Megathread Sonic Frontiers (2022) | MT | General Discussion (DO NOT discuss leaks here please)

[Cosmos Rogue]

Just now, CrownSlayer’s Shadow said:

Then make them a planned DLC. We’re not in 2006 anymore.

I have already advocated for this very thing!

[BadBehavior]

Just now, CrownSlayer’s Shadow said:

Then make them a planned DLC. We’re not in 2006 anymore.

Funny you mention that, they did make them DLC in 2006. They had extra stages with the Amigos. As well as Extra Hard stages, Boss Rush mode etc. Between that and all the extra stages for Unleashed, Sega shoudl've realized the money printing potential.

But no, Sonic DLC today means charging for Super Sonic* and a bunch of other borderline useless freebies.

(*Or at least trying to before fan outcry forces a reversal)

On one hand I admire that it's not anything critical to the main experience, but when the main experience is so anemic, i'd actually prefer if the games runtime was doubled with some kind of DLC campaign.

[Scritch the Cat]

28 minutes ago, BadBehavior said:

Hoping we get some kind of video like this for the Forces years. No way in the 7 hells did that game have a normal development.

27 minutes ago, Zoomzeta said:

You mean the years post 2006?

19 minutes ago, BadBehavior said:

Well basically after Generations. The stories of the 2nd Dark Age are there, they just need deciphering and investigating with an eye at the Sega-wide context, much like that video did with Sonic's struggles in the 2000s.

I get the feeling most of that video would be about the deal signed with Nintendo.

18 minutes ago, Cosmos Rogue said:

So we're restricting ourselves to no more than six playable characters per game. We want the most popular characters in the series to be playable: Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, presumably Shadow, and maybe Amy. We'd also probably like to add new characters from time to time. How much space does that leave for the expanded cast?

I don't really look at this in terms of shooting for an impressive number--Balan Wonderworld proves that's a terrible idea.  I'd rather think of this in terms of conceiving gameplay styles that are different enough that they add variety, but not different enough that they take away from the feeling that you're playing a Sonic game.  That should dictate what characters are priority to add, while if any extra are added, they likely would need to be semi-skins of the primary ones; more or less along the lines of the multiplayer characters in SA2.

On this note, I find it interesting how the fangame Sonic World has managed to squeeze in a lot of characters, and it probably helps that they absolutely refuse to have a plot.

18 minutes ago, CrownSlayer’s Shadow said:

Then make them a planned DLC. We’re not in 2006 anymore.

Making the characters DLC really does seem like one of the best solutions imaginable.  That spares players who don't like the characters the annoyance of playing them, while also letting SEGA make a lot of money from players who do like them.  If you've got a field full of cash cows, you might as well milk them.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

35 minutes ago, Cosmos Rogue said:

I have already advocated for this very thing!

Then there was little point in telling me about work hours needed to be put into the idea of making playable characters that are optional.

No joke, as much as we give flak for Sonic Team coming short on delivering their games, this fandom seems to forget how much has changed and what is possible in the modern day compared to how things were a decade ago and wants to keep saying the same stuff that was said in 2006. Bad history is one thing, but there comes a point where people are holding onto it for the sake of being defeatist.

And I shouldn’t have to asterisk this post over that said bad history to be clear that I meant for the idea not to be implemented like garbage.

[Scritch the Cat]

17 minutes ago, CrownSlayer’s Shadow said:

No joke, as much as we give flak for Sonic Team coming short on delivering their games, this fandom seems to forget how much has changed and what is possible in the modern day compared to how things were a decade ago and wants to keep saying the same stuff that was said in 2006. Bad history is one thing, but there comes a point where people are holding onto it for the sake of being defeatist.

And I shouldn’t have to asterisk this post over that said bad history to be clear that I meant for the idea not to be implemented like garbage.

People are saying the same things they said in 2006 because they've continued to get botched Sonic games like that, and as I said before, this isn't necessarily Sonic Team's fault and it doesn't necessarily indicate the people working there suck at their jobs; one of the worst Sonic games wasn't even made by them.  But if the brass at SEGA makes its underlings churn out Sonic games more frequently than they can manage, their talent doesn't necessarily matter.

Also, while yes, gaming has changed and technology has advanced, it's not all for the better; what's sad is that while back in 2006, any AAA company releasing a game so horribly broken would have made it infamous around the globe, these days when patches are an expectation, that sort of thing has become a lot more common.  Every gamer is just expected to tolerate this because "We're working on it; trust us!"

