Reasonable Assessment: The Case For Shiro Maekawa
I can divide you into three camps right about now.
Group A: Oh yay. Shiro Maekawa was cool.
Group B: Ew, gross. Anything but Shiro Maekawa. Come on, Noah! You’re better than that.
Group C: Who the heck is Shiro Maekawa?
For those in Group C, Shiro Maekawa is most known for writing several Sonic The Hedgehog games, notably Sonic Adventure 2. He left Sonic Team some years ago and is now working…somewhere else?
For those of you in Group B, this is part where you roll your eyes while I say positive things about Maekawa.
Let me just come out and say it. I love Sonic Adventure 2. And I don’t care if you don’t. Along with S3&K, I’ve bought it several times on several platforms and I’m still having fun playing it after all these years. Go ahead and whine about how it supposedly “hasn’t aged well,” or whatever you think that means. Have fun playing Ocarina of Time again.
Regardless of what you think of SA2′s gameplay, I’ll still contend that the story is an absolute blast.
Yes. I said it.
The story of SA2 is great.
“Ugh, Noah! You got to be kidding me! That story is an edge-fest and waaaay too serious!”
No. Absolutely not.
The story is great.
The very first cutscene of the game has Sonic skydiving out of helicopter while making one-liners about airline food, for crying out loud. [sarcasm] Gee. So dark! [/sarcasm]
What game did you people play?
Yes, it had darker/serious moments and undertones, but the story (as a whole) was very campy, over-the-top summer-popcorn action. It was great.
No, it’s not thought-provoking Oscar stuff and it never aimed to be. It’s fun, cinematic, and outrageous, the way an Indiana Jones flick is. And who doesn’t love a good Jones flick?
Speaking of Indiana Jones, I think you can learn a lot about a creative person by who they are influenced by. Maekawa’s opening Babylon cutscene of Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity is clearly influenced by the Spielberg classic Raiders of The Lost Ark, which is just as fun and pulpy.
Yes, these stories are over-the-top, but you can still get invested in them. You absolutely can.
You can take it seriously and have fun with it all at the same time. But if you expect to be in the same sort of place that you are when you would watch A Beautiful Mind, then what the heck is up with your expectations?
Many compare Sonic Adventure 2 to 2005’s Shadow The Hedgehog spin-off game, claiming that both games are examples of the franchise taking itself way too seriously. I don’t understand these comparisons at all. Yes, Shadow The Hedgehog, which was not written by Maekawa, is an overly-serious edge-fest, but Sonic Adventure 2 is not. If you can’t see that, that’s either a lack of critical analysis on your part or foggy memory. If it’s been a while since you’ve played either, revisit them and you’ll see the difference. It’s night and day, the difference between a Marvel movie and a DC movie. One is fun and exciting, the other is an overly-gritty slog.
Really, Maekawa is a science-fiction writer, clearly influenced by blockbuster Hollywood films. Ever notice the similarities between Sonic Adventure 2’s climax and the climax of Armageddon? (the latter of which, came out in late 1998, right around the time Sonic Team had finished the first Sonic Adventure and were getting ready to start the sequel)
Both feature a giant space rock heading to impact Earth in mere minutes, before our hero has to sacrifice his life to stop it. The only difference is that one hero is a black hedgehog and the other is Bruce Willis. Some of the shots, including the celebration sequence, are similar. If that sounds like I’m stretching, you should take a look at some more gif’s.
Is Maekawa’s writing the most original and cutting-edge stuff ever known to man? No.
Is it still enjoyable? Yup!
“But Noah, what about all the plot holes in SA2? Are you just going to ignore those?”
Excuse me, plot holes? What plot holes? Let’s make it clear, there’s a difference between a “plot hole” and “something that’s left unexplained.”
A plot hole breaks a story’s own internal logic by contradicting something that was previously established. I find that most of things in SA2 that get called a plot hole, aren’t irreconcilable impossibilities, but rather things that are simply left unexplained.
If you don’t know, SA2 was made in barely over a year with a core team of only about 17 people. It went through radical changes in gameplay during development. I imagine that there was a lot of story and exposition that was cut during such a relatively quick dev-cycle. Judging by the unused voice clips found by data miners, we know for a fact that several cutscenes were omitted before the final release. Perhaps the loose strands of the plot were explained in a cut scene that got axed.
Plus, recently-retranslated scripts of SA2 show that the original Japanese dialogue explains more things. This game suffers from poor localization, not poor writing.
Again, for comparison, Shadow The Hedgehog has actual plot holes and inconsistencies. SA2 doesn’t. Maybe people are just mixing up these two games like some sort of “Sinbad-in-a-genie-movie” level of collective memory error?
And really, the biggest thing holding back Sonic Adventure 2’s story isn’t the writing, but the cutscene’s terrible presentation. The timing is off, voice actors’ lines come in too late and go on too long. But then again, this was years before you had devs like Naughty Dog making cinematics based a human actor’s performance in an extensive/expensive motion capture studio. None of that was commonplace yet. In 2001, things were different. Nevertheless, I want to make a clear distinction between writing and presentation for the sake of critical analysis.
But enough about SA2, let’s move on to another Maekawa-penned story. Sonic & The Black Knight, while ranging from mediocre-to-terrible in the gameplay department, has some decent writing. You can always tell when Maekawa is writing a Sonic game by how good the characters feel. They’re natural and have personality. Nothing feels forced.
