Lost World: Discussion, Impressions and Fan Reviews

[azoo]

Yeah, maybe it wouldn't have been so bad if the game just wasn't so bad at telling a story.

 

I know they don't have much control but the game's stories have been suffering for a good 3 games now from anticlimactic endings, plot points that buildup and lose traction immediately, not explaining anything at all, etc. A lot of the dialogue being either jokes or pure snark amongst everyone hasn't been helping.

 

Also I'd say the characters were consistent to a certain point in the past. At least from conception to around Adventure, it was mostly like this:

 

Sonic - laid back, sassy and slightly brash but still very kindhearted adventurer, sight seer and world traveler

Tails - naive and excitable young fox, very sincere and polite, has a knack for mechanics, Sonic's little surrogate brother / best friend

Eggman - bombastic, maniacal evil genius with an obsession with his own image and ruling the world

 

This got askewed more and more progressively with each passing game until they were flat cutouts (except Eggman somehow, bar 06) resembling this:

 

Sonic - flat hero nice guy character

Tails - "I am techie guy" character

Eggman - bombastic maniacal evil genius etc..????

 

Unleashed and the storybook games tried to reprise Sonic's first personality some but mixed it with the flat generic hero thing a bit, but didn't do much of anything for Tails or anyone else for that matter.

 

And now they're basically this with the new writers:

 

Sonic - snarky, brash, loud and hyperactive "I'm the hero, dude, its what I do!" guy, is almost treated as the meatheaded brawn

Tails - Stereotypical brainy genius wiz kid that sits in the background while openly bragging about his intelligence

Eggman - bombastic maniacal evil genius etc

 

Its better than being flat but I really don't dig it much at all.

[Kuzu]

I feel its the focus that's changed; back in Adventure, things were more about things happening and solving them without much of a flare for characterization. I mean it was there, and there was character development. It was small and nothing really major, but it was something at least.

 

Since so little focus is into the actual plot nowadays, the characters have to make up for it. 

 

 

 

TL;DR: Enjoying the current plots is entirely dependent if you enjoy Sonic, Tails, and Eggman as characters.

 

 

I generally prefer the characterization, but I can see why not a lot of people don't and wouldn't mind a return to Adventure's brand of characterization.

[azoo]

Well its like implying that there's enough consistency to like them as characters or not. The only one you can really do that for is Eggman; and somewhat Orbot and Cubot since they've been pretty consistent since they came along.

 

Its not just the focus on what happens in the plot of the Adventure games that made it good, it was how they reacted to these things and the characterization itself was important. It might seem small to some but I found the original personalities I just mentioned to be much more interesting and dimensional.

 

Basically what I'm saying is that while I'd prefer the best of both worlds, I'd take a great story and good character portrayals coupled with a meh script and voice acting over great voice acting and a good script coupled with weird characterization and a rubbish story. At least with the first one you could work your mind around it and still enjoy it for what it is.

[Kuzu]

I'd just rather everything be written competently honestly, don't know why we have to choose or why we can't have either.

 

 

Yes, I have my grievances with the current writing and direction, but I can't really say I think its outright awful or that we must get rid of it. Its just something I got used to honestly. It helps that I've always wanted Sonic to be a bit more of an impatient ass instead of the trait just being something we were told in the manuals, and Eggman is always great. Tails is probably the only anomaly, if only because I can't really tell what they were trying to do with him in LW, its just really inconsistent. None of the writers really know what to do with him sadly.

[azoo]

Well that's what I was saying, we're making ourselves pick one thing over the other; I just said what I'd prefer and even said that I'd like it to be better on all fronts. Its just the same as my point earlier; when people were either choosing vapid and expressionless "anime style" dialogue or over-the-top and borderline obnoxious dialogue and nothing inbetween.

 

Of course, I guess it being anything close to obnoxious is just my opinion and not many are going to agree much with it, but eh. I really miss the Adventure personalities and wish I could've seen them with good writing. The way the characters are now just doesn't do them justice for me, sans Eggman. They all seem played just for laughs, or for the sake of being "the heroes" and "the villains".

