Attitude Adjustment

[Rusty Spy]

Can't really come up with any wacky or insightful opening to this so lets just get to it.

Sonic isn't exactly the most respected gaming character out there. While most of it is attributed to his games, another part of it is because of his character.

Let's be honest here, not a lot of people really like Sonic as a character. Among the more hardcore crowd, they don't have a whole lot of positive things to say about how he acts during cutscenes. Reading some reactions to Generations recently, I kept getting vibes that many people liked Classic Sonic while they described Modern Sonic as annoying and too talkative among other things. This got me thinking and brought me to this realization; Sonic hasn't really been an interesting character, and the way he's been written hasn't been all that popular, and for a couple of reasons.

1. Sonic doesn't really DO anything

98% of Sonic's actions throughout cutscenes have almost always been dialogue, and occasionally he runs fast. But he rarely has his moments; times where people are reminded of why Sonic is an awesome character. I can count on one hand the number of times Sonic has actually done something that was truly badass; the intros of SA2, 06, and Unleashed. And the root of this is because,

2. Sonic isn't cool anymore

Let's face it, regardless of how you may interpret Sonic's character, what he's portrayed as isn't really cool. Sonic's definition of 'cool' is basically him making snappy one-liners or corny puns. He's only displayed an aura of arrogance and cockiness, but hardly an aura of badassery.

This goes back to my previous point of him not doing anything in cutscenes; he rarely ever does anything cool, things that remind us that backing that clownish, arrogant dude w/ and attitude is a force of nature that can kick ass and take names like it's no one's business. Part of this is because of Sonic's outdated representation of a 'cool' dude. That snarky attitude that won him the collective attention of children and their respective parent's bank accounts in the 90s, is less than admirable in the 21st century. Times have changed and with it, the cultural perception of what is "cool".

When we think about what characters are cool today, especially when thinking about Sonic, more than a couple people look no further than Dante of Devil May Cry, and for good reason.

This is the face of a guy who simply cannot give a fuck. He has an attitude, he's a badass, but he's also insanely fun to listen to. Compared to Sonic:

who not only displays signs of schizophrenia, but also sounds like something out of a Saturday morning cartoon. a SaTAM if you will. And part of this is because of one last reason,

3. Sonic talks too much

Yeah, I get that Sonic talks, that's the way things are. But more often than not, he never lets his actions speak for him. A badass line is only as good as the display of badassery that accompanies it, and, referring again to point 1, Sonic never does anything, or at least doesn't do enough to show that he's a badass. Yeah I know it's a game, the actions are driven by the player, but this doesn't really show off Sonic's actions, it shows off the player's actions. The player isn't connecting with Sonic.

This is punctuated in the mirror room cutscene from Generations.

C.Sonic makes no hesitation to dash after Eggman, M.Sonic stands around talking to himself. I know that M.Sonic's not supposed to go through the..... door, but looking at this scenario metaphorically, it demonstrates how Sonic's words get in the way of his actions.

What I'm trying to say is that Sonic rarely does anything that demonstrates his status as a cool character. I'm not asking for Sonic to always pull off insane feats in every cutscene, or really to not talk as much. What I'm saying is Sonic's words need more quality to them. It has been said that people can talk a lot, yet say very little, and that's what Sonic does; he can talk up a storm, but he doesn't say anything worthwhile, and when you aren't saying anything despite words coming out of your mouth, you start to sound annoying, repetative, and not very likeable (says the guy with the tl;dr post right now).

So in summation, I feel that Sonic's in need of an attitude adjustment. I choose those words specifically so that I can make a clever title drop because what I'm saying is not for Sonic's personality to change, I'm saying he needs to accentuate his positive traits better and in a way that appeals to today's standards instead of acting like words like 'clobbering' are still cool things to say in this day and age.

Edited March 3, 2012 by Black Spy

[ChaoChao]

Seems rather over-analytical to me. I think Sonic has plenty of attitude and personality.

