Game Overthinker: Sawnic In CRISIS

[Viewtiful Jeff]

Is this going to turn into a "share-dirt-on-iizuka" thread? 'Cause I could totally go for that.

Anyway. I love Overthinker to death, but, I kinda disagree on a few of the points he made. I really hope he doesn't go the generic "kill the cast, kill the gimmicks, don't let Sonic talk, no more Crush 40" route in video 2. I'm annoyed that he didn't acknowledge that Chronicles and Unleashed are decent (if flawed) games.

I'm also mad that he pointed out the Storybook games without pointing out that Mario is the KING of crappy phoned-in side games that only have his face on him to get them to sell. I mean hell, he even shared one of those with Sonic!

If nothing else, I'm very glad that he decided to put as much effort into this as he did.

Edited April 3, 2009 by Viewtiful Jeff

[Phos]

Mario's spin offs can't be compared to SatBK.

As for Unleashed: Werehog. Nothing changes the facts that during development, the developers knew that Sonic was in dire straights in the eyes of the fans (in b4 Urheart: Hashimoto said he had fans in mind while designing Unleashed several times in the blog on IGN), and yet they thought "yes, this is a good idea". And that's the best case. Worst case, they expected this backlash and did it anyway. They originally had Sonic in the platforming centric Nighttime levels (maybe even talking advantage of Unleashed's "almost there" pinball dynamics?), and they changed it.

[Viewtiful Jeff]

Why not? They both suck.

As for Unleashed, I'm 100% positive Hashimoto didn't want to put the Werehog in, some suit forced him to, he knew the response it would get, and he did it to keep his job.

Regardless of that, it was still a fun game, stupid-looking Werehog or no.

[Phos]

Whoever did it is irrelevant, the point is that someone who is paid to work for Sega and is in a high enough position to influence what goes into the games thought it would be a good idea.

[Viewtiful Jeff]

I guess.

Still doesn't invalidate that it was a fun game.

[Eileanach]

I will admit I am not the biggest fan of Shadow the Hedgehog and I didn't like him in Sonic Adventure 2, but he did not ruin the game. In fact I actually quite enjoyed SA2. It was fun and even if I didn't like him he was a new character and just took me a while to get used to him.

[Twilight Spines]

Part 2 is now up....And i think he just went down the road more travelled in my opinion, aka kill the cast, maybe go back to 2d, heck even get eggman to be called robotnik again(even though chrinicles already did that). Such a big case of did not do the reasearch . Heck he even sugested ideas THAT WERE JUST USED IN UNLEASHED!!!!

Edited April 10, 2009 by Twilight Spines

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Time out kiddies, now let's not be so hasty and jump the shark on his ideas until you've watched the WHOLE video. He says something that really puts down any fires you have on his thoughts near the end if you keep watching before you think about clicking off the page.

Part 2 is now up....And i think he just went down the road more travelled in my opinion, aka kill the cast, maybe go back to 2d, heck even get eggman to be called robotnik again(even though chrinicles already did that). Such a big case of did not do the reasearch.

Some of his points were a little airheaded in that they were merely Classic tastes that don't really do shit for making the games any better or worse, such as:

=The cast

=Eggman/Robotnik's name (<--Seriously, this is one "issue" that needs to die within the fandom and the gaming media, it's just outright retarded)

=And the humans

But his ideas like weaponizing the speed, relearning level design (he did NOT say go back to 2D, nor did he even hint at it), and the plot, those are things that I support him on.

Only difference between him and other folks with their ways of fixing the series is that others claim that their way of going fully to the classics is the only to save the series and take such in elitist approach to it where they criticize others even if they slightly disagree with them.

Unlike Classic Elitist fanboys, the GameOverthink, on the other hand, separates himself from this elitist trait by saying at the end of his analysis:

"I don't think that what I just outlined is the only way or even the best way, but I think it's a way..."

And unlike Classic Elitists, he actually acknowledges fans who love the new characters as fans who want a good game and not to ruin the series when he says:

"Hopefully all you Sonic fans saved through the end and more hopefully you don't all hate me for recommending the total genocide of the Sonic cast."

In otherwords, he recognizes that his ideas may or may not be the best thing for the series to do for everyone else who disagree with his points, but atleast it's something. You can't take just the general parts of his ideas and then use them for the whole point, if you miss a detail and get angry for him taking the obvious path, you're missing out on other information that could actually calm you down.

You have to give him credit in that he wasn't so far up his ass like most other folks in the media. It's not common that someone suggests something, yet recognizes opposing view points on things like the cast. If you ask me he get's more respect in my books for that single line of his near the end.

