Pontaff Retrospective: What's Up with all the Hate?

[azoo]

That and the dialogue being not as cringeworthy to listen to overall means his recent characterization is a definite step up IMO.

IDK, I find the new stuff just as cringeworthy (in it's own way), what with all the hokey writing and awful jokes. 

Granted I think Fake Hedgehog is overdoing the heckaroni out of it and that nothing about the 4Kids cast nor anything from past Adventure 2 up to this point was something to write home about, so I feel like we're comparing bad to bad (or bad to worse, possibly). Adventure and Adventure 2 aren't much of any good either, and to call them very complex characters is an extreme stretch, but I didn't find very many problems with the characterization in those games at all, especially Adventure.

And yeah I do think they should focus more on Sonic's more interesting traits instead of painting him as perfect, but... not like this...

But you're making the assumption that the characters were written for the environment, while I would assume that the environment was written for the characters. The characters should be constant, the environments varying.

You're also making the assumption that Pontac and Graff were somehow forced to water down the characters and dialogue to suit the story which doesnt make sense to me. The personalities of the characters aren't inherently affected by the adventure they're on. Going from collecting Chaos emeralds and battling evil dopplegangers, to rescuing aliens in a space amusement park doesn't turn a cheeky and laid-back, heroic vigilante of action into a lame, sarcastic and arrogant, self-depreciating loud-mouth. Sonic has had many different writers but his characters remained very solid in personality from Adventure up to Black Knight.

And yeah, this Pontac guy said he "read wikipedia and watched a couple cutscenes".

Look, dude.

I know you're upset about the series not being like how it was with the 4Kids cast in and all, but you're really just making a big deal out of things that aren't only their fault. How can you not see that Pontac/Graff have said several times that they don't have complete control over how the stories are written? Considering the safe track Sega's stuck to in recent years, you may recognize that it's connected to their decided presentation for the games as of recent, and not just because they decided to pick these guys to write for them. And sure, I don't like them, but I sure as hell don't like who preceded them, and I can see that it's not their fault completely for how all this has blown out.

Also, did you just call Sonic a "vigilante"? What?

It all just feels like your arguments are overblown and ridiculously biased to one side over the other, instead of actually looking at things from a more healthy perspective, to say.

 

Edited October 3, 2015 by Azoo

[Salamander]

...so... you could care less if the gameplay sucks as long as the story is up to par? Or are you saying you don't care what the gameplay is?

I just- I don't understand this at all. It's a video game. How do you not care about the gameplay? It's the most important part of the game by definition.

The term "video game" has always been pretty inadequate; things like text adventure games have been around from the start and have always been far more about immersion in the world and navigation through a narrative than the gameplay, which exists simply as a mechanic for alternating freedom and confusion.  As vehicles for narratives, it's not just the fact of being interactive that separates video games from something like a movie or a book; the length and pacing can be completely different, the presentation of plot.  At the extreme ends of each, it's almost hard to distinguish video games from purely narrative mediums at all - certainly if we're looking at something like hypertext fiction versus visual novels, movies versus cinematic games.  The term "game" covers a multitude of sins, and games where narrative is far more important than a gameplay that's just a navigational tool have always existed.  As such, it's always been perfectly legitimate to be introduced to games as a vehicle for storytelling and world immersion over convoluted input methods for stalling progression; it's simply a matter of genre.  There's really no right or wrong way to enjoy a game.

[Mauro Fonseca]

For that reason, we can probably assume that at some point the TV show might've also been based on the gameverse.

Just a side note to offer- the fact that Orbot and Cubot look the same, are important for the TV show, and only characters who were important for the game got redesigned, lends credence to this and I always thought so.

 

EDIT: FFWF - on the other hand, Sonic is not a text adventure.

 

EDIT EDIT: Christ I worded that awfully.

 

Ok, what I meant was this. People always found it weird Orbot and Cubot were not redesigned. I offer they weren't because the show never planned to redesign anyone and was planned from the start to work with the normal Sonic designs, or at most do its own thing. The "Boomification" of it was made by BigRedButton, who were uninterested in Orbot and Cubot. Therefore, those two stand as artifacts of a previous point of visual development in the franchise.