One particularly memorable moment is when Sonic encounters a child whose village was attacked by a dragon. If you’ve played the game, you know what moment I’m talking about. In brief, Sonic completely abandons his own mission and inconveniences himself to help those in need. Because he “plays by his own rules.” This is one of Sonic’s save-the-cat moments that really makes you like Sonic’s character and his profound desire to help others deep-down.
I also find that Black Knight has Jason Griffith’s best performance of his career as the voice of Sonic. And I think he owes that in part to having solid writing to work with.
Speaking of good characterization, can we take this time to address how Maekawa seems to be the only writer that cares to remind us that Knuckles is, in fact, a treasure hunter? While both SEGA and Pontac/Gaff seem to have forgotten this, there was a time where any character description of Knuckles The Echidna had the words “treasure hunter” somewhere. Nowadays, he’s unfortunately become the village-idiot.
In Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity, Knuckles can read the ancient Babylonian language when no one else can (he’s not only literate, he’s freaking bilingual). He’s also the only one familiar with the ancient temple called the Gigan Rocks, claiming, “It’s a pretty famous ruin among us treasure hunters.” It’s a small detail, but it’s the kind of detail that shows Maekawa understands Knuckles. In other words, he knows that Knuckles is not an all-brawn-no-brain meathead. (In fact, Knuckles derogatorily refers to Storm The Albatross as a “meathead” in the very same game!)
Tasteful Blend (Part of a Well-Balanced Breakfast)
Back on SA2, another accomplishment Maekawa managed was his blend between humor and action. I am careful to avoid the word “balance” in this context, because it seems to be a trigger word in this community. Many people have pointed to Pontac & Gaff’s Sonic Colors writing as an example of balance because it has jokes and action. But really, Colors isn’t balanced at all because it’s at least 90% comedy. The subject of comedy in Sonic is an ongoing argument, and could easily be it’s own article (and perhaps will be someday).
Nevertheless, I think Maekawa handled comedy well. (I think I just made people from both sides of this argument mad with that sentence).
“Seriously, Noah? SA2 has absolutely zero comedy! It isn’t ever funny and it has never made me laugh,” says both sides of the debate.
See, that’s the thing. SA2 never forces comedy or brings attention to it. It never turns to the audience and says, “oh look! I made a pun! Did you catch that?” But comedy is still there, it’s just a different kind of comedy. Pontac comedy is obvious, Maekawa comedy is more downplayed. That’s why it’s tasteful use of comedy. It’s Aristotelian comedy, not Three Stooges. It doesn’t get in the way, but it does help the story feel less weighty. It makes the story more like a well-blended Empire Strikes Back kind of a story, and less like a A New Hope kind of story. (Does that make the Pontac games the Prequel Trilogy? I see Jar Jar fitting into that analogy somehow).
The comedic moments of SA2 stem naturally from character interactions, not from an array of cheeky punchlines (*cough* Pontac and Gaff). Amy Rose, in particular, is the designated comedic relief character of the whole game.
Throughout SA2, Amy always seems to be the butt-end of every scenario. She gets ignored. She gets left-behind. She gets rejected by Sonic. And it’s always light-hearted and in good fun because the stakes are never high for her. Her main goal isn’t to save or destroy the world; her goal is to simply follow her hopeless love interest around like a little school girl. She’s there to contrast herself with the heaviness and darkness of the main plot. She acts as a nice a breather to keep the constant action/drama from becoming repetitive Chinese-water-torture. A tasteful contrast, if you will.
The Stain of 2006
“Okay, that’s all fine and dandy, Noah. You’re still failing to address the biggest mark against Shiro Maekawa.”
Ok. Let’s talk about it. Let’s talk about Maekawa’s involvement with Sonic 06.
Now, if you know me, you know that I don’t like Sonic 06. In fact, I punished myself live on TSSZ’s twitch page by watching all 2+ hours of the game’s cutscenes because I lost a bet. The story, in particular, is pretty bad in that game.
So it appears I’m caught in a trap, and those in Group B are licking their lips right now. I said that I like Maekawa’s writing, but I hate Sonic 06′s story (as does a huge portion of the fanbase). How could I possibly convince you that Maekawa’s writing is good when he has this big stain on his resume?
Well, I think we need take a closer look at what Maekawa actually did for Sonic 06.
While I can’t say for certain how Japanese game studios do it, there is a creative role distinction you’ll commonly see in the American film and television industry: the “story by” and “written/script by” distinction.
Ever watch the opening credits to a TV show and see something like this?
Story by Alan Burnett. Teleplay by Steve Perry. Basically that means that Alan Burnett (story by) came up with overall plot, the outline, the events/scenarios, and the general idea. Meanwhile, Steve Perry (teleplay/script) took that idea and actually wrote down specific dialogue and what-not in a physical screenplay.
Well, look at what we have here for Sonic 06, according to Sonic Retro.
Story by Shun Nakamura. Script by Shiro Maekawa (and Kiyoko Yoshimura).
This distinction is huge.
Maekawa was likely not responsible for a lot of the executive narrative decisions of the game. And if/when he was, he shared that responsibility with another writer (Ms. Yoshimura). Sonic 06 really seems to belong to this Shun Nakamura guy, as he was also chief game designer in addition to being credited with director, game title, and game story. That’s a lot of influence coming from Shun, and not from our good pal Maekawa.
