Vertical Slice: Sonic Fans are LOVE

216 Comments

1. I like this journalist.

   1. And I like you.

2. The plot of the next game will be centered around explaining why Knuckles has had so much free time for over a decade now despite being the guardian of Angel Island, prepare yourselves for the darkest twist yet! Questions will be answered, new ones will be asked and the unlikeliest of characters will return!
   Sonic Labyrinth 2 coming holiday 2014 exclusively to the Nintendo PlayChoice-10.

   1. YES!

3. Well, it’s going to come as a shock to no one that knows me that there’s a lot of things in here that I rather heavily disagree with. The claim of “unimportant” characters and assertion that because it’s a fantasy series about a talking blue hedgehog that it can’t stay within its own middle-ground and appeal to the wide audience it obviously would have after 20+ years of being around.

   I am a bit confused as to why bringing up how different Sonic Heroes is to Adventure 2 and Shadow is a case that works for you though. The people who are upset about the way the canon is treated highlight inconsistencies like that and ask those questions themselves. No one likes the fact that Blaze’s story was fucked over immediately after it was established the year before 06 came out.

   I’m well aware that pretty much all the blame does fall on Sega’s hands and I am certainly more interested in helping this guy out (something we on the Sonic forums actually managed to come to a consensus on. That’s where Pontac got that quote at the bottom. I was there in the discussion when it was posted) then ridiculing him.

   It’s ridiculous to say that he deserves any backlash or that he should be fired but I don’t agree with the notion that there’s anything wrong about caring about the flow of this story and its universe. It’s okay if things loosely connect to one another. There’s nothing wrong with that. But when they do decide to bring things up about a character or a plot element, consistency does matter. Especially for any new fan today that might be interested in finding out how the stories were done before.

   I don’t think kids are that inattentive and stupid as to not ask why Knuckles being the gaurdian of the Master Emerald keeps appearing in his profile in every new game that comes out if he’s never around that thing. There’s still some standard of quality that needs to be met.

   Just as well, I liked Lost World’s story. Though, there are problems with it. The fact that the Deadly Six come out of nowhere and the story ends with no resolution to barely any of the conflicts brought up is a problem. I’m not going to call for Pontac’s head on a platter for that. I don’t have any ill will towards the guy. I just want to see things be done better.

   Truthfully, if he’s around to stay we would be better off trying to help him as opposed to saying he should be fired as well as claiming that none of what he’s doing doesn’t matter in the long run.

   1. ^Completely agree with all of your points.

   2. I agree with you. If the man doesn’t have much knowledge of the series then okay, but saying that he deserves to lose his job is pretty harsh and no wonder people who use to work on the Sonic series freaking leaves when they find better job opportunities else where. And despite his lack of knowledge of the series I still think the writing in Lost World still turn out okay and I also liked Generations and Colors, too. Yeah, the stories has some problems but what Sonic game didn’t have problems before Ken got involved?

4. I have enjoyed Ken Pontac’s work in recent Sonic games. Definitely the best Ken P. to ever write for Sonic.

5. I miss Shadow. I’d love to play as him in a main game again.

6. 1. I think Iizuka officially stated that Blaze is from the Sol Dimension and to ignore any possibilities Sonic the Hedgehog 2006 made in some interview or something. I am not entirely sure.
   2. So we should blame SEGA for not giving Knuckles and Amy bigger roles, not Ken correct?
   3. That last part where you are beginning to end the article, I don’t understand it. Is it supposed to be a joke? What does LOVE stand for? Who says what? I am confused?
   4. You were right to post this “Vertical Slice” thing. It should help some fans realize how irritating they are getting.
   5. You didn’t have to be so harsh.

   1. For some harshness is necessary. The people calling for Ken to be fired deserve it.
      Harshness is not reserved for all within the fanbase though.

      1. Then it should be specified that the harshness is aimed at some.

         1. I’ve already had to copy-paste this quote once, but I’m still happy to do it for as many times is as necessary.

            “While most Sonic fans commenting on the Pontac Story via TSSZ or elsewhere on the internet are engaging in thoughtful discussions over the importance of narrative in Sonic games, a startling proportion are genuinely upset at Pontac’s unfamiliarity with the finer details of Sonic’s past. Some have even gone as far as to insult the man and demand that Sega fire him.”