Granted, a lot of it is lost in translation from Japanese, (he has a colloquial/shorthand way of speaking which comes across as incredibly snarky and arrogant, bordering on very rude to those who understand Japanese,) but that doesn't mean it wasn't there to begin with.

Also, regarding Sonic Colors, keep in mind the original dialogue was re-adapted (meaning, translated and then mostly re-worded) for English-speaking audiences by those Happy Tree Friends writers - I don't think they did a very good job of it, but that's just my opinion, but also might be why it comes across as silly.

So basically, most of the seemingly weak character portrayal comes from how he is presented for English-speaking audiences. While that still presents an issue, it should clear up the idea that Sonic's character is suffering from this issue as a whole, because it clearly is not.

Edited March 3, 2012 by ChaoChao

[JezMM]

^ I heard that Colours and Generations were both written in English and the Japanese got the translations.

Personally I think the storybook games are the best examples of Sonic having a healthy dose of attitude without being obnoxious. It probably doesn't help that the last two stories have been too paper thin to display much at all. (The only Sonic moment I LOVED in Generations was that giving-up "SIGH." look he does from trying to find Chilli Dog to accepting he should probably take a gander at the Time Eater. Sonic Colours was a good effort but was just snark snark snark from Sonic. He's not a standup comedian, and the boss cutscenes just got forced and formulaic after a while).

[Carbo]

I'm fairly sure it's commonplace belief among people outside the core fanbase that Sonic Colors had the best characterization of Sonic in a long time and that the writing was a huge step up for what used to be a character that would pendle between being too generic or too obnoxious, instead settling for a larger-than-life character that needs a reality check. I don't like the Dante comparison either, it's like comparing apples to oranges. If Sonic is to be compared to anyone, I'd say he's closer compared to Spider-Man. Especially in Colors where his snark meter goes to eleven.

Also hooray cutscenes. I prefer it when the game play can speak for a character's capabilities personally. Terminal Velocity is one of my favorite moments in that game for that very reason, as combining the story segments in a game play environment is pretty much the best kind of execution of game play for me. Too many long and drawn out cutscenes = no thanks.

Also, regarding Sonic Colors, keep in mind the original dialogue was re-adapted (meaning, translated and then mostly re-worded) for English-speaking audiences by those Happy Tree Friends writers - I don't think they did a very good job of it, but that's just my opinion, but also might be why it comes across as silly.

It's the other way around. The Colors writers were touted right from the start as being the main writers of the game.

[ChaoChao]

One of the writers is Yasushi Otake, who was most likely responsible for the Japanese version of the story, despite having written it with two other people. My point still stands: the way Sonic is written between languages differs greatly and produces the large gap in how they are portrayed. The DS version was apparently devoid of all the corny jokes, leading me to believe that, again, the main writer was Yasushi Otake.

Edited March 3, 2012 by ChaoChao

[Salamander]

I'm a little confused by the Colours/Generations writers - I was of the understanding that they were the writers, i.e. that they came up with the story (under the direction of figures like Iizuka, obviously), but were they actually just adapting a pre-existing script from the Japanese version? I would quite like to see some evidence that the English writers were only localisers as they were quite clearly being touted as writers.

The problem with Sonic doing cool things in cutscenes is that quite often it would meet with the question of why we aren't able to do things like that in the actual gameplay. I seem to recall that Unleashed intro meeting with this reaction, for instance - Sonic is doing all these cool things, why isn't it playable? Why do I have to watch him doing interesting things rather than make him do interesting things? I think this is also reflected in some of the quick-time events in gameplay; certainly I felt this way about some of the set-pieces in Generations 3DS, where Sonic would basically play himself while doing something awesome.

However, what you're citing is the reverse problem - Sonic isn't doing anything interesting in cutscenes. That means he's doing something interesting in the gameplay, right? Well... not really! Gameplay and story seem to have become completely disentangled in recent Sonic games, to the point where what you do while playing the game doesn't really have any relation to the plot. What are you doing in Colours and Generations levels? You're just running through them. You don't actually accomplish anything in those levels - in Colours you're just getting from A to B, in Generations you spend half the game running through these levels just because they're there without being given any stated reason.