[Zoomzeta]

1 hour ago, BadBehavior said:

Well basically after Generations. The stories of the 2nd Dark Age are there, they just need deciphering and investigating with an eye at the Sega-wide context, much like that video did with Sonic's struggles in the 2000s.

Dude, we shouldn't focus on just the negative. Time should be given to look through the behind the scenes of the games people like as well. Otherwise, we're missing some context on what occured during that timeframe.

[knuckles20]

48 minutes ago, Scritch the Cat said:

Making the characters DLC really does seem like one of the best solutions imaginable.  That spares players who don't like the characters the annoyance of playing them, while also letting SEGA make a lot of money from players who do like them.  If you've got a field full of cash cows, you might as well milk them.

Are we talking free day one DLC or having the player put more money in? If it's the latter, I'd rather they go for the optional route from the start without requiring DLC. Imagine if Nintendo did this with New Super Mario Bros. series where Luigi, Toads and Nabbit were locked behind a paywall, fans would be rightfully mad as hell and I can't imagine things faring better for SEGA if they ever decided go down that route. 

[Scritch the Cat]

8 minutes ago, Zoomzeta said:

Dude, we shouldn't focus on just the negative. Time should be given to look through the behind the scenes of the games people like as well. Otherwise, we're missing some context on what occured during that timeframe.

It sure gets a lot more depressing when I learn that even the games I love had some sorts of nasty corporate politics behind them.  Rushing Sonic games was a pretty standard thing in the 16-bit era, and when multiple people have taken huge blows to their health while working on these games, something is clearly horribly wrong.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

1 hour ago, Scritch the Cat said:

People are saying the same things they said in 2006 because they've continued to get botched Sonic games like that, and as I said before, this isn't necessarily Sonic Team's fault and it doesn't necessarily indicate the people working there suck at their jobs; one of the worst Sonic games wasn't even made by them.  But if the brass at SEGA makes its underlings churn out Sonic games more frequently than they can manage, their talent doesn't necessarily matter.

Hardly any game, barring Boom—which as you pointed out, wasn’t made by them—has been botched to the same extent as Sonic 06. Not even Lost Worlds or Forces.

They may be lacking and leaving a lot of room to be desired, but they’re not the unpolished glitchfest from 16 years ago that people can’t get enough of pointing at. I don’t want Sonic Team to make bad games as much as the next person, but there really does come a point where folks need to move on.

1 hour ago, Scritch the Cat said:

Also, while yes, gaming has changed and technology has advanced, it's not all for the better; what's sad is that while back in 2006, any AAA company releasing a game so horribly broken would have made it infamous around the globe, these days when patches are an expectation, that sort of thing has become a lot more common.  Every gamer is just expected to tolerate this because "We're working on it; trust us!"

Which is actually a good thing when effort is poured in to actually fixing the problem. If something is broken, are they just supposed to throw their hands up and not bother with fixing the problem and move on to a whole different project despite still not earning our trust that they can do a good job on that?

[Iko]

1 hour ago, Cosmos Rogue said:

So we're restricting ourselves to no more than six playable characters per game. We want the most popular characters in the series to be playable: Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, presumably Shadow, and maybe Amy. We'd also probably like to add new characters from time to time. How much space does that leave for the expanded cast?

Let's pretend they never abandoned the multiple playable characters:

-in Sonic Unleashed you could play as Sonic or Knuckles (Knuckles doesn't need a Werehog form, he can punch stuff as he is), while Tails could assist you in the levels sometimes (either with the Tornado, or by lifting you for some mid-air sections)

-in Sonic Colors you could play as Sonic, Tails, Amy, Cream, Charmy, Espio or Vector. Sonic was invited to the park, Amy wanted to go there too with Sonic, and brought Cream with her, while Charmy went all hyperactive for the interstellar amusement park and forced the whole Team Chaotix to go there, who then found some clues about the other face of the park (the fishy one) and decided to do their detective job. All of them can use one specific wisp each (Tails: Drill; Amy: Cube; Cream: Rocket Charmy: Hover; Espio: Spike; Vector: Frenzy; Sonic: Laser), you play as Sonic with Tails as a partner by default; each time you find a Wisp, the character who follows you (Tails at the beginning) will change with the one who can use said Wisp, and you can swap Sonic with the partner any time at will until you find a different wisp and a different partner (laser will keep the current partner); each character plays like Sonic with some different moves (only Sonic can boost for example). You can use the wisp without swapping the character (if you don't, it will happen automatically and then will return to Sonic after the wisp power ran out), swapping is completely optional, but can make some level sections easier.