            The article is harsh, but it is only sometimes referring to particular sects of the Sonic fanbase. Many parts of it are simply my own thoughts and opinions. You don’t have to agree, and you can tell me why you don’t. In fact, I always want to know what people think about the things I have to say!

            Thanks for the comment.

7. I think it’s fair for a guy working on Sonic to know about a few of Sonic’s more important games but what I don’t think is fair is getting a writer, not a translator to work on a Sonic localization. I don’t want a shoddy rewrite, I’ll get those from raunchy japanese porn comics instead.

8. Uh, Blaze IS from the Sol Dimension, 06 never happened since all events were erased from the time line. Even with Generations bringing back Crisis City, they still state that she is the guardian of the Sol Emeralds in the Sol Dimension.

   1. Also, I wouldn’t say that Sonic’s timeline is more confusing than Zelda’s.
      At least with Sonic they keep things consistent as they can for a blue hedgehog and his friends fighting a giant fat ass and his army of robots.
      It also doesn’t mean they don’t have to explain things that happen in the games. What happened to the Deadly Six after they were defeated? Where did they come from? How were wisps on Lost Hex?
      There doesn’t have to be an overly dramatic canon that describes everything, just a consistent and understandable one that acknowledges most main events (like Rush, SA1, Colors, ect.) that actually happened and ignoring ones that are erased like 06.

   2. Thanks for that aneurysm-inducing explanation. You’ll have to excuse me though if I still don’t quite understand the what, where, when and how of Blaze existence on the Sonic series. She can do fire though — that’s cool.

      By the way, I’m genuinely flattered by the amount of comments my article has received in such a short space of time. I’m glad to see a mixture of nodding heads and head shaking heads going on too.

      Unfortunately it’s bed time on my side of the planet, so I’ll have to respond to all your comments later. But keep ’em coming — and thanks!

      1. Simple version.
         Alternate dimension.
         🙂

         1. Yeah, that’s what I was trying to say my mess of a comment, curse my ability to ramble like Mojo Jojo. XP

      2. Shes actually from an alternate dimenssion! Dont pull a Pontac on us 😛

         Also I liked the fact that there was a chronology to the Sonic games, even if it wasnt rock solid it was cool to have a sense of progression between games, like in comic books (I am a fan of Marvel comics btw) and the problem isnt if this series needed a chronological order or not, its that after almost 2 decades of building said chronology they just want to ignore it and dont want to build one again and that can be hard for a fan you know? Though I understand that bussiness are bussiness so I cant complain (and I am not doing it).

9. Oh, one more thing. Kids these days are playing Call of Duty or Halo so I don’t think making a slightly darker story would hurt anyone. The population of well-raised kids is decreasing. Not every kid is going to immediately like the happy-funny-appropriate-cool-safe type stories anymore. Take my younger brother for example. Nearly all the kids in his grade are all call of Halo nuts. One day when my brother had a friend over, and he asked what game I was playing. When I responded “Sonic Colors” (I was working on getting all the red rings in the game) he replied, “Sonic is stupid. Why aren’t you playing [insert whatever pointless first person shooter that exists today here]? It was only a matter of time until my brother became inspired by this “Adult stuff is cool and anything actually aimed toward our age is lame” fad. No matter how many times I tried to push the Sonic franchise at my brother, he turned it down so he could shoot an alien instead. It’s just sickening, but the main point here is that making Sonic stories a little darker wouldn’t hurt, in fact, it is worth a try.

   1. I play Halo occasionally, but I think Sonic should stay brighter. I wouldn’t mind a darker one, but it just doesn’t feel Sonic-y to me when dark.

      1. Agreed.

   2. When I was a child I liked Mortal Kombat, but I loved Sonic. When my younger brother was a child, he loved the original GTA, but loved Sypro. Children today play CoD and Halo, but that doesn’t mean they should be playing, and it doesn’t mean it’s the only thing they are interested in — I’m sure they also enjoy Pokémon and Adventure Time.

      Everything else you said is completely anecdotal.

      “The population of well-raised kids is decreasing.” What?

      Thanks for the comment!