So let's respect the guy and not hate on him for going the obvious road.

Heck he even sugested ideas THAT WERE JUST USED IN UNLEASHED!!!!

Although when it comes to this part, I do agree that he needs to atleast know what he's talking about before he starts on his points.

But it's not bad for someone who hasn't played Unleashed yet. Actually scrolling through the comments on the video, he actually seems to have played the game.

Edited April 10, 2009 by ChaosSupremeSonic

[Thirsty Pocket]

This guy is the wisest gamer I have ever had the pleasure of listening too. I haven't listened to all his stuff yet, and once in a while I do say "oh no way, that's not cool, or, just no." but those moments are rare.

Im glad he sees that Sonic can be saved. I was worried that he might think there was no hope for Sonic.

Only thing I can say that I disagree with, is that Shadow Sucks ( although I can see why most people think that ) and that Sonic's entire cast is useless ( Marine, and Cream, yeah maybe they are useless. But the others are not. They just... well they show up too much when they arent needed. Although that hasn't happened in a long time... )

EDIT:

I was so dissapointed in him after watching part 2.

Killing off the cast, no, they just need to dissapear for a while, be used sparingly. You don't see Wario, Waluigi, Daisy, Birod, and the rest of the Mario Party exclusive cast invading every mainstream Mario game do you? No you don't. Some people are begging to see them in a Mainstream Mario game. I was so pleased to be Wario in SM64DS, not "ugh, not him again" ...And Luigi was an unlockable in Galaxy. That also pleased me. So maybe, the rest of the cast, or maybe just 1 or 2 of them, should be unlockable as playable characters in the game, after the game is done, with only a tiny bit of gameplay difference? ...And others should just be random NPC's ala Toad and Rosalina? Or they could have other uses like Tails can give Sonic a sky lift, similar to riding Yoshi??

The killing off of humans is just as bad. Humans are great characters and I have no problem. But I only wish humans made up less of the world's population. Seriously, aside from the Koala's in Sonic Rush, every time you see an animal you think: Oh it's a new playable character! ...Why can't we have Animal NPC's as well as humans?

He used the speed boost idea from Sonic Unleashed and Rush... I personally don't like the boost. I guess he could be right on this one. Just... don't use it for flying through a level. That's been the problem lately = More running and less proper platforming.

The Dr. Robotnik/Dr. Eggman thing... well It really is a personal thing. It has nothing to do with the games I guess. I personally prefer Dr. Robotnik myself. I wish we could have both... You know. He refers to himself as the great Dr. Robotnik while Sonic and co. call him Eggman or something. Technically he's still Robotnik though, in both the US and Japan, when Sonic Adventure 2 rolled around. His family name is actually Robotnik. I was pleased that it was used in Chronicles. As I said before, a Bizzaro eggman named Dr. Robotnik with the Sega of America design would have been much better than Eggman Nega.

I really... really didn't like his idea for a story.. well except maybe the hinting at Sonic and Robotnik having some kind of past, explaining the blue and the speed... although I don't care if they leave Sonic and Eggman's pasts just as they are: blank as sheet of clean paper. Im not a huge fan of Sonic's current storyline, but I don't exactly hate it either.

The Mario path he spoke of would be nice, but I say Sonic is best doing a Megaman path... but uhhh... side scrollers should be on the DS ( and play more like Sonic Advanced, less like Rush ) and 3D platformers should be on consoles ( and play like Sonic Adventure. Remember. Megaman Path. Change as little as possible. Sonic 06 = Sonic Adventure, Horribly Butchered. )

Edited April 10, 2009 by Lando The Bat

[Rusty Spy]

Killing off the cast seems like just a personal want from him and a very drastic move. There are a lot of people who liked all of those characters. But really, if you really break it down, the cast isn't really that big. Take away one shot characters and rarely appearing characters and of course the main cast and what do ya get? Shadow, Rouge, Silver, and Blaze. All the other characters, such as Cream, Omega or Big, barely ever appear in the games and have never played a big part in the games. Hell, Rouge is the only one in that list who hasn't had a recent central role in games either.

Though I like his ideas for the actual gameplay, and seems to get the idea of the series as being a one about a guy who's fast, rather than a series about going fast. Being creative with the speed sounds quite logical and makes sense.

[Jay T.]

I will give props for the GameOverthinker for not acting like a total elitist on the Sonic franchise like most do. He did bring up some good points, especially about the Megaman Path, since it can work for Sonic.