[Kuzu]

I don't really miss the "personalities" but rather the storytelling from Adventure, I felt the storytelling back then allowed for a much wider array of emotions than what we have currently. Current attempts at emoting the characters just really seem forced and not believable. The personalities themselves are nice, its how they'r executed is what I'm not fond of.

[azoo]

That's mostly why I want it to come back as well. Maybe I'm just too negative about everyone's portrayals because the storytelling we've been given lately just leaves everyone as flat as a board or forced, whilst also attempting to make every character interaction some sort of comedy roast. Maybe they'd be better if put into more situations like a plot-driven game would do.

 

I just want less dudebro "I'm the hero its my job" Sonic and less know-it-all-brainiac Tails standing in the background pls warren and ken

[Soniman]

I just want less dudebro "I'm the hero its my job" Sonic and less know-it-all-brainiac Tails standing in the background pls warren and ken

 

Isn't that kinda what SLW did though? I know many seem to be miffed or downright hate his characterization in this game (I actually thought it was fine it's just there wasn't enough story to accommodate it) but saying he did nothing as well? Im not sure about that.

 

For all the complaining in the past about how Tails stands around and did nothing in past games, Tails at least has an active role and gets wrapped up in major plot events that actually go somewhere and have a conclusion like the robot scene, where he managed to turn on the Zeti that modified him and blasted them away, leaving the rest to Sonic.. And it cumulates by the end where he manages to shut off the big bad laser thingy, so he basically saved the world in this game…

 

And ignoring all that, Tails will be more active when Sega says he will, I wish people would stop placing all the blame on the writers, because we never did with other writers in the past when it came to this kind of thing.

[Kuzu]

...the hell are you talking about, where were you when everyone was bitching about Shadow and 06.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Sami]

I didn't have a problem with the characterization of Sonic and Eggman, but Tails was a complete jerk. He goofed up and almost got himself killed trying to reprogram one of Eggman's robots, then gets pissy and jealous when Sonic gets Eggman to reprogram a machine that he himself built. They played the "oh no he's gonna fight" card again, except this time in a way that makes no sense at all ("wow its a good thing I built a jet engine with just my toenails before or this would be hard"; shows up later as a robot, then one cutscene later is no longer a robot because I don't know), and he didn't really do anything of note other than whine about not being listened to.

 

You know what would have been cool? If he wanted respect so bad, he could have done something to actually earn it, like build a giant fighting robot to take the Deadly Six on with. They could have made him save Sonic with it, or hell, if there was a rivalry between him and Eggman, why not have him use a robot like Eggman's to help you fight the final boss?

 

It's just another missed opportunity.

[Soniman]

...the hell are you talking about, where were you when everyone was bitching about Shadow and 06

.

 

I mean in terms of "these characters have no significant role thanks to this writer". 

 

But I guess 06 and Shadow had the opposite problem with over saturation so never mind.

[azoo]

Isn't that kinda what SLW did though? I know many seem to be miffed or downright hate his characterization in this game (I actually thought it was fine it's just there wasn't enough story to accommodate it) but saying he did nothing as well? Im not sure about that.

 

For all the complaining in the past about how Tails stands around and did nothing in past games, Tails at least has an active role and gets wrapped up in major plot events that actually go somewhere and have a conclusion like the robot scene, where he managed to turn on the Zeti that modified him and blasted them away, leaving the rest to Sonic.. And it cumulates by the end where he manages to shut off the big bad laser thingy, so he basically saved the world in this game…

 

The story and its plot points are just so out of the way, predictable and vacant that it doesn't feel like he did much of anything.

 

If you wanna focus on it though, the only real things he did was fly Sonic to the Lost Hex, stroked his geek-cred ego in both boastfulness and jealousy (thus almost getting himself hurt while doing it), stop Sonic from doing something dumb one time by jumping in the way of the capsule, and magically know how to get out of that issue AND save the world both with his 'deus ex machina'-esque magical technogeek brain powers.