      1. Yeah, about that line… it probably could have been phrased better; you’re welcome. 🙂

10. Do you feel better now?

    I’m not going to extremes like saying he should be killed or fired :/
    But I am saying I don’t appreciate this new dip in quality at the hands of the new writers, or the fact that everyone’s personalities changed (in my own opinion) in a worse way.
    I feel like for the writer to know how to truly represent these characters, they need to know about everything they went through. Not just the great, but the awful too :I
    I relate to Sonic and his friends and have ever since Sonic 3 & Knuckles, when I was born 😕 To have everything they do and say change so dramatically, makes it feel like I no longer know these characters anymore. 🙁

    So sorry for wishing for things to be better for my favorite character of all time. . .

11. lol It is true that fans overreacted about the Pontac thing.
    I mean I am mildly displeased with a dew things but heck I wouldn’t even say displeased. I can easily criticize a lot of the choices but I’ve never gotten really upset with the story of Colors – Lost World. Just not as impressed is all. I’M SORRY PONTAC IF I SOUNDED LIKE A DOUCHE! oAo lol

    But on another note, why is the article writer being such a douche? o.O I mean a lot of what he says is right and all but not how he says it.

    And not EVERYTHING that was said is right. It is SEGA’s responsibility to give Pontac the necessary information and they DID. It is ALSO Pontac’s responsibility as a good writer to care enough to do some research, AND HE DID! He also writes based on guidelines. I never thought he had complete freedom in the first place and was surprised he had more freedom in Lost World than in Colors and Generations. All my nitpicks were just nitpicks. and not even that. I just thought it was strange, having seen all the games and their stories, for the characters to react such a way and so easily. But nothing really happened that was contradicting, just a slight inconsistent.

    Also, I wouldn’t completely agree that the new style of games are always what attracts kids these days. I’ve had many people who never really even play Sonic see me play a newer Sonic game and then an older one like SA1 or 2 and then wonder why the newer one didn’t seem as cool. lol But to be honest, I think this has to do with the STYLE of the game and not the game itself. Like asking why Heroes looks so drastically different? Honestly I think it’s the same as why his model always seems different or his design changed from classic to Adventure to Modern. It’s commercial. Through their eyes there’s no difference between in-game and CGI cutscenes. lol

    There obviously IS a canon because a lot of events or relationships are kept based on past events. Rarely but once in a while something from a past game will also be mentioned. And I’d been writing a potential concept for a project of retelling the storyline of the games and it’s going quite well. Not sure how that’d be possible according to this article. It includes Generations, which itself is about the life Sonic’s lived, even if half of it is breakin the 4th wall.

    As for Sonic Drift 2, isn’t there a difference between Lost World being mainstream and Drift 2 not being mainstream? You know where one is considered canon and the other is not? BECAUSE there IS a canon? lol Heck even otherwise it’s capable of being canon because it’s just a random race that takes place on locations that exist in another Sonic game! lol

    I’m honestly surprised that, based on many games, I was able to realize that Green Hill Zone, Central City and Tails’ workshop all reside on South Island despite the redesign or rearrangements of it. And South Island was said to have an ancient civilization that tried to abuse the emeralds’ power. Sounds fitting with Sonic Adventure to me that also goes with the fact that Tails’ workshop is on South Island. Not that Sonic Fighters, Sonic Battle and Sonic Chronicles didn’t help with that too.

    But I can still at least agree with MOST of what this dude is saying. In all the harshness, I did find it funny. And the line about Nack the Weasel especially. xD

    1. Oh yeah! And Colors isn’t a reboot. Not sure where that idea came from. Seems like they all know each other. Especially in the DS version. No implications of re-meeting anyone who’s already met each other. In fact I believe the joke was used that Sonic had a history of defeating Eggman, which carried over into Sonic Generations as a second half of the joke (as Sonic is unaware that Cubot already declared this just to be funny. He could possibly mean all of Eggman’s defeats in this single game, even.)

       Speaking of Generations, not really the most logical game to occur immediately after a reboot. lol And it seems to be related to Colors as is Lost World where Cubot still has some voice chip issues and Sonic remembers the Baldy McNosehair joke he promised to use in Colors. =p

       1. It’s a sort of stylistic reboot. New voice actors, new tone, new “takes” on the characters. It’s not a hard canonical reboot (not that Sonic really has one), but it’s a fresh start in a new direction.

          1. Doesn’t word “retcon” describe that meaning? I’m not sure…

          2. Retcon is when you say “from now on, this thing that happened in this past will be considered to have happened differently or not at all”

             It means “retroactive continuity”. Essentially changing the nature of events that happened in the past, but keeping the rest the same.

