Sonic Unleashed - What is it now after four years?

[Dr. Homem]

Is it sad that I might like her more if she could do this.

 

I feel like if any character was pointless in Unleashed, it was Amy probably. I actually forgot she was in the game until we started talking about her

You may be right that she was somewhat pointless, but I think giving her such power would be overcompensating.

Edited December 22, 2012 by Dr. Homem

[Diogenes]

I mind him shoving his best friend aside for an annoying flying rat with the appetite of a saiyan though.

In what way did he get shoved aside? Just because he isn't one of the most important characters in the game? And if you're bugged by Chip that's one thing, but don't project and act like the characters should hate him too.

 

Newsflash.

 

In SA and SatBK, Sonic was falling from within the planet's atmosphere.

 

The Werehog was falling from OUTER SPACE. AND HE WAS SEMI-CONSCIOUS!

Let's be honest, no one would even flinch if he had survived without Chip's help.

 

In answer to your question, you come up with this shit, because I said neither of those things.

Bull. You said it was weird for Tails to step aside because someone new came along. That's just straight up jealousy you're advocating for, on no more basis than Sonic being friends with someone else.

[Emmett L. Brown]

Chip is the one who saves Sonic from a deadly fall, Chip is the one who activates the Gaia Temples that allow the Chaos Emeralds to be revived, and as clearly displayed in the cut scenes, it would've been impossible for Sonic to fight Dark Gaia without Chip's abilities in play. You would have to rewrite the most major parts of the story entirely if Chip were gone, meaning the current story as we know it relies significantly on his presence to work; the same cannot really be said for someone like Amy and even Tails to an extent.

 

The game would also be missing a great deal of the heart and sentimentality of Sonic and Chip's friendship, which Tails cannot provide because his friendship with Sonic isn't on a time limit nor is it predicated on Sonic exposing Tails to anything particularly life-altering. Contrast this with Chip's rough line: "I've been on this planet for billions of years, but I didn't know anything about it." That's as tragic as it is meaningful in terms of the potential time the player spends positively interacting in the world the game provides. All in all, Chip cannot be replaced easily within the current framework of the story, and he certainly isn't merely a Tails swap.

No, I think I could manage to seriously rewrite the story quite easily.

 

1) Sonic survives the fall the same way he did in Sonic Adventure. Easy.

2) The Gaia Temples don't require Chip to activate them. Done deal.

3) Towards the end I'd pull a Deus Ex Machina by having either Sonic or a mysterious entity that's opposite to Dark Gaia but isn't incarnated as a pink teddy bear teleport the Chaos Emeralds to Sonic in the core of the planet, and then I'd completely cut the first Dark Gaia boss fight and just skip ahead to when it transforms into Perfect Dark Gaia by including Dr. Eggman saying something like "Oh no, Dark Gaia has regained his true form" which the entire game was counting down to anyway from the point when Eggman started gathering all the Dark energy in one spot.

4) Sonic doesn't go unconscious after defeating Dark Gaia, and therefore doesn't need to be rescued by a giant golem.

 

There. That hardly needed much rewriting at all.

 

I won't argue against any personal sentimentaly with Chip's story, though. That's subjective, and even though I didn't feel that way towards the interaction, I'm happy for you getting more out of the story than me.

[Wraith]

Is this a problem with Chip in particular, or Sonic Team's approach with this game's narrative?

 

If Chip wasn't so freakishly annoying, I wouldn't consider it a problem with him, but since he is, and they feel the need to emphasize him over the other, less annoying characters, I consider it a combination of both.

[Komodin]

...I just find it so unrealistic that Tails and Amy would just sit by and let Sonic go on his most dangerous adventure yet alone. At least Tails deserves a lot more than relegation to pilot-duty in a game on this incredible scale...

 

Well, you have Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) and its negative public reception to blame for this. 