 

And ignoring all that, Tails will be more active when Sega says he will, I wish people would stop placing all the blame on the writers, because we never did with other writers in the past when it came to this kind of thing.

 

Well of course its not all their fault, but you gotta point the critique somewhere, and when there's no absolute indication who the people are that supervise their stuff, might as well point it at the closest source.

[Blue Blood]

I didn't have a problem with the characterization of Sonic and Eggman, but Tails was a complete jerk.

 

..

 

It's just another missed opportunity.

 

I really can't get over how much I didn't like Tails in this game. I'm happy for him to sometime be a bit sarcy with an air of superiority over Sonic at times. Really, this cutscene was was absolute gold because it was light-hearted and fun between the two of them. But Lost World was another matter. It's bad enough that all Tails does these days is build gadgets and never gets in on the action like his hero (you know, the whole reason he started following Sonic around to begin with), but to have him as an unlikeable character too is just a step too far. The last time we saw him really do anything, was when, '06? He actively helped Sonic out in the game, and at one point even went in pursuit of the Egg Carrier alone. All the games since have made him feel pathetic and/or worthless.

 

Tails sucks

[Nepenthe]

I didn't find Tails particularly problematic, although the extent of his mechanical capabilities was pure deus ex machina. After all, we're talking about the guy who has created a fake Emerald with roughly the same properties as the real thing, and has pretty complete understanding of Gerald's work as well as Ex-Gear technology and who knows what else. So it wouldn't be that great big of an assumption to believe that he could reprogram Eggman's machine in this game even though he didn't build it, making it reasonable that Sonic's lack of faith in him (a subsequent cautiousness stemming from the hedgehog's guilt over his own snap assumptions) sparked off a fight. Said fight leads to both bitterness- seen in his constant quips at Eggman- and his eagerness to prove his worth towards the current team-up, hence the Cubot incident. Every single plot point concerning Tails and his relationship with Sonic seemed to fall into place nicely.

[Vertekins]

Regarding Tails, I’m a tad split. But very much on the ‘love’ side regardless.

 

On one hand, it does come off as rather uncharacteristically fickle for Tails to have this propensity all of a sudden for knocking down Sonic a peg. I was down with Tails not being inclined to make a point about singing Sonic’s praises because it believably shows that he’s used to it i.e Him being more interested in the fact that Eggman’s park has shopping facilities rather than the fact that Sonic just destroyed a large robot in Colours. I am NOT quite down with Tails to be excessively snarky when it comes to calling-out Sonic’s mistakes such as when he said “You think?” when Sonic is making a break from the Zeti and rogue Badniks with him under his arm.

 

Tails’ discontent with Sonic’s trust in Eggman regarding the disabling of the machine came off more to me as him being put-out by Eggman inching-in on his ‘territory’, giving rise to a misplaced feeling of ‘betrayal’. When you get down to it, Tails really does personally consider his utility to Sonic as a massive source of pride and self-assurance so when Eggman inches in on that and Sonic lets him, I suppose it’s somewhat understandable that the Fox would be put-out by that.

 

Tails’ desire to be of use is shown in one of the other cutscenes when he tries to give Cubot a body only for that to backfire, Sonic understandably reacting with exasperation.

 

I think what kind of makes up for Tails’ attitude in this game is the cutscene in which he disables the weapon. When Sonic sincerely apologizes for doubting him, Tails never used that as leverage to snark more at him with something akin to ‘Why didn’t you do that in the first place?’/’Told you so’ and instead just accepts and brushes off Sonic’s apology good-naturedly as if it’s all water under the bridge and not a source of bitterness any more.

 

TL;DR version? Tails’ attitude came off as rather sudden and uncharacteristic as a result early-on, indicating that it was rather forced but what makes up for it IMO is Tails’ attitude adjustment later on in the story.