I will disagree though on a few things:

Kill the Cast: Like Virgo said, there may be a lot of characters out of the whole series, but if you exclude the one shots or less used, you got a rather small cast. You pretty much got Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Amy, Eggman, Shadow, Rouge, Omega, Blaze, and even Silver seems to be getting involved. Most games usually have one shot or less frequently used characters, depending on the situation. Also, like Virgo said again, there's a great deal of people who like or love most of the characters, even Cream the Rabbit. You gotta remember that!

Kill the Humans (except Eggman): In all honesty really, getting rid of the humans can screw up the storyline a lot more than some people think. What's wrong with Anthropomorphic animals co-existing with humans really? Final Fantasy does it (not too much), and Mario does it (though the other way around), so why not Sonic? Besides, how do we know there wasn't any more humans in the classics besides Eggman? You never know. Cant really rely on the comics and TV/Anime.

Eggman <-> Robotnik: It's been nearly a decade. Let the people decide. Just let it die!

Storyline: The current one isn't SO bad. It just needs fixing, the plot holes have to be filled, and if possible, connect some of the past games together some more to make more sense. There's still debate on Blaze, and I'm sure Shadow needs some fixing.

Overall though, he did pretty good. 'Sides mentioning the Boost again, and the running on water (Adabat and Chun-Nan, anyone?), he did okay.

Personally, here's a couple of suggestions for characters:

1.) Tails needs to be stronger. What I mean is that for quite a while, Tails...Sonic's main buddy/sidekick has been getting less and less major roles than Luigi (I think). While the Tornado is good on occasions, I would like to see Tails spread his tails and fly, run, and so on. Sonic '06 had it going, but the game itself ruined it.

2.) Knuckles' Guarding. Minus Sonic Advance 3 (and Sonic Chronicles I suppose. I haven't really played much), we haven't seen the Master Emerald or barely heard any information about it, plus Knuckles' duty as Guardian of the Master Emerald. Rouge may have lose SOME interest (you never know, she might pull a fast one again), Eggman however can try again, especially since he needs the Chaos Emeralds. What's a Emerald collection without the full set?

3.) Shadow's Power. It needs to go down. I like Shadow, a lot, but the guy is flat out overpowered. He's practically stronger than Sonic in quite a few ways, and we know what Shadow is capable of without his rings on his wrists. He's practically close to Super. But then again, he is the Ultimate Lifeform, but even ultimate beings need some kind of Achilles' Heel, in a way (if there is one, I might've forgotten).

Edited April 10, 2009 by Jay Tanoshi

[Dejablue]

Lol but the old 2D sonic games had cities in them....or at least the ancient remains of cities.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Personally, here's a couple of suggestions for characters:

1.) Tails needs to be stronger. What I mean is that for quite a while, Tails...Sonic's main buddy/sidekick has been getting less and less major roles than Luigi (I think). While the Tornado is good on occasions, I would like to see Tails spread his tails and fly, run, and so on. Sonic '06 had it going, but the game itself ruined it.

I suggest him knowing a little hand-to-hand. There's nothing cooler than an 8 year old technical prodigy who knows how to tango with a robot 4 times his size without any technology on him.

3.) Shadow's Power. It needs to go down. I like Shadow, a lot, but the guy is flat out overpowered. He's practically stronger than Sonic in quite a few ways, and we know what Shadow is capable of without his rings on his wrists. He's practically close to Super. But then again, he is the Ultimate Lifeform, but even ultimate beings need some kind of Achilles' Heel, in a way (if there is one, I might've forgotten).

This is one where I get mixed on, but I'm more disagreeing of that than I do agreeing with it.

Yes, Shadow is overpowered. And that can work both for and against him. It works for him for the Rule of Cool, in that you take a character (which many dislike) who has potential and you morph him from someone people could flat out hate to flat out admire. The more cool and powerful his abilities are, the more well recieved the character.

It works against him in that folks who don't like overpowered characters will hate him a lot more. They're not ones to ogle a character just because of how strong they are, they like a strong character who actually has a weakness, and one who apparently has none isn't really intresting to them. They're basically god-like, and many don't really like that...especially if they have to fight him.

My suggestion would be to increase his powers, yet use the same power against him.

Shadow's key traits are:

-Speed

-Strength

-Immortality

-Chaos powers

...among many others.

Each trait is unaffected by the other, so if you take away one he still has others he can use. Now with this in mind, it could be possible to sap him of his Chaos Energy for a certain amount of time. Eggman already did it to Super Sonic in Unleashed, and Shadow's power is just below that of Super.