Plus, there are three different stories being told in Sonic 06. There’s Sonic’s story, Shadow’s story, and Silver’s story. Frankly, I’m just spit-balling here, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Maekawa was mostly responsible for Shadow’s story. Free of cringey hedgehog-princess relationships, Shadow’s story actually features some great character moments from the black hedgehog, including his defiant speech shortly before the credits. Against all odds, Shadow’s characterization in 06 is his only post-SA2 depiction that isn’t a dumb misinterpretation of his character. After all, Maekawa was instrumental in creating Shadow, so it makes sense that he would return to handle his own character properly.
But I could be wrong. Maybe Maekawa simply dropped the ball with Sonic 06 and made some bad decisions. It’s entirely possible for a creative person to make both good works and bad works. Do I need to bring up Indiana Jones again and its terrible fourth movie?
Sonic 06’s story is bad and I don’t like it. But I do like Maekawa’s other works. And guess what? That’s ok!
The terribleness of Sonic 06‘s story shouldn’t affect anything other than Sonic 06. All of Maekawa’s other stories are separate entities. And surely there is one of those stories that you liked.
Or maybe there isn’t. Maybe you hate all of them. I don’t think Maekawa is a bad writer. I think he found a good tone for the series and I don’t mock people who praise him. If you disagree, that’s fine. I still think there’s a fair case to be made in favor of Maekawa. That’s my assessment. I hope it’s a reasonable one.
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What do you think? Having a different opinion? I’m not just saying that. I do read the comment section, I really do. If you leave a comment, I will read it, and may feature it in Noah’s Comment Spotlight. It’s all good, fam.
BIO: Noah Copeland is a somewhat-interesting human. He makes music, makes films, and stands at exactly average height. You can find him on his TSSZ author page, or on Twitter@NoahCopeland, where he posts his creative works and slightly less-thought-out essays of 140 characters.
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I forgot who wrote the stories for Rush/Rush Adventure, but they are also my personal favorite writer(s) for the series.
Tbh, people talk about how 06 is the worst story, I think people should see how bad BioWare messed up with Chronicles. It honestly beats Shad’s game and 06. At least with Shad’s game it’s the kinda story that’s funny-bad at points and doesn’t make every single character an asshole, and 06 goes the same route whist not being as edgy-dark as Shad’s game but more “Final Fantasy-edge” and it more had a problem of characters just being put in for no real reason. (lookin’ at Blaze)
Chornicles is just, ECH.
You know, I’ve never played Rush/Rush Adventure or Chronicles. From what you guys have said, it doesn’t sound like I’m missing much from Chronicles. For all I know, it may very well be worse than 06, but because Chronicles was a small game for DS, you’ll usually hear about 06’s story more.
Which is better between Rush and Rush Adventure?
Hard for me to truly say as I love both. I’d say Rush Adventure a little more if you want, well, an Adventure, as it explores a good deal of locations for Blaze’s Dimension, and the interactions between Sonic, Tails, Blaze and Marine are very fun.
On the same note, I do love Cream and Blaze’s eventual sisterly bonding thru her story. And the battle between Blaze and Sonic is probably my favorite rival fight of the entire series.
As for Chronicles, well, let’s just say it’s like the bad parts of late 90’s/early 2000’s Archie Sonic, but cranked up even farther with a Sonic that’s an overboard asshat to his friends and not at all like what you’d see in Black Knight or Adventure 2.
Between Rush and Rush Adventure, the consensus is usually that Rush is better, but Rush Adventure is still a solid game.
In terms of story, it really depends on what you’re looking for. Rush is a bit simpler with a mostly straightforward Classic/Advance style of progression with some cutscenes attached, following the basic “Sonic and other character both try to stop Eggman/other threat separately, clash, then come together towards the end to defeat their common enemy” formula. Sonic Rush Adventure is a bit more focused in that it’s following one scenario with an overall “adventure on the high seas” kind of vibe, though in terms of plot impact it’s mostly the same as Rush, in that things pick up towards the end of the main story and especially during the true final boss section. The key difference is that Sonic and Blaze are one scenario, so it’s less about “here’s what Sonic’s doing, here’s what Blaze is doing” and more “when we last left our heroes”.
Really it’s like trying to distinguish between tangelos and tangerines rather than apples and oranges, they’re both more similar to each other than they are different, so which is stronger is up to you.
A long overdue defense of Sonic Adventure 2, Zero Gravity, Black Knight and “Shadow ’06”. I’m beyond sick of people pretending these good stories don’t exist in the Sonic universe.
Well, those’re pretty much all of the Sonic Stories I liked. I guess I like Maekawa.
My best sonic story has always been sonic and the black knight, it was between light-hearted and dark and edgy, it really caught the vibe of sonic if it wasnt for the swords men century.
Now, Noah, as a fellow SA2 lover, I am on your side. I don’t believe that Maekawa is the magical key for fixing Sonic or making the stories good again, but I do believe he brings something to the table that no one else has managed to… *get.* I agree pretty much 100% with this article.
…Except for the whole “plotholes” issue. I’m gonna give a couple of contentions on that.
While you are right in saying that the plotholes people say SA2 has are more accurately as “stuff that’s unexplained,” I don’t think that makes it any less of a problem. It is stuff that probably really should have been explained. I can understand it getting in the way of someone’s enjoyment of the story. Because while it may not be a plothole, it has a similar an effect: it leaves your brain itching and ruines your suspension of disbelief.