             1. Okay.

12. Snark and douchery don’t a fantastic journalist make. Even if you don’t, some people do actually care about the lore and universe in Sonic. Your argument could just as easily apply to “well, the gameplay of yesteryear doesn’t matter to these kids! Why should we care about retro Sonic?”

    Should people be raising pitchforks to have him fired? No. Should we say “screw it” and just not care? Also no.

13. Even though I do agree with this article, I think it’d be best to turn back a wee bit on the facetious meter.

    1. Poo.

14. “Sonic games are aimed at children”. I’d argue Sonic games are supposed to be aimed towards people of ALL ages. At the very least teenagers given that they were pretty much Sega’s primary target audience for their products back in the Genesis days.

    The major problem I really have with Pontac and Graff’s writing is the painful simplicity of everything where it just makes you ask “why do they bother even HAVING stories in these games anymore?” I don’t know whether Sega meddles with their writing in anyway to cut things down a bit, but regardless of who’s to “blame”, it really comes down to this: either have a story that has some considerable depth and meaning to it, or just don’t bother and have all the “story” in the manual like a lot of the 2D games.

    If they want to make a story for these games, they should at the very least have some action, drama, tension and decent characterization. Not dry, boring scenes of characters just standing around and telling crap jokes to each other in a flat mid-shot and certainly not one-dimensional cartoony-clown, cheerleader reinterpretations of the characters that we know and love.

    If I could give Pontac and Graff any suggestions on how to improve their writing, I guess it would be the following:

    1. Do some thorough independent research into the games and characters to gain a better understand of what it is you’re actually writing for. Understanding the characters and the prior scenarios they’ve been in will allow you to write better, more accurate material for them and maybe convince you to expand their roles to live up to fans’ requests that they have such larger roles.

    2. Focus on giving these games a little more life to them by writing fewer “standing around talking” scenes and more action-adventure oriented stuff. I think a lot of fans can agree that Sonic is supposed to be an action-packed series with adventurous characters and scenarios so it can’t hurt trying to provide a little more action and scope to these games’ narratives.

    3. Tone down the “wackiness”. Comedy in Sonic games is perfectly fine, as long as it’s understated and for the most part subtle (more stuff like Knuckles landing on his head multiple times in ’06 than, *sigh*, “no copyright law, blah, blah, blah…”).

    4. Maintain a consistent tone. A big problem I had with Lost World is that the tone was all over the place. One minute it was traditional Pontac and Graff “humor”, the next minute it was something more “serious” and then it went back to “humor” again. If the tone is all over the place, the audience doesn’t know exactly what they’re supposed to feel and then they end up not caring. You’ve got to learn when to use the right emotions at the right time, just so audiences understand what they’re supposed to be feeling in a scene better. It would also help maybe slowing the action down a bit in order to give people a bit of breathing room (the cutscenes in these games are edited so fast at times, it’s hard to really take in what’s happening and give an emotional response).

    And finally,
    5. Give us some tension. Showing us Tails reprogramming the machine that turns him part-robot AS HE’S BEING TRANSFORMED in Lost World and having Eggman only ever use the mind control weapon ONCE on something in Colours, took away a lot of the tension the climaxes to those two games could have had for me. If you write something which could potentially take away from the surprise of something later down the road, remove it from your script. If you introduce a pivotal element to the main villain’s scheme, stick to it and expand on it to the point where there’s a clear threat to what Eggman hopes to achieve (Colours could have benefited from having Eggman use the mind control weapon to brainwash a bunch of innocent tourists to attack Sonic for example).

    That’s really all I’ve got to suggest for the two writers. There’s possibly a few other things I could suggest if they came to my mind at the moment, but I think these are the major ones I feel are most important. I’m probably thinking too deep into all this, and I accept that. But hey, at least it goes to show that some of us critics of Pontac and Graff can be helpful once in a while! Haha.

    So while a lot of fans could care less about stories in their Sonic games like yourself, in my opinion, the numerous stories Sonic games were bestowed with during the Dreamcast/Multiplatform era and the Storybook series I’ll admit weren’t the greatest pieces of story-telling in the world. But you know what? At least Sonic Team actually tried to develop the world of Sonic by writing such things. I’d argue it made the games more memorable as a result.

