Sonic-related pet peeves?

[Vertekins]

Regardless of whether mass murder is the intent or just part of the ultimate plan(intent can be important, hence the distinguishing between first-degree murder, second-degree, etc.), I'd say you're pretty evil either way. It can be inferred he was going to commit genocide against the Wisps, and he has also become very fond of making species go extinct, flora or fauna.

Though I suppose you can argue Colors is a case of the games trying to bring back his industrialist roots... Though he goes about his darker actions in a more comedic way than his counterparts.

[KHCast]

People that get pissed that Crisis City is in generations and begin to judge and bash the level off it's original version. God that pisses me off so much!

[Semi-colon e]

People that get pissed that Crisis City is in generations and begin to judge and bash the level off it's original version. God that pisses me off so much!

This annoys me too because Crisis City Act 2 is my favourite level in Generations and one of my favourites in the entire series :/

Additionally the whole thing about reviewers being all like "why isn't it just Mega Drive levels" is a pet peeve to me because it's missing the point that it's celebrating all 20 years, not just 4. And a level's quality in it's original game isn't indicative of it's quality in Generations - who thought Seaside Hill and Crisis City would turn out to be more entertaining levels than Planet Wisp, or that Silver would turn out to be not a complete shitpile?

Edited July 17, 2012 by Semi-colon e

[colorfulzones104]

-Sonic's lack of spin dash in the very first game. It made the game more fun for me in Sonic 2 and 3.

-Sonic's lag in his homing attack in Sonic 06.

-The Test of Love in Sonic 06. It doesn't even change the story line..

The lack of time stones(which were in Sonic CD and Sonic SatAM) in the newer games. Now the chaos emeralds are used for time travel, but what ever happened to those time stones?

-Tails being reduced to a mechanic in both the video games and comic series to an extent.

-Amy not being a playable character in games other than Sonic Adventure and Sonic Heroes.

-Tails' moves/attacks being reduced to throwing out fake rings. In the classic games, you see him jumping and actually attacking badniks like Sonic, but that no longer seems to be the case.

-Another pet peeve of mine is that Tails also used to help Sonic by carrying him as he flew, whereas now he no longer flies with Sonic like that, except in perhaps Sonic Heroes.

Edited July 18, 2012 by colorfulzones104

[Vertekins]

Tails' early US design peeves me in it's ugliness. I really don't find it to be "cute"

Tails on the left there is adorable and is a nice foxy orange, he correlates extremely well with his in-game sprites. The US parody on the right there is wall-eyed, snouty, only has four fingers and has very badly drawn ears.

Just awful IMO.

Edited July 17, 2012 by Verte

[JezMM]

^ It's amazing how when you put them side by side like that, US Tails honestly looks like one of those creepy knock-off merchandise designs from China etc.

[King Frosty]

Another one: The Fact that Sonic never has Chip's Bracelet during Colors or Generations, would've really shown more of a connection between Unleashed and Colors and how much of an impact Chip had on Sonic in the end.

[Soniman]

I like Aosth Tails :/

[colorfulzones104]

Another one: The Fact that Sonic never has Chip's Bracelet during Colors or Generations, would've really shown more of a connection between Unleashed and Colors and how much of an impact Chip had on Sonic in the end.

Yeah, that bothered me too. The most we get is Chip in the credits of Sonic Generations, but it doesn't quite make up for the lack of the bracelet.

[Sega DogTagz]

Another one: The Fact that Sonic never has Chip's Bracelet during Colors or Generations, would've really shown more of a connection between Unleashed and Colors and how much of an impact Chip had on Sonic in the end.

Yeah, that bothered me too. The most we get is Chip in the credits of Sonic Generations, but it doesn't quite make up for the lack of the bracelet.

Sonic's whole philosophy is to keep moving forward. While it would of been nice to see that bracelet on a shelf or something, Sonic would be going back on his own ideals if he stopped to remember his buddy.