I do have my own issues with the “stuff that’s unexplained” criticism (e.g. its stuff that pops up mainly at the end, so why is it interfering with your enjoyment of the entire story?), but I don’t think it deserves to be tossed aside.
And while you are probably right that the “stuff that’s unexplained” came out of a rushed production near the end, I’m sorry, but I’m gonna bring out the big gun and quote an SA2-non-believer, Somecallmejohnny.
“And no, don’t tell me because it was rushed, I don’t care about that. They released the game, I’m going to review what was given to me. I’m not gonna cut the game any slack because of what it was supposed to be.”
He’s right, you know. No one is obliged to treat any product with baby hands because it was going to be good. With that logic, all Early Access games on Steam are golden masterpieces. How’s the average person supposed to know how the story was meant to be, and why should they care? Yes, you were mainly getting at “Shiro shouldn’t be given a bad rap due of the unexplained stuff because that was out of his control,” but either that’s also your defense against the “stuff that’s unexplained” or you don’t have one beyond calling them “stuff that’s unexplained.”
Maybe Shiro wasn’t to blame for all of the-ugh, I’m tired of typing “stuff that’s unexplained”-not-plotholes, but I doesn’t mean they’re gone forever. And since we only have guesses, I can’t really blame someone for still criticizing Maekawa for them either.
And by-the-by, the re-translated script you showed doesn’t answer all of the big questions folks have at the end of the story, so it only clarifies, not answers, a few things.
Again, I’m on your side. I don’t think Shiro’s a bad writer and I like SA2’s story a lot, but I think a better point could have been made against the not-plotholes.
I’m actually thinking of doing my own counter-argument in favor of SA2’s story in a video, which would elaborate on my stances on the stuff-not-explained arguments and other things, but that’s a maybe.
P.S. For me, the sin Shiro has to answer for isn’t 06, it’s Sonic Heroes’ story. Jeez, he wrote that, story-boarded it, and was the game’s main designer, and the story for that was either too paper-thin to be satisfying or just outright dumb.
Yes, Heroes is easily one of his weakest stories. In an interview with Maekawa, he said that SA2 was designed entirely around the story. But in Heroes, the game was established first, and then the story was shoehorned in around it. I think it’s obvious which method worked out better.
Lemme know if you ever make that video. Curious to see it.
I still believe there is a more complex and interesting story buried under Sonic Heroes, there are a lot of hints about that in the game like how and when was Metal Sonic planning to use the Shadow androids? Was he carrying them from the base in the canyon over to the flying fleet? (That would explain Eggman ordering the Chaotix to destroy the capsules in there while Team Dark find the pieces of one of the androids after beating the Egg Albatross). Also did Metal Sonic gained his mercury form and shape-shifting abilities from Chaos? That’s probably why he kidnapped Froggy and Chocola (a Chao), I’m pretty sure that if Sonic Heroes had a more Adventure-like format the story would have been much better.
Yeah, I feel like there was more there planned for a future game. But that all got abandoned with 06’s soft reboot nautre, and Shad’s retconing of the “timeline”
But I think Ocarina of Time aged poorly too, Twilight Princess is my favorite Zelda game…
Either way, I will agree the Adventures suffered greatly from their presentation, and I too like a lot of SA2’s story (though I think SA1 is better, feels a bit more classic Sonic PUT THE TORCHES DOWN, PEOPLE), but the Space Shuttle and the first-time Chaos Control is always going to be bother me, and the localization and sound direction was exceptionally awful even by 2001 standards.
No torches here, my friend 😉
It wasn’t made in a year because at E3 2000 they already had a trailer. By the way, Tails/Rouge/Eggman weren’t “late addition due to criticism” because they aren’t in the end of character table. in the code.
And interview with Maekawa:
http://ykz-sonic.blogspot.ru/2006/09/shiro-maekawa-interview-adventure-2-sonic-channel.html
Correct. It was not made in a year. It was made in over a year. The development cycle was in between one year and two years.
Just want to say that the “Candy from a baby” line isn’t in the original japanese version, In fact, the whole thing is a lot less edgy, the script of the game I mean.
Oh really? Wow. Didnt know that. That’s a really sad attempt to appeal to western audiences on the localization team’s part.
It’s funny how different that game was in Japan from the US. I’m sure you’ve seen the Japanense dance commercial for Shadow? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiIRrTAhsiY
While there are certain points I agree with you on, these include the comedic argument, there are certain things I disagree with you in. In your argument about plot-holes vs. unexplained, there are lots of instances where the unexplained is just lazy. This includes in Sonic Heroes, where throughout the entire game, Shadow is trying to figure out who he is, but Rouge, or anyone else doesn’t tell him who he is. That’s left unexplained, but it’s worth criticizing because it makes the gamer annoyed by the fact that common sense is being thrown out the window. And while yes, I really like your characterization argument, there’s just an instance of out of character writing that’s sitting in the back of my head that’s worth mentioning, and ironically the example used is also in Sonic Heroes. In Team Rose’s story, Amy attacks Sonic over not marrying her, even though she has two people who need his help. Three things strike me odd with this. One, in Sonic Adventure, Amy never chased after Sonic after the two split several years prior. This tells us that she understands not to force Sonic to do anything. If that’s the case, doesn’t it seem like a contradiction that she thinks it’s a good idea to fight Sonic? The nice girl who knew she couldn’t do anything extreme in Sonic Adventure, clashes with the extreme personality in Sonic Heroes. Two, wouldn’t it have made more sense just to team up with Sonic not only so she can help Cream and Big, and some point in the adventure talk to him personally? Instead of doing the exact opposite of what will help her. And three, now there’s a way this scene could’ve worked that’s never done. This scene could’ve set up an arc for Amy where she learns from her mistakes, but it’s never done. All these reasons ruin Amy’s character. This changes her from a sympathetic girl whose in love, to a creepy fan girl. And I honestly don’t feel the campy excuse can justify the problems I’ve stated, that’s just an excuse for lazy writing if you ask me. I just don’t feel that Maekawa is that good of a writer, relying too much on unexplained situations, and plot-holes to make stories.