    1. I couldnt agree more with you, very solid and thoughful opinion.

       Also if more fans voiced their opinions as you did we wouldnt need this kind of scoldings in a game news page.

       1. Just glad I could share my thoughts on the subject in such a manner! I agree, we need more civil debates on matters like these. People, it’s not that hard to give your opinion on something without coming off as arrogant and disrespectful to what others may think.

    2. I loved the way you worded that. .

       Very from the heart. ^-^

    3. tl;dr – but while Sonic SHOULD be aimed at all ages, the fact is that he isn’t. Sega is specifically shooting for (and arguably missing or underestimating) younger children. They’ve said this several times.

15. This article about the fanbase wasn’t harsh enough.

    all of us need a right kick up the arse.

16. For anyone that played Sonic Colors for the Nintendo DS, do you know if was Pontac who wrote the story for that game too? I actually loved his characterisation for all Sonic characters that appeared and werent present in the Wii version.

17. On one hand the vocal section of Sonic’s fandom did need to have some sense smacked into them over this “Debacle,” On the other hand the fans do have a right to be upset if their needs aren’t being catered to.

    There’s ignoring the existence of Sonic Adventure or Sonic & Knuckles when writing characters and story and then there’s tossing in characters for no reason other than to have their dumb face on screen. Writing for Sonic doesn’t require knowing the intricacies of the Black Arms involvement with the Space Colony, but as has been stated before, Knuckles is constantly billed as a guardian, a treasure hunter and a martial arts master. WHY ISN’T HE DOING ANY OF THAT!? Amy is supposed to be Sonic’s self-appointed girlfriend and an action oriented hero in her own right. Why isn’t SHE helping Sonic up there on Lost Hex!? Worset, why did she even have to pull out the “I regret that I never told you…” Bullshit when her love for Sonic is THE FIRST thing anyone could/should know about her?

    I’m of the group who thinks that people are being a bit too harsh on Pontac over this, but he still needs to get a slap on the palm for not doing a very good job of things regardless of how much he knows.

18. One does not write a research paper without first doing the research, and it’s the same with any other project. I love and appreciate the fresh tone Pontac’s writing has brought to the new games (actually funny jokes? thank god!), but for me, everything feels… shallow. Without the layers of history and context behind the characters and their interactions (and the characters actually emoting in a reasonable way), there are no stakes. Using past lore doesn’t have to be a ball and chain, though (and if you didn’t want your old lore, why make Generations?). In fact, it doesn’t seem that Pontac has any aversion to using continuity, as in Generations they actually take time and effort to explain what happened to Eggman after Colors and how he found the Time Eater, directly connecting the games (I can’t speak for Lost World as I haven’t had time to play it yet– too busy at work/school). If he knew more about the older games, they could easily be semi-incorporated in a similar way.

    Take Sonic and the Black Knight (for writing, the gameplay’s very meh)– it has nothing to do with the main Sonic “storyline”. But at certain points, Sonic will blithely remark about things that remind him of past adventures or other characters. For older fans, it’s delightful surprise that might make them smile. Younger players might have their curiosity piqued, driving them to later look up more about where that line might have come from and subsequently buy more Sonic games. The fans are thrown a bone, and SEGA gets more money.

    I’m not only blaming Pontac for this– I think all of SEGA/Sonic Team should be thinking about this. But even if SEGA didn’t provide Pontac resources for his work, that’s no excuse for not doing his homework properly– that lack of regard for source material is nothing other than unprofessional.

    I really hope I don’t come off as a butthurt fan, even though I kind of am.

    1. Ken Pontiac only wrote the English version of Sonic Generations. It wasn’t his decision to show Eggman and such, that was already made as CG for the Japanese version anyway.

