What are some mandates by Sega you don't agree with?

[Piko]

My least favourite mandates are the ones that contradict past events.

• Team Dark doesn’t exist and never has, despite having an established dynamic for years.
• Apparently the Sonic universe is a cashless society. Even ignoring all the mentions of money in the past, the concept of money just...not existing doesn’t make any logical sense.
• A lot of recent media has toned down Amy’s open affection towards Sonic and I can’t help but wonder if this is part of a new mandate. Either way, it strips her of a good chunk of her personality and goes against why she was created in the first place.

But hey, this is the Sonic franchise, where consistency is rarer than water in the Sahara!

[Rabbitearsblog]

33 minutes ago, Piko said:

My least favourite mandates are the ones that contradict past events.

• Team Dark doesn’t exist and never has, despite having an established dynamic for years.
• Apparently the Sonic universe is a cashless society. Even ignoring all the mentions of money in the past, the concept of money just...not existing doesn’t make any logical sense.
• A lot of recent media has toned down Amy’s open affection towards Sonic and I can’t help but wonder if this is part of a new mandate. Either way, it strips her of a good chunk of her personality and goes against why she was created in the first place.

But hey, this is the Sonic franchise, where consistency is rarer than water in the Sahara!

I honestly don't like the whole "Team Dark" doesn't exist thing.  I thought it was nice that Shadow had a close group of friends by his side and SEGA wants to take that away?  As for Amy's affection towards Sonic being toned down, this is one of the few mandates I actually liked because I don't want Amy's character to completely revolve around Sonic.  It's nice that we get to see her do other things besides chasing Sonic.

[Piko]

10 hours ago, Rabbitearsblog said:

As for Amy's affection towards Sonic being toned down, this is one of the few mandates I actually liked because I don't want Amy's character to completely revolve around Sonic.  It's nice that we get to see her do other things besides chasing Sonic.

That’s fair. I can understand backing out of “obsession” territory, but it seems like Amy isn’t allowed to be openly in love with Sonic anymore. While I agree that her character shouldn’t completely revolve around Sonic, you can’t deny that her love for him is a very important part of her personality.

[SonicFanForLife]

The whole genderless chao situation is probably just Sega conforming with the 0.01% of people who have lost their minds in recent times. Let's just hope that this won't spread to the games. Corruption spreads fast, though.

As for the two worlds thing, I don't get it at all. Is the IDW series in the Sonic X universe or something? Humans and the "Mobians" (as people call them) are supposed to be in the same world in the games. A lot of people don't seem to know that. Even the Archie series had only one world. I hope Sega hasn't changed this fact in the games. I always thought that the games should have had generic Mobians mixed in the crowds, but then Sonic Forces went completely opposite and had only Mobians and no humans! It makes you want to pull your hair out! They need to keep the details consistent with the past games.

About the Team Dark dilemma, I've read some of the IDW comics and Shadow, Rouge, and Omega have been together like a team several times in the series. I think that Sega just doesn't want them to be so stuck together the whole time. Team Dark Is still acknowledged in the games.

It seems that Amy has adopted her Sonic Boom personality. I'm not quite sure if I like it or not. In Sonic Forces, the way that she was kind of the serious leader of the resistance didn't seem fitting for her character. It is also claimed by her that Knuckles would get distracted. I don't like how Knuckles is being portrayed in recent times either.

[Diogenes]

7 minutes ago, SonicFan2832 said:

The whole genderless chao situation is probably just Sega conforming with the 0.01% of people who have lost their minds in recent times. Let's just hope that this won't spread to the games. Corruption spreads fast, though.

What "corruption" are you talking about here, exactly.

[NintendoSoul]

The obvious one I dislike is Sonic never losing. More specifically, the post-comic reboot Sonic never being allowed to have a major setback that cannot be resolved within the same issue. Forcing your hero to never suffer any setbacks is poor storytelling period. Even some of the most powerful or intelligent fictional character that most people know about still avoid have to deal with issues that persist for some time, big or small. 

Forcing other characters to maintain a type of characterization no  matter what is just as limiting from a writing perspective.  Character can still feel familiar even after significant character development, but sticking them in boxes they aren't allowed to wander out of grants no one any confidence in Sega's character management. 

[Razule]

56 minutes ago, SonicFan2832 said:

The whole genderless chao situation is probably just Sega conforming with the 0.01% of people who have lost their minds in recent times. Let's just hope that this won't spread to the games. Corruption spreads fast, though.

Chao have been genderless since Sonic Adventure, but alright.. 