[Emmett L. Brown]

Bull. You said it was weird for Tails to step aside because someone new came along. That's just straight up jealousy you're advocating for, on no more basis than Sonic being friends with someone else.

No, I said it was weird because he's Sonic's best friend, who I'd expect to show more concern and support.

 

Where do you come up with this shit?

 

EDIT: To be more specific, I think it was weird for Tails not to be more supportive because Sonic was a Werehog. NOT, let me be clear: N O T because Sonic made a new friend.

Edited December 22, 2012 by Grumpy Old Grinch

[Diogenes]

Aside from hanging off Sonic's ass the whole game, what more support should he have given?

 

And if it's purely about that, why bring Chip into the equation? Nothing about Chip being around prevents Tails from helping Sonic.

[Jack / Joker]

Well, you have Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) and its negative public reception to blame for this. 

 

Do Tails and Amy need to be playable to be relevant to the story? Sonic Colors made up for this in Tails' case, I suppose, but it's still a bit of a gutter that Amy did a lot more in this game than she or any other Sonic character did in Colors and Generations...

[Nepenthe]

No, I think I could manage to seriously rewrite the story quite easily.

 

1) Sonic survives the fall the same way he did in Sonic Adventure. Easy.

2) The Gaia Temples don't require Chip to activate them. Done deal.

3) Towards the end I'd pull a Deus Ex Machina by having either Sonic or a mysterious entity that's opposite to Dark Gaia but isn't incarnated as a pink teddy bear teleport the Chaos Emeralds to Sonic in the core of the planet, and then I'd completely cut the first Dark Gaia boss fight and just skip ahead to when it transforms into Perfect Dark Gaia by including Dr. Eggman saying something like "Oh no, Dark Gaia has regained his true form" which the entire game was counting down to anyway from the point when Eggman started gathering all the Dark energy in one spot.

4) Sonic doesn't go unconscious after defeating Dark Gaia, and therefore doesn't need to be rescued by a giant golem.

 

There. That hardly needed much rewriting at all.

 

So basically, if you completely change up the major elements of a story, even if one of those elements provides the emotional core of that story, you can still theoretically have a workable story. This is true but not what I was arguing (e.g., merely removing Chip from the existing story and not rewriting would completely make it unworkable). It's also logic that can work with nearly any character and thus devalues their roles and the way the stories are set up to work immediately, pretty much making it a non-argument. For example, SA2 doesn't need Shadow to "work." Yeah, the relationship with Maria was deftly important, but you don't need that or the whole doppleganger element. Just have it as a normal story where Eggman is trying to use the Eclipse cannon to conquer the world and Sonic has to stop him. Keep everything else the same. Problem solved and I've prevented the series from potentially going through ShtH; I r winnar. xP

[Komodin]

Do Tails and Amy need to be playable to be relevant to the story? 

 

Not really, but apparently, Sega doesn't think so.

 

If it means anything, I also wish that Tails and Amy had appeared more in the story, instead of just dropping off into the Earth's corethe face of the Earth until the endgame. I'd throw in Knuckles, too, but that could possibly mean nixing Professor Pickle for redundancy, and I'm not too comfortable about that...

[Vertekins]

No, I think I could manage to seriously rewrite the story quite easily.

 

1) Sonic survives the fall the same way he did in Sonic Adventure. Easy.

2) The Gaia Temples don't require Chip to activate them. Done deal.

3) Towards the end I'd pull a Deus Ex Machina by having either Sonic or a mysterious entity that's opposite to Dark Gaia but isn't incarnated as a pink teddy bear teleport the Chaos Emeralds to Sonic in the core of the planet, and then I'd completely cut the first Dark Gaia boss fight and just skip ahead to when it transforms into Perfect Dark Gaia by including Dr. Eggman saying something like "Oh no, Dark Gaia has regained his true form" which the entire game was counting down to anyway from the point when Eggman started gathering all the Dark energy in one spot.