Or you could have that same power subdue him where he could really harm himself should he let too much of it seep out. Shadow wouldn't die from it (thanks to immortality), but it would do a hell of a lot of damage to him to the point where he's knocked unconscience or into a coma for a long time period.

There's ways to work this out and make Shadow a powerful, yet not-so-flawless character.

[Diogenes]

Yes, Shadow is overpowered. And that can work both for and against him. It works for him for the Rule of Cool, in that you take a character (which many dislike) who has potential and you morph him from someone people could flat out hate to flat out admire. The more cool and powerful his abilities are, the more well recieved the character.

This paragraph contains both the most shallow sort of "like" of a character and the worst use of the Rule of Cool ever.

Adding new powers onto a bad character isn't going to make the character any better. And it's certainly not going to help if the character is already overpowered.

[SuperStingray]

This paragraph contains both the most shallow sort of "like" of a character and the worst use of the Rule of Cool ever.

Adding new powers onto a bad character isn't going to make the character any better. And it's certainly not going to help if the character is already overpowered.

I must agree. Giving Shadow more power is like attaching a tank to another tank. I'd rather Shadow just appear in Chronicles. That's the only place left I feel his character can go anywhere.

[Chili Dawg]

I agree with a lot of his ideas for the gameplay. Speed needs a more of a purpose than just zipping from point A to point B.

But as for everything else:

Killing off all the other characters won't achieve anything. I don't think they should have every character in the Sonic universe crammed into each game either, but really, just Sonic, Knuckles, and Tails would get repettetive. A few others aren't bad.

The Robotnik/Eggman thing... I can't believe people even still go on about this...

And if every NPC in the games was some furry rodent instead of a human it wouldn't make anything better. It'd be the same... just shorter and furrier... Not to mention the fact humans always existed...

But I appreciate that he doesn't act like he's the only man alive who can fix Sonic and acknowledges that there may be better methods.

[SuperStingray]

Though I don't think killing off secondary and tertiary characters will help the series, it's understandable one would feel it would, given that most of them have been pretty useless since Battle. (Most of them were far better in Chronicles if you ask me, though.) However, it's very unrealistic that Sega would decide to do so given the characters' popularity within the demographic. The best thing I could say is to keep out the characters when they don't need to be involved and try to improve the ones we already have instead of creating new ones.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

This paragraph contains both the most shallow sort of "like" of a character and the worst use of the Rule of Cool ever.

Tch. Well SAW-RY for trying to understand why a lot of kiddies like him and lack of better words to use.

You care to provide me with other details on his powers that attract newer folks, instead of talking down on me like I'm an idiot?

Adding new powers onto a bad character isn't going to make the character any better. And it's certainly not going to help if the character is already overpowered.

Hence why I added that having all that power works against and tried to come up with ideas to balance said overpowered abilities.

Why are you're picking out at only half of the details I said, Dio?

Edited April 11, 2009 by ChaosSupremeSonic

[Diogenes]

Tch. Well SAW-RY for trying to understand why a lot of kiddies like him and lack of better words to use.

Yes, little kids are amused by pretty colors, we all know this. But like I said, it's shallow as all fuck, and it's not something that should be counted as a positive in any form. A character should aspire to be more than a furry kaleidoscope strapped to a ton of TNT, even for the little kids who don't "get" character depth yet.

And the Rule of Cool, in simplest terms, means that the more awesome something is, the less sense it has to make. "Sense" has nothing to do with this so the Rule shouldn't even come up, but also overloading on powers in itself isn't cool enough for the rule to apply; the execution is far more important (hell, the powers aren't even necessary), and it's something I feel Shadow has consistently failed to pull off.

Hence why I added that having all that power works against and tried to come up with ideas to balance said overpowered abilities.

Yet you still said to make him even more powerful. He's already one of the most powerful characters in the series, quite likely would be the most powerful if not for Sonic being the title character...what's the point of making him even stronger? Plus your proposed fixes don't really do all that much. Draining chaos energy is too situational, it's not something that can be relied on as a consistent weakness. The "blow a fuse" plan is way too easily abused for fake tension, where they claim going too far will hurt him but they never have the balls to follow through with it, so whatever power he uses is always just a bit less than it'd take to actually hurt him (and is probably exactly the same amount of power they'd have him use anyway). And if they ever do use it, they're making him even more overpowered at that moment.

