Ken Pontac and Warren Graff are implied to be moving on from Sonic.

[Meta77]

Of course i always hope when things like this happen that the person finds another job. And I am sure they will, but THANK GOD they are gone. The comedy writing was a bit to much and their era of stories in the game were just flat out bad imo. While some did not mind I agree with a earlier stance of they made sonic to much a goof. As someone who started with this series I always saw sonic as the "cooler, more attitude having"  option of mascots. The arguments i used to get into with cousins back when console wars were a huge thing i used to point out how sonic had attitude and was just more snarky in his attitude. sure some media had him still with the cute belly image but by time adventure era came out I felt he grew up a bit with me. Then the last decade with got noting but a meme folder character with stories that never meet the stacks. Forces being the latest example which was awhile back now.

[shdowhunt60]

9 hours ago, batson said:

Not gonna lie, the idea of Pontac and Graff leaving fills me with joy.

Why? I mean, at the end of the day Pontac and Graff just wrote the scripts- it's still down to Sonic Team to write the stories themselves, and it's not like they're necessarily hitting it out of the park either.

[azoo]

Pontac and Graff leaving is good, but it's way less to do with their writing and moreso to do with the possibility that Sonic Team is changing direction.

[DabigRG]

3 hours ago, shdowhunt60 said:

Why? I mean, at the end of the day Pontac and Graff just wrote the scripts- it's still down to Sonic Team to write the stories themselves, and it's not like they're necessarily hitting it out of the park either.

Not to mention edit them per their preferences in accordance with what would make for the stronger Sonic story.

[Piko]

If Pontac and Graff are indeed no longer writing for Sonic, I wish them luck for the future. They’re decent writers but their creative strengths don’t match what Sonic’s vision should be imo; their writing is too comedic for my liking. Not to mention that they had little prior knowledge of the franchise. I didn’t expect them to know every last factoid and piece of lore, but if you’re writing for a franchise as popular as Sonic you kinda need to do a bit more research than Wikipedia and a few cutscenes on YouTube.

[prettyinplague]

On 1/30/2021 at 6:04 PM, Wraith said:

i don't think Pontaff got Sonic's personality all that wrong. I think he and Eggman both talk too much but that might just be a byproduct of the games leaning more on dialogue over character acting as a whole(part of the reason why I think just getting rid of Pontaff isn't enough). He was still a nice guy with an irreverant streak and a strong sense of justice. As long as you got that down then there's not a whole lot to complain about. 

The jokes are just shitty. Like, Sonic not taking his foes that seriously is normal. You just don't really want to hear corny shit come out of a cool character's mouth. 

I'm mixed. In some cases I was put off by the way Sonic was written that he came off less of a cool guy, and more of an arrogant jerk. I feel like a lot of writers seem to have trouble knowing how to write Sonic, and I get that. I may or may not be picky about how characters are written though. 

[Dr. Detective]

Despite not really enjoying their take on dialogue within the Sonic series I can't say that I feel good about this without knowing what's going to replace them. I'll know whether I feel good or not based on how receptive I am to what comes next. I only ever feel comfortable reacting to what we do have rather than just the idea of losing something I don't like nowadays.

[jungle_penguins]

I was under the impression the writing duo adapted translated Japanese scripts, and as such, much of the story structure wasn't their fault, just dialogue. Did this only apply to Forces? Did it not apply to Forces after all?

[prettyinplague]

2 hours ago, jungle_penguins said:

I was under the impression the writing duo adapted translated Japanese scripts, and as such, much of the story structure wasn't their fault, just dialogue. Did this only apply to Forces? Did it not apply to Forces after all?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe localization and translation is not the same thing. I believe they mostly localized the scripts, if I'm not mistaken. 

[Ryannumber1gamer]

3 hours ago, jungle_penguins said:

I was under the impression the writing duo adapted translated Japanese scripts, and as such, much of the story structure wasn't their fault, just dialogue. Did this only apply to Forces? Did it not apply to Forces after all?

Localisation and translation - as said - is different. Localisation is adapting a script to a different culture, while translating would be a direct 1:1 translation, such as a direct Japanese sub of a show. The goal of a translation is to remain as accurate and as faithful to the original as possible.

Localisation has much more control over the dialogue, for example - stuff like Dragon Ball Super will include jokes that weren't in the original Japanese:

The degrees to what localisation can get away with varies (IE - the original dub of DBZ was really allowed to do just whatever it wanted with the localisation, turning Goku into a superhero type character, and having a bunch of really weird 90s dialogue (Which is all heavily memed nowadays).

This is also where Pontac and Graff's own issues come in. They not only introduce a lot of the crappy jokes/dialogue in games, they not only were the ones who wrote Lost World, but they've introduced several plot issues via their localisation that did not exist in the original. 

Case in point - Forces - the most infamous plot issues that people call out is all fully on Pontac and Graff. Sonic being tortured for a full six months, as well as Tails having supposedly "lost it" were both things introduced by them in the English versions. Both instances are nowhere to be seen in the Japanese script.

That's why Sonic is no worse for wear when we find him imprisoned on the Death Egg, and why Tails - who has supposedly lost his mind - is completely normal and just trying to repair Omega in a random part of the city. They didn't exist in the Japanese script, thus the cutscenes didn't reflect the plot holes that Pontac and Graff introduced.

[jungle_penguins]

4 minutes ago, Ryannumber1gamer said:

Localisation and translation - as said - is different. Localisation is adapting a script to a different culture, while translating would be a direct 1:1 translation, such as a direct Japanese sub of a show. The goal of a translation is to remain as accurate and as faithful to the original as possible.

Localisation has much more control over the dialogue, for example - stuff like Dragon Ball Super will include jokes that weren't in the original Japanese:

The degrees to what localisation can get away with varies (IE - the original dub of DBZ was really allowed to do just whatever it wanted with the localisation, turning Goku into a superhero type character, and having a bunch of really weird 90s dialogue (Which is all heavily memed nowadays).

This is also where Pontac and Graff's own issues come in. They not only introduce a lot of the crappy jokes/dialogue in games, they not only were the ones who wrote Lost World, but they've introduced several plot issues via their localisation that did not exist in the original. 

Case in point - Forces - the most infamous plot issues that people call out is all fully on Pontac and Graff. Sonic being tortured for a full six months, as well as Tails having supposedly "lost it" were both things introduced by them in the English versions. Both instances are nowhere to be seen in the Japanese script.

That's why Sonic is no worse for wear when we find him imprisoned on the Death Egg, and why Tails - who has supposedly lost his mind - is completely normal and just trying to repair Omega in a random part of the city. They didn't exist in the Japanese script, thus the cutscenes didn't reflect the plot holes that Pontac and Graff introduced.

Yeah, me saying "adapted translated Japanese scripts" was a poorly worded way of saying localization. Wasn't sure if it counted as regular localization because it appears to be more like a final draft of the story. But going by what you said, they were localizing scripts and didn't do the best job at it.