4) Sonic doesn't go unconscious after defeating Dark Gaia, and therefore doesn't need to be rescued by a giant golem.

 

There. That hardly needed much rewriting at all.

 

I won't argue against any personal sentimentaly with Chip's story, though. That's subjective, and even though I didn't feel that way towards the interaction, I'm happy for you getting more out of the story than me.

 

1) Sonic wasn't falling from space in SA or SatBK. Chip de-accelerating his fall saved his life.

2) The Gaia Temples being so easily accessible given their sacred and important function doesn't seem all that believable. Even Eggman took to questioning Mazuri natives as to where Mazuri's Gaia Temple was located.

3) That just screams unreasonable deus ex machina to me.

4) Sonic losing conciousness makes complete sense - There is no really feasible reason to believe that Sonic got much sleep during his quest to restore the world (Which brings up another point - Yuji Naka once stated that lack of sleep hits Sonic hard), Dark Gaia had visibly hurt and weakened him when it took part of itself back from Sonic and forcibly reverted him to normal form and Super form has been proven by SONIC CHANNEL to be a tremendous drain on Sonic's energy, hence why it made complete sense that he fainted. Combined with Chip's established ability to influence people when they're in the air and that makes for a believable escape sequence and a touching goodbye scene.

Edited December 22, 2012 by Vertekins

[SenEDDtor Missile]

One DOES have to wonder though...

 

Where DID everyone else go in this game? Space Colony ARK? I know that the reputation of Sonic's friends was still in the gutter, but frankly this would have been a golden opportunity to get some cred back by placing the friends around the world. Hell, some interaction would have been rather helpful to redeeming them in the eyes of the public.

 

But eh, missed opportunities, what can you do about it?

[Emmett L. Brown]

Aside from hanging off Sonic's ass the whole game, what more support should he have given?

 

And if it's purely about that, why bring Chip into the equation? Nothing about Chip being around prevents Tails from helping Sonic.

Let's go back. The first post you quoted was one where I stated that the story could work without Chip. In said post I said that I agree that Chip helps provide some good character development for Sonic. But since my argument was that the story could work without Chip, I proposed that the same character development could have been done with Sonic and Tails. And since Sonic and Tailrs are canonically best friends, I personally would have preferred that.

 

That's it. This is not me raging and ranting about Chip ruining the story, and how I wish Sonic Unleashed had been brought to store shelves without that awful Chip ruining everything. I think Chip works just fine as a character. I think his story is lovely.

 

But I would have prefered Tails. You're acting like I'm demanding everyone conform to my ideal of how Unleashed should've been, but I'm just saying my opinion, and I'm totally fine with people feeling otherwise. You prefered Chip's role in the story? Then I'm happy for you.

[Jack / Joker]

Well... even though Tails, Knuckles, Amy and Shadow weren't really done justice in this game, surely we can all agree that Professor Pickle is fucking awesome?

 

EDIT: Oh, how could I forget! Eggman was portrayed extremely well in this game too, but... that goes without saying. Orbot (or SA-55 as he was known in this game) was pretty cool too.

Edited December 22, 2012 by Jolly Joker Frost

[Diogenes]

1) Sonic wasn't falling from space in SA or SatBK. Chip de-accelerating his fall saved his life.

2) The Gaia Temples being so easily accessible given their sacred and important function doesn't seem all that believable. Even Eggman took to questioning Mazuri natives as to where Mazuri's Gaia Temple was located.

3) That just screams unreasonable deus ex machina to me.

4) Sonic losing conciousness makes complete sense - There is no really feasible reason to believe that Sonic got much sleep during his quest to restore the world (Which brings up another point - Yuji Naka once stated that lack of sleep hits Sonic hard), Dark Gaia had visibly hurt and weakened him when it took part of itself back from Sonic and forcibly reverted him to normal form and Super form has been proven by SONIC CHANNEL to be a tremendous drain on Sonic's energy, hence why it made complete sense that he fainted. Combined with Chip's established ability to influence people when they're in the air and that makes for a believable escape sequence and a touching goodbye scene.

