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

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

1 hour ago, Detective Paradox said:

I really don't get how consoles affect the plot of a video game...

He seems to have forgotten that Pontac and Graff did the writing for Generations which wasn't even a nintendo exclusive.

@Chris your notion that Pontaff presence = Nintendo exclusivity for arbitrary reasons,  kinda already gets blown out of the water when that big flaw in your argument is elucidated.

 

[Chris Knopps]

11 minutes ago, Jovahexeon Joranvexeon said:

He seems to have forgotten that Pontac and Graff did the writing for Generations which wasn't even a nintendo exclusive.

@Chris your notion that Pontaff presence = Nintendo exclusivity for arbitrary reasons,  kinda already gets blown out of the water when that big flaw in your argument is elucidated.

 

You... Did see the part where I mention I felt plot was half the reason the game didn't surpass 2M sales despite bringing Classic back and being multi-console, right...? Gotta read my whole comment my friend. I brought that up as well, so no I haven't forgotten a thing.

Yeah the game play is fun, but... What else is there to really draw you into it? To immerse yourself into it? Sure it's good for a random replay for City Escape or Green Hill, some Sky Sanctuary too on a rainy day but it's not really... Captivating, after a few plays. The game's pretty, sure, snazzy remixes, but not really... I dunno... Worth remembering in the long run asides the fact it brought Classic back.

And in general his writing has = Nintendo exclusivity with Generations being the only exception until Lost World escaped the exclusive deal and got on PC... Which... How HAVE sales of it gone since arriving on PC?

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

 

16 minutes ago, Chris Knopps said:

You... Did see the part where I mention I felt plot was half the reason the game didn't surpass 2M sales despite bringing Classic back and being multi-console, right...? Gotta read my whole comment my friend. I brought that up as well, so no I haven't forgotten a thing.Y

*Sigh* Chris, you're doing the needlessly high and mighty shtick defensive trick again. Of course I read your entire post.  The objection was still given based on the fact that you have no solid nor strong evidence to support your notion that the plot would correlate so heavily with sales and whichever consoles games came out.

 

23 minutes ago, Chris Knopps said:

 

Yeah the game play is fun, but... What else is there to really draw you into it? To immerse yourself into it? Sure it's good for a random replay for City Escape or Green Hill, some Sky Sanctuary too on a rainy day but it's not really... Captivating, after a few plays. The game's pretty, sure, snazzy remixes, but not really... I dunno... Worth remembering in the long run asides the fact it brought Classic back.

It sound more like one has a problem with the overall longevity of Sonic Generations as oppossed to just primarily the writing and story. Generations is many things, but shortness is quite possibly its great weakness. Often what garners an immersive Sonic experience as top priority is solid gameplay and a sufficient amount of levels (with a hint of exploration i.e multiple paths) for replay-ability. Like with Colors; loads of players got a lot of mileage out of that game, with its branching paths, hidden goodies, alternative routes, and challenges to get the better ranks. Heck, some levels even had multiple goal rings that you'd access by finding different paths and maneuvers. A hub of bonus rounds and whatnot, are what help make Colors as replayable and still renowned overall for providing a satisfactory experience.

Generations in comparison, while refining the boost formula, unfortunately, doesn't go nearly the amount of lengths. That might have something more to do with it not drawing in quite as much as Colors.

Now that's not to say a Sonic game shouldn't try to have narratives, but  story, lest it be the likes of 06, is one of the last things expected to have such a powerful effect on sales in a Sonic game.

[Chris Knopps]

1 minute ago, Jovahexeon Joranvexeon said:

 

*Sigh* Chris, you're doing the needlessly high and mighty shtick defensive trick again. Of course I read your entire post.  The objection was still given based on the fact that you have no solid nor strong evidence to support your notion that the plot would correlate so heavily with sales and whichever consoles games came out.

