Depressing Moments in the Sonic series?

[Soniman]

This is late at night and I'm pretty mellow so this idea just came to me, what moments in the Sonic franchise ever rang as melancholic or depressing to you?

Like, I'm not talking in the sense that these are moments that made you outright sad (or rather burst into tears sad), just something in this series that gives off a depressing vibe (and I'm talking In-Universe, not in a meta sort of way like the release of 06). Ill give an example.

Sonic CD's Bad Future are one of the more better cases of atmosphere and theming I've seen in the series.

The thing that makes the impact of the Bad Futures so poignant is the fact that in other video games you would usually see this kind of "you failed" imagery at the game over screen or something like that, but in Sonic CD, you are actually playing your failure, and it's a reality that can and WILL come to fruition even if you do manage to complete the game and not get all the Time Stones.

It also helps that the Present and Past timelines are usually brightly and cheerily portrayed and when you see the Bad Future being juxtaposed with those time lines, and how brilliantly scary and nightmarish they are in terms of art design, it really gives an overall sense of sadness and failure which is amazing to pull off for a game like this.

What about you, have you ever had depressing moments in Sonic games?

Edited October 29, 2012 by Soniman

[T-Min]

The Biolizard.

The circumstances under which you fight him add to it, but what really sets the mood is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zah19RJJ2EQ, which itself is actually pretty dark for a Sonic game.

And there's also SA2's http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ymBeGn3a0w. Until it's ruined by Tails' delightfully Narmy line delivery. "WE ALLLL DIDIT TOGETHURRRR"

[Nintendoga]

Sonic 2 Master System is a pretty good game. A bit hard and cheap in some places but it's nice to playthrough every now and then. So I beat the final boss, didn't bother with the Chaos Emeralds, and just sit back and watch the credits roll as Sonic once again saved the day.

[The Kid]

When Amy survived at the end of Sonic CD.

That really brought the ending down.

[T-Min]

When Amy survived at the end of Sonic CD.

That really brought the ending down.

[Soniman]

He said no meta stuff, Kid. :U

[Ferno]

CRAWLING IN MY SKIIIIIN!!

I'll admit, as a 14-15 year old I admittedly sorta digged this stuff because "woe is me life sucks" typical middle school stuff, but years later, loathe stuff like this.

Teenage Me: "Whoa dude, this speaks to me. I like, totally know these feels man."

Modern Me: "What? They're sad too? But I'm playing this as a way of escapism from my own crappy real life- where's all the happiness, rainbows, and diabetes?! I DEMAND SUNSHINE DAMMIT >:U"

Not to mention how out of place this all feels now. Not just this scene, but the whole game.

Oh.....so Tails is implied to be dead? That's not depressing at all.

Edited October 29, 2012 by Inferno

[-Robin-]

GUN Fortress in Shadow the Hedgehog, assuming you activated the Eclipse Cannon in the prior level.

It's a rather unique situation, as you directly and intentionally caused this depression to happen; you have just utterly annihilated Central City, given the Black Arms a huge wave gun to use liberally, and now are on your way to crush humanity's morale by ending the president. The depressing moment's compounded by Shadow's internal monologue seconds before he starts the level as he finally recalls some memories of Gerald; Shadow is no longer confused as to what his objectives are, and any action he takes now is without hesitance, and so he is fully ready to be a deliverer of death.

This is helped even further by GUN Fortress's music: it's not a dynamic, tense, quick-paced tune, as if setting the stage for a heroic last stand. It's completely solemn and melancholy, to the point of giving an air of hopelessness; GUN has no chance of stopping Shadow, and they are fully aware of it.

I found the level to be a pretty striking moment.

Edited October 29, 2012 by Joshua

[Faseeh]

I was pretty sad to see Shadow gone just when he saved the world to be honest.

What courage he had. He just gave his all to save the world. And he's gone. I teared along with the song 'Dear My Friend' playing.

Edited October 29, 2012 by Faseeh

[Dr. Crusher]

Count me in with the CD Bad Futures.

But I'll also note Planet Wisp, bringing back Robotnik's penchant for ruining beautiful scenery with his mechanical behemoths. The actual planet may not have been polluted (yet), but it still brought the point across.