 

Still, his portrayals in other areas was highly commendable. We once again see Tails’ selflessness when he prevents Sonic from hitting the trap capsule and being captured and I actually find it pretty interesting how Sonic is really starting to rub off on him with the deadpan snarker tendencies.

 

Also, perhaps I'm splitting hairs but Tails' furry tail tufts are effectively fingers? Errr...what?

[Diogenes]

The last time we saw him really do anything, was when, '06? He actively helped Sonic out in the game, and at one point even went in pursuit of the Egg Carrier alone. All the games since have made him feel pathetic and/or worthless.

Seriously? What the shit did Tails accomplish in '06?

[Blue Blood]

Seriously? What the shit did Tails accomplish in '06?

 

He did all sorts. Actually within the the levels he went on and did tasks that Sonic couldn't, while in cutscenes he and Sonic worked together. Before Dusty Desert, it's his idea that the two of them split up, so he can distract Eggman's forces while Sonic and Elise escape. And of course, like I just mentioned, when he's set apart from Sonic he goes around Castle Town to find out what's happened to Elise before setting off to try and chase down the Egg Carrier alone. Also End of the World.

 

So he attempted and accomplished a lot in that game.

[Salamander]

Also, perhaps I'm splitting hairs but Tails' furry tail tufts are effectively fingers? Errr...what?

 

Tails using his tails as extra limbs in this game was actually one of the high points of his characterisation for me.  His tails are at the heart of his character; they're his name.  If the fact that he can fly isn't going to be a big deal in a game, I'm happy that he can actually use his tails for something new and different.  I also like to think that it gives him extra leverage as a mechanic if he effectively has an extra pair of arms at any one time.

 

Still, though, Tails as boy genius never really sat right with me.  I like him as a mechanic, but there's a big difference between "mechanic" and "programmer, computer genius, etc."  If it were me I'd just write him as building complex mechanical devices - planes and what have you - but leave the electronics, programming, and general incredibly high intelligence to Eggman.  I think this is partly becuase I want to limit what Tails can do to make it clearer that Eggman is special.  If Tails could theoretically do anything that Eggman can, that diminishes Eggman as a villain.

[StaticMania]

Still, though, Tails as boy genius never really sat right with me.  I like him as a mechanic, but there's a big difference between "mechanic" and "programmer, computer genius, etc."  If it were me I'd just write him as building complex mechanical devices - planes and what have you - but leave the electronics, programming, and general incredibly high intelligence to Eggman.  I think this is partly becuase I want to limit what Tails can do to make it clearer that Eggman is special.  If Tails could theoretically do anything that Eggman can, that diminishes Eggman as a villain.

 

This type of thing was already true when Tails Character Bio. says he and Eggman are basically intellectual rivals, the only difference is that Tails is still 8 yrs old and as of that he's still has the Naivety of a child his age.

[Autosaver]

http://www.groupon.com/deals/gg-sonic-lost-world-for-3ds-or-wiiu?utm_source=rvs&utm_medium=afl&utm_campaign=1312731

Sonic Lost World has a sale at groupon.com

 

$39.99 Wii U

 

$29.99 3DS

[azoo]

I just wanted to address this real quick.

 

I didn't find Tails particularly problematic, although the extent of his mechanical capabilities was pure deus ex machina. After all, we're talking about the guy who has created a fake Emerald with roughly the same properties as the real thing, and has pretty complete understanding of Gerald's work as well as Ex-Gear technology and who knows what else. So it wouldn't be that great big of an assumption to believe that he could reprogram Eggman's machine in this game even though he didn't build it, making it reasonable that Sonic's lack of faith in him (a subsequent cautiousness stemming from the hedgehog's guilt over his own snap assumptions) sparked off a fight. Said fight leads to both bitterness- seen in his constant quips at Eggman- and his eagerness to prove his worth towards the current team-up, hence the Cubot incident. Every single plot point concerning Tails and his relationship with Sonic seemed to fall into place nicely.