Now that's not to say a Sonic game shouldn't try to have narratives, but  story, lest it be the likes of 06, is one of the last things expected to have such a powerful effect on sales in a Sonic game.

I felt you were nit picking my comment, just wanted to make sure.

And really? Why not bring up a story the likes of Unleashed or Black Knight or perhaps the SA titles or something instead of the typical 06 thing? I mean, yeah its story was given great importance, but so was the story of Unleashed and the others I mentioned and they did extraordinarily well in the end, heck, praised to this day depending on the person/group.

...Seriously, the whole "direct to 06" thing, isn't it old yet? It has been ten years and it's still the go-to thing. O_o

[lala24]

7 hours ago, Detective Paradox said:

 

Come on guys, remember this?

When the fine bros try to sue you

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

1 minute ago, Chris Knopps said:

...Seriously, the whole "direct to 06" thing, isn't it old yet? It has been ten years and it's still the go-to thing. O_o

40 minutes ago, Chris Knopps said:

 

And now you're trying to make it look like I'm one who says that we shouldn't have a story on the likes of the actual good Sonic stories because of 06. When in reality, all I said was that it would take a story as impactful as that of Sonic 06's to really impact the sales as you claim they do.

For your information, I actually rather like it when Sonic stories are bold enough, akin to the Adventure games, Unleashed, Secret Rings, Black Knight, etc, so don't go making an assumption on ME when I haven;t said anything that would logically even suggest I'm with the crowd that just uses 06 lazily as a scapegoat.

[Chris Knopps]

4 minutes ago, Jovahexeon Joranvexeon said:

And now you're trying to make it look like I'm one who says that we shouldn't have a story on the likes of the actual good Sonic stories because of 06. When in reality, all I said was that it would take a story as impactful as that of Sonic 06's to really impact the sales as you claim they do.

For your information, I actually rather like it when Sonic stories are bold enough, akin to the Adventure games, Unleashed, Secret Rings, Black Knight, etc, so don't go making an assumption on ME when I haven;t said anything that would logically even suggest I'm with the crowd that just uses 06 lazily as a scapegoat.

No... I'm not.

I'm fully aware you were referring to the magnitude of 06's story which is why I brought up others with the same, or close to it, magnitude of story that would be better suited as an example rather than 06, which if you want to bring up a reference in a positive light, isn't the best to pick.

I'm not assuming anything nor have I said anything to point you out in such a way.

That said, I do agree with your stance on longevity being an issue with Generations as well, with that being a complaint of mine alongside the story.

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

2 minutes ago, Chris Knopps said:

No... I'm not.

I'm fully aware you were referring to the magnitude of 06's story which is why I brought up others with the same, or close to it, magnitude of story that would be better suited as an example rather than 06, which if you want to bring up a reference in a positive light, isn't the best to pick.

I'm not assuming anything nor have I said anything to point you out in such a way.

In that case, your response, unless just the first section was your response to my post you quoted, doesn't make any sense, if you're questioning me on that grounds of the middle and last part.

[Chris Knopps]

Just now, Jovahexeon Joranvexeon said:

In that case, your response, unless just the first section was your response to my post you quoted, doesn't make any sense, if you're questioning me on that grounds of the middle and last part.

That comment confuses me...

I'll repeat that my intention was not an accusation of you using 06 negatively or anything, but to give better examples of games with the same story depth/importance/magnitude as 06 had, since 06 is usually a fuel on the fire issue and generally used in a negative light.

[shdowhunt60]

This whole Sonic shouldn't have a narrative thing is kind of baffling since narrative has been a part of Sonic since the beginning. That's what sold the series.

As for the subject of Pontac and Graff, the story that Pontac gave was that he was hired on, because he had a cousin inside SEGA. That's one reason, but no one thing happens for one reason. Really, they could've been brought on for a number of reasons.