19. This was a very interesting article, and it made me laugh out loud so much XD

20. This newest column is fantastic!

    1. Oh you… You’re making me blush!

21. my honest opinion?
    the Sonic series needs a reboot. Actually, more like a re-telling.
    The first game of the re- telling should give us some backstory to the Sonic world (including the chaos emeralds), his rivalry with Eggman, the first encounter with Tails and Amy, and the born of Metal Sonic. Then the second game should re-introduce Knuckles, the Chaotix, the Master Emerald, Angel Island, and re-tell the plot of Sonic Adventure , with Chaos. Then the SA2 one, the return of Metal Sonic and so on…they could also create some spin offs (Knuckles, Shadow, Blaze).
    Sonic continuity was constant ’till Sonic & Knuckles. SA1 and SA2 seemed to be a sort of reboot, but everything went crazy right after those.
    I’d like to see more consistency and a little more depth. Heck, Ninja Turtles are aimed for kids that’s sure, but the plot of the recent cartoon (as well as the old 2d one) is quite interesting.
    Sonic is not interesting anymore, SEGA changed the style, the plot tone and the environment too many times now.
    Let Bioware rewrite the story, Sonic Chronicles has the most interesting story telling of any other Sonic game, on par with Sa1

    1. With the bringing in on new worlds is fine by me, but yeah, stories like Sonic Chronicles should be used more on the sonic franchise. And they should start bringing back the other major characters (Shadow, Knuckles, Tails) and put them back on gameplay, while fixing them up as like how they are fixing Sonic. They should also fix Shadow, game wise.

    2. no just no

    3. I’ll sum up Sonic’s lore for you.

       Sonic is basically: Goku+Megaman+ hedgehog.

       Eggman:A fat version of Dr Wily

       Chaos Emeralds=Dragon Balls disguised as emeralds

       Super Form=Super Saiyan

       Knuckles=Yamcha but more stupid

       Amy Rose=Bulma+Roll

       Metal Sonic=Fake Megaman from MM1 but more important

       Shadow=Vegeta+Bass

       Silver=Trunks but more idiotic

       Tails=Gohan or Krillin

       It’s basically a what if Scenario of:What if Dragon Ball Z and Megaman had a crossover?

       There,half of the Sonic lore summed up right there.

       1. Blaze = Piccolo
          Sol Emeralds = Namekian Dragonballs

       2. Really? You’re going with that? How arrogant….

       3. And yet it’s that hard to make right… i guess…

22. Ah…so YOU’RE the one who got the job! As soon as the job posting was updated, I figured someone had been accepted. If my circumstances were different, I might have actually tried applying for it. Anyways, looking forward to seeing where this goes. Despite your “suicide note” joke, the only crime you’ve committed as far as I’m concerned is using Comic Sans in the title of your column XD

    1. Hey, Comic Sans was good enough for my primary school teachers!

       1. As a student of audiovisual media, can i say it’s not enough for me? I mean, seriously!

          1. OH MAN, DO HELVETICA. Audiovisual students eat that shit UP!

             1. Dunno, i personally really like bolded Sakkal Majalla. =D

23. Since I exposed the difference in worlmaps between several Sonic games, I haven’t taken Sonic games seriously ever again.

    I mean just look:
    http://forums.sega.com/showthread.php?501657-What-s-with-Sonic-s-planet

    And one can hardly argue they’re different planets. Episode I and II despite sharing an island where the events take place, have extremely different worldmaps. 😛

    There is no canon in Sonic games. “Canon” is just limited to a select bunch of games from the same type (Sonic 1, CD, 2, 3K — Sonic Adventure 1-2, Heroes, Shadow — Sonic Advance 1, 2, 3, — etc)

    Other fans would do well in not taking Sonic storytelling so seriously. It’s anything BUT serious or consistent.

    1. That thread was interesting, thanks! I’ve been wondering the same thing since Unleashed came out. =)

24. How dare you! I grew up with Fleetway, not Archie! And I don’t think you understand just how important the ending to Sonic Adventure 2 actually was to the Sonic fandom.
    A french-man cried during the end of that game. Don’t you realize how important and what a major life changing event it all was for him? All he could do was sit there in front of that tiny portable television and wonder if Shadow would ever turn over a new leaf and do the right thing before it’s too late… and then he sacrifices himself!
    Nobody knew what happened to that lonely french man after those events… but my theory is that he jumped off a bridge.

    And to answer your question about Sonic Drift 2 that was also very important as that was the event that Nack the Weasel turned to a life of crime after suffering from heavy suicidal depression for losing that gold cup trophy he spent so many years dreaming about while he worked on his hover vehicle.
    …then he jumped off a bridge!

    Kinda insulting that Sega would take 11 years to actually start putting up wanted posters for him but… wait was Nack even in Sonic drift 2? …fuck it!

