Sonic relies too much on the past

[Kuzu]

Apples and oranges. ArtFenix can very well want the type of complex, takes-itself-seriously type of narrative of the Adventure games to return to newer games yet still dont want newer games to feature the same old locations and lore from those games. It doesn't make him a hypocrite at all, because those opinions concern two different things entirely.

But the topic title, and the OP suggest that the series is relying too much on nostalgia and past events and that it needs to stop. Ok.

But then he goes on and says that the series needs to go back to Adventure to be good, so that's kind of contradicting right there, how is going back to Adventure any less Nostalgic than the classic series of games?

In any case, I really don't care for the series poor excuse for continuity, every game being connected in some way makes no sense and limits the creativity in the series, and plus it really isn't needed. Does every previous adventure need to be referenced in every game? Would Sa2 be any different if we didn't know that Tails got that Chaos Emerald from Station Square instead of just a random hobo off the street? If you're going to have continuity it should make sense in the context of the game, and not thrown in for the sake of it to give off this illusion that the series is "deep". The reason there's no continuity nod to Unleashed in Colors is because neither of the events in those games have anything to do with each other, yeah there's soft references like Tails` handheld, and Orbot and Cubot but other than that both games are completely unrelated and don't need to be related in anyway. Colors and Generations works because the ending to Colors leads directly into Generations, and even then you don't have to play Colors to know what's going on.

The reason the series doesn't have a "continuity" is because it prevents people knowing what the hell is going on unless they play the previous games, which is bulcrap. Sonic isn't this overarching adventure, its a series with a set of self contained stories, and that's all it needs to be.

[Solid SOAP]

Sonic Generations and Sonic 4 are the only new games that rely on nostalgia in their design. Sonic Colors was a completely new game with new gameplay, level tropes and gimmicks, etc. Sonic Unleashed is the same way but with an overworld type deal, as was Sonic '06. Some are better than others, but I think it's ludicrous to say that Sonic relies on the past too much when every game is so different from the last.

[Winston]

I don't want another Adventure style game, Papa.

[Kuzu]

Sonic Generations and Sonic 4 are the only new games that rely on nostalgia in their design. Sonic Colors was a completely new game with new gameplay, level tropes and gimmicks, etc. Sonic Unleashed is the same way but with an overworld type deal, as was Sonic '06. Some are better than others, but I think it's ludicrous to say that Sonic relies on the past too much when every game is so different from the last.

Generations can at least be excused as being a anniversary throwback celebrating the series, the only game that truly relies on Nostalgia is Sonic 4.

[Xenos]

I don't really understand how the series relies too much on the past.

Sonic 4 Episode 2 will most likely bring brand new stuff to the table. (I mean, look at the enemy concepts and the boss concept, they all look pretty Sonicy and original to me.)

Sonic Generations was a 20th Anniversary Celebration, it's pretty much obligated itself for being nostalgic.

Upon that, we have

Sonic Colors, Sonic and Sega All-Stars Racing (Which had familiar locations to race on and characters, but that's about it.), Sonic Unleashed

The other 2 are completely original with their concepts, and gameplay.

Edited February 11, 2012 by Ultimate Spidey

[sonfan1984]

How is Sonic Colors relies too much on the past. There are small throwbacks and references here and there from the past like the return of Super Sonic in stages, the return of badniks. the classic design layout in the Sonic Simulator. etc. but other then that the game is still a brand new game with new levels.

[ArtFenix]

I'll have to quote myself one more time so you guys would bet the main idea from what I said above.

The problem is all sonicteam improve and pay attention to now is the gameplay and it's Sonic only gameplay [don't count Sonic 4 since I'm talking about main 3D games]. It's great, but it's not the only great thing about the franchise.

The problem is that SEGA does one of these two things

- They either forget about things aformentioned [which sucks]

- Or they REHASH them [which is the thing I meant by saying that Sonic relies on the past]

[Kuzu]

I'll have to quote myself one more time so you guys would bet the main idea from what I said above.

They either forget about things aformentioned

Forget about what exactly? All of the stuff from the adventure games is completely irrelevant nowadays so there's no reason to reference it.

Or they REHASH them [which is the thing I meant by saying that Sonic relies on the past]

Didn't you just say that they're forgetting about things from the past? Make up your mind.

You either want them to do new things or you don't, pick one.

Edited February 11, 2012 by Shadic Claus

[Semi-colon e]

You're not really telling us anything new ArtFenix, aside from saying you want Adventure games in all but actually saying "I want Adventure games", and I mean that's fair enough and everyone knows that you are an Adventure advocate, but at the same time the whole story and characters thing doesn't require an Adventure-esque game. It doesn't even have to be something from the past. They could come up with something totally new and have characters and story.