Best solution is just to get "overpowered" right the fuck out of the equation. Strong? Definitely. But "overpowered" is something that should be used sparingly if at all, not as a consistent character trait. Tone the characters down to a reasonable level, let them get roughed up every once in a while, and give them legitimate weaknesses, not gimmick ones.

Why are you're picking out at only half of the details I said, Dio?

Because the rest doesn't bother me, at least not enough for me to complain about it.

[Phos]

Eh, kind of lame. The root of my disagreement was his line about making a game that's about a guy who is fast, rather than make a game that's fast. The reason why they made Sonic fast in the first place was so they could make the game fast, and if you change that, you've lost the point of making it a Sonic game.

Look, I've heard that stuff about "It doesn't matter if it's 'Sonic' as long as it's good" speech, but if I wanted just a good game not based on what made Sonic good, I could pop in any game. For example, his version of the boost, particularly it's use in combat, sound a lot like Ultimate Technique from Ninja Gaiden.

E: The more powerful Shadow becomes, the more people who hate him now will hate him more

Edited April 11, 2009 by Phos

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Yes, little kids are amused by pretty colors, we all know this. But like I said, it's shallow as all fuck, and it's not something that should be counted as a positive in any form.

Oh, you weren't talking about me being shallow with the idea, just the notion of his powers getting all the attention for the character...thanks for letting me know, but could you please try to make it a bit more clear in the future. It came across more like an insult than anything else.

A character should aspire to be more than a furry kaleidoscope strapped to a ton of TNT, even for the little kids who don't "get" character depth yet.

Well...yeah, I guess I did overblow it on the power a bit. Though I would've done the same for any other character.

And the Rule of Cool, in simplest terms, means that the more awesome something is, the less sense it has to make. "Sense" has nothing to do with this so the Rule shouldn't even come up, but also overloading on powers in itself isn't cool enough for the rule to apply;

How about enlightening someone first on them misusing the term before give the impression that you're talking down on them? Would've helped a lot better before you started going off like that.

I'm not here trying to make a fool of myself on purpose you know, and you could atleast let me know that before making it look like you're broadcasting it like I am one. I know you're one to point out stupid stuff from other people, Dio, but what you did seemed over the top to me, and it really doesn't help me get your point at all.

Yet you still said to make him even more powerful.

Yes, with that all that power being as much of his disadvantage as it is an advantage.

He's already one of the most powerful characters in the series, quite likely would be the most powerful if not for Sonic being the title character...what's the point of making him even stronger?

I like to develop a character to the furthest limit as I can, without making them that much akin to a god and still having some achillies heels that could easily be taken advantage of. I like the ideas of appealing, strong, but not god-like characters. That's just me.

That's not to say I would make a character like Knuckles pale in comparison to Shadow. I would've stretched his abilities in the same way to make him even more powerful too.

Plus your proposed fixes don't really do all that much. Draining chaos energy is too situational, it's not something that can be relied on as a consistent weakness. The "blow a fuse" plan is way too easily abused for fake tension, where they claim going too far will hurt him but they never have the balls to follow through with it, so whatever power he uses is always just a bit less than it'd take to actually hurt him (and is probably exactly the same amount of power they'd have him use anyway). And if they ever do use it, they're making him even more overpowered at that moment.

Hey it was just off the top of my head. I could come up with anything else given how bizarre the series already is.

Plus, those two ideas of mine could be manifested in many different ways. I just wanted to keep it a bit basic and not have my post be so damn long on one thing; I already have a bad habit of making tl;dr posts that are larger than norm.

Best solution is just to get "overpowered" right the fuck out of the equation. Strong? Definitely. But "overpowered" is something that should be used sparingly if at all, not as a consistent character trait. Tone the characters down to a reasonable level, let them get roughed up every once in a while, and give them legitimate weaknesses, not gimmick ones.

Same thing I was trying to say, different wording. Actually scratch that, I didn't say any of that at all. I merely thought I did when I said "powerful, yet not-so-flawless".

Because the rest doesn't bother me, at least not enough for me to complain about it.

You still could've done a better job at critquing it than what you did. I've seen much less over the top stuff from you than that.

Edited April 11, 2009 by ChaosSupremeSonic

[SuperStingray]

Eh, kind of lame. The root of my disagreement was his line about making a game that's about a guy who is fast, rather than make a game that's fast. The reason why they made Sonic fast in the first place was so they could make the game fast, and if you change that, you've lost the point of making it a Sonic game.

Sonic should be able to go fast, but I don't think that's what the game should be completely centered around. That's how we get games like Sonic Advance 2. Edited April 11, 2009 by SuperStingray