Sonic-related pet peeves?

[batson]

These people clearly don't know what good writing of Sonic characters amounts to if they exalt Chronicles portrayal of them, so their credibility plunged even further in regards to that.

Maybe what they were mostly enthusiastic about regarding the characters portrayal in Chronicles was that it was at the very least much, much better than what Sega is usually able to pull of. Chronicles took Sega's paper-thin characters and did at least one of two things with most of them, namely:

A Gave them some extra dimension, like the case with Tails and Knuckles.

B Gave the character an appropriate role in regards to their personality, like making Big and Omega more pronounced comic-reliefs.

Add to that the overall extra layer of complexity in the relationships between the characters that we never see in Sega's games and what you get is that the vast majority of characters were better handled in Chronicles than in nearly all of Sega's own Sonic games. And the fact that the Chronicles versions of these characters didn't always coincide with the usuall Sega-versions isn't a bad thing because the Chronicles versions were mostly better.

[Vertekins]

Maybe what they were mostly enthusiastic about regarding the characters portrayal in Chronicles was that it was at the very least much, much better than what Sega is usually able to pull of. Chronicles took Sega's paper-thin characters and did at least one of two things with most of them, namely:

Calling them paper-thin is a bit of a stretch. The characters have plenty of depth. Utilizing that depth well is a different story. And IMO, Chronicles didn't do it well because it didn't do it believably.

Add to that the overall extra layer of complexity in the relationships between the characters that we never see in Sega's games and what you get is that the vast majority of characters were better handled in Chronicles than in nearly all of Sega's own Sonic games. And the fact that the Chronicles versions of these characters didn't always coincide with the usuall Sega-versions isn't a bad thing because the Chronicles versions were mostly better.

This is a subjective thing, extremely Your Mileage May Vary.

Edited July 9, 2012 by Verte

[JezMM]

To be honest, while Chronicles did have a lot of "that character would never say that!", I often found they were for particular moments, like them worrying that Eggman was alive.

Inbetween these moments, I do agree with batson's feelings on it all.

[PerfectChaos]

How was Chronicles' characterization not believable?

[JezMM]

How was Chronicles' characterization not believable?

There were just lots of moments where characters were really OOC.

Sonic and all his friends thought Dr. Eggman had died in their last battle - they were happy with this fact - and then started worrying when they started to get intel that he might in fact be alive.

[Vertekins]

How was Chronicles' characterization not believable?

Very inconsistent (And no, not because they're not exactly identical to previous portrayals but because they are completely contrary), frequently Flanderized and commonly very OOC.

All come together to constitute characterization that is quite frequently not believable.

Has Sonic ever before stooped to the level of completely disregarding Amy's thoughts and feelings on subjects and spitefully egging-on and even thanking other characters when they have a go at her? Was Shadow ever concerned about Omega to the point of obsession in 2006 when they stumble across him in Crisis City deactivated (It's non-canon status is not relevant)? Has Sonic ever truly flipped his lid at Tails when Tails expresses amazement at Eggman's creations? Has Knuckles ever shown a fickle distrust and such of Sonic NOTE; Fickle.

It's like they were going by X's characterization and that show had characterization and consistency issues by the barrelful in it's own continuity.

Then again, many many aspects of Chronicles feel X-esque. From the developer admittance that they used episodes 40 and 41 as the basis of Eggman's deviousness to the obvious use of Sonic X model sheets in development videos and the colouration of the characters correlating exactly with the pallette's used for the characters in X.

[Wentos]

When people get distracted from the subject matter and get into large, pointless arguments.

>_<

[PerfectChaos]

Very inconsistent (And no, not because they're not exactly identical to previous portrayals but because they are completely contrary), frequently Flanderized and commonly very OOC.

All come together to constitute characterization that is quite frequently not believable.

Has Sonic ever before stooped to the level of completely disregarding Amy's thoughts and feelings on subjects and spitefully egging-on and even thanking other characters when they have a go at her? Was Shadow ever concerned about Omega to the point of obsession in 2006 when they stumble across him in Crisis City deactivated (It's non-canon status is not relevant)? Has Sonic ever truly flipped his lid at Tails when Tails expresses amazement at Eggman's creations?

A lot of this was optional. It's an rpg, and you got to choose what to say.And has Sonic Team ever really put any more effort into characterization? Of course they'll feel out of character when said character is never truly seen. Shadow's usually empty, emotionless. Sonic's just unrealistically positive and determined, Amy's ridiculously obsessed with Sonic, Knuckles is... bleh.

[Xenos]

Sorry for probably derailing this further, but I like to add that Chronicles also had the great idea that Big was actually very stupid.

Now, this shouldn't be the case. Because in Adventure and Heroes alike, he isn't dumb or anything at all. He's just a simple guy that lived in a place not touched by modern society in Sonic's world all that much, so of course he might not understand things all that well. But he was never shown to be an idiot, per say.

[DarkLight]

Amy's ridiculously obsessed with Sonic,

How did Chronicles make this better? By having her make up a boyfriend in order to get Sonic jealous.

[PerfectChaos]

But at least here she could actually speak to Sonic in a friend-like manner often. Anyway, we're gonna go badly off topic, so let's drop it.