So I think what they need to do to satisfy both camps is to integrate story into levels again and have Sonic actually achieve some plot-related aim in each level. So instead of just running towards a Goal Ring for some reason, you're chasing after a Chaos Emerald. Or Eggman fleeing. Or you're infiltrating a base to destroy the core. Just something meaningful!

[ChaoChao]

So I think what they need to do to satisfy both camps is to integrate story into levels again and have Sonic actually achieve some plot-related aim in each level. So instead of just running towards a Goal Ring for some reason, you're chasing after a Chaos Emerald. Or Eggman fleeing. Or you're infiltrating a base to destroy the core. Just something meaningful!

Well, I'm pretty sure in Unleashed the whole point is to collect Gaia keys and then to reach the temples to re-energize the Chaos Emeralds...

[vercetti2021]

I must be stuck in the Dreamcast era because to see Sonic not be a badass anymore shocks me lol.

[Scar]

^ I heard that Colours and Generations were both written in English and the Japanese got the translations.

Don't think that's true. The game and as a result the story must have been written by the developers first. The japanese script is different enough for me to think that it was written when the game was finished. The English script was probably written around the same time, but not as a direct translation, rather a totally different script for this market. The differences between each localisation was a little too much to be a direct translation of either.

Sonic Colours was a good effort but was just snark snark snark from Sonic. He's not a standup comedian, and the boss cutscenes just got forced and formulaic after a while).

This was a major problem with the story in Colours. All the cutscenes were very similar in setup which was annoying. I can't help be get the feeling that there wasn't enough for Sonic to actually do in the cutscenes for a decent interplay to be set up between the story and the characters. Sure, it had the best interpretation of Tails and Sonic's brotherly relationship, but beyond that there was little else to do. The only eventful cutscene was the one where Eggman used that mind-control beam on Tails, and that cutscene happened to have the best writing of any cutscene in Colours and arguably in any Sonic game and the best representation of Sonic and Tails' relationship.

Most other cutscenes seemed to be of the characters walking around casually or standing around casually and having a bit of a chat. There was no real sense of urgency or 'motion'

I don't think it really is a problem with Sonic's character, rather a problem in the way that stories are set up that do not allow for good characterisation. In Generations and Colours there was nothing for Sonic to do in most cutscenes, beyond having an obligatory reaction shot to his friends being freed. In both cases it was very clear to me that the story was considered well after the game had been completely conceptualised and almost completed. In Generations moreso.

If the characters, particularly Sonic, are to have good personalities and well written interactions, they need to play off of something. Being stuck in a white void full of nothing, or standing around on a planet with nothing happening on it, won't allow that to happen. The characters need to do something (more often than not, an attempt at humour or general stupidity, depending on which era you're talking about) in order for the cutscenes not to be completely static. A character needs to have something to react to, to be considered a good character. It is their reaction to stuff happening around them that defines them or defines a character arc they are undergoing.

In that sense, everything needs to be improved just for the characters to improve. The best way to do this, is to get creative writers and the script writers involved in the structure of the game. That way the story can be interwoven very tightly with the level concepts and so on. It also means that a level order that is very "standard" for the franchise can be mixed up by the writers and jumbled up, as long as it has some kind of narrative significance. Neither the story nor game structure should take priority over one another, both need to be developing at the same time. This also allows the animators to animate the cutscenes properly.

Beyond that there is also the issue that Carbo mentioned, in making cutscenes too long and drawn out. Most, ofthe action should be reserved for the stages and whatnot. The cutscenes only there to keep you in the story and the gameplay experience, so they need to be compact and tight, and really densely packed with story. Character interactions with other characters and events, being a mix of words and body language and actions.