-In Sonic Generations you could unlock all the characters you save as partners and use them as tag actions like in the challenge levels; you can decide who's your partner in a similar way as you select the characters in Sonic Advance 3, except Sonic is always the main character and can't swap him, because the game is all about celebrating Sonic.

-in Sonic Lost World you could play as Sonic or Tails, with an unlockable not-canon Knuckles time attack mode (he wants to show Sonic that he can do the job faster than him)

in Sonic Forces you could play as the Avatar (gimmick of the game), Sonic, Shadow or Silver, plus an Amy & Tails side story which would replace the Classic Sonic one (the 2D levels); the other characters would still appear as NPCs.

I mean, excluding Big and Omega (and Blaze and Rouge only as a tag action in Generations), I think I found a way to implement everyone of the extended recurring cast (limited to mainline games characters so no Babylon Rogues) as (more or less) playable in a way that makes a bit of sense. I think it's definitely possible to implement all of them (not all at once, I mean) depending on the story and the tone of the game. Some games definitely work better with a more limited cast, others leave room for more characters, it really depends from case to case. If they would do smaller side games in parallel with the mainline ones like they did in the past (Game Gear games, Advance games, Rush, Rivals, etc.) there would be even more room for the other characters to be playable.

This is just one idea, I didn't go much in depth with game design, but I don't think it's that much of a problem to implement something like this when you already have the base gameplay done and all you have to do is add one move or two (the most complex thing is the colors partner gimmick but I think it's needed if we want to associate each power to a character and still keep the wisps for story purposes; if you remove the wisps the game would be a completely different thing). It requires a bit more development than just having one character, especially because you have to think your levels in a way that don't break with the characters' abilities, though this has been already done in the past, by other franchises too, so it's totally possible.

TL:DR I think the rotating cast can work and you don't need to put all the most popular characters at once in every game (I mean Tails, Knuckles, Amy and Shadow)

[expansivelovestories]

i had a thought today about if, and or when, some kind of hang glider were to be available in Frontiers..!! 

I am sure they could program some winds and thermals;

In my head it was something of an ancient-futuristic hanglider, for one hand, Sonic would toss it into the air from a small backpack and it would open, to then jump up and grab and fly around for a while and sometimes reach unique side-of-hill areas and similar!!

I am not sure!!  The hangglider is an iconic artifact from the original games although it wasn't on MegaDrive/Genesis.  it fits the Sonic world really well!!  Something about Frontiers to me feels a bit inspired by the GameGear visions of the world more than usual which is very exciting.

 

 

[Zadent]

12 hours ago, knuckles20 said:

Are we talking free day one DLC or having the player put more money in? If it's the latter, I'd rather they go for the optional route from the start without requiring DLC. Imagine if Nintendo did this with New Super Mario Bros. series where Luigi, Toads and Nabbit were locked behind a paywall, fans would be rightfully mad as hell and I can't imagine things faring better for SEGA if they ever decided go down that route. 

That depends on if the DLC just be a model swap like playing as Shadow or Super Sonic in the vanilla levels of Forces (granted, I’d still be really tempted depending on the price point because i prefer running around as Shadow over Sonic), Or if they would be coming with their own levels/story (hopefully more than Episode Shadow, where we had one “3D” style, one that was just Mystic Jungle’s water slides, and then one fully 2D stage).

[Scritch the Cat]

15 hours ago, knuckles20 said:

Are we talking free day one DLC or having the player put more money in? If it's the latter, I'd rather they go for the optional route from the start without requiring DLC. Imagine if Nintendo did this with New Super Mario Bros. series where Luigi, Toads and Nabbit were locked behind a paywall, fans would be rightfully mad as hell and I can't imagine things faring better for SEGA if they ever decided go down that route. 

 

3 hours ago, Zadent said:

That depends on if the DLC just be a model swap like playing as Shadow or Super Sonic in the vanilla levels of Forces (granted, I’d still be really tempted depending on the price point because i prefer running around as Shadow over Sonic), Or if they would be coming with their own levels/story (hopefully more than Episode Shadow, where we had one “3D” style, one that was just Mystic Jungle’s water slides, and then one fully 2D stage).