[Phos]

Another one: The Fact that Sonic never has Chip's Bracelet during Colors or Generations, would've really shown more of a connection between Unleashed and Colors and how much of an impact Chip had on Sonic in the end.

But I don't like it that they wrote that scene assuming we like Chip.

[Blue Blood]

Adding plot-related changes to a character's physical appearance would bug me an awful lot more.

[Lady Soniko]

if you left every upgrade sonic got from his games, fire somersault, bounce bracelet, crystal ring etc. you'd have a cluster fuck of useless shit that would slow him down.

[Tani Coyote]

Sonic's whole philosophy is to keep moving forward. While it would of been nice to see that bracelet on a shelf or something, Sonic would be going back on his own ideals if he stopped to remember his buddy.

He'd also be betraying a common human emotion.

Though yeah, they could have at least had the bracelet cameo. Love him or hate him, I think the tie with Chip is just another testament to Sonic's willingness to help people out. ...actually in retrospect, I have great idea. Sega needs to include a museum of all the things he's collected over the years somewhere. Including a ring counter that counts the total number of possible rings in all the games so far, that grows as you collect rings in that particular game.

And his willingness to befriend anyone; given that he can be somewhat abusive to Chip in some cutscenes, it's not like he was head over heels liking him either. Sonic just seems to take strangers on as family members - they will drive him batcrap insane, but he will still remain loyal to them.

Maybe I'm just a manchild, but I like the idea of a character who'd always be there for you and for anyone else. =]

^ It's amazing how when you put them side by side like that, US Tails honestly looks like one of those creepy knock-off merchandise designs from China etc.

Oh sweet Enerjak I cannot unsee it. XD

Edited July 18, 2012 by TaniciusFox

[Sega DogTagz]

He'd also be betraying a common human emotion.

Yeah, we've been up and down this idea in almost all of the character ideology based threads. Sonic's way of looking at the world (i.e. It doesn't matter) is a clusterfuck waiting to happen... yet it all somehow works for him. Sonic is technically fast enough to run away from his woes and problems, because (in the long run) none of them have caught up to him just yet.

That status quo can be chalked up as another peeve of mine btw. Sonic's ideology is a fascinating subject but its stagnation isn't fun.

Edited July 18, 2012 by Sega DogTagz

[Anti Alias]

That status quo can be chalked up as another peeve of mine btw. Sonic's ideology is a fascinating subject but its stagnation isn't fun.

that's a fucking fascinating topic I was discussing earlier yesterday.

The Batman believes the Status Quo limits too much of the characters and relationships.

While I believe maintaining it it's essential to the maintenance of the ongoing nature of the series.

Edited July 18, 2012 by Anti Alias

[Kuzu]

Actually that's another peeve of mine; the status quo almost never changes from game to game, nothing has any lasting effect on the series. It'd be interesting to see the consequences of the character's actions at least be referenced in the sequels. Or show the characters go through some type of change without compromising who they are.

[Anti Alias]

Actually that's another peeve of mine; the status quo almost never changes from game to game, nothing has any lasting effect on the series. It'd be interesting to see the consequences of the character's actions at least be referenced in the sequels. Or show the characters go through some type of change without compromising who they are.

but these are the implications of having a kids series focused on character interaction rather than character development...

It could make things stagnant, but it's not all that bad... it's kinda like The Simpsons... where everybody has a fixed personality and relationship dynamics, its not bad per se, it's just need to be better written.

[Kuzu]

but these are the implications of having a kids series focused on character interaction rather than character development...

It could make things stagnant, but it's not all that bad... it's kinda like The Simpsons... where everybody has a fixed personality and relationship dynamics, its not bad per se, it's just need to be better written.

And The Simpsons have had shitty writing too, stop trying to justify the crappy writing this series has.

[Anti Alias]

And The Simpsons have had shitty writing too, stop trying to justify the crappy writing this series has.

I know the writing in Sonic series is shitty at is best, but man, that's not Status Quo fault!

you don't need to change characters and their relationships in order to have them to be good characters or good writing!