In fact, the whole Wisp plot in Colours is pretty sinister. The Wisps are for the most part a completely docile and innocent alien species. They aren't the Black Arms with their scary comet. They're just living their days in paradise. Then imagine their point of view. An unfamiliar-looking big guy suddenly enters the picture, planting giant metal structures all over the planet without really caring about the side-effects. Then your entire race is rounded up by strange, abstract robots, and you unwittingly become their new batteries. Or, if you're really unlucky, you instead get shipped off to a dimly-lit factory hidden within a hellish asteroid belt, slowly being drained of your Hyper Go-On energy, the very thing that makes you... you. Without that, you immediately become a hideous, vicious beast, with no consciousness or motive other than to eat anything in sight, and since the fat man just sort of lets you go about your business in a cruel mercy sort of way, you'll probably eventually die out as that beast. And then (in the DS version at least), you find out that this whole terrifying "amusement park" routine has been forcibly powered by your mother and leader. The loving figure of the entire Wisp generation, reduced to a helpless Lovecraftian nightmare. Even with the man himself, he casually uses you as ammo, sucking you up like dust in a hoover. And throughout all of this, until you meet a blue hedgehog and two-tailed fox, you're given no sympathy. This "Eggman" guy has turned your species into an excuse for him to dish out punchlines on a speaker.

Fuck eating dimensions for lunch, this is real dickery.

...And then the next game involved putting Sonic's friends in a state of limbo (which - literal statues and not involving leeches aside - was exactly what Black Doom did), messing with the past, possibly leaving Orbot and Cubot for dead... really, you could say that starting with Unleashed, Robotnik has just said "Fuck it" and gone completely down the deep end. I wouldn't have him any other way.

Actually, in the admittedly unlikely possibility that the Time Eater wasn't evil, Robotnik's treatment of it can become this. It basically became a giant Badnik, encased in a metal harness and literally controlled. I always saw it's "jitteryness" as it trying it's hardest to break free from it's bonds... but it can't. Even if it's the herald for time-altering destruction, it's pretty painful to watch. It's like a cruel master chaining down it's dog.

Edited October 29, 2012 by Dr. Crusher

[- Eternal Paradox -]

Actually, in the admittedly unlikely possibility that the Time Eater wasn't evil, Robotnik's treatment of it can become this. It basically became a giant Badnik, encased in a metal harness and literally controlled. I always saw it's "jitteryness" as it trying it's hardest to break free from it's bonds... but it can't. Even if it's the herald for time-altering destruction, it's pretty painful to watch. It's like a cruel master chaining down it's dog.

Well, I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one who felt sorry for the time eater at the end of Sonic Generations. Though, it's sort of "implyed" at the end it was freed (a portal of time-eater energy opens up to send Classic Sonic home), So maybe things didn't finish so bad for it after all. The Eggmen being trapped in white-space could've been it's revenge, in a way.

...And then the next game involved putting Sonic's friends in a state of limbo (which - literal statues and not involving leeches aside - was exactly what Black Doom did), messing with the past, possibly leaving Orbot and Cubot for dead... really, you could say that starting with Unleashed, Robotnik has just said "Fuck it" and gone completely down the deep end. I wouldn't have him any other way.

Orbot and Cubot are robots, I'm sure they can survive being in space. After all, Shadow did...

You know, I've always liked the prospect of Eggman capturing Sonic's friends and using them as batteries for his machines... It sort of makes the battle agianst him more worthwhile, less "Eggman is evil, I'm gonna stop him!" and more "Eggman kidnapped my friends, I've gotta go save 'em!"

[CrownSlayer’s Shadow]

Orbot and Cubot are robots, I'm sure they can survive being in space. After all, Shadow did...

And Sonic, and Tails, and Eggman...matter of fact damn near the whole cast can survive being in space without worrying about things like oxygen or atmospheric re-entry. Heck, Cream survives a fall from space and lands on the ground unharmed in SAdv2.

[Autosaver]

I got a sad vibe from Gamma's death.

[Little T]

The bad ending to Knuckles' Chaotix. I just sat through the whole thing like this 0_0

Edited October 29, 2012 by Little T

[Cyrus]

Sonic Unleashed's ending. Dear lord, that song...

[HippyAmy]

I cried when Knuckles got hurt badly by Eggman in Sonic & Knuckles trying to protect the emerald when I was little.

The bad ending to Knuckles' Chaotix. I just sat through the whole thing like this 0_0

^ This so much. It 's pretty much applies that your efforts were for naught.

Edited October 29, 2012 by HippyAmy

[Da Blu Hedgie]

Sa2's ending and

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vfNA5w09rVA#

(please don't kill me for this) in Sonic 06 when mephiles killed Sonic. I was a bit more emotional back then... (and wait is this meta then?)