Sorry for my long ramble.
As for the SA2 climax, Armageddon might have been one source of inspiration but I don’t think it’s the only one… AFAIK the “space colony falling to Earth” plot has been used almost to death in the Gundam franchise. The Gundam reference is made more likely by an unused line of dialogue, supposed to appear during the end of SA2 Last Story (and later reused in equivalent scene in Japanese version of Sonic X), that mentions Ark reappearing in “quadrant L1” (or “location L1” in 4Kids subbed version of Sonic X) – L1 most likely referring to one of Lagrange points, which are the usual locations of space colonies in Gundam (“quadrant” is probably a fault of the person writing English script of the game, who most likely just didn’t even have an idea what Lagrange points are).
Oh that’s interesting! I’ve never watched Gundam so I would not have caught that. Cool stuff
I´m and old fan who started on Sonic the Hedgehog on Master System and Mega Drive, who prefers the classics over the modern ones, and I totally agree with you on SA2. I can´t really say the same about Black Knight or 2006 as I din´t play the first and didn´t finish the last one. SA2 had the best plot in all 3D Sonic games and it was one of the best gameplay-wise, better than first Adventure IMO. I´ve replayed it tons of times and I have gotten all 180 emblems at least 4 times. I´ve never skipped any of the cutscenes while playing the story mode, and I still like it today. Yeah, it may have things unexplained, but I always thought later games were going to expand on that universe rather than restarting it again.
180 emblems 4 times? Dramatic slow clap for you my friend!
I remember as a grade school kid, getting all 180 was my life goal for a few months before I finally achieved it. Good times, good times.
Couldn’t agree more, my favorite stories in Sonic games are those were Maekawa was involved (except Sonic Rush and Rush Adventure were he wasn’t involved).
Sonic Adventure 2 is still my favorite story to date, just to add to what you said already I like that even if it was a good vs bad team movie he gave every character a meaninful purpose and goal to accomplish, also it had very interesting twists and characters interactions and for once Eggman was capable of out smarting Sonic.
The first two Sonic Riders have good stories as well, Black Knight story is fantastic! It’s a shame it was presented so poorly (with static images) and the game had such bad gameplay but the plot is still neat.
I’m really hoping Sega could hire Maekawa again, that or find another writer like him, I’m really fed up with Pontac and Graf writing to the point of prefering the Sonic Runners stories over Colors, Generations and Lost World (and Runners didn’t forget Knuckles was a treasure hunter among other things).
It’d be cool if they freelanced him back to write another Sonic. Unfortunately, I think that is unlikely. However, if we want to talk wish-lists, I wish Ian Fylnn would write a game.
I want to ask, which is better between Rush and Rush Adventure? I’m seeing a lot of praise for these two on this article
That’s a hard one, they’re both really good but maybe the first one a little bit more, especially because of Blaze arc, their stories are not ground breaking but their character work is excellent.
You should try those if you have the means to do so, really good games in every aspect, and yes Ian Flynn would be a fine choice if Maekawa is not available, can’t wait to find out who is writing Project 2017.
Well well well well well well well If this isn’t a sight for very sore eyes. I vote this article 100% http://sta.sh/0rk81r6kncf (YES! DEFINITELY! ABSOLUTELY!)
Okay now seriously I absolutely cannot disagree here one bit. Even though my memory is a bit fuzzy about Shadow 2005 & Black Knight (both need an HD upgrade but ahem) You picked up a thought that most don’t think of but yeah things being co written. I agree its a damn good bet that Maekawa probably didn’t agree to half the stuff that was thrown his way while writing out stories and plots. The man I do feel knew how to write stories as they should be told but as always the corporate culture gets feisty real fast and I may be wrong but I would bet that 9 times out of 10 I they stomped all over his writing. Thus probably why we got so much strange stuff that I’m betting he really did not even want. Makes me wonder why Yuji Naka left to be honest. That’s why I said a while back in a few places that there needs to be a corporate cultural revolution in video game companies and this stomping all over each other and cashing in on big names has seriously got to quit PERIOD! I don’t know if they’re playing with contracts still like they did with that oh so brilliant(sarcasm) deal with Nintendo back a few years that clearly backfired in their faces while the smoke was being blown in our faces pretty much. I say if they have any sense I think they should take Maekawa’s stories at full face value and roll with them and hey “STEP IT UP” roll with what ever he lays on the table! This is 2017 not the 20th century where we were completely politically correct 😆 Leave out the political correctness and run with it. I don’t know if they’ll ever use Maekawa ever again but I think they should anyway. Sometimes I say just follow my Sonic 10 commandments and I think they’ll do just fine. (Yes I have a 10 commandments document. 😆 Some agree and some disagree with it.) http://fav.me/d7081ul <–Just don't take it too seriously cause it was one of my insane parodies 😆
BTW: Has anyone every questioned how strong Sonic is? Notice he can lift Elise & Amy 😆
Never thought of the Armageddon & SA2 comparison, but looking at it now I can see the simiarites. Though Maekawa actually drew many inspirations with the anime/manga called “Please Save My Earth” (descent anime if anyone wishes to check it out) for that game’s story. I agree with many pointers you brought up, especially over 06’s story. Though there’s one other thing that people bring up on why one should hate Maekawa; Mainly that he’s not a fan of the classic series, despite a history of filmmakers that adapt a franchise their not fond of or even dislike (example: Jun Fukuda & Kazuki Omori with Toho’s Godzilla or Brain Singer’s X-Men) and can still make a solid product.