One thing that I'm sure would help with that, is dynamic stages rather than static ones. I don't mean stages that are different each time you play them (hoo boy that would be an achievement), I mean stages that feel like a part of the story, if you see what I mean. In most cases stages feel totally isolated from the plot, the plot only happens in cutscenes (making them too long in most cases) and never happen in the stages themselves. Now I don't mean have dialouge (or rather monologue) during the stage (that would be annoying), rather the environment changing with the story as you would expect it to, but obviously as a pre-determined set-piece.

Say for example of a plot point is Eggman destroying a forest, then while you're moving through that stage, you should see parts of the forest being cut down and trees falling down and maybe interacting with the level design (a la GUN truck). By that I don't mean saw blades that move back and forth on the same tree and nothing happens. I mean trees actually being dropped. That kind of thing subtly pulls you into the story should you care enough about it and not skip every cutscene.

Edited March 3, 2012 by Scar

[Kuzu]

I kind of think that's being a bit unfair to Sonic, most of Sonic's badassery has to be reserved for gameplay, otherwise what are we playing the game for? Isn't it better to play through a crowning moment of awesome than just simply being a spectator? Isn't that the appeal of games like God of War and Resident Evil? You're participating in the carnage, so its not just the player being badass, its the character themself.

In any case, I don't think its problem with Sonic's character, moreso a problem with the writing and story structure. Like Scar said, the games don't give Sonic much to do of anything other than spout off corny one liners, and that's mostly because the story is severely downplayed; Sonic is Sonic, he's always been the cheesy, over the top, snarker that he is but he's never given much to do. Perhaps if more attention went towards how the characters treated the situations they find themselves instead of just neglecting it, I'm pretty sure this problem would be fixed.

[sonfan1984]

I think Sonic's shocked reaction when he saw a different version of himself in the mirror scene is completely natural. I would've done the same thing. Hell, anybody would have.

Edited March 3, 2012 by sonfan1984

[Kuzu]

I think Sonic's shocked reaction when he saw a different version of himself in the mirror scene is completely natural. I would've done the same thing. Hell, anybody would have.

He's actually talking about both of their reactions to Eggman. M. Sonic just shrugs it off as nothing, while C. Sonic's first instinct is rush in and kick his ass. Its basically talking about how Sonic should do less talking, and more ass kicking.

So in summation, I feel that Sonic's in need of an attitude adjustment. I choose those words specifically so that I can make a clever title drop because what I'm saying is not for Sonic's personality to change, I'm saying he needs to accentuate his positive traits better and in a way that appeals to today's standards instead of acting like words like 'clobbering' are still cool things to say in this day and age.

You see I think the problem with that is, if accentuate his positive traits too much, he comes off as virtually flawless with what little flaws he does have having no real impact on him as a character and how people perceive him. I like both his positive and negative traits equally prominent to actually make him feel like a natural character, a good person who's flawed like the rest of us, but still likable.

[sonfan1984]

He's actually talking about both of their reactions to Eggman. M. Sonic just shrugs it off as nothing, while C. Sonic's first instinct is rush in and kick his ass. Its basically talking about how Sonic should do less talking, and more ass kicking.

I thought he means that M.Sonic talks too much. I keep looking at comments from people saying that's why M.Sonic sucks cause he stands there and talk for a bit while C.Sonic takes action.

[Kuzu]

I thought he means that M.Sonic talks too much. I keep looking at comments from people saying that's why M.Sonic sucks cause he stands there and talk for a bit while C.Sonic takes action.

Yeah that's kind of the gist of it, people want more action from Sonic and less words apparently. I guess there is some weight to it I guess.I mean Sonic talks a big game, but most of his badassery is player controlled, but I don't see why that makes Sonic's words have any less meaning.

[Semi-colon e]

I thought that was because Classic Sonic doesn't realise yet how much of a joke Eggman becomes, he's only beaten him a few times here, whereas Modern Sonic has kicked his ass into the curb so many times later on.

