Should Sonic Team consider using BRB writers?

[8ther]

In case you didn't already Mr. Frost revealed that the story for Rise of Lyric is written by several guys at Big Red Button themselves and from what we've seen so far from the E3 footage it seems they know how to handle storytelling and the portrayal of the Sonic cast far better than Pontac, Graff, and even Iizuka, i'm not saying Pontac and Graff should be fire outright, i'm just saying that they should bring in the BRB staff to help with the writing at times.

Thought?

[SlickEvan]

Uhm, I'm not sure. I, myself, would definitely love to see this! BRB seems to really have a grasp of Sonic (from what we've seen) more than what Pontac and Graff seem to know. Supposedly BRB pretty much had the same conditions as P&C but I could be wrong but they still seem to know what each character feels like without over-exaggerating their personalities (again from what we've seen.... and besides knuckles... but knuckles has been off for awhile now) So yeah! I think it'd be a great idea and could lead to some of the more story driven fans to return. 

[Blacklightning]

As long as Sonic Team themselves have a say it won't make much difference - the current writers are fantastic of their own right, but are continuously bogged down because they don't have a creative say in most of the actual plot.

[azoo]

No. Not that we've seen enough of either the show or the game's script to tell, but so far they don't seem to have good grasps on the characters either.

They can write some funny exchanges and a few natural lines, but the characters still feel like this uncomfortable balancing act between sort of decent and one dimensional. Sonic's still the radical dude, Tails is the boy genius, Knuckles is the dumb muscle, and Amy is the 'tough girl'. Granted, this is an alternate canon from Sega!Sonic, but the fact that its still not far off would be telling of how they'd handle the games.
 

Besides, I'd rather not hear fourth-wall jabs or meme references, and those both seem present.

[Chili Dawg]

I don't know... Sonic Boom's dialogue seems to waver between pretty good and trying way way waaaay too hard, and I'll have to see the whole package before I can decide on the quality of the writing overall. 

[SlickEvan]

No. Not that we've seen enough of either the show or the game's script to tell, but so far they don't seem to have good grasps on the characters either.

They can write some funny exchanges and a few natural lines, but the characters still feel like this uncomfortable balancing act between sort of decent and one dimensional. Sonic's still the radical dude, Tails is the boy genius, Knuckles is the dumb muscle, and Amy is the 'tough girl'. Granted, this is an alternate canon from Sega!Sonic, but the fact that its still not far off would be telling of how they'd handle the games.

 

Besides, I'd rather not hear fourth-wall jabs or meme references, and those both seem present.

 

Meme's and Fourth wall breaks aside, you don't think the interaction (so far) is better than P&C? I still haven't seen much good interaction between characters besides Sonic and Tails and maybe Eggman. It's just so meh to me with SegaSonic interaction. 

 

Amy and Tails high-fiving seems more natural as a like buddy type thing (need more context to be sure though) and more natural than Knuckles "joking" towards Sonic in Lost World about the animal saving. Sonic doesn't even react then Knuckles just gets carried away. But I am reading to far into this as I've only seen a few scenes, so I guess waiting is key..

[azoo]

It's better than Graff & Pontac is, I guess, but they're both pretty bleh. Besides, it's not that they can't do well as much as them being limited to what they're given. What they have done with it though hasn't been much good on either side. 

 

Even if we haven't seen Boom's show yet nor the entirety of the game's dialogue, the similarities between Boom's writers and the Graff & Pontac duo are close enough to where I can mentally fill in the blanks on what to expect.

[Nepenthe]

It's impossible to get a bead on anything in regards to the storytelling as a whole for Boom, and that concerns both characterization and plotting. Every single time we've been given a peak into the story- whether it's been Colors', Generations', or Lost World's- we've been lead to believe we had some idea of how things were going to go before getting blindsided by some hitch, whether it was a result of Sonic Team's influence, the writers' own ability to do their job within the parameters set , or both. I've really liked the actual bits of interaction I've seen, but I'm not entirely sold on Knuckles' or Amy's personalities, and I'm not going to vouch for the writers as a whole until I sit down to see the whole thing.

[SIXTH-RATE SOMA]

I'd actually rather they hire whoever wrote the new Kid Icarus but this isn't really Soma's Dream Team topic

 

Meme's and Fourth wall breaks aside, you don't think the interaction (so far) is better than P&C?

 

No. Credit where credit is due, Pontac and Graff, for all their shortcomings, wrote a decent Sonic and Tails bond, whereas BRB seems to have written a few more tinier bonds. It's more a toss up at this point, but that might change once Boom is out the door.

[SlickEvan]

Guess it all comes down to preference then because "decent" is giving Pontac and Graff too much credit in my eyes. Not that their Sonic & Tails personality isn't good or believable just strange to me. (No I'm not the type who wants Tails' to be Sonic's butt monkey forever just so you know)

[Kuzu]

Don't you think it's a bit presumptuous considering Boom isn't even out yet, so the verdict on whether it's writing actually being good is still up in the air? Yea it shows promise, but so did Lost World based on the cutscene that we saw and that ended up being crap in my opinion. So yea...not making any calls yet.