[DarkLight]

But at least here she could actually speak to Sonic in a friend-like manner often. Anyway, we're gonna go badly off topic, so let's drop it.

[PerfectChaos]

Well I can't be bothered to discuss/debate Chronicles' characterization right now.

Anyway, another thing that annoys me is when people say 'coins' instead of 'rings'. I don't know why but this drives me crazy! It's RINGS you stupid freaks!

[Your Vest Friend]

Did anyone really get more 'depth' to their relationships, or was it just most exaggeration of what's already been there? Looking at them all...

-Sonic-Amy; Already been pointed out.

-Sonic-Shadow; SA2 did it far better because Shadow wasn't whack there.

-Sonic-Rouge; Sonic Battle already went there.

-Amy-Rouge; Again, Sonic Battle.

-Shadow-Omega; Even Shadow the Hedgehog had a better idea of this one. Then again, I think it might have been because the developers just really, really liked Omega.

-Sonic-Big; Sonic Adventure http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBMzZCqjJxU, and Sonic wasn't exactly bemoaning him for being an idiot in either version of it.

-Knuckles-Rouge; Knuckles was more focused on Shade, so they didn't interact nearly to the extent of other games (Sonic Rivals 2 and Sonic Colours DS did it better...yeah...)

-Tails-Eggman; Arguably the one interaction between existing characters that was expanded on...but the ending made it all for nought.

-Anyone else; I dunno if anyone else got proper interaction. I remember Cream getting barely anything, at the very least.

[Kuzu]

Chronicles is very on the fence with it's characterization for me.

On one hand, the characters aren't completely devoid of personality aside from their most basic and archetypal traits and it does bother to expand on a section of the series.

On the other hand, it has a lot of Out of Character moments mostly due to the branching dialogue options, which don't quite work for Sonic as he has a personality and character.

Edited July 9, 2012 by The Batman

[Vertekins]

I agree that Big was...interesting.

But for the love of God, he's not dense to the point that he can't tell whether his eyes are closed or not

[MykonosFan]

The best part of Chronicles was cheesing your way through the game with the Sonic/Tails/Amy/Knuckles combo move. Anytime the game took any character from that equation away from me I was annoyed because that's when I actually had to think about what I was doing. And the more I have to think about Chronicles, the less I like it.

[Kuzu]

The best part of Chronicles was cheesing your way through the game with the Sonic/Tails/Amy/Knuckles combo move. Anytime the game took any character from that equation away from me I was annoyed because that's when I actually had to think about what I was doing. And the more I have to think about Chronicles, the less I like it.

[Komodin]

To be honest, I hate Big's characterization in Chronicles. He's supposed to be a tad simple-minded, but sensible enough to actually recognize the situations he's in. In Chronicles, he was a complete idiot and, as far as I'm concerned, that's plain-as-day character derailment.

Edited July 9, 2012 by Komodin

[Kuzu]

To be fair, Big never had much of a character before so his personality could have honestly been interpreted as anything. The only consistent thig about him was being the "strong but stupid" character.

[Nepenthe]

While Big hasn't had a lot of characterization, this doesn't mean he hasn't had any at all, and what we've seen in canon works is that Big isn't so stupid that he doesn't understand when his eyes are closed. He's simple and kind of child-like, motivated by friendship and the safety of his pals, but he doesn't come close to approaching Ed levels of stupid which is what Chronicles cast him as.

[Vertekins]

The absolute insistence that the Storybook games are non-canon and that their stories were a feverish dream (SatSR) and a story to take his mind off the date with Amy (SatBK) conjured by Sonic.

Those games stories have too much basis in reality despite taking place inside books to convincingly be either of those. And if Sonic did conjure them then he's a damn good storyteller and has a vividly detailed imagination. Besides, Shadow the hedgehog proved that there were levels inside cyberspace and the special stages seem to take place in another dimension, so why is a dimension inside a book such a farfetched thing?

[DarkLight]

^And to add to that, both games's end credits showed the book's titles change from their original texts to the titles of the games, indicating that the events within the books did happen.

Though in Secret Rings's case, we at least saw that Sonic went into the book, whereas we're given him coming into King Arthur's story via magical vortex. I guess they were aiming a different approach as to how Sonic enters each storybook setting.

Edited July 9, 2012 by DarkLightDragon

[Vertekins]

^And to add to that, both games's end credits showed the book's titles change from their original texts to the titles of the games, indicating that the events within the books did happen.

Though in Secret Rings's case, we at least saw that Sonic went into the book, whereas we're given him coming into King Arthur's story via magical vortex. I guess they were aiming a different approach.

I can only guess that this was so because SatSR had Shahra taking Sonic into the book via her power whilst the vortex was an effect of the summoning i.e Sonic immediately gets 'summoned' there instead of being visited first and then willingly going like he was in SatSR.

[tenchibr]

On the topic of Sonic Chronicles, I just wanted to mention that this game, along with others like Sonic Spinball, Sonic R, Sonic's Schoolhouse, is the reason why SEGA should never let a Western developer work with Sonic.

I like Sonic R, but it fell flat on a decent amount of areas that only hardcore fans can appreciate it.