I also liked the nod to the storybook games in Generations because it's like Sonic himself has resigned himself to the fact that weird shit happens to him, therefore he's probably getting more blase about it each time. At the same time though, it would be nice for them to react more. I think it speaks more about the plots than the characters overall. In Generations he appears to treat it as a game until the end ("An adventure's no fun if it's too easy", ironic as Generations is piss easy but there you go, and that brofist is superb).

Edited March 3, 2012 by Semi-colon e

[Lamor]

I don't really have problem with M.Sonic talking and joking however I liked him more in Unleashed and Adventure where he was more silent.

[Scar]

I don't really have problem with M.Sonic talking and joking however I liked him more in Unleashed and Adventure where he was more silent.

[Solly]

I'm fairly sure it's commonplace belief among people outside the core fanbase that Sonic Colors had the best characterization of Sonic in a long time and that the writing was a huge step up for what used to be a character that would pendle between being too generic or too obnoxious, instead settling for a larger-than-life character that needs a reality check. I don't like the Dante comparison either, it's like comparing apples to oranges. If Sonic is to be compared to anyone, I'd say he's closer compared to Spider-Man. Especially in Colors where his snark meter goes to eleven.

[Phantomime]

I'm fairly sure it's commonplace belief among people outside the core fanbase that Sonic Colors had the best characterization of Sonic in a long time and that the writing was a huge step up for what used to be a character that would pendle between being too generic or too obnoxious, instead settling for a larger-than-life character that needs a reality check.

[Mono]

I like his attitude to be honest. Doesn't bother me.

[Lamor]

lolno.

Sonic was not "more silent" in those games. He talked a lot.

Edited March 3, 2012 by Lamor

[Voyant]

Personally I much prefer badass Sonic than Colors Sonic.

Sure Colors Sonic is a like Spiderman in some ways, but Spiderman does stuff while being snarky and being awesome at the same time.

Sonic hasn't had a moment like that in a long time sadly. Sonic Adventure 2's hero side intro is a great example of what I like to see from him in terms of attitude....there is a reason why that scene is so memorable.

Sonic being badass while playing in game?

Sonic Unleashed takes the cake to that by a long shot in recent games. If Unleashed Sonic had Colors like writing without all the REALLY corny stuff going on while maintaining its epicness I'd be a happy Panda.

The final ingredient left in Sonic right now is atmosphere...once it has that...Sonic can start going some places again.

Edited March 3, 2012 by Voy-Boy

[Chaos Warp]

It's not really Sonic's character that's the problem, it's the way stories are told (and downplayed) these days. Corny jokes, and no real atmosphere does not leave much opportunities for good characterization, like Scar and Shadic said. If we put more importance on the plot, then things would get better.

[turbojet]

I always thought as Sonic as Spider-man without the Peter Parker. He talks. Want to shut him up? Do something about it.

[-Mark-]

^ I heard that Colours and Generations were both written in English and the Japanese got the translations.

Regardless of whether that's true or not (I've never heard it confirmed 100% either way), even if it came first, that doesn't change the fact that the English scripts for both Colours and Generations are godawful to the extent that the Japanese 'translations' are more rewrites than actual translations in order to remove most of the cringeworthy dialogue and jokes.

Personally (recent English-script bastardisation notwithstanding), I've never really had an issue with Sonic's personality as a character. As JezMM mentioned, the storybook games show that Sonic's just fine (so long as you get someone who can write him competently). He's not an obnoxious jerk who spouts awful jokes all the time; he's a bit cheeky, a little cheesy, but when you get down to it, he's a good guy with some pretty deep philosophies and mature outlooks on life well beyond his years.

I did like the moment in Colours with Sonic pushing Tails into the elevator near the end, although note how that was actions rather than words. The current English writers (whether they're the original that the Japanese script was derived from or not) just can't write Sonic's personality to save their lives. How they can flanderise 'good guy who's cheesy in a cool kind of way' to 'loud, obnoxious twat who spouts awful jokes every other sentence' is a bit beyond me, but oh well. That said, they really don't have much to go on when the recent plots have been painfully simple to the point of almost nonexistance.

Edited March 3, 2012 by -Mark-