[Nepenthe]

I agree with Anti-Alias in a way; crappy writing isn't an inherent element of series that are episodic anymore than it is of series that have long-lasting consequences, meaning it's not necessary to change this fact about the franchise to achieve good writing. After all, the one time we actually had an arc where a character went through a little bit of permanent change, you guys shat all over the narrative anyway.

I enjoy the sort of eternal nature of the universe and its characters because it serves to give the series some form of identity and a really easy threshold to approach the universe with. No one needs to play Games A, B, and C to understand Events X, Y, and Z. Sonic is Sonic and is going to do his snarky heroic thing, which is fun. My current problems from the writing stem from the fact that Sega isn't intent on throwing these archetypal heroes and villains into more interesting situations anymore, thus providing them very little means of acting in unexpected ways and making the actual journey in the game something to behold. All Sonic does now is gather the Macguffin, stand around to make a comment, and take out some bosses. This is boring as hell, and it's one way in which Unleashed's narrative has a leg up on its successors: Sonic is flying kicked off the top of the proverbial mountain in the beginning and has to climb back up again with a bit of a furry handicap to deal with. This is an infinitely cooler set-up than "a day in the life of..."

Edited July 18, 2012 by Nepenthe

[Kuzu]

I know the writing in Sonic series is shitty at is best, but man, that's not Status Quo fault!

you don't need to change characters and their relationships in order to have them to be good characters or good writing!

No, but considering how stagnant the series is at this point, it's definitely better than keeping things as is. Even if the writing was better(which it arguably is), it'd get boring eventually simply due to the predictability of it; Eggman causes trouble, Sonic stops trouble while making snarky remarks, the end. Nothing happens, nothing interesting, and it's just boring to watch after a while.

I'm not asking for Marvel/DC levels of continuity, but it'd be nice to see locations revisited, past events touched upon, and characters gradually growing over time, I mean how does that translate to "Change everything in the series"?

[Soniman]

I still think "a day in the life of" is a fine premise.......for one game.

As a one time thing, it works fine because it shows that not every encounter with Eggman is an apocalyptic world threatening affair.

With stuff like Generations it just comes off as inappropriate for the current situation and should have been taken more seriously than it was.

[Diogenes]

that's a fucking fascinating topic I was discussing earlier yesterday.

The Batman believes the Status Quo limits too much of the characters and relationships.

While I believe maintaining it it's essential to the maintenance of the ongoing nature of the series.

In so much as a presumably "endless" series cannot be expected to change endlessly without eventually diverging so far from its origins as to be unrecognizable, I agree with you. But this is only really a problem when changes to the status quo are very common. There are more options than "change nothing ever" or "change everything always", so there's no need to lock things into the former to avoid the latter. And it's not as if the series has never changed before; Tails had an arc about becoming more independent, about doing his own thing rather than just mimicking Sonic, and that never snapped back to the old status quo, and guess what? The series didn't up and die because of it.

[Nepenthe]

I still think "a day in the life of" is a fine premise.......for one game.

As a one time thing, it works fine because it shows that not every encounter with Eggman is an apocalyptic world threatening affair.

With stuff like Generations it just comes off as inappropriate for the current situation and should have been taken more seriously than it was.

But Colors did end up turning into an apocalyptic, world-threatening affair anyway, nor was it completely devoid of serious situations beforehand. People insisted to me that Eggman's use of the Wisps energy was more horrifying than what my apathy would suggest, and I would agree with them had it amounted to something other than demonstrating where your last power-up came from. This also goes for Tails' brief stint of mind control, which most tend to agree was excessively wasted potential. The game tried to have its cake and eat a little of it too, which causes me undue amounts of furstration at its narrative because there was potential there for something more awesome. As I said before, if we're going to be stuck with these kinds of inconsequential-feeling plots for the foreseeable future, then fine; I can't do much about it but complain. But don't throw in mind control, forced devolution, black holes, and time eaters on top of it and make me angry about all of the ways they could've been better utilized if you weren't insisting on continuing down this path.