Edited October 3, 2015 by The KKM

[KoDaiko]

Just making sure, was the writers before Pontaff all Japanese? I didn't like Sonic Rivals and Dark Chronicles either, and those were done by Canada if I remember correctly. I hated those game because they made most of Sonic and his friends out of character. At least to me it was.

[Kuzu]

I felt that after 06, the writers took the complaint about Sonic being worthless too close to heart and ended up going in the opposite direction and made him too good. Now don't get me wrong, I feel they did a better job in regards to action and all that compared to what we have now, but a lot of it in Unleashed and Black Knight felt like there wasn't any kind of consequence to how others could see Sonic. Basically, Sonic is the Übermensch, and everyone loves him for it. Fans like to point out how killing King Arthur is a sign of how rebellious and edgy he is, but I doubt anyone outside of the Knights of the Round would care because Arthur was a huge dick. Or how about putting his mission to become a knight at risk by saving the people from a dragon? Nope, it was all a part of the test. Or maybe when after fleeing the castle after Merlina takes the scabbard and the Knights are distraught about how everything they knew was a lie and Sonic basically tells them to get over it? Hey, let's follow the guy who just insulted our feelings.

And then Unleashed has the whole "too good to lose yourself" deal. Even against a natural force of darkness, Sonic's endless determination to be himself still stands strong!

... barf.

Hey, I never said those stories were perfect, just more serviceable than what we currently have...but yea, I love Black Knight and all, but I can't deny its a bit much for Sonic to show up in an unknown land and basically show everyone up. That is definitely pushing the boundaries from "extremely competent" to "too perfect" so  I can understand that criticism.

[Wraith]

They technically didn't do this until Lost World if you wanna be anal, and you already know my feelings on that game's execution. But I understand, but let's keep in mind that Sonic is still the main character, so he's...kind of required to be more special than every else by proxy. But I do think he generally suffers enough setbacks to not be considered "perfect"  most of the time, so this is probably why I don't have much an issue with it.

I can understand not liking Lost World's story . There's a ton of things wrong with it. Sonic was just closer to the character I've always wanted him to be in it, though.  

And yeah, he does suffer the occasional setback sometimes, but a lot of the time it's not his fault. I guess there's that bit in SA2 where he tried to fake Eggman out, but Eggman saw it coming long before that point. It was more the Dr being clever than anything Sonic did or didn't do. I feel like it ends up that way a lot of the time, with the only time I can think of outside of Lost World was when Sonic stops to run his mouth long enough for Eggman to trap him in Unleashed. Very good moment for both characters. Eggman exploit's Sonic's flaws to to get his plan going. They pretty much stop caring as far as the writing goes after that, though. 

 

IDK, I find the new stuff just as cringeworthy (in it's own way), what with all the hokey writing and awful jokes. 

Granted I think Fake Hedgehog is overdoing the heckaroni out of it and that nothing about the 4Kids cast nor anything from past Adventure 2 up to this point was something to write home about, so I feel like we're comparing bad to bad (or bad to worse, possibly). Adventure and Adventure 2 aren't much of any good either, and to call them very complex characters is an extreme stretch, but I didn't find very many problems with the characterization in those games at all, especially Adventure.

And yeah I do think they should focus more on Sonic's more interesting traits instead of painting him as perfect, but... not like this...

 

I guess it's a matter of taste, then. Something about the old games make the characters not really sound natural at all to me. Not sure if it was the writing or the sometimes awful voice direction or a combination of the two.

 I think Adventure is...alright as far as characterization goes. It's kind of weird that in a game  focused on developing all the characters to a certain degree in each story, Sonic basically gets none, and Knuckles isn't really that much better off from where he started either, but the stuff with Tails, Gamma and Amy especially were great. Consistently poor dialogue and performance brings the whole thing down, though. 

I also don't think the new stuff is perfect either. It's not that much better, but Sonic's never really been good in the story department in the first place, so I just don't really expect much. I just think it's weird how hard people are trying to argue that this is a significant downgrade. It's actually better in some ways, to me. .

 

[Bowbowis]

 

Where is this coming from? Why do people think Knuckles's intelligence took a sudden drop when he's never actually been all that smart in the first place? From being randomly tricked by Eggman in SA1 to freaking out and crashing the rocket in SA2. He's even been the source of comic relief in a lot of these games before now. 