Him and Nishiyama are a thousand times better than P&G any day of the week.
Flynn is okay (by comic book standards), but I don’t think meta references and snarky humor (such as Sonic and Sally moments) are good for a Sonic Team-developed Sonic game.
If Sonic is to make grand return, the series should be as faithful to the Dreamcast era as much as it can (minus hardware limitations). And that includes writers/writing-style. The Gamecube era had a nice start, especially for us Nintendo fans just entering the series (mainly due to the two core titles originally developed for the Dreamcast, the Genesis titles being timeless fun nostalgia (the first two Advance games also fall in this category), and everything in-between serving as hidden gems for true Sonic fans who love the series).
Once the first new console Sonic game (after the Dreamcast) Sonic Heroes came around, future titles went from okay, to meh, to crap. Never again.
Pretty reasonable if you ask me. I always felt that his style was much more fitting for Sonic’s games. These days it just literally feels like Sonic is “playing” the funny sarcastic jokester rather than it being something that feels organic. Maekawa definitely made Sonic feel organic, his humor AND his sense of justice and freedom always felt perfectly blended to me. He clearly understood how not just Sonic, but all the other characters worked and acted. Which makes it even more jarring when you consider that some of Pontac and Gaff’s edits to the characters’ personalities were actually mandated by Sega themselves.
Anyway, I never really saw his writing style as way too edgy or serious, it always seemed to know how to have a decent blend of taking itself seriously while not taking itself too seriously either. Cause let’s face it, we’ve seen at least 2 examples of how Sonic can be taken too seriously with the disaster games you mentioned, and lately we seem to be seeing the results of what happens when Sonic is not to be taken seriously in any amount (thanks to our two new “favorite” writers for the series).
A Sonic game doesn’t need to be all laughs all the time, it needs to be funny enough that it lightens up the load brought on by the plot while at the same time allowing the contrast to make you appreciate the significance of both the drama and the humor. The idea that you need to be mostly one or the other with Sonic is just plain naive. Yeah he’s a talking cartoon hedgehog that runs fast, BUT HE’S ALSO A TALKING CARTOON HEDGEHOG THAT RUNS FAST! That one statement can be both ridiculous AND awesome, thus Sonic as a concept is ridiculously awesome, and that’s what the games should be, gameplay, story, and all, and I also feel that Maekawa was the only one to get the closest to that perfect blend for Sonic. It’s half the reason Unleashed is my favorite Sonic game.
Mr. Maekawa currently works at Marvelous Inc., if his Facebook page and LinkedIn profiles are anything to go by (look up 前川司郎). He also has a Twitter @mizuhano.
Oh and, thanks again for linking to my translated scripts and the SA2 audio stuff I datamined, dude. Much appreciated!
Thanks! Good info! Your translations are wonderful, thanks so much for posting those.
Its funny seeing you defend the story of the games you like when the simple irony is that the people you are arguing with see NO story at all as the ideal. They don’t care whether or not the story is good or not, they just don’t want it there. Using Sonic Colors as an example:
Sonic good guy,
Robotnik bad guy,
Sonic stop bad guy Robotnik
Insert jokes where necessary.
Same thing with Generations except you can add “reference previous game” to the list. Its a bad attempt at imitating Mario except Mario games supplement the lack of story with good Lore usually told to the player by NPCs (Some of which get their own games like Captain Toad). Tell me, did anyone of Sonic’s friends say anything interesting in Sonic Generations?
And while we’re at it, Ignore the rants about “gameplay comes first” because RPGs have been delivering both great stories and great gameplay longer than I have been alive.
I hate 06 and love unleashed and lost world. This sonic adventure guy wrote a story I didn’t like well Sonic adventure 2 anyways. Everything else up to unleashed was trash to me sonic riders included. I don’t expect the best, I need then best. At least sonic unleash had a constant no plot hole filled story. In lost world at least things made sense and I wasn’t questioning the brain cells count of most characters.
Are you sure? Lost World?
The game that gave us one of the most dumbed down asinine plots and characterizations yet? This game is nothing but lost brain cells. It’s pre-Sonic Boom.
Tails: You trust Eggman more than me!
Sonic: I did something stupid!
Not to mention how wangst Sonic was over Tails getting captured.
To each its own but seriously the story and characterization of Lost World leaves a lot to be desired.
>Sonic constantly mocks Knuckles for getting tricked by Eggman.