A good story also doesn't require continuity nods up the ass.

Edited February 11, 2012 by Semi-colon e

[Diogenes]

The problem is all sonicteam improve and pay attention to now is the gameplay

I don't think this is true. A lot of what they've done with the storytelling, setting, and characters is in response to common complaints. You can certainly argue whether or not the changes they've made are for the best, but I don't think you can, in good faith, claim that they are not trying to improve those elements.

- They either forget about things aformentioned [which sucks]

- Or they REHASH them [which is the thing I meant by saying that Sonic relies on the past]

Like what?

What would you say has been forgotten, in the jump between '06 and Unleashed (or ShtH and '06, or wherever it is you're drawing the line)? Going back to your list of plot points, none of these arcs really had much relevance beyond the arcs themselves. The Death Egg ceased to be relevant (aside from a few callbacks) after S3&K. The echidnas had some minor tangential relevance to SA2 (the Artificial Chaos and the Master Emerald control chant) and nothing of note since. The ARK stopped being relevant when Shadow's arc finished. Nothing's changed, here; at most, the "modern" games (what few examples we have) have avoided multi-game arcs, though even then they stuck in a connection between Colors and Generations.

And the only rehashing has come from Generations (which, as an anniversary game, was created specifically to celebrate the past 20 years; this is not something they are going to continue doing with every future game) and S4 (a minor downloadable game, and one which has been rightfully called out for its rehashing). Unleashed and Colors were entirely new stories in entirely new settings.

[ArtFenix]

Forget about what exactly? All of the stuff from the adventure games is completely irrelevant nowadays so there's no reason to reference it.

Edited February 11, 2012 by ArtFenix

[sonfan1984]

That's all they were unfortunately and while Unleashed had some interesting things besides the gameplay, Colors has nothing. OK, maybe humor if you like it. I believe that's one of reasons why the gamers and reviewrs quickly forgot about it. They played the game, beat the final boss, watched the staff roll and that's it. There is nothing more that the game can offer. It's not THE reason, but it's one of them.

[Diogenes]

I'm sorry, but that's total nonsense! Decent stories are irreevant?

[ArtFenix]

And how are recent games not doing that? Character themes, okay, they haven't made any new ones. But Unleashed and Colors are as "new" as the Adventures were.

Edited February 11, 2012 by ArtFenix

[Scar]

Well, duh! Those were the new games. I'm not quite sure what you mean by that.

Then which games are you referring to then?

No, it's a matter of you not liking it or something. This time I'm pretty sure I explained myself perfectly clear as to what the adventure games had that made the series more interesting that new games don't.

You're attempt at explaining why doesn't make much sense. You talk of continuity as if it existed in some meaninful way. You talk about there being new but familiar stuff (which makes absolutely no sense at all). The simple fact is, you like the Adventure way of doing things for an unqualifiable and unquantifiable reason, most likely because you grew up with them.

No I didn't. And I'm discussing, I even had to quote myself more than once since I already explained why this and why that.

Quoting yourself doesn't help. If you made no sense the first time, reposting the same thing isn't really going to change that.

I think it's you who missed the point. To you that might be the proper option, but that's NOT AN IMPROVEMENT!!! If you have a rubbish car and you want to IMPROVE it, you tune it and make it better, not get rid of it!

No, what you do, is you get rid of the bad car and get a better car. You can tune a Ford Feista till blood comes out of your tearducts, but its never going to be as fast as a Ferrari, as practical as a Renault Espace, or as efficient off-road as a Range Rover. Simple as that. You'll end up spending more money and wasting more time tuning and repairing the bad car than you would if you had just bought a new car.

No, because there was something to discuss. You said it yourself: a mystery.

Shadow's backstory was no mystery. The only reason people talk about it so much, is because Shadow the game fucked it up almost beyond repair with all its Black Doom, Black Arms and other such bullshit and cluttering up Shadow's already good enough backstory with crap.

Again, you said everything yourself. If a game has nothing, this "nothing" can't be broken or be a clusterfuck or whatever.

Improvement is improvement. Omission is omission. You sound like this is the same thing, when it clearly is not.

I don't even know what you're saying here, it doesn't make any sense at all.

[Phos]

The current teams don't really know what they're doing so they just make things that are the same as or very similar to old things to at least try to look the part.

- The story of the Knuckles'/Tikal's tribe and the story of Chaos - Sonic adventure, Sonic Chronicles

Something I realized recently: Shouldn't Knuckles's job as the guardian of the Master Emerald be over? Why exactly would he be guarding it if not to prevent anyone else from angering chaos?

Especially considering the massive retcon with the all the emeralds (No wait, he wasn't guarding the chaos emeralds, he was guarding the master emerald!), it doesn't make a lot of sense that he would still have to really guard it.