Because it did? Sure Knuckles was often ignorant (lacking knowledge) in certain areas, but he was not stupid (lacking intelligence). That's an important distinction to make because the difference between the two is vast. To wit:

Knowledge/Ignorance: These terms refer to what a person does or does not know about a topic, as well as how much they know in general. Knuckles life of isolation is occasionally shown to make him ignorant of things such as technology and his poor people skills make it difficult for him to know when someone is deceiving him. That said he has areas where he's quite knowledgeable as well; he's also shown to be well up in history and anthropology (which is to be expected of a treasure hunter who's spent 15 years of his life with nothing to to for entertainment but read whatever surviving documents remain on Angel Island), and quite possibly knows more about the Chaos/Master Emeralds than anyone else on the planet.

Intelligence/Stupidity: These by contrast refer to an individual's capacity to learn new things and their ability to assess a situation and react appropriately. Knuckles never had a problem with either, Knuckles' skill at laying traps in S3&K demonstrates some level of strategic thinking, he's repeatedly shown to be capable of thinking on his feet (case in point shattering the ME to keep it out of Eggman's hands in SA2), and he's never seen having any problems taking in new information or learning new skills such as Extreme Gear riding or space shuttle piloting (because whether he nearly crashed in a panic or not he managed to get the damn thing into orbit, which is no mean feat; especially when you consider that the UI on one of those things looks like this).

So to summarize: Knuckles is ignorant in some areas, knowledgeable in others, but he's sure as shit not stupid.

Edited October 3, 2015 by Bowbowis
Fixed link

[Fake Hedgehog]

 

...so... you could care less if the gameplay sucks as long as the story is up to par? Or are you saying you don't care what the gameplay is?

I just- I don't understand this at all. It's a video game. How do you not care about the gameplay? It's the most important part of the game by definition.

 Many, many fans of the series became interested in Sonic watching one of his TV shows or Youtube AMVs, etc. It comes as no surprise that such people care more about Sonic as a narrative and cast of cool characters, and less as a videogame. I am one such of these people.

I like good games. Games are fun. 

But good gameplay isn't what attracted me to the series, so if a Sonic game that has a good story and portrays the characters in the way I like, I still consider it a good product.

However, if a Sonic game has a terrible story and portrays the characters in a way I dont like, I do not consider it a good product. This is the turn the modern games have taken.

I like good gameplay, and will play a fun game, I care more about good writing and enjoyable story and will  quickly excuse sub-par gameplay in the presence of it.

If you actually think the 4kids actors were better than the ones we have now, you need to go back and give those games another listen. The only character I'd say who's new voice wasn't a significant improvement is Amy. 

Why would Knuckles still be mad at Sonic? When was their rivalry shown to still be a thing? In Sonic Adventure where he only attacked him after a misunderstanding? In Sonic Adventure 2 where the two don't even really conflict with eachother outside of the occasional "Knucklehead" jab from Sonic? Heroes where they all work together without any issues? 

I'm...pretty sure they were on good terms after Sonic 3.

 

I'd understand what you were saying if Sonic wasn't still consistently going out of his way to do the right thingu  and save people in the newer games. He still is, so the whole "justice" thing is still there. Still stubborn as hell too. Nothing about him has really changed. Like Ragna said, he just takes things less seriously now. 

And honestly if Tails had stayed a meek, shy little kid for the entire series without maturing at all I'd be annoyed. He doesn't even have those traits outside of the first Adventure game. After that he's fine acting on his own and can build mechs on par with Eggman. Of course he's not innocent or shy anymore. Why would he be? He's more confident in his abilities than ever and it makes sense for him to be that way.   

4Kids actors are the One True Portrayals.

Sonic and Knuckles relationship has always been a rivalry, big-timing and one-upping eachother. I dont know what I or anyone else can tell you if you dont agree with this.

I dont know what I can tell you if you think Sonic's personality "barely changed" from Secret Rings and Black Knight, to Colors and Lost World.

It's not necessary for Tails to go through the same development in every game. It is necessary to he retain the child-like qualities that define his character and his relationship to Sonic. Like in SA2. And Heroes, and 06, and Sonic X, etc. and etc.