1. The physics of the game universe are not set in stone. There's no reason they couldn't have made it so he survived the fall. It'd hardly be the first time he survived a fall that realistically would have killed him.

2. Then have them react to the emeralds.

3. As if Chip becoming the Megazord isn't a deus ex machina...

4. It may make sense, but it is in no way required. The story could have worked fine if he hadn't.

[Emmett L. Brown]

1) Sonic wasn't falling from space in SA or SatBK. Chip de-accelerating his fall saved his life.

2) The Gaia Temples being so easily accessible given their sacred and important function doesn't seem all that believable. Even Eggman took to questioning Mazuri natives as to where Mazuri's Gaia Temple was located.

3) That just screams unreasonable deus ex machina to me.

4) Sonic losing conciousness makes complete sense - There is no really feasible reason to believe that Sonic got much sleep during his quest to restore the world (Which brings up another point - Yuji Naka once stated that lack of sleep hits Sonic hard), Dark Gaia had visibly hurt and weakened him when it took part of itself back from Sonic and forcibly reverted him to normal form and Super form has been proven by SONIC CHANNEL to be a tremendous drain on Sonic's energy, hence why it made complete sense that he fainted. Combined with Chip's established ability to influence people when they're in the air and that makes for a believable escape sequence and a touching goodbye scene.

1) Sonic 2. QED.

2) Unfortunately, Chip didn't find any of the Gaia Temples. It was Professor Pickle who pinpointed them all. All Chip did was flash his bracelet at the altar. That's hardly vital.

3) I don't see what makes it unreasonable. It's hardly any more far-fetched than the Chaos Emeralds being restored by the power of positive thinking in Sonic Adventure.

4) That's an awful lot of conjecture, and I'm afraid you can't fight conjecture with conjecture. Typing SONIC CHANNEL in all-caps doesn't tell us why this specific instance of Super Sonicitude would send Sonic into unconsciousness when he's never fainted after reverting to normal before.

[Tornado]

1) Sonic wasn't falling from space in SA or SatBK. Chip de-accelerating his fall saved his life.

 

He was in Sonic 2 and Sonic 3, and he essentially landed on a big piece of flying metal both times. It's not proof of anything other than Sonic Team's inconsistency.

Edited December 22, 2012 by Tornado

[Jack / Joker]

Typing SONIC CHANNEL in all-caps doesn't tell us why this specific instance of Super Sonicitude would send Sonic into unconsciousness when he's never fainted after reverting to normal before.

 

Give the guy a break! He'd just pressed the X button 40 times in 10 seconds, jeez!

 

Edited December 22, 2012 by Jolly Joker Frost

[Vertekins]

1) Sonic 2. QED.

2) Unfortunately, Chip didn't find any of the Gaia Temples. It was Professor Pickle who pinpointed them all. All Chip did was flash his bracelet at the altar. That's hardly vital.

3) I don't see what makes it unreasonable. It's hardly any more far-fetched than the Chaos Emeralds being restored by the power of positive thinking in Sonic Adventure.

4) That's an awful lot of conjecture, and I'm afraid you can't fight conjecture with conjecture. Typing SONIC CHANNEL in all-caps doesn't tell us why this specific instance of Super Sonicitude would send Sonic into unconsciousness when he's never fainted after reverting to normal before.

 

1) Heh, point taken

2) Chip located the specific location of the Temple in Eggmanland.

3) Some random entity that hadn't had any mention of it made suddenly rising to the occasion and handing Sonic the Emeralds from the temples still feels deus ex machina-esque.

4) I always type SONIC CHANNEL in capitals because that's how it's written on the website itself. It's a habit of mine The point I'm making is that whilst Sonic never fainted when reverting before, he was still put under a lot of stress before he transformed, making it fully feasible that he did.