Edited October 29, 2012 by Chaos Con Carne

[Yoko/葉子]

When Mephiles killed Sonic for me, Sonic was my childhood hero after all.

[Solkia]

Also going with SA2's ending.

It was pretty damn depressing all the way through, but then fucking Sonic has to go and say "Sayonara, Shadow the Hedgehog" and I just fucking lost it.

[-Mark-]

To those saying the 'bad' ending to Sonic 2 8-Bit is depressing, it can almost be interpreted that Sonic and Tails engage in a suicide pact in the 'good' ending, since both their faces appear in the sky.

Also I swear the Game Gear version used different credits music that was way more happy and upbeat than the depressing-as-hell Master System version tune. Am I remembering wrongly?

Edited October 29, 2012 by -Mark-

[Diogenes]

I was about to say "nothing", but...

I got a sad vibe from Gamma's death.

...yeah, this works. For all the rough spots SA had, Gamma's story, and this scene in particular, they did good. Maybe it's because he doesn't talk much, so they had to do more through animation. Maybe it's because he's a robot, so the dated animation kind of fits. Maybe it's because they still had big dreams for this series.

[Cortez]

Crisis City.

We've seen plenty of destroyed cities in Sonic games prior to that (admittedly most of them in ShTH) but this is different, this is like a Sonic level set in hell itself. There probably isn't much of a population left; the entire world is sinking into lava and if that doesn't kill you the abundance of giant fire creatures actively attacking anything that moves certainly will.

And that music, oh my god, the sense of urgency is incredible and those violins are so flat! It's like there really is no hope and you're just struggling to survive this stage. It's more depressing to think that literally nobody was capable of stopping this from happening, even when Iblis was sent to another dimension in the future it was still able to become its perfect form in the past. It had to be erased from time completely just to be stopped...

I think this stage is more depressing for the fact it's the very last thing you'd expect to see in a Sonic game, it couldn't really be more far removed from checkered hills and colourful badniks.

[Tori Himemiya]

Really guys? I'm disappointed no one mentioned Emerl at all.

Since you guys forgot Emerl was the robot Eggman threw out and Sonic found it and Emerl got a link with Sonic first thing. Over the course of the game Emerl got stronger and more intelligent as he ate Chaos Emeralds. He practically bonded with not only Sonic and friends but the player too. So then we finally go to Emerl's story and Eggman prances around about his new Death Egg and Emerl goes off to kick his ass but then Eggman showed off his cannon and Emerl then gets a link with the cannon instead of Eggman and goes berserk leaving Sonic to fight him. After you beat him....

Emerl talks to Sonic one last time knowing his end is near. Sonic tells Emerl he shouldn't act that way but Emerl knew he had to go and then he gets blown up. It was so sad even Shadow had to say nice things for once.

I really found this very sad. No one got had a dying speech like Emerl did. :/

Edited October 29, 2012 by Crow the BOOLET

[Rexeljet]

This might count as meta, but I find the lifelessness of some of Sonic 06's levels and ghost-town hubs to be quite depressing. Sonic's levels have almost always been full of life and nice to look at, even the darker, run-down levels like Sonic CD's bad futures and Shadow the Hedgehog's levels, but many of Sonic 06's locales are just lifeless, bleak, uninteresting, and depressing to look at and play through.

SA2's ending and Gamma's death in SA1 count for something as well.

[JezMM]

Yeah, Sonic 2 8-bit's Bad Ending was pretty heavy, and SA2's ending was great.

I also really love the atmosphere of Lost Impact on ShTH. Some of Maria's lines are very melancholy too, like pointing out how the artificial chaos look strangely sad to her. Goes really well with the music. Shame the gameplay of this level was such a dud, guh.

I also have to say, despite the terrible journey there, I adore Sonic 2006's final ending. That scene of Sonic and Elise in the dark chamber was so beautifully done. I always wished after they blew out the candle and faded to black, the credits would just roll there. (The final scene could have come after the credits).

Finally, in Sonic Unleashed, the shot of Chip/The Gaia Collossus sinking into the lava as the ceiling seals above was wonderfully sombre. A Sonic game has never made me cry before but just that lone moment gave me a little lump in the ole throat.

Also I swear the Game Gear version used different credits music that was way more happy and upbeat than the depressing-as-hell Master System version tune. Am I remembering wrongly?

On Master System, both the Good and Bad Endings use the same melancholy song, but on Game Gear, there is a more upbeat song for the Good Ending. Strangely both songs are in the ROM of the Master System version, but only the Bad Ending song is used.

Edited October 29, 2012 by JezMM