 

[Mauro Fonseca]

I'll try very hard to contain myself and just warn you that when talking about Sonic, it's a good idea to avoid the expression "One True" anything

EDIT: Actually the expression I was thinking of was "true and honest" but it's still pretty similar in tone

point is don't

 

Anyways, why exactly is the idea of a character too willful to lose himself barf-worthy? We could stand to be shown the negative side of being that willful (which hey, guess what SLoW was trying to do), but I'll certainly take it over yet another OH NO THE DR JEKYLL?????? YOU MUST LEARN 2 CONTROL THE WEREHOG SANIC cliché.

Edited October 3, 2015 by The KKM

[Nepenthe]

They wouldn't have needed to done a Jekyll and Hyde. The fact that he's Sonic except hilariously fluffier is the whole point of the appeal. However, I think it would've been a feather in the cap of his friendship with Chip and a note about Sonic's own fallibility had he been right in his assumption that Chip was protecting him from being entirely possessed and weird-acting without them really knowing. Or to have him act weird anyway! This wouldn't necessarily mean being aggressive either- the effects on the possessed NPCs made their personalities vary wildly from fear to apathy to hotheadedness to forgetfulness.

Or focus more on his apparent self-esteem issues over being unrecognizable and scary over the course of the game.

Something other than "He's Jesus."

[Fake Hedgehog]

Its not like Sonic is kicking puppies and swearing profanities, that's morphing his character

no. if that was the case then y'all would still be talking about "he's supposed to be rude" 

 

I know you're upset about the series not being like how it was with the 4Kids cast in and all, but you're really just making a big deal out of things that aren't only their fault. How can you not see that Pontac/Graff have said several times that they don't have complete control over how the stories are written? Considering the safe track Sega's stuck to in recent years, you may recognize that it's connected to their decided presentation for the games as of recent, and not just because they decided to pick these guys to write for them. And sure, I don't like them, but I sure as hell don't like who preceded them, and I can see that it's not their fault completely for how all this has blown out.

Also, did you just call Sonic a "vigilante"? What?

It all just feels like your arguments are overblown and ridiculously biased to one side over the other, instead of actually looking at things from a more healthy perspective, to say.

 

 Sonic is a vigilante. What else would he be?

Im not saying SEGA isnt behind the change aswell. Im saying

 

1. There HAS been a shift in the way Sonic characters are portrayed

2. This shift HAS been massive and for the worse

and 3. The shift is temporary, and was only a litmus test for Boom

[Mauro Fonseca]

But he is Jesus, as far as the story's concerned. He's the ideal of individualism taken to the extreme. Why neuter that at all? They could've done a bit more comedy about him going "oh man I'm fluffy now", but the whole point is that he wouldn't care, so you really can't push it much more than the game already did, I don't think. Otherwise you lose the whole idea of, pretty much, "he's so stubborn he's unaffected".

 

Also

@FakeHedgehog - saying Sonic is a vigilante implies a proactive-ness on his part that doesn't exist. He doesn't actively search for evil to fight, he just fights any evil he may happen to find. Not really a vigilante.

 

EDIT: I suppose at most, in the case of the Werehog, you could've pushed for more scenes of OTHERS reacting to it- not Sonic himself, though, I really don't think.

Edited October 3, 2015 by The KKM

[Wraith]

Because it did? Sure Knuckles was often ignorant (lacking knowledge) in certain areas, but he was not stupid (lacking intelligence). That's an important distinction to make because the difference between the two is vast. To wit:

Knowledge/Ignorance: These terms refer to what a person does or does not know about a topic, as well as how much they know in general. Knuckles life of isolation is occasionally shown to make him ignorant of things such as technology and his poor people skills make it difficult for him to know when someone is deceiving him. That said he has areas where he's quite knowledgeable as well; he's also shown to be well up in history and anthropology (which is to be expected of a treasure hunter who's spent 15 years of his life with nothing to to for entertainment but read whatever surviving documents remain on Angel Island), and quite possibly knows more about the Chaos/Master Emeralds than anyone else on the planet.

Intelligence/Stupidity: These by contrast refer to an individual's capacity to learn new things and their ability to assess a situation and react appropriately. Knuckles never had a problem with either, Knuckles' skill at laying traps in S3&K demonstrates some level of strategic thinking, he's repeatedly shown to be capable of thinking on his feet (case in point shattering the ME to keep it out of Eggman's hands in SA2), and he's never seen having any problems taking in new information or learning new skills such as Extreme Gear riding or space shuttle piloting (because whether he nearly crashed in a panic or not he managed to get the damn thing into orbit, which is no mean feat; especially when you consider that the UI on one of those things looks like this).