[Zaysho]

4 hours ago, SonicFan2832 said:

The whole genderless chao situation is probably just Sega conforming with the 0.01% of people who have lost their minds in recent times. Let's just hope that this won't spread to the games. Corruption spreads fast, though.

You can spare us the moral posturing over something that's been in the games for 23 years just because you want to use it as a point to screech about "corruption" over gender identity.

[Rabbitearsblog]

37 minutes ago, NintendoSoul said:

The obvious one I dislike is Sonic never losing. More specifically, the post-comic reboot Sonic never being allowed to have a major setback that cannot be resolved within the same issue. Forcing your hero to never suffer any setbacks is poor storytelling period. Even some of the most powerful or intelligent fictional character that most people know about still avoid have to deal with issues that persist for some time, big or small. 

Forcing other characters to maintain a type of characterization no  matter what is just as limiting from a writing perspective.  Character can still feel familiar even after significant character development, but sticking them in boxes they aren't allowed to wander out of grants no one any confidence in Sega's character management. 

I never liked the whole "Sonic can't lose" thing either.  I mean, what's wrong with Sonic losing every once in a while?  It would actually give more depth to his character and show us how he would react to actually losing.  The closest we ever got to Sonic losing in an arc was in the Archie Comics where Knothole ended up being destroyed and the Metal Virus Arc where almost everyone, including him were infected by the virus.

[Zaysho]

I feel like that one's a bit overstated, personally. I've always interpreted it as "Sonic has to win in the end". In Archie especially he had setback after setback, but he ultimately comes out with a decisive victory to the conflict. I think the issue is sometimes those conclusions have a tendency to be rushed, suffer from the story trying to do too many things at once or needlessly dragging out certain conflicts without adding anything meaningful to them to the point that aspects of those conclusions almost feel unearned or out of place (looking at you, Chip). Even in IDW we have stuff like the Metal Virus which got to the point Sonic could barely do anything, and the games are pretty much set up with Sonic having some kind of challenge even though the writing quality in the games are a huge toss-up.

[Rabbitearsblog]

1 hour ago, Zaysho said:

I feel like that one's a bit overstated, personally. I've always interpreted it as "Sonic has to win in the end". In Archie especially he had setback after setback, but he ultimately comes out with a decisive victory to the conflict. I think the issue is sometimes those conclusions have a tendency to be rushed, suffer from the story trying to do too many things at once or needlessly dragging out certain conflicts without adding anything meaningful to them to the point that aspects of those conclusions almost feel unearned or out of place (looking at you, Chip). Even in IDW we have stuff like the Metal Virus which got to the point Sonic could barely do anything, and the games are pretty much set up with Sonic having some kind of challenge even though the writing quality in the games are a huge toss-up.

I felt that way about Sonic Forces.  This was probably one of the few Sonic games where Sonic actually loses (as in, the world gets taken over by Dr. Eggman with him being imprisoned the whole time) and yet, the story wasn't written well enough where we actually felt the true impact of how dire the situation got at that point.

[SonicFanForLife]

5 hours ago, Razule said:

Chao have been genderless since Sonic Adventure, but alright.. 

Cheese has been addressed as "he" several times in the games. There's no need to change that. While chao may be considered genderless, it just happened to be that way because of the mating system in the chao garden. It's similar to Minecraft how all the animals are genderless so it's easier to make more without having to find both a male and female. The problem is not really the fact that the chao are genderless, the problem is that they're pointing it out. The "rainbow" race track in the chao races comic is kind of an obvious innuendo.

[Domino]

I'm pretty sure the rainbow-colored racetrack is from SA2 originally. Given that, I doubt it was an "innuendo" for anything.

[Sean]

20 minutes ago, SonicFan2832 said:

Cheese has been addressed as "he" several times in the games. There's no need to change that. While chao may be considered genderless, it just happened to be that way because of the mating system in the chao garden. It's similar to Minecraft how all the animals are genderless so it's easier to make more without having to find both a male and female. The problem is not really the fact that the chao are genderless, the problem is that they're pointing it out. The "rainbow" race track in the chao races comic is kind of an obvious innuendo.

lol get a life

[Domino]

Not sure how relevant this is, but I do remember the English dub of Sonic X had characters refer to Cheese as a "she" at a few points. I figure the 4Kids translator had to improvise due to Japanese not having gendered 3rd-person pronouns the way English does.