I think SEGA had the best intentions. A lot of the sentiment prior to 2010 was that the Japanese writers in the series were out of touch for the Western audience. And this is somewhat true, I think. Even with the best of Sonic stories by Maekawa, I could never connect with Sonic as a person. That's why I think that surrogates like Chip, Merlina, and, yes, Princess Elise and Chris Thorndyke were constantly being brought in, because we were meant to have a sympathetic connection with them, and never Sonic. And that's something that's always bothered me.

With Western writers, even horribly flawed writers like Ken Penders wanted you to sympathize with Sonic himself, they wanted to portray Sonic as a person. I think a lot of that has to do with some cultural disconnects between the Japanese and the West, and one possible explanation that Roger van der Weide suggested that the Japanese don't really connect with characters that don't resemble themselves on both a physical and social level, and Sonic doesn't really fit that at all.

I think another thing has to do with the simple fact that Sonic dialogue has always been incredibly awkward thanks to the fact that they were taking a Japanese script and directly translating it to English. Having a script team that could pound out a natural English dialogue while using the basic framework of the story laid out by Sonic Team's internal writers could be a solution to that.

The problem is, is ultimately that of communication. Pontac and Graff were given absolutely no information to work off of. They ultimately had no idea what it is that they were writing, and were left to fill in the blanks on their own. And doing that to an legacy franchise with established characters and a dedicated fanbase... Is a terrible idea.

In addition, Pontac and Graff are both square pegs and SEGA's trying to pound them into circle holes. Aside from Mad World, they have no real video game writing experience. And they especially don't have experience writing an action adventure series. Their experience, and where they fit in, is with visual humor. That's what they're good at. They're not good at writing Sonic. That's factual at this point. Everything they've done at this point in the series has ranged from mediocre to downright fucking awful. You know, I earlier ran into this:

This is a comic that Ken Pontac is working on. And honestly, given what he's worked on before, I can see this being absolutely write up his alley. This is Pontac's element right here. I honestly might just get it this May just to see if I'm exactly right, and this actually ends up entertaining. It seriously wouldn't surprise me.

 

[Chris Knopps]

9 minutes ago, shdowhunt60 said:

I think SEGA had the best intentions. A lot of the sentiment prior to 2010 was that the Japanese writers in the series were out of touch for the Western audience. And this is somewhat true, I think. Even with the best of Sonic stories by Maekawa, I could never connect with Sonic as a person. That's why I think that surrogates like Chip, Merlina, and, yes, Princess Elise and Chris Thorndyke were constantly being brought in, because we were meant to have a sympathetic connection with them, and never Sonic. And that's something that's always bothered me.

 

I agree with you in general, but I wanted to take this opportunity to point out the painfully clear implications and foolishness of shutting down the USA's Sonic Team division and absorbing it into Japan playing a major hand in this whole "not understanding the west" mess.

[Salamander]

15 hours ago, Mikyeong said:

bringing this up to say that it looks like Pontac is back as a writer for a future Sonic game. http://aodsf.org/guests/

 

I have no idea if the final line of his biography there is meant to be ironic or not.  From our perspective, it's hard not to read it as sarcastic, but at the same time you have to have some guts to put a coded admission to your unpopularity into your own convention biography.  Fingers crossed this is just for Fire & Ice, anyway; you'd think Sega would get the message considering the way reviews savaged the writing for SC and SLW.

[E-122-Psi]

I do remember feeling a bit underwhelmed by Sonic's character in the earlier Japanese written games. He was always a bit empty and over idealised. He could be entertaining at times but he was kinda one of those characters that couldn't really hold a story by themselves. This is especially evident in Sonic X. In fairness some western interpretations go the opposite way and make Sonic such an abrasive douche it's hard to sympathise with there either, but they do at least more often aim for a more fleshed out character.

I liked Lost World because it at least tried to find a vulnerable side with Sonic and show he had imperfections that could bite him back and bring him down a peg. At the same time it didn't over exagerrate, he still had that more easy going playful persona throughout making it feel like it was the same character from the Japanese continuity to some degree on a bad day, rather than cases like the comics or shows which sometimes turn him 180 into a temperamental asswipe just to make it work. It was still rough around the edges, but they tried harder than any game previously with this direction.