    1. I’m almost certain this is meant to be sarcastic. Hoping, at least XD

    2. Dude, don’t get me wrong, the Fleetway comics beats the Archie stuff hands down.

       Oh and R.I.P. French Sonic-lover. I will construct a Nack shrine in your honour. Then I will urinate over it.

    3. Oh boy…the rudeness is strong in this one.

       Just saying…

25. The Sonic series could certainly use a few recons to iron out the worse inconsistencies, but many of the games do sync together in at least a very vague way. This series needs some consistency, period, and I don’t feel that ignoring one way of providing some of that consistency is going to do this franchise’s any favors.

26. I believe they should make stories as good as sonic chronicles. And for the sonic canon, it should be cosidered, but not as heavily as other franchises. I mean really, we are gonna compare Sonic with Final Fantasy? I believe they should start bringing back the other characters (Shadow, Knuckles, Tails), and be part of the gameplay and more on story, and start fixing them up as well, gameplay wise, game wise for Shadow. It is getting very tedious to always play as Sonic and only Sonic.

27. SEGA needs to find out who/what Sonic is. They experiment way too much. Literally every game since Sonic 06 has been an experiment.

    Sonic Unleashed:
    – Tested super fast Sonic game-play and introduced the Boost button.
    – Tested the Werehog to see if people prefer steady platforming and beating up enemies.

    Sonic Colors:
    – Tested a light/childish storyline and wisp power ups.

    Sonic Generations:
    – Tested combining Modern and Classic game-play

    Sonic Lost World:
    – Tested new game-play with run button, and parkour engine

    Sega needs to realize they weren’t making a bad game with Sonic 06. I think they were on to something great but they had to rush it. That game could have been the greatest of our generation!

    Like I said, SEGA needs to figure out who Sonic is. Take it back to the origins before all these experiments, Sonic was an epic clever hero who cared for other, and is always searching for Adventure.

    1. Experimentation in the series is good and has led to some of the better aspects of the series in my opinion. However, when SEGA finds something that works, they should stick to it rather than throwing it away altogether. The gameplay style they created in Unleashed served them well in the next couple of games and seemed to best represent Sonic would work in a more modern and faster era. It seemed as though they had found what he was really all about again, but for some reason they decided that they wanted to keep figuring that out and went back to experimenting. This would have been fine if they hadn’t had gotten rid of the style entirely. They should stick to what they know works while at the same time working in some new stuff to tweak the formula, rather than just trying to change the formula altogether. Unleashed’s gameplay could have really been interesting if they tried adding the parkour system to that. Hopefully though, SEGA will have learned from this mistake and will try to rely on things that they know were successful for them as they continue to experiment.

    2. And SA2, Heroes, Shadow and 06 weren’t testing anything that SA1 didn’t do? Okay…

    3. You mean every 3D Sonic game Sonic’s been in is a experiment.

       Sonic Adventure 1 and 2
       Different gameplay styles, somewhat ‘darker’ plots.

       Sonic Heroes
       Team Work gameplay, simple storyline

       Shadow the Hedgehog
       More ‘serious’ plot, cussing, guns gameplay.

       Sonic 06
       Everything

       and so on

       The Sonic series only been trying to be somewhat consistent from Unleashed to Generations taking what works in Unleashed and improving on it.

28. If you don’t like our reactions than why did you guys even bother posting the article about Pontac on the TSSZ in the first place?! If you believed it was a matter that not everyone could interpret correctly than you shouldn’t have put it up on the site at all. Don’t go blaming us for the events of recent when you guys could have avoided the entire thing.

    1. No one’s BLAMING you. They’re making FUN of you!

    2. I didn’t personally write that report, but it was just that — an informative report. It was the particularly toxic members of the Sonic fanbase that decided to get up in arms about it, and I’m sure TSSZ won’t stop reporting news just to appease said vocal minority.

       Thanks for the comment!

       1. You’re welcome.

29. You have a sound opinion and tone, but I have to disagree with you. The Sonic games are all loosely connected to each other in some way, and just because they don’t mention the stories of other games doesn’t mean they never happened. To compare Shadow the Hedgehog to Sonic Drift 2 is an irrelevant comparison as one is a main-series side game, and the other is a party game, respectively. One has a definite story(no matter what your opinion of Shadow the Hedgehog is), the other does not. The games at times do rely on the events of past games to show where the series is currently. Generations, lackluster plot aside, wouldn’t be there if there wasn’t a narrative in each game. The fact that Generations as a story exists is because there was a canon to the series to begin with. If there really wasn’t a canon, then they would have just put the levels together and let that be the end of it, no cutscenes at all.