I think the real determining factor for how much people will tolerate things being locked behind DLC is how big the game is already, and also how vital vs extraneous the characters are.  The NSMB comparison isn’t a good one because multiple playable characters are built into a series that has co-op multiplayer as a core selling point.  Of course people will object if that gets offloaded to paid DLC. But in single player games like Super Mario 64, Sunshine, Galaxy, and Odyssey, made to be completely playable as Mario, there are people who will gladly pay extra money to play as Luigi but anyone who doesn’t will still be able to get a satisfying game without him.
 

Sonic games follow a similar paradigm; if they made Sonic Adventure 3 & playing as all the characters was literally required to get to see the game’s true ending, walling them behind DLC obviously is bogus.  But nobody felt bothered  by Mighty and Ray being DLC in Sonic Mania.  They would if Tails & Knuckles were, likely, because history has given a precedent for Sonic, Tails & Knuckles being playable in most (though not all) 2D Sonic games released since their playable debut, & they’re considered part of a full package.  Other characters, though, are merely nice to have; not essential to have.

[ComeAsYouAre]

Off topic But I lt's weird how Sega didn't do a Sonic Side Scrolling Beat Em Up game in the 90s. They were the Kings of the genre at the time 

 

They made the Virtua Fighter guys do Sonic Fighters so it wouldn't be too odd. 

[expansivelovestories]

i was thinking about the hang glider yesterday, now today i have remembered the swimming scuba item that was almost in Sonic 1..

Will Sonic finally be able to swim and dive in this game perhaps with an item??  it would be weird if all of the deeper water was still mostly a hazard or Sonic walking along the very bottom of it!!

then, there could be some skill tree moves that would be helpful underwater!!

Sonic could jump into a big lake and seamlessly; or manyally before jumping they could be equipped but i think it is more likely to reference intuition for it to automatically happen; some kind of oxygen mask and swimfin shoes would be activated!! 

 

Theoretically Sonic should actually be able to swim, and propel himself underwater really really fast too, but hadn't had the correct item to help harness it!!

 

 

[Cosmos Rogue]

On 5/17/2022 at 8:43 PM, Iko said:

...

I haven't played Lost World or Forces, so I won't comment on either of those games.

Quote

-in Sonic Unleashed you could play as Sonic or Knuckles (Knuckles doesn't need a Werehog form, he can punch stuff as he is), while Tails could assist you in the levels sometimes (either with the Tornado, or by lifting you for some mid-air sections)

The Werehog and Knuckles have very different abilities. They are both good at punching, yes, but you would have to completely redesign the levels to accommodate Knuckles climbing and gliding abilities, and take out all of the parts where the Werehog swings itself around because Knuckles doesn't have the Werehog's stretchy arms. For better or worse, starting development with the idea of keeping Knuckles around as a playable character would have resulted in Unleashed being a very different game than what we got.

Quote

-in Sonic Colors you could play as Sonic, Tails, Amy, Cream, Charmy, Espio or Vector. Sonic was invited to the park, Amy wanted to go there too with Sonic, and brought Cream with her, while Charmy went all hyperactive for the interstellar amusement park and forced the whole Team Chaotix to go there, who then found some clues about the other face of the park (the fishy one) and decided to do their detective job. All of them can use one specific wisp each (Tails: Drill; Amy: Cube; Cream: Rocket Charmy: Hover; Espio: Spike; Vector: Frenzy; Sonic: Laser), you play as Sonic with Tails as a partner by default; each time you find a Wisp, the character who follows you (Tails at the beginning) will change with the one who can use said Wisp, and you can swap Sonic with the partner any time at will until you find a different wisp and a different partner (laser will keep the current partner); each character plays like Sonic with some different moves (only Sonic can boost for example). You can use the wisp without swapping the character (if you don't, it will happen automatically and then will return to Sonic after the wisp power ran out), swapping is completely optional, but can make some level sections easier.

Here you have dramatically increased the scope of Colors. Not one playable character, but seven, each of whom has unique abilities that levels need to be designed around. This is in addition to the wisps, which already require levels to be designed around them. And thanks to the new character swapping mechanic, the developers can't even be certain what abilities the player will have at their disposal when they are designing levels. 

Quote

-In Sonic Generations you could unlock all the characters you save as partners and use them as tag actions like in the challenge levels; you can decide who's your partner in a similar way as you select the characters in Sonic Advance 3, except Sonic is always the main character and can't swap him, because the game is all about celebrating Sonic.