Tails suffered however. Tails for quite some time was even blander than Sonic, who at least had basic quirks originally. It felt like they were hitting a wall trying to find a flaw or dynamic of any sort for the character so we got this rather hap hazardous conflict spliced in. I'll give credit, Tails was at least 'not boring' in that game, but I can definitely see why many thought it didn't work at all.

I think a key problem I have right now is that almost every direction the Pontaff games took, Boom actually handled a bit better. Boom has smoother comedic writing (most of the time) and has done a more fluent job making both Sonic and Tails flawed but still likeable characters with endearing chemistry. I kinda hope that the two writers' experience with the Boom franchise may help with their later work.

Pontaff made the Orbot and Cubot duo though. You can't take that from them.

[DarkLight]

10 hours ago, Dejimon11 said:

I'm hoping they take the criticism they got for lost world and will improve. I don't dislike these guys but I will admit that their writing hasn't really been all that stellar since colors. I doubt anything will be as bad Shattered Crystal though.

How would they when they want nothing to do with the fanbase though? They've been  harassed numerous times and it's not a matter of "oh we were given actual critique for our work and advice on how to improve." No. All because of some bad eggs that could think of nothing critical to say but bile and venom their way, they're not gonna give a rat's ass what fans will say, therefore have no way of knowing as to how they can improve when nobody's really can really give them pointers.

[E-122-Psi]

In fairness Shattered Crystal at least downplayed their whole 'analyse the joke' structure by a great deal. And as far as I can tell most of the characters were in line with how they act in the show. I haven't seen the last few scenes however.

[Gabz Girl]

I'm going to give these guys one more chance if they're writing the Anniversary game (most likely they are). One more. If they screw up again, then I seriously think they need replacing.

Doesn't Sonic Team notice that the fanbase loathes Pontaff with a passion for not understanding Sonic, having to research Wikipedia of all things? Making Tails an asshole in SLW? One dimensional D6? Boring script for Generations besides one or two quips? Sonic Colours was their best effort and even that wasn't perfect besides the amazing Eggman PA announcements. 

Unlike some fans, I don't hate these guys so much I want them dead or whatever but you can clearly tell they do not GET Sonic and friends. Dr Eggman sure, but not the main character, nor Tails, Amy, Knuckles and everyone else! If the next game has more incompetent writing and weak ass story then they definitely need to be replaced because IT'S NOT WORKING.

[Komodin]

5 minutes ago, Gabz Girl said:

Doesn't Sonic Team notice that the fanbase loathes Pontaff with a passion for not understanding Sonic, having to research Wikipedia of all things? Making Tails an asshole in SLW? One dimensional D6? Boring script for Generations besides one or two quips? Sonic Colours was their best effort and even that wasn't perfect besides the amazing Eggman PA announcements. 

Well, let's at least be a little fair now: Isn't the fact that they apparently have to conduct research on the series through Wikipedia (which isn't inherently a bad thing, guys--only when it's your only source of info) when they (should) have direct access to the horse's mouth by their very job position at least make Sega/Sonic Team just as culpable of the current stories's numerous foibles and mistakes?

[Gabz Girl]

Just now, Komodin said:

Well, let's at least be a little fair now: Isn't the fact that they apparently have to conduct research on the series through Wikipedia (which isn't inherently a bad thing, guys--only when it's your only source of info) when they (should) have direct access to the horse's mouth by their very job position at least make Sega/Sonic Team just as culpable of the current stories's numerous foibles and mistakes?

True, true...Sonic Team should have some kind of character bible lying around somewhere. It would be ridiculous if they didn't, but knowing that Pontaff had to do their own research, I guess they don't have one! Such competence! 