 

 

Also, I'm kind of confused; is this in context to the game or the television series, because from my understanding, they're both run by completely different factions who just converse with one another for consistency.

[Wittymations]

I haven't seen enough.

BRB's cutscene's dialogue is pretty good. it's actually very natural and fluid to me. But their in-game chatter seems... awful, to say the least. "Rings nomnomnom" -- ugh.

 

But their cutscene is actually really nice. But that was only a few examples.

 

I mean, Pontac and Graff is awful, yeah. It won't be hard to get better writers than those two, but I still can't say that BRB is really good at writing for Sonic.

 

They also are writing for a different canon than the games, so they have more room to be flexible.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Actually, I'd suggest writers such as Ian Flynn. The guy has a great connection with the series lore, both in the games and outside of them, and can definitely make use of the material and characters Sonic Team continues to neglect. And while he may not be perfect, he's far more well-rounded than Sonic Team are when it comes to a narrative.

 

All in all, I think a better idea would be to split the control between Sonic Team and a head writer who utilitarian has a great inside depth to the fandom's desires and the stuff the gaming media says about the writing. One who can deliver on good ideas from both the fandom and the gaming media, while ignoring the self-centered nonsense that comes out of both factions mouths (including the factions of the fandom).

 

I say split control because there are some things that Sonic Team has a good grasp of as far as the identity is concerned, as well as keeping the writer from going too far with making material for their own ego (like Penders, regarding the Archie comics); meanwhile, the head writer can use their half of the power to tell where Sonic Team are screwing up when it comes to the narrative and how they want to use their characters, and can likely avoid some of the mistakes that Sonic Team can't seem to figure out what they're doing wrong, such as them making a new character every single title instead of finding places and making use of the ones they continue to neglect, and add some grey into the black and white mentality of how to write a Sonic narrative.

 

Of course, that's not a guarantee of getting what I think would be a good idea.

 

So, at the moment, with Ian aside as far as the games are concerned, BRB writers actually sound like they have a better grasp of the characters than Sonic Team does in terms of writing. So I wouldn't mind it. But I'd say we can do somewhat better.

[Salamander]

Impossible to judge competently until Boom is actually out.  With that said, it's not like Sonic Team doesn't have good writers.  Black Knight's story and characterisation get a lot of praise, and what I've seen of Unleashed works really well for me too.  The problem is that Sonic Team decided that the games shouldn't have a plot any more, so all that talent has gone to waste.

[KingIgort]

Sonic Team don't have a grasp of their own characters? 

 

Colours through to Lost World have been pretty much perfection as far as I'm concerned when regarding their story: no melodramatic nonsense, simpler plots with the odd funny moment here or there. It's exactly what the series needs right now, I think.

 

All in all, I think a better idea would be to split the control between Sonic Team and a head writer who utilitarian has a great inside depth to the fandom's desires and the stuff the gaming media says about the writing. 

 

I don't think any writer should ever pander to their audience, especially not one as finicky as the Sonic fandom. 

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

I don't think any writer should ever pander to their audience, especially not one as finicky as the Sonic fandom. 

 

One who can deliver on good ideas from both the fandom and the gaming media, while ignoring the self-centered nonsense that comes out of both factions mouths (including the factions of the fandom).

Yeah, I'm pretty sure I had that part covered, dude...

[Vertekins]

Like a number of sentiments already stated in this topic, I don't feel qualified to comment on this yet because I haven't seen everything these BRB writers have to present to me. I am however taken-aback in a bad way by the stupidification of Knuckles and the positive discrimination-esque screwing-around with Amy's mannerisms.

 

In general though, I've yet to see any writer in any aspect of the Sonic franchise top Shiro Maekawa. He doesn't need replacing.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

In general though, I've yet to see any writer in any aspect of the Sonic franchise top Shiro Maekawa. He doesn't need replacing.

To my knowledge, he's done SA2 and Heroes.

 

Not trying to be rude, but unless there's something else you know that I don't as far as his writing goes (I take it he also wrote Black Knight too?), I actually think we can easily top that.

[Vertekins]

To my knowledge, he's done SA2 and Heroes.

 

Not trying to be rude, but unless there's something else you know that I don't as far as his writing goes (I take it he also wrote Black Knight too?), I actually think we can easily top that.

 

I was originally under the impression that Yasushi Otake wrote the Storybook games. Turned out Maekawa did and he has a firm grasp of character, especially of Sonic's.

 

I think Pontac and Ken's first two efforts were very weak (Specifically Colours and Gens) but thought SLW, whilst having a number of shortcomings narrative-wise was a definite improvement and I still think Sonic in particular was portrayed very well in it. I certainly don't think Flynn should be allowed any reign over a Sonic game narrative simply because I don't think he's a particularly good writer.

[KingIgort]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure I had that part covered, dude...

 

That's kind of a cop-out response though.

 

How do you decide what is or isn't worthwhile criticisms from the fanbase? Where do they draw that line? By doing so do they risk alienating a large chunk of their fanbase by coming out and admitting they're listening to criticism, but just going ahead and ignoring most of them anyway? Isn't that what got us into this mess in the first place? Sonic Team "neglecting" most of the extended cast of characters, something mentioned in one of your earlier posts, is very much because a subset of Sonic fans hated them.