>In Lost World Sonic gets tricked by Eggman in a lamer way than Knuckles ever did.
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Are you sure? Lost World?
The game that gave us one of the most dumbed down asinine plots and characterizations yet? This game is nothing but lost brain cells. It’s pre-Sonic Boom.
Tails: You trust Eggman more than me!
Sonic: I did something stupid!
Not to mention how wangst Sonic was over Tails getting captured.
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“Are you sure lost world?” What type of question is that in this context? The moment you lose the ability to discuss topics with class (Name calling, laughing, lol, humiliation, ect) I’ll be gone faster than the fans were with the Nintendo wiiu.
Yeah I said lost world is waay better than sonic adventure 2 in terms of story. Sonic adventure 2 had real plot holes scattered in the story and as a fan this erks me. Lost world is self contained and plothole free. The people and cast of sonic adventure 2 acted brain dead to me. The news got a close up on shadow’s face and still mistaken him for sonic. Shadow and eggman trusted rouge for no reason at all, the government literally sabotage themselves making the job for their own employee rouge harder, and town square gave an eight year old one of the ultimate jewels of mass destruction. In lost world everyone is understandable. The zeti wanted revenge against eggman(perfectly understandable). Tails feels like sonic trust eggman to be the tech guy more than him(Again perfectly understandable althought this came from nowhere), and finally Sonic deescalation of that previous situation mentioned doesn’t leave me questioning his brain cell count. Both stories have their fair share stuff that pops out of nowhere and I will admit adventure 2 had a better pay off but I refuse to endure the whole game again to get to the end.
In summary I don’t like plotholes and I don’t like sonic adventures character logic. This is why sonic lost world is better because things make sense. reactions and how I expect characters to act in situations isn’t dumb
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To each its own but seriously the story and characterization of Lost World leaves a lot to be desired.
>Sonic constantly mocks Knuckles for getting tricked by Eggman.
>In Lost World Sonic gets tricked by Eggman in a lamer way than Knuckles ever did.
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What? “Lamer” what does that even mean? Why was it lamer than knuckles? All eggman had to do was tell knuckles that sonic was bad and then he proceeded to retk us in sonic 3&k and especially in sonic pocket adventure. With sonic lost world eggman literally had to fake death. If faking your death to trick someone is lamer than frick it I prefer the lamer way. At least it’s more emotional and impact.
@Ys
-People thought Shadow was Sonic because they have similar faces, powers and speed, they must have thought Sonic just painted his fur to deceive, is like when Spider-man was wearing the black suit, people still thought he was Spider-man.
-Rouge gave them a Chaos Emerald in good faith, also she had a reputation of her own.
-Rouge was undercover which means not every single GUN soldier is going to know she is a double agent.
-Tails has proven to be a scientific genius even if he is so young, also they gave him the emerald as a reward for saving the city.
-Knuckles trusted Eggman in S&K because he didn’t know him, Sonic was trusting Eggman way before he faked his death.
And talking about dumb things I find cringe worthy how Sonic didn’t listen to Tails and rushed to kick Eggman’s conch without thinking which made the Zeti take control of Eggman’s army, one would think Sonic learned a valuable lesson here but later on he does the exact same thing! And gets Tails captured, now one would think Sonic REALLY learned his lesson this time but he actually believes Tails was captured because he wasn’t fast enough, NOT because he should have stopped and listened to what Tails had to say before doing anything rash, talking about brain dead characters , huh?
Ra
Spider man has a distinctive look. Sonic is just a hedgehog. When every a hedgehog commits a crime sonic is the blame? That makes no sense.
Okay but she still needed their radar to find the emerald and they didn’t even do a background check on her. They just let her join on her words alone. if the government set up a trap to capture them both using rouge sonic adventure 2 would’ve ended at prison island but apparently the government was too stupid to plan for rouge to trick them. Seriously why couldn’t the government plan for eggmans arrival. It would have been so easy but they decided to do things in the stupidity’s way possible for no reason at all.
He proved nothing prior to sonic adventure however chaos emerald are secured in top secret military bases. This highly important object was given to a random eight year old as thank. WAT?
Wait stop. Sonic came to the lost hex and kicked zeti butt. Later on he’s still kicking zeti butt. What trust was given to eggman? The trust in the information of the machine? Amy did come up with supporting evidences that machine exist so this is invalidated.
Sonic was being cocky the first time around. He literally finished tails sentence to make a joke. He knew what he was doing. The second time around when tails got capture is a whole new scenario. Sonic was doing something he normally does often. Even he didn’t have enough time to react. Imagine you go to press a button on an elevator. Your friends yells at you to stop just as you push the button. You don’t have enough time to stop yourself and the elevator blows up killing you and everyone around you. This is the scenario and it was not brain dead. It was an effective trap that got straight to the point and was likely to work.
Sure sonic doesn’t learn his lesson, he simply brushes it off as not trusting tails. It was a bad payoff from the events he experienced. I admit this flaw but sometimes people don’t learn their life lesson. Sometime they take the wrong message. It doesn’t mean their brain dead.
So this place doesn’t like sonic lost world. Hmph like I care SA2 is still trash. I remember having a discussion a while back with someone claiming sonic 06 had a better storyline then rush adventure. They continued to bash and trash on sonic rush adventure storyline no matter what. They defended every single point. How about this RAw tell me what storyline elements you didn’t like about sonic adventure 2 and be a little more specific with lost world. Don’t just go against what I’m claiming.