So to summarize: Knuckles is ignorant in some areas, knowledgeable in others, but he's sure as shit not stupid.

Knuckles isn't stupid, no, but if you consider the fact that the crew is rarely put into a situation where the few areas Knuckles is actually an expert in to begin with wouldn't actually be any help(Their problems since Sonic Adventure have been a space station, a rogue robot, aliens, an ancient monster from a culture Knuckles naturally wouldn't know anything about, Dark Gaia, which he probably should have known a thing or two about, but with Unleashed being Unleashed, he doesn't evens how up, a space carnival, a space time monster thing that nobody really knew anything about, and more aliens respectively.) Knuckles isn't gonna have much of a say on how any of this stuff works like Tails or Eggman would, so they play up his ignorance and hotheadedness instead. 

 

 

 4Kids actors are the One True Portrayals.

Maybe to you. Not to the vast majority, though. 

Sonic and Knuckles relationship has always been a rivalry, big-timing and one-upping eachother. I dont know what I or anyone else can tell you if you dont agree with this.

I already gave you a bunch of actual examples in the games that prove this isn't really the case. At most, they take jabs at eachother but they've been working together with little issues since SA2.

I dont know what I can tell you if you think Sonic's personality "barely changed" from Secret Rings and Black Knight, to Colors and Lost World.

Are you even going to try and argue? Again I explained why I think he's mostly the same with examples but you just brush the argument off again. 

 

It's not necessary for Tails to go through the same development in every game. It is necessary to he retain the child-like qualities that define his character and his relationship to Sonic. Like in SA2. And Heroes, and 06, and Sonic X, etc. and etc.

 

But...why though? Why wouldn't the way he views Sonic change after he gets more confident in himself after the Adventure games? Should we just keep it that way because the japanese bio says so?

 

 

[azoo]

I guess it's a matter of taste, then. Something about the old games make the characters not really sound natural at all to me. Not sure if it was the writing or the sometimes awful voice direction or a combination of the two.

 I think Adventure is...alright as far as characterization goes. It's kind of weird that in a game  focused on developing all the characters to a certain degree in each story, Sonic basically gets none, and Knuckles isn't really that much better off from where he started either, but the stuff with Tails, Gamma and Amy especially were great. Consistently poor dialogue and performance brings the whole thing down, though. 

Well yeah, I wasn't really looking at character development as much as character portrayal in general for that game. Sonic's likeable, Tails is likeable, Knuckles is likeable, everyone really (even Big) is likeable, and they also sit in line with what we knew of them before in the classic games' descriptions through Sonic Jam (and sort of the OVA (minus Knuckles) too since it was supervised by the people behind all this), and I loved it for that. It felt mostly consistent.

Granted, yes, the dialogue and poor performances do make it pretty junky, which is why I've stated before that I'm pretty tired of defending these games because they're not perfect examples either. I just kinda liked a lot of traits to Sonic and everyone else's general personalities more in the older games, as well as their method of storytelling better than whatever we're getting now.

And it's not like they can't show other shades of these characters so that they feel more in line with what the series was before, nor that they couldn't do more interesting stories with them right now, but the fact that if they keep in the status quo like this I don't think they ever will step outside of what we're getting and do something a bit closer to what I (or we) would want.

And yeah I'm not necessarily looking for extreme character development in this series. Maybe in a cornerstone kind of game (like Adventure sort of was) where it's right to have some sort of turning point, but I don't think the characters need a lot of development. They all have their own constants that I think they should fill, but that doesn't mean you can't make interesting stories or situations around that. After all, all kinds of interesting stories are done with the Mario cast (Paper Mario games, Superstar Saga, etc) and they barely change.

Edited October 3, 2015 by Azoo

[Mauro Fonseca]

(and sort of the OVA (minus Knuckles) too since it was supervised by the people behind all this)

I dunno, I'd argue Knuckles' personality is consistent between OVA and Adventure too, it's just one is free to explore and the other isn't and thus is grumpy about it.

I'd need to freshen my memory on both to be certain though.

[Nepenthe]

But he is Jesus, as far as the story's concerned. He's the ideal of individualism taken to the extreme. Why neuter that at all? 

Because perfect people aren't real. Subsequently they're not all that interesting or empathetic as characters meant to take on the starring role of an entertainment vehicle.