 

Even though Tails was able to magically make an emerald with "the same wavelength and properties" bladda bladda bladda in SA2, it didn't end up fixing absolutely every problem like said skills did in SLW. It was a fake emerald that Eggman knew was fake, none of the heroes knew for sure if the plan would work properly, and the initial plan it was used for was demolished by a mixture of Eggman's cunning and Tails failing to keep his wits in check, thus slipping out and accidentally stating it as it was, confirming Eggman's assumptions.

 

The emerald didn't just save everything, it was proven fake, then through a glimmer of hope happened to work, and Sonic made a new plan to use what he could of it to take down the ARK. There was no moment where Tails somehow was able to thwart every enemy and their plans with no chance of issue or backfire, there was tension and his own flaws could've potentially screwed it up (and it did).

 

This is why I didn't find Tails to have a "boring" personality or juxtaposition back then. Just because he was chipper and smart didn't make him flat or flawless. He had childlike qualities of naivety, stating the obvious, getting a bit overexcited or just distracted in his own interests or pondering; with a lot of these things able to be played off to his stregnths or his weaknesses. 

 

He didn't need to be some know-it-all ultra-techie supergenius dude, he was a learning and growing young boy with a heart for mechanics. The former just feels kinda like he's the Good Eggman.

 

(EDIT: Noted by VEDJ-F (via status updates) that Eggman in fact knew about the emerald not being the real deal when he first looked into it. Something I forgot over time and I'm sure a lot of others did too. Fix'd my post in relation to that!)

Edited November 28, 2013 by Azookara

[Nepenthe]

To be fair, his success in creating a fake Emerald was merely an example to one of my overall points, and I even agreed with you in the instance that his abilities in Lost World were used as deus ex machina.

 

But just like the fake Emerald isn't proof that Tails should know everything to get himself out of trouble, his abilities being taken to the extreme in a few instances doesn't actually devalue the general assumption that can be made about him, that assumption being: it's not some exaggeration to claim that Tails could reprogram Eggman's machine despite not having made it or seen it before.

 

That was a general flaw being tossed around by others that didn't make sense as a flaw given what we know about Tails' past performances, and it was senseless regardless of any issues that were the result of misappropriating his abilities in a few specific cut scenes. It's like saying that because Sonic was too fast in the modern games, he subsequently shouldn't be fast despite the fact that we know he can reach supersonic speeds anyway.

[azoo]

Yeah, I understand what you mean. I don't see a problem with Tails being able to be good at tinkering with technology even outside his usual boundaries, its mostly just the idea that he can do it with no hassle, no potential backfire and no issues to the point of being one big plot resolution that made it really bad. So really, it's the writing's fault, but part of it is a piece on how they characterized Tails. Not exactly the trait, but it's execution.

 

It was all that plus Tails being all braggy about said skills and knowledge throughout the game that just made something about Tails rub the wrong way to me. It was like flanderizing an excitable young boy with some smarts and mechanic/tech skill to be your stereotypical snooty super-brainiac, which is why I find it so strange.

[Salamander]

This type of thing was already true when Tails Character Bio. says he and Eggman are basically intellectual rivals, the only difference is that Tails is still 8 yrs old and as of that he's still has the Naivety of a child his age.

 

I know it's been canon for a while.  No issues there.  I just don't like it.

[Diogenes]

He did all sorts. Actually within the the levels he went on and did tasks that Sonic couldn't

Which only exist because they wanted to make him playable. It's nothing meaningful, just contrivances so they have an excuse for you to play as him.

Before Dusty Desert, it's his idea that the two of them split up, so he can distract Eggman's forces while Sonic and Elise escape.

To my recollection we don't actually see him do any of that, so it's essentially him saying "I'm going to go disappear for a while while you do things".

And of course, like I just mentioned, when he's set apart from Sonic he goes around Castle Town to find out what's happened to Elise before setting off to try and chase down the Egg Carrier alone.

And what actually comes of this? What does it affect? Those are honest questions because I genuinely don't remember this, unless it's when he goes through Wave Ocean again for no reason.