- VOCAL CHARACTER THEMES

They finally learned better, thankfully.

Station Square has no impact on SA2 (in fact, the whole of SA1 has no impact on SA2).

There's a newspaper clipping in SA2 mentioning Tails saving Station Square and getting a Chaos Emerald for it. That's it, and I think it was just lip service for how Tails made that fake emerald.

Welcome to the Sonic series, hard continuity is not one of its strong points.

While it's not quite like the Jak and Daxter trilogy where each game starts the moment the previous game ends, There is a certain amount of continuity, particularly between Sonic 2 and 3. Robotnik winds up on Angel Island because of the events from Sonic 2 and the Tornado still has that auxiliary engine Tails stuck on it. After that though, things got strange with characters arbitrarily changing in appearance, roles, and relationships, plot threads dropped and then picked back up again games later, no one really knowing what was supposed to happen or what actually had happened, and the special stages suddenly vanish in favor of the emeralds just sitting around unless it was on a handheld and then they came back in Sonic Heroes, but how do you hold onto an emerald when someone can just hop into a special stage.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Something I realized recently: Shouldn't Knuckles's job as the guardian of the Master Emerald be over? Why exactly would he be guarding it if not to prevent anyone else from angering chaos?

Especially considering the massive retcon with the all the emeralds (No wait, he wasn't guarding the chaos emeralds, he was guarding the master emerald!), it doesn't make a lot of sense that he would still have to really guard it.

This thing again? Okay...

1) That wasn't why he was guarding the ME for because he didn't even know about Chaos being trapped or his history until late in the game, 2) that thing is still a powerful energy source which can be weaponized like the Chaos Emeralds as shown in Sonic 3&K's Death Egg boss and shouldn't fall into the wrong hands from being left alone like that (and practically the reason he was guarding it before knowing about Chaos), 3) Angel Island, his home, plummets to the earth if that thing were actually removed and I'm sure he wouldn't even want that, 4) that thing can outright nullify the energies in the Chaos Emerald, and it would be very unwise leave it at risk of a villain to use it for that either.

Seriously dude, out of the hundreds of times this has been argued over in the past, do you really want to start another argument over Knuckles guarding the Master Emerald? It's been argued to death so many times that you're basically beating a dead horse here.

Edited February 12, 2012 by ChaosSupremeSonic

[Phos]

1) That wasn't why he was guarding the ME for because he didn't even know about Chaos being trapped or his history until late in the game,

He didn't know why he was guarding it at all until the end.

2) that thing is still a powerful energy source which can be weaponized like the Chaos Emeralds as shown in Sonic 3&K's Death Egg boss and shouldn't fall into the wrong hands from being left alone like that (and practically the reason he was guarding it before knowing about Chaos),

That's the retcon I mentioned, I don't think it still does this. At least that's the impression I get. The Adventure games weren't very good at story telling. In the cutscene from Adventure 2 when Knuckles breaks the emerald, Eggman says something about it that seemingly indicates that it does not, and that he was primarily stealing it so it wouldn't throw off his instruments in his search for the others. I also have no idea if this scene is supposed to take place before or after Eggman frees shadow, or why Eggman doesn't recognize Rouge either in or because of this scene.

4) that thing can outright nullify the energies in the Chaos Emerald, and it would be very unwise leave it at risk of a villain to use it for that either.

It doesn't just do that at the drop of a hat, and Knuckles seems to be the only one alive who know how.

But really, in the end these are all very practical reasons but they're really dull thematically. He can't leave his house because someone might break it.

[Diogenes]

He didn't know why he was guarding it at all until the end.

I don't see how you justify this. Seems to me he was guarding it because it's a big magic rock keeping his island in the air. And also probably because That's How It's Always Been (though the details of Angel Island's history between Tikal's time and present day are...nonexistent...so who knows...).

That's the retcon I mentioned, I don't think it still does this. At least that's the impression I get. The Adventure games weren't very good at story telling. In the cutscene from Adventure 2 when Knuckles breaks the emerald, Eggman says something about it that seemingly indicates that it does not, and that he was primarily stealing it so it wouldn't throw off his instruments in his search for the others.

Er, no. He stumbles across an incredibly powerful object right near his base, nabs it while its guardian is distracted, and is a smug, sarcastic prick about it. "Oh, hmm? This giant magic jewel has just fallen into my lap! I suppose I'll find some use for it...~"

It doesn't just do that at the drop of a hat, and Knuckles seems to be the only one alive who know how.

Nothing precludes others from finding out. He and Tikal may have used an incantation to control the Master Emerald, but that's obviously not the only way it can be used. Hell, there's a point in SA where it responds to Knuckles just asking a question.

But really, in the end these are all very practical reasons but they're really dull thematically. He can't leave his house because someone might break it.