[Mauro Fonseca]

Dunno, James Bond survived decades on it :V

I know current pop culture is big on European-esque realism blah blah blah or whatever but why not, for once, for one character, instead of neutering it, exploring their consequences? Taking this example, why have Sonic care about being a Werehog instead, of, say, Tails unnerved that Sonic doesn't care about Sonic being a Werehog? The entire selling point is that the twist in here is that Sonic's too willful to lose control, why would you want to remove that and be left with generic werewolfs?

It's not even that Sonic can't lose control in general, we had Darkspine and all, but in the specific case of the Werehog, why?

[Kuzu]

Dunno, James Bond survived decades on it :V

I know current pop culture is big on European-esque realism blah blah blah or whatever but why not, for once, for one character, instead of neutering it, exploring their consequences? Taking this example, why have Sonic care about being a Werehog instead, of, say, Tails unnerved that Sonic doesn't care about Sonic being a Werehog? The entire selling point is that the twist in here is that Sonic's too willful to lose control, why would you want to remove that and be left with generic werewolfs?

It's not even that Sonic can't lose control in general, we had Darkspine and all, but in the specific case of the Werehog, why?

Because when a character is afflicted with what's essentially a disease, I think their reaction should go beyond mild inconvenience. Its like not expecting a person to react negatively to getting cancer. 

Edited October 3, 2015 by Kuzu the Boloedge

[Nepenthe]

Dunno, James Bond survived decades on it :V

I know current pop culture is big on European-esque realism blah blah blah or whatever but why not, for once, for one character, instead of neutering it, exploring their consequences? Taking this example, why have Sonic care about being a Werehog instead, of, say, Tails unnerved that Sonic doesn't care about Sonic being a Werehog? The entire selling point is that the twist in here is that Sonic's too willful to lose control, why would you want to remove that and be left with generic werewolfs?

It's not even that Sonic can't lose control in general, we had Darkspine and all, but in the specific case of the Werehog, why?

European-esque realism? Humanity itself has been doing flawed and empathetic characters since storytelling was a thing. Framing it as a fad just undermines good fiction. Subsequently, why do you keep framing a character that's flawed like an actual human being as "neutered?"

Also, the story isn't about Tails' reactions. The story is about Sonic travelling with Chip to fix the world and himself, with him forming a bond with Chip in the process. Why change the entire viewpoint of the narrative just to justify framing Sonic in the most boring way imaginable? And on top of that, there was no real foreshadowing towards this "pure heart" nonsense. It's just a bullshit excuse thrown in at the last minute to answer a question the story hadn't been pressing since any answer wouldn't have actually changed the outcome of the plot anyway. There is nothing in the game's story that hinges on Sonic being incorruptible to work that couldn't have been just as easily addressed with Chip's bond keeping him sane. Literally nothing.

And in the case of the Werehog as a concept, we're told that Dark Gaia is basically the personification of darkness to the point that it literally exists only to destroy the world in a ritual Sonic couldn't even stop without help from the opposing God in the first place. The dosage of its power he got was enough to change his physical form and strip him of his normal powers, logically implying he was infected far more than the possessed NPCs whose only symptom was an actual personality change. So the fact that he's completely fine in the head doesn't make sense from the game's own logic, or at the very least it only serves to completely undermine Dark Gaia's status as an actual threat. On top of that, the use of a werewolf form at all is culturally loaded as fuck. It's literally a metaphor for losing control of one's self and of general negative behavior.

If the point is the game's story is that "Well, fuck Sonic has no flaws and is perfect and Holy" (I highly disagree with that), then he shouldn't have been turned into a werewolf in the first place. Seriously, as a diehard Werehog fan, if there were ever an argument for not including him at all in the game that I agreed with then you finally found the one to convince me that it was indeed a stupid fucking idea.

[Diogenes]

Anyways, why exactly is the idea of a character too willful to lose himself barf-worthy? We could stand to be shown the negative side of being that willful (which hey, guess what SLoW was trying to do), but I'll certainly take it over yet another OH NO THE DR JEKYLL?????? YOU MUST LEARN 2 CONTROL THE WEREHOG SANIC cliché.