 

Anyway, as far as weird mandates go, I feel the whole "money doesn't exist" one is the most glaringly ridiculous one. We've all had a go at complaining about the "two worlds" thing, but the (admittedly substantial) inconsistencies we have to point out to poke holes in that mandate isn't even NEAR as glaringly obvious as the money thing. I mean, it's Team Chaotix's primary motivation in Sonic Heroes. It's mentioned in nearly every bio written for Vector. His eyes turned into dollar signs, for crying out loud. With the other things Sega's mandated, I'd think "that doesn't really fit" or "that's kinda dumb," but I managed to brush them off to a degree. The money thing just feels like an outright lie.

[Pengi]

Vector was after the cash reward in Team Sonic Racing too.

[SonicFanForLife]

Who said money doesn't exist in Sonic?

[Piko]

18 minutes ago, SonicFan2832 said:

Who said money doesn't exist in Sonic?

I believe Ian Flynn mentioned it on his podcast not long ago.

[Guest]

3 hours ago, Domino said:

due to Japanese not having gendered 3rd-person pronouns the way English does.

Ideally every language worked like that tbh.

[Mega]

...Are we really having transphobia here on a freaking Sonic the Hedgehog forum?

Please. Gender identity is not "corruption". Neither is being gay.

Anyway, I hate the Shadow mandates because I feel like they're forcing him to be a caricature of the character he used to be. Shadow wasn't even that edgy or angry in SA2... He actually quipped from time to time and had a respect for Sonic.

[Rabbitearsblog]

9 minutes ago, Mega said:

...Are we really having transphobia here on a freaking Sonic the Hedgehog forum?

Please. Gender identity is not "corruption". Neither is being gay.

Anyway, I hate the Shadow mandates because I feel like they're forcing him to be a caricature of the character he used to be. Shadow wasn't even that edgy or angry in SA2... He actually quipped from time to time and had a respect for Sonic.

That's what I hate about the Shadow mandates too.  I mean, Shadow wasn't even that edgy to begin with.  He was a pretty sympathetic character in Sonic Adventure 2 who only did the things he did because he misunderstood what Maria really wanted and once he figured out what Maria wanted, he went out and tried to set things right.  I honestly don't know where SEGA got the idea that Shadow is just an edgy character with no depth.

[Knight56]

1 hour ago, Rabbitearsblog said:

That's what I hate about the Shadow mandates too.  I mean, Shadow wasn't even that edgy to begin with.  He was a pretty sympathetic character in Sonic Adventure 2 who only did the things he did because he misunderstood what Maria really wanted and once he figured out what Maria wanted, he went out and tried to set things right.  I honestly don't know where SEGA got the idea that Shadow is just an edgy character with no depth.

I'd say Iizuka's vision for him is to blame. He wrote the scenario for Shadow; that's the only game where he wrote anything for the series, and that's where I'd consider the birth of edgelord Shadow. I think other more competent writers were present for SA2 and 06, and I think 06 especially has the popular interpretation of him. Iizuka wasn't even part of that game's team.

I respect him a lot for what Iizuka's done for the series, and honestly, he might be one of the few left in Sega's management that truly cares about Sonic. The mandates he helps make are irritating--and especially damaging in Shadow's case--but I would rather keep him than let a management drone take over.

[SonicFanForLife]

2 hours ago, Mega said:

...Are we really having transphobia here on a Sonic the Hedgehog forum?

Yeah, let's all just agree to disagree and drop that subject. Argue about game details and not moral issues. Simply, I think Cheese should be addressed as a male.

Moving on, money does exist in the Sonic games. These mandates are all for the IDW comic series. Sega said that Infinite was off limits to the IDW team. Does that mean Infinite can't appear in the games anymore? No.  The comics already have details that don't line up with the games, like the two worlds thing for instance. I wouldn't be too worried about Team Dark, because they were just in Team Sonic Racing as "Team Dark". Maybe Sega didn't want them to have that label the whole time in the comics. Don't ask me why, it's just a theory.

[Piko]

3 hours ago, SonicFan2832 said:

These mandates are all for the IDW comic series.

If that’s the case then maybe they aren’t too bad. They are a bit strict, but I guess it stops us from getting Ken Penders 2: Electric Boogaloo.

[Rabbitearsblog]

8 hours ago, Piko said:

If that’s the case then maybe they aren’t too bad. They are a bit strict, but I guess it stops us from getting Ken Penders 2: Electric Boogaloo.

I guess SEGA had to put these mandates for the IDW comics because of the situation with Ken Penders in the past.  But, they could at least let up on some of the mandates, like allow Shadow to develop as a character.