If Generations is all about celebrating Sonic, why not actually keep the focus on Sonic himself and not a new(ish) tag team mechanic?

Quote

This is just one idea, I didn't go much in depth with game design, but I don't think it's that much of a problem to implement something like this when you already have the base gameplay done and all you have to do is add one move or two (the most complex thing is the colors partner gimmick but I think it's needed if we want to associate each power to a character and still keep the wisps for story purposes; if you remove the wisps the game would be a completely different thing). It requires a bit more development than just having one character, especially because you have to think your levels in a way that don't break with the characters' abilities, though this has been already done in the past, by other franchises too, so it's totally possible.

TL:DR I think the rotating cast can work and you don't need to put all the most popular characters at once in every game (I mean Tails, Knuckles, Amy and Shadow)

What you're asking for, especially with Colors and Generations, is the games we got, except different and with more stuff. More stuff means more development time, and more development time means the game needs a bigger budget. If Sega had given Sonic Team larger budgets for those games they would have needed a reason to think they would make more money in return. About the only reason to think that adding more playable  characters to these games would have made Sega more money is if those characters are popular, in which case it stands to reason the best idea is to use the most popular characters over the less popular characters, in which case Tails, Knuckles, and Shadow would always be given priority to be added to the game over the Chaotix or Cream.

1 hour ago, expansivelovestories said:

i was thinking about the hang glider yesterday, now today i have remembered the swimming scuba item that was almost in Sonic 1..

Will Sonic finally be able to swim and dive in this game perhaps with an item??  it would be weird if all of the deeper water was still mostly a hazard or Sonic walking along the very bottom of it!!

then, there could be some skill tree moves that would be helpful underwater!!

Sonic could jump into a big lake and seamlessly; or manyally before jumping they could be equipped but i think it is more likely to reference intuition for it to automatically happen; some kind of oxygen mask and swimfin shoes would be activated!! 

 

Theoretically Sonic should actually be able to swim, and propel himself underwater really really fast too, but hadn't had the correct item to help harness it!!

 

 

We already know that Frontiers is set on a series of islands. There's a real good chance this was done as a way of restricting Sonic's movement, both keeping him out of areas before the developers don't want players accessing too early, and as a way to setting an edge to the game world. I really doubt Sonic will learn how to swim in Frontiers.

[Scritch the Cat]

2 hours ago, Cosmos Rogue said:

I haven't played Lost World or Forces, so I won't comment on either of those games.

The Werehog and Knuckles have very different abilities. They are both good at punching, yes, but you would have to completely redesign the levels to accommodate Knuckles climbing and gliding abilities, and take out all of the parts where the Werehog swings itself around because Knuckles doesn't have the Werehog's stretchy arms. For better or worse, starting development with the idea of keeping Knuckles around as a playable character would have resulted in Unleashed being a very different game than what we got.

Here you have dramatically increased the scope of Colors. Not one playable character, but seven, each of whom has unique abilities that levels need to be designed around. This is in addition to the wisps, which already require levels to be designed around them. And thanks to the new character swapping mechanic, the developers can't even be certain what abilities the player will have at their disposal when they are designing levels. 

If Generations is all about celebrating Sonic, why not actually keep the focus on Sonic himself and not a new(ish) tag team mechanic?

What you're asking for, especially with Colors and Generations, is the games we got, except different and with more stuff. More stuff means more development time, and more development time means the game needs a bigger budget. If Sega had given Sonic Team larger budgets for those games they would have needed a reason to think they would make more money in return. About the only reason to think that adding more playable  characters to these games would have made Sega more money is if those characters are popular, in which case it stands to reason the best idea is to use the most popular characters over the less popular characters, in which case Tails, Knuckles, and Shadow would always be given priority to be added to the game over the Chaotix or Cream.

We already know that Frontiers is set on a series of islands. There's a real good chance this was done as a way of restricting Sonic's movement, both keeping him out of areas before the developers don't want players accessing too early, and as a way to setting an edge to the game world. I really doubt Sonic will learn how to swim in Frontiers.

Sonic learned how to swim in Colors, and then immediately forgot how again.

[Cosmos Rogue]

9 minutes ago, Scritch the Cat said:

Sonic learned how to swim in Colors, and then immediately forgot how again.

The drill wisp allowed Sonic to "swim" through tightly designed 2D environments. Sonic was still unable to so much as tread water on his own.