[Nepenthe]

Super Sonic fainting after the fact isn't the only example of the game making a point that Dark Gaia would have killed Sonic without Chip's help (in fact, I'm not even sure how it came up). After Sonic last the last bit of Gaia energy he had, he was completely wiped and was about to be pummeled to death had Chip not shielded him from the attack. 

[Diogenes]

3) Some random entity that hadn't had any mention of it made suddenly rising to the occasion and handing Sonic the Emeralds from the temples still feels deus ex machina-esque.

They could still foreshadow Light Gaia.

[Emmett L. Brown]

Super Sonic fainting after the fact isn't the only example of the game making a point that Dark Gaia would have killed Sonic without Chip's help (in fact, I'm not even sure how it came up). After Sonic last the last bit of Gaia energy he had, he was completely wiped and was about to be pummeled to death had Chip not shielded him from the attack. 

It's true, I still would've used a deus ex machina at that point, because I think that honestly works well with Sonic once in a while. Not all the time, naturally. But in Sonic & the Black Knight you basically had exactly that; Sonic facing an unbeatable adversary that proceeded to beat the crap out of him until suddenly Sonic got powered up by a vaguely-alluded item of supreme power that neither the Sonic nor the main villain was aware really existed.

 

So, basically, even in a Sonic Unleashed without Chip, I'd still include Light Gaia. Maybe with a bit of foreshadowing in the temple scenes, and then a BIG SURPRISE at the climax where it looks like Sonic is doomed, but then the spirit of the planet etcetera summons the Chaos Emeralds to our hero in time for the final boss fight.

 

Deus ex machina gets looked down at, but I think that like any storytelling device it has its time and place.

 

EDIT: Can I just say right now that even though I hated controlling the Gaia Colossus, its reveal was fucking awesome.

Edited December 22, 2012 by Grumpy Old Grinch

[-blank-]

As much as I like Chip, I do wish Tails and Amy had a bigger role in the game. I also wouldn't mind seeing the other characters. I mean, come on - the planet is freaking split apart. I don't see how GUN wasn't investigating this. It would have been the perfect opportunity for Shadow and Rouge to make an appearance in the story. Plus, you're pretty much traveling the whole world. And the only other recurring characters you see are Eggman, Tails and Amy? Uh...

Edited December 22, 2012 by Christmas Blaire

[Nepenthe]

It's true, I still would've used a deus ex machina at that point, because I think that honestly works well with Sonic once in a while. Not all the time, naturally. But in Sonic & the Black Knight you basically had exactly that; Sonic facing an unbeatable adversary that proceeded to beat the crap out of him until suddenly Sonic got powered up by a vaguely-alluded item of supreme power that neither the Sonic nor the main villain was aware really existed.

 

So, basically, even in a Sonic Unleashed without Chip, I'd still include Light Gaia. Maybe with a bit of foreshadowing in the temple scenes, and then a BIG SURPRISE at the climax where it looks like Sonic is doomed, but then the spirit of the planet etcetera summons the Chaos Emeralds to our hero in time for the final boss fight.

 

Deus ex machina gets looked down at, but I think that like any storytelling device it has its time and place.

 

Well, I don't think the mindless god of apocalyptic destruction was intending to merely beating the crap out of him. If nothing else, that attack could've thrown Sonic into the lava below; their platform wasn't all that big. I see little way he could've gotten out of that sensibly without Chip minus simply not having the attack happen, nor do I think that revealing this random Colossus at the very last second would've been somehow better than what we got. It is actually good writing that Chip's shield ability which we've seen before was also put to some proper use again.

[Jack / Joker]

Knuckles and Shadow were supposed to be in this game right? And Shadow is still a rival of Sonic, right?

 

So we pretty much missed out on what could've possibly been a Werehog fight with Shadow, where you could just pummel the crap outta him...

 

Damn.