@Ys
Now you sound like you’re just throwing a tantrum, you can prefer whatever story you like best and maybe you should rest/chill out discussions about Sonic for a while, remember this is just entertainment, nothing to be taken too seriously in real life.
Raw
“each its own but seriously the story and characterization of Lost World leaves a lot to be desired.
>Sonic constantly mocks Knuckles for getting tricked by Eggman.
>In Lost World Sonic gets tricked by Eggman in a lamer way than Knuckles ever did.
Not as serious as you were. You started this conversation seriously. Also if you don’t feel like discussing anymore just claim it. Don’t skip around the truth making assumption about me, discuss the topic with class and passion or leave me alone.
@Ys
I did and I can’t take you seriously when you come out with such ridiculous issues with the story and childish rants, I don’t have time to respond to every little thing you think is wrong with SA2 story so I will let you alone as you wish.
Don’t give me that “I don’t have time BS”. you just don’t want to continue and you’re either trying to play it cool or completely in denial. Either way you can’t discuss because you don’t want to. I want to, I care, and I have passion. This why my post are long. They aren’t rants, they are segmented pieces detailing my issues with the story. What little to you isn’t little to me. Remember that.
@Ys
Okay geez, seeing your;e so passionate about it I will answer to your arguments for a last time.
-Like Spider-man Sonic has a distinctive look too, all he needs to do is paint his fur and comb his hair to look just like Shadow but still the biggest reason for the media to think Shadow was Sonic is their similar abilities, I mean after Sonic Adventure there weren’t a lot of supersonic hedgehogs running around were they?
-Come one now, even if Eggman was supposed to do a background check on Rouge they wouldn’t have wasted screen time on that, not even most movies spend time with stuff like that, and forgot to mention but another reason for Eggman to trust Rouge is that he knew she was after the Master Emerald, thus putting her at odds with Knuckles, ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’.
-I don’t think the government could have stopped Eggman and Shadow assault on Prison Island even if they knew they were going beforehand, they did put up some heavy resistance after all, if they hadn’t had Rouge’s help odds are that they would still have managed to snatch the Chaos Emeralds, it would have probably taken more time if anything.
-Tails proved to be a genius inventor capable of creating artifacts to fight Eggman like the Tornado 2 which uses a Chaos emerald precisely, he also proved himself when he deactivates the missile that almost destroys Station Square (with a lot of witnesses) and is not like they gave the Chaos Emerald to him just so he could play around with it, Tails uses the Chaos Emerald to analyze it and create an almost exact duplicate, its the equivalent of hanging the emerald to a scientific mind (one they can trust!). And to be fair is not like the 3 Chaos Emeralds on Prison Island were that heavily secured, they were in the cargo area (as Eggman points out) so the emeralds were either just arriving to Prison Island or about to be exported somewhere else.
-In Sonic Lost World Eggman tells Sonic only he can deactivate his life suctioning machine, Sonic for whatever reason decides this time to listen to Eggman instead of Tails or common sense and lets Eggman follow him and Tails all the way through hordes of brain-washed badniks and the Zetti up to his doom machine, without Sonic’s willing help Eggman wouldn’t have gotten his hands on his device again.
Also Sonic trusts Eggman to deactivate the machine instead of Eggman using it for his evil schemes on the sole promise that Eggman actually cares for life unlike the Zetti, decades of Sonic stories prove Eggman dead wrong already but even if this game decides to ignore all previous stories we can see in the opening sequence that Egmman drops a capsule full of live animals from the sky, and even then Sonic trusts this Eggman to care about life and to deactivate the life suctioning machine he himself created.
-I’m pretty sure sonic is fast enough to react to Tails warnings if he wanted to, throughout the games we see him reacting with incredible reflexes to a lot of a fraction of a second situations, even the joke you mentioned required incredible reflexes to land (“…that conch is”-“gone!”).
-Personally I think is a terrible pay-off since the whole Sonic arc in Lost World revolves around Sonic learning from his mistakes while the other characters didn’t even had an arc, well maybe just tiny arcs for Tails and Zavok at much.
So there you go, hope you enjoyed it and that you now understand why a lot of fans like SA2 story so much while others may have issues with Sonic Lost World story, see you next time, maybe in a Sonic Lost World article or something, bye bye.
It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
Macbeth. Well done.
Btw, in relation to the Radiers of the Lost Ark parallels, I make the case for the late 1970’s movie Lupin III Mystery of Mamo
https://youtu.be/Twbi1vMDGgc
Actually in terms of Story I think Sonic Adventure 2, Sonic Adventure 1, and Sonic Unleashed are my favorites. Sonic Adventure 2 does lean a bit on the dark side, but only slightly. It’s like when kid cartoons have slightly serious situations. But it wasn’t all dark and edgy like on the level of Shadow the Hedgehog.
I liked Sonic Unleashed since it wasn’t too dark or too kid friendly. Was pretty much a good balance than say Sonic Colors to Boom with the cringy kid humor. The classic game plots aren’t anything special and I’d even say bland in some cases. I wouldn’t want to the series to move forward with the classic era style plots. They’re not bad, but not anything too remember in all honest.
TLDR: My favorites are Adventure 1, Adventure 2, and Unleashed….and maybe Battle somewhat. All had a good Sonic-esque light and dark balance in terms of plot.