[Sega DogTagz]

22 minutes ago, Cosmos Rogue said:

The drill wisp allowed Sonic to "swim" through tightly designed 2D environments. Sonic was still unable to so much as tread water on his own.

 

Actually, if I'm not mistaken Sonic had an infinite double jump when underwater in Colors, allowing him to more or less swim/jump whenever he was underwater.

 

Even without the Drill wisp, it was probably the most mobility he's had underwater in pretty much any game sans Sonic 4 Ep II.

[expansivelovestories]

8 hours ago, Cosmos Rogue said:

We already know that Frontiers is set on a series of islands. There's a real good chance this was done as a way of restricting Sonic's movement, both keeping him out of areas before the developers don't want players accessing too early, and as a way to setting an edge to the game world. I really doubt Sonic will learn how to swim in Frontiers.

That is true!! I guess, if Sonic were to jump into the ocean, and start swimming, that there would be a current somewhere offshore to keep him from going beyond it.

If there are inland lakes and lagoons, maybe those will be swimmable!!

If there are inland rivers, maybe there could be some kind of raft!!

[Rienasketch]

On 5/17/2022 at 5:25 PM, StaticMania said:

This is why story doesn't matter.

 

It should though. The Sonic movie has brought a lot of people back to the fanbase and by now should be proof in and of itself story DOES matter to people. SEGA needs to get their act together and get over this obsession with solely gameplay at the expense of everything else. Not to say that it doesn't matter but gameplay alone didn't make Sonic a household name in the 90s, it was branding. And if they want to be taken more seriously they're going to have to stop being lazy with how they write Sonic.

[Coz483]

18 minutes ago, Rienasketch said:

Not to say that it doesn't matter but gameplay alone didn't make Sonic a household name in the 90s, it was branding.

You had to use the 90s of all times huh. Anyway I think it's less of obsessing solely over gameplay, and more of not trying to refine gameplay. Newest mainline game I played was Lost World and it wasn't that fun. 

For the whole gameplay vs story thing I think this is how it should be. When you don't really want a story for a Sonic game, or a big story, just have characters addressing the situation, but still being in character and not trying to force in jokes so it doesn't seem annoying. I think the minimal stories should only happen if you're going to have amazing gameplay. For subpar gameplay or amazing gameplay as well, have well written stories. That's how I would handle it.

[StaticMania]

Just write better.

That's always the best solution.

[Coz483]

I feel like I don't get the eternal love fans have towards these stories to the point they react so strongly to stuff. Like there are a few stories in the series where they felt pretty kept together and we'll made but other times they don't. Like there are a lot of characters that I feel like have had potential but barley done anything, but fans will say how deep and complex they are only to make 8 paragraphs repeating 4 scenes they were in where they didn't do much. I definitely don't think stories should be dumb like lost world, but get surprised how passionately people react to stories and characters with little depth and make it such a big deal. This isn't to say the stories have never been good or had depth, it's just highly exaggerated by fans to me. 

 

I think a big example of what I'm talking about is Shadows story from 06. People say it's so amazing and epic and has the best shadow, and while it does have good moments, as well as shadow having a pretty good character, it feels underwhelming compared to the hype people have made about it for me.

 

I think the only way Sonic stories could feel well developed is either if the games were really long or the game was a rpg.

 

[Razule]

17 minutes ago, Coz483 said:

I feel like I don't get the eternal love fans have towards these stories to the point they react so strongly to stuff. Like there are a few stories in the series where they felt pretty kept together and we'll made but other times they don't. Like there are a lot of characters that I feel like have had potential but barley done anything, but fans will say how deep and complex they are only to make 8 paragraphs repeating 4 scenes they were in where they didn't do much. I definitely don't think stories should be dumb like lost world, but get surprised how passionately people react to stories and characters with little depth and make it such a big deal. This isn't to say the stories have never been good or had depth, it's just highly exaggerated by fans to me. 

 

I think a big example of what I'm talking about is Shadows story from 06. People say it's so amazing and epic and has the best shadow, and while it does have good moments, as well as shadow having a pretty good character, it feels underwhelming compared to the hype people have made about it for me.

 

I think the only way Sonic stories could feel well developed is either if the games were really long or the game was a rpg.

 

Part of it might be that we've had a long time to overanalyze stories even as simple as Sonic Heroes into being a grand, meaningful part of the Sonic mythos. There's some things you just had to be a kid at the time for, or you won't care about them in the same way.