 

It honestly doesn't matter what Sonic Team decide to do because people will always give them slack for it. It's better for Sonic Team to keep doing what they're doing rather than deciding to please certain divisions of the fandom with any given game, a fandom that has no real right to be upset because a new game doesn't fit an arbitrary list of rules they decided every Sonic game needs to have. 

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

That's kind of a cop-out response though.

 

How do you decide what is or isn't worthwhile criticisms from the fanbase? Where do they draw that line? By doing so do they risk alienating a large chunk of their fanbase by coming out and admitting they're listening to criticism, but just going ahead and ignoring most of them anyway? Isn't that what got us into this mess in the first place? Sonic Team "neglecting" most of the extended cast of characters, something mentioned in one of your earlier posts, is very much because a subset of Sonic fans hated them.

How do you decide what is or isn't worthwhile criticisms from the fandom? How about by reading the criticisms and see if they're trying to offer improvement in a constructive way or if it's nothing more than childish ranting about stuff they don't like? Is it really that hard to notice the difference?

 

You call it a cop-out response, but it's like you're not even bothering to find answers to your own questions while looking at them so black and white. Can you not tell the difference between a constructive response and one that's just simple complaining?

 

For example, if someone were to give constructive criticism vs ranting for Colors:

Constructive criticism - I can see where the plot was going with a more lighthearted approach, which isn't bad, but the script seems a bit off and a little too joke heavy, especially during the scenes where Sonic is talking to the bosses that don't respond back. It would probably help if the bosses were actually throwing banter right back at Sonic, which would make the scene feel less empty.

 

Ranting "criticism" - Colors just tries too hard to be silly when it really isn't. All it is is nothing more than "Someone order an extra clobbering" and Sonic just standing there talking nonsense. My god this story is terrible. Would it kill them to actually write a good story? (or even - This is why Sonic shouldn't have a story, because they always suck!)

 

The constructive one is something they should keep an ear open on, the ranting they should just ignore. And no, not all of them will be listened to, but it helps that they can actually show some measure of listening and differentiating through responses they get to try and remember that for their next titles if they can.

 

And part of the whole reason we're in this current mess in the first place is partly because Sonic Team goes too far in extremes in dealing with the problems and don't seem to do much analysis over figuring out what they screwed up on and figuring out how to improve and fix their mistakes, and simply don't bother trying to deal with them. Meanwhile, in the past, their lack of care to these things is what lead to this current problem, such as with the characters, with them having either been flanderized or poorly written which led to people hating them, and their neglect not just in their presence, but also in any attempt to improve the character's faults to make them better.

 

And while there are moments where some fans will be alienated, a lot of it has to do with them being so single-minded that they can't seem to comprehend or accept any solutions different from their own even if, or especially if, it would result in taking away aspects that other fans like that they do not, hence them being self-centered. And when it comes to these kind of fans, ones who would want something gone, regardless of other people's liking in it, I don't think we should bother entertaining these people since they can't seem to tolerate others liking something they don't. So if it alienates them, then so be it.

 

 

 

It honestly doesn't matter what Sonic Team decide to do because people will always give them slack for it. It's better for Sonic Team to keep doing what they're doing rather than deciding to please certain divisions of the fandom with any given game, a fandom that has no real right to be upset because a new game doesn't fit an arbitrary list of rules they decided every Sonic game needs to have.

Except, I'm not asking for them to adhere to a list of rules to based on certain divisions of the fandom. Just to simply keep an ear open and see if they can try to make room for any potential good ideas or criticisms that come from them, while differentiating that from the childish ranting from other sides.

 

I'd rather Sonic Team have rhino skin when it comes to criticism, while also being a lot more competent than they have been. And it isn't better for them to keep doing what their doing without at least keeping an ear open to such criticism, because it's that lackadaisical approach that risks leading them to another Sonic 06, which I'm pretty sure is something near-universal for everyone to want to be avoided.

[Kuzu]

Here's an idea, how about instead of clamoring for one or a few specific writers, the ones we know collab with each other to make something far better?

[Solkia]

What would this change exactly? Going from one type of shitty writing to more shitty writing to even more shitty writing?

 

Sonic needs a writer that knows what the fuck they're doing and has a reputation on that note. And even then I'm not so sure that'd help if the famous Pontac can't fucking do it right.

[Kuzu]

What would this change exactly? Going from one type of shitty writing to more shitty writing to even more shitty writing?

 

Sonic needs a writer that knows what the fuck they're doing and has a reputation on that note. And even then I'm not so sure that'd help if the famous Pontac can't fucking do it right.

 

Your faith in the series writing in the past is astounding :V

[Solkia]

The only time I can think of a well-written Sonic game is Black Knight, if only because it had a nice balance of humor and plot with no bullshit to drown in. And even then mixing Sonic with the King Arthur verse is a fucking stupid idea.

 

Colors is held in such high regard but all I've fucking seen from that game is one-shot jokes and boring conversations.

 

So yeah, I'm a little tired of writing in Sonic games. Just a tiny bit.