Maybe it's the fault of both Sonic Team and Pontaff then; the former for story and the latter for writing. *sigh*

[Wittymations]

Not surprising, but not very encouraging either. I feel two ways about Pontaff returning:

On one hand, I don't like it one little bit. I find their writing to be as terrible as say Shadow, but for entirely different reasons. I don't like their jokes, their narrative structure (especially in Lost World), and don't like how they characterize Tails. I rather them be replaced entirely. That's not to say I don't want them to have a job, but I rather them not work on Sonic.

On the other hand, they had SOME good ideas in Lost World (again, it was MOSTLY the structure that was bad). They did bring in some of my favorite scenes involving Eggman, but they also screwed that up right at the end. If they worked on flow, and characters, they COUlD actually improve. It's not likely, but the possibility is there. Not like we haven't seen writers improve in their work before.

[pppp]

1 minute ago, Gabz Girl said:

True, true...Sonic Team should have some kind of character bible lying around somewhere. It would be ridiculous if they didn't, but knowing that Pontaff had to do their own research, I guess they don't have one! Such competence! 

Maybe it's the fault of both Sonic Team and Pontaff then; the former for story and the latter for writing. *sigh*

It speaks for Sonic Team's lack of passion that we've heard about since 2007:

http://www.tssznews.com/2009/01/05/the-blog-sega-doesnt-want-you-to-read/

As for Pontaff they have to leave either way, their jokes kept getting worst with each game.

[Nepenthe]

7 minutes ago, Komodin said:

Well, let's at least be a little fair now: Isn't the fact that they apparently have to conduct research on the series through Wikipedia (which isn't inherently a bad thing, guys--only when it's your only source of info) when they (should) have direct access to the horse's mouth by their very job position at least make Sega/Sonic Team just as culpable of the current stories's numerous foibles and mistakes?

That depends on whether or not Pontaff actually tried to work with Sonic Team and were rebuked for some reason or if they just didn't give a shit to bother going to them in light of their perceived creative freedom.

And since we're trying to narrow down blame, is Pontaff responsible for Lost World's scenarios or just the script writing? Again, the idea to explore Sonic's mistakes is a good one but if that was actually the work of some Japanese dude then maybe Japanese dude should be writing instead.

[Kuzu]

I remember hearing they had lot more creative freedom in Lost World than in Generations or Colors, so they might have been the scenario writers as well. It was in an interview that I cannot for the life of me remember. Regardless, I have no idea how close they work with Sonic Team, the former might have just said "Do whatever the fuck you want" and just treated the story as an afterthought after the game was finished. 

At this point, I really doubt Sonic Team care as much about the story or plotting as the fanbase does; they have gone on record of saying that they're trying to refocus on gameplay over plot, so I don't think they're gonna deviate from that. Having Pontac and Graff just gives them someone else to write up a quick sypnopsis with a few gags to pad out cutscenes. 

 

I for one cannot wait for the next installment on the adventures of Sonic & Tails.

[SBR2]

I'm personally really excited that they're still doing Scripts. They pulled the plots heads out of their butts where they'd been buried for a looooooooooong time and are just writing fun adventures.

[Dr. Detective]

We haven't had an adventure since Sonic Unleashed. Or Black Knight. Neither of those went too far in the "serious" direction and I still contest that they stand as proof that it wasn't necessary to go this far back with Colors onward to the point where nothing's happening and what does happen is sloppily brought up and forgotten about. 

All they do now is stand around, make long winded jokes, and pretend what's happening has relevance when we know they don't care.

It's so much fun watching Sonic and Tails stand in a white void while the Time Eater flies over sometimes, does nothing, then fucks off again. What a grand adventure. 

I'm more then a little bitter I suppose, but I've grown less tolerant of the excuse for this being "way back in 2006 (a DECADE ago) the stories were too serious". 

[SBR2]

Oh, your right how couyld I forget all the times that Sonic and Co acted like characters in the Adventure era games like *ENTRY MISSING*