    Now while the Sonic series DOES HAVE CANON in some form, it doesn’t mean that it’s perfect, nor does it require the necessary effort that a heavy anime would need. The most nit-picking Sonic fan would know that the moon in Sonic Unleashed should not appear the way it does because in Sonic Adventure 2 half the moon got blown up. But does that matter? No, not really. It’s a relatively irrelevant factoid that isn’t necessary to further the plot of any game (depending on how they want to use it), and shouldn’t be obsessively asked about again and again. The series itself is full of these “plot holes”, though you can barely call them that when half the time they don’t even matter that much. But the canon is still here, it hasn’t collapsed on itself. None of these little inconsistencies were ever enough to destroy the plot of any game and, if anything, only add an enjoyable amount of mystery to the series.

    Now there is NOTHING wrong with seeing a canon or pattern in these games, whether there is or not. It IS a problem, however, when fans attack writers like this when what they’ve done doesn’t “fit” into their perceived chronological timelines and various fan-theories.

    For the record, I NEVER blamed Pontac for this. It was never his fault that he didn’t know that much about Sonic to begin with. A job is a job, and when you are a writer, you are likely to take any chance you can. It’s not easy being an artist, but he was certainly one of the lucky ones. But my point is, he got on board without any Sonic knowledge because he didn’t really need any before hand. It’s because of this that I blame not Pontac, but SEGA. Why would SEGA hire someone without even giving them any sort of backstory for the character they want their new writer to write about? That’s like telling someone to paint a fence without ever teaching or showing them where the paint is. Now given how this game went, I can tell that it didn’t require Pontac to know that much about Sonic beforehand, and the same could go for Sonic Colors. However, for a game like Generations, it MUST rely on events that have happened in past games, and the lack of info, or rather the lack of any depth to the info, really shows. Still, in either case, if SEGA needed Pontac to draw upon previous Sonic lore, they would, or at least should, have granted him material that would inform him of that backstory. But from the sound of things, they didn’t give him anything! He had to look all of that stuff up himself. He had no choice, unless he wanted to waste three more months playing every main-series game in the series when he could have been writing. You can tell that he hasn’t “experienced” the events of past games as many Sonic fans have, but you can at least tell that he knows and is aware that they happened and is really trying to show that. Luckily though, games like Colors and Lost World are relatively self-contained stories and thus don’t need to draw upon past experiences to further their plots, so the pressure for Pontac isn’t as great as it could be. Now if only those fans would calm down…

    And that’s my thoughts on the matter. Although I don’t question SEGA’s choice of artists and the artist’s previous knowledge (or lack there of) of the material, I DO question SEGA’s seeming incompetency to give needed knowledge to the writer beforehand, especially when that info would actually matter to the given story. In a way, it does allow for more creativity from the writer, but at the same time it can often restrict the writer as well. Either way though, I don’t really mind the plots of the three most recent Sonic games that Pontac wrote for. Sonic Colors and Lost World both seem to have relatively self-contained stories that don’t really contradict the canon of the franchise, even if it doesn’t really amount to much in terms of the canon either. It works best with those two games, but not so much for Generations. You get the feeling that the game was supposed to have a much broader story with much heavier conflicts and consequences, but it feels like it got cut short and had to be simplified in order to keep things moving, which more often then not felt like the game was just trying to get you out the door already rather than having enough time to sit and enjoy it. While I don’t mind Generations’ plot (or Pontac’s writing for it) too much, I do feel like it was meant to be a bigger story but never got the chance to prove itself to its fullest potential. That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy it. I actually laughed at the several in-jokes that were made to previous games in the series, and you can tell even now that Pontac was actually trying to let us know that he knew about those events, and I really appreciate that effort. However, Colors has it’s downsides as well. The nit-picking fan inside of me is still rather annoyed that Sonic found the idea of Eggman capturing an entire planet unbelievable when he had done just that in Sonic CD. However, in light of this recent information about Pontac, I’m willing to let that go because it doesn’t really hold that much significance and I really shouldn’t expect people like him to remember every single little