I wouldn't have wanted him to go full Jekyll and Hyde, but he's just so fucking bland. We've got Sonic the Hedgehog, cocky, brash, devil-may-care, in a game called "Sonic Unleashed", where he gets pumped so full of evil juice that he even mutates...and the game is basically a sightseeing tour with his new buddy, and it turns out he's just too good and nice to ever do anything that might potentially be considered improper. Even packed full of elemental darkness he doesn't have even half the attitude I want out of normal Sonic.

If the game actually had a good baseline Sonic, and the question about the werehog was basically "is he on the edge of being corrupted, or is this just bringing to the forefront what was already there?", I'd be fine if the answer turned out to be "yeah he was always pretty much in control, because he's always lived with a wild side, no chumpy nightmare monster juice is going to change that" or something like that.

[Fake Hedgehog]

Are you even going to try and argue?

You claim that Sonic and Knuckles do not have an active rivalry.

You're claiming that Sonic's personality hasn't changed at all simply because what I'm citing as the bastardization of his character kinda-sorta falls under the same umbrella of the terms on his official character bio that his previous characterization did.

I saw your evidence but it seems to me that this is a matter of subjective vs objective, and we both believe we represent the latter. I dont know if you're just trolling, but there's nothing I can say that can change your mind.

[Nepenthe]

Sonic and Knuckles don't have an active rivalry though. They haven't had one since SA1 (or rather arguably at all, considering the basis of their fights hinged on a misunderstanding and not any actual alignment of personal goals to achieve before the other could which is what an actual rivalry is) outside of obvious competition vehicles where everyone is suddenly a rival to one another.

[Bowbowis]

We could stand to be shown the negative side of being that willful (which hey, guess what SLoW was trying to do), but I'll certainly take it over yet another OH NO THE DR JEKYLL??????

Actually Black Knight did kind of show how Sonic's determination could be something of a double edged sword, specifically in how he kept throwing himself at Merlina despite it being abundantly clear that he was thoroughly outmatched; Sonic just kept going, even once it reached the point where he could barely stand and the Knights of the Round Table were practically begging him to screw chivalry and run. Ultimately it did work to his advantage because his strong will reawakened Excalibur, but it's still pretty clear that, if not for that, Sonic would have kept going until Merlina inevitably killed him. So essentially Sonic's willfulness is a strength because it makes it so that he won't run away from a fight, and will find a way to win long after other heroes would have given up, but on the flip side it means that if he ever encounters a situation where there really is no way to win he'll still just keep throwing himself at the wall until he drops dead.

Edited October 3, 2015 by Bowbowis

[Kuzu]

You claim that Sonic and Knuckles do not have an active rivalry.

You're claiming that Sonic's personality hasn't changed at all simply because what I'm citing as the bastardization of his character kinda-sorta falls under the same umbrella of the terms on his official character bio that his previous characterization did.

I saw your evidence but it seems to me that this is a matter of subjective vs objective, and we both believe we represent the latter. I dont know if you're just trolling, but there's nothing I can say that can change your mind.

But Sonic & Knuckles haven't had an active rivalry for ages...they're fucking allies in Sonic Boom for goodness sakes.

[Wraith]

Actually Black Knight did kind of show how Sonic's determination could be something of a double edged sword, specifically in how he kept throwing himself at Merlina despite it being abundantly clear that he was thoroughly outmatched. Sonic just kept going, even once it reached the point where he could barely stand and the Knights of the Round Table were practically begging him to screw chivalry and run. Ultimately it did work to his advantage because his strong will reawakened Excalibur, but it's still pretty clear that if not for that Sonic would have kept going until Merlina inevitably killed him. So essentially Sonic's willfulness is a strength because it makes it so that he won't run away from a fight and will find a way to win long after other heroes would have given up, but on the flip side it means that if he ever encounters a situation where there really is no way to win he'll still just keep throwing himself at the wall until he drops dead.

I think you'd be right if he didn't revive Excalibur just from the sheer stubbornness alone. Like you said, it worked out for him in the end, so it's not like the game actually suggests he was wrong for doing that.

If they were going for that approach, they probably should have had that scene happen earlier when Merlina first transforms. Sonic charges her over and over again despite everyone telling him not to. Caliburn breaks as a result and Sonic gets beaten up, resulting in the knights having to go and pull him out of the situation. Then they leave to find a way to fix/power up Caliburn. Sonic comes back later actually ready for the fight, leading to the final boss.