that matters now.

[Dasher]

The Point is there was no need to add joints and junk to keep metal up to date, just give him different adjustments and perspectives here and there, and viola!

here's an ms paint example.

Also Metal used to have this dark blue color scheme while Sonic was lighter, now the hues have changed! Sonic is darker and Metal is lighter than Sonic in current games, now the Metal in the tube still had the old dark tone classic metal had like my pic does.

[Dasher]

Metal Is supposed to look more menacing than Sonic not less! but as I have said, in the past sonic was a team player now hes a god wanna be that even his greatest rivals Metal and Knuckles are jokes now and his nemesis is a pansy who only digs up lizards to only have them destroy him in the end.

Only Shadow and Silver can stand up to Sonic and have a chance of beating him up maybe because they're hedgehogs? yes of course... and blaze can too because shes supposed to be another Sonic-like being from another dimension. But Robots are nothing these days, just a joke, lizards and aliens are the big thing now, kids love em right??

[Opa-Opa]

All I'm saying it's that it wasn't that big of a redesign, there's not enough changes there to change the tone or visual feeling of the character. I agree with you on the color thing though, he's a lot lighter.

Plus, remember that we could be a lot worse:


And this:

[(No Imagination)]

What Dasher's saying is depressing, because it's true.

Sonic Team messed up their whole charlist by introducing aliens and magical creatures as villains. Chaos is a chaos, and Shadow still looks like he was supposed to be a fake hedgehog. Then Shadow turned out to be a Cloud Strife mass produced super-hedgehog-soldier wannabee and suddenly, being a hedgehog in a Sonic game meant being a dimension-travelling, genetically engineered smooth-talking omnipotent jackass. Who of course battles aliens and magical overlords because no normal animal can stand up to him anymore.

On the topic of Metal's Sonic Heroes final boss redesign - whenever I see it, I still get the vibes that was actually supposed to be Shadow, and Metal Sonic was tossed in as his substitute because the guy who designed Shadow (Ilzuka? ...refresh my memory...) so wanted him to be playable and alive forever, and wouldn't let him be a killable villain in SA2. I mean...those stripes. Is that supposed to be Metal Sonic or Metal Shadow?

Not that it matters much, because Sonic's character of today sucks and is apparently designed for very young and gullible children.

[Shadow Hog]

Honestly, Neo Metal Sonic wasn't that bad - it was pretty nifty, even.

The problem is that all his scenes are shot with silhouettes or extreme close-ups, meaning you can't properly see him up until the final battle, where he's finally revealed, and... immediately turns into that awful Metal Madness bullshit. What a colossal waste.

[Wombatwarlord777]

Heh, I never realized that Neo Metal Sonic had a crotch-plate.

Concerning this entire "edginess" business, I thought the trend was that it had been (successfully) increasing through the Adventures and has since been decreasing since Heroes. Sonic still said really corny stuff in SA1 and SA2, but I thought it was more in the tone of a big, macho dumb-guy sort of way ("Way to go, Knucklehead!") who tried his best to appear tough despite lacking a strong grasp of comebacks. In a way, it's kind of endearing, to me at least.

Just for the record, I thought Shadow (the game) wasn't edgy at all. It tried too hard, and the end result is mildly depressing.

[Crowbar]

Since SA I feel like there's been this overreaction of trying to make Sonic the coolest character in the series by changing all the other characters. Each character's place in the story has changed so much (other than Sonic being the main hero). It's similar to what Warren Spector said about Disney dividing up Mickey's character into other characters. Tails has been changed into this engineer, boy genius and his sidekick status has been given to a bunch of different expendable characters (see: Chip). Sega doesn't know what to do with Knuckles. Shadow pretty much took his role as Sonic's rival.

I think Sega needs to cut the fat and reinstate the older characters' roles in the games. If there's significant places for the surplus of other characters then they could add them back.

OH GOD THIS IS SO TRUE. Certainly for Knuckles, at the very least.

Knuckles's story in Sonic Battle was awesome just because you got to see him getting all competitive with Sonic. Possibly the best character interaction the series has ever seen, in fact.
Come to think of it, Shadow didn't really get much time, if any, playing the part of Sonic's rival in that game. He was better for it, too.

Reinstate Knuckles as Sonic's official rival.