He can't leave it alone because it's responsible for the safety of a small continent and it's powerful enough to affect the fate of the planet. Sure, it loses some of the mystique once you've had a few stories focused on it, but to an extent that's unavoidable, and it doesn't detract from the need for it to be guarded.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

See that's the very thing I was talking about when I said you were beating a dead horse, Phos.

He didn't know why he was guarding it at all until the end.

He didn't know about why in the first place, and he still guarded it regardless. How does him knowing why to guard it justify him no longer guarding it when it wasn't even the point in the first place?

It doesn't just do that at the drop of a hat,

It doesn't do it in just a few minutes either. All it takes is a few seconds.

Regardless, it doesn't even matter when it does it, it still does it to whomever knows how to use it and it wouldn't be good if an antagonist found a way to do it.

and Knuckles seems to be the only one alive who know how.

And that stops who from finding out how? Shadow was the only one at a certain point to know how to do Chaos Control, now several other characters are capable of finding out how to do it too.

But really, in the end these are all very practical reasons but they're really dull thematically. He can't leave his house because someone might break it.

Way to belittle a very powerful object. Although Diogenes has said more than I would have said about this.

Also you ever thought of making a a more thematic reason that can give him more free time than simply "He doesn't have to guard it anymore"? Even better, you ever thought of any thematic ways to actually use the ME instead of just leaving it and not worrying about it?

EDIT: Oh, and in addition to him not leaving his house because someone might break it, he can also wind up as an artifact without it and needs to be restructured.

Edited February 12, 2012 by ChaosSupremeSonic

[Indigo Rush]

I think the fact that Eggman uses the Master Emerald to power a giant death laser aboard his Giant Eggman Robo on the Death Egg and goes through such incredible lengths to keep Sonic from taking it back is a strong enough sign that Knuckles should probably keep guarding the blasted rock.

Or just hide it in another Hidden Palace and put some cloaking device created by GUN or Tails or some crap to keep Eggman from finding it.

So... back to Sonic relying too much on the past and therefore should rely on the past...?

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

So... back to Sonic relying too much on the past and therefore should rely on the past...?

I'm honestly on the verge of asking the mods to ban all discussion on Knuckles and the Master Emerald because the moment you combine those two in a sentence 9 times out of 10 it leads to this, but that would only take away a good discussion point and make me bored in the future.

Edited February 12, 2012 by ChaosSupremeSonic

[The Weeb with No Name]

I think Knuckles should smash people with the master emerald.

[Phos]

Er, no. He stumbles across an incredibly powerful object right near his base, nabs it while its guardian is distracted, and is a smug, sarcastic prick about it. "Oh, hmm? This giant magic jewel has just fallen into my lap! I suppose I'll find some use for it...~"

Watching it again I still don't get the impression that he actually cares about it. To me it sounds like he's about as likely to use it as a paper weight as he is a power source.

And yeah, it needs to be guarded but it doesn't mean it'll lead to anything interesting. Is someone just going to steal it again.

Edit: CSS, you added this:

Sonic the Hedgehog fans don't like to admit it, but this has happened to Knuckles the Echidna in the game series. His back story got completely fleshed out in Sonic Adventure, and since then, Angel Island and the Master Emerald's relevance has decreased dramatically, with Knuckles himself having been replaced by Shadow as The Rival. Now, Knuckles only appears because people expect him to.

Didn't you?

I think the fact that Eggman uses the Master Emerald to power a giant death laser aboard his Giant Eggman Robo on the Death Egg and goes through such incredible lengths to keep Sonic from taking it back is a strong enough sign that Knuckles should probably keep guarding the blasted rock.

Like I said I haven't seen much sign that the emerald can still do it, the whole sub plot reeks of retcon. That's what my opinion is informed by. Now they seem to just be ignoring it which in all honesty is probably the best way to treat most things brought up in the Adventure games.

Edited February 12, 2012 by Phos

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Edit: CSS, you added this:

Didn't you?

Honestly dude, you look way too eager to take a shot at me over this.

No I didn't add that, but I won't lie that I would more than likely have done so had someone else not did it before me.

That was their WAY before I even knew about the trope the Artifact, and I actually discovered that trope while browsing the character section of the site's Sonic the Hedgehog page listed under Knuckles. If that was me, I damn sure wouldn't have mentioned Tails in part of that section because I see far too much in Tails to be anywhere near an Artifact.

You want proof? I'll see if I can pull up the logs and show you who actually did it.

EDIT: So I can't find out who originally added it there, but there were more than several people editing that section as oppose to deleting it so it's safe to assume that this belief isn't exclusive to the SSMB. And keep in mind, that site is made of many people who actively analyze these details over various media.

Edited February 12, 2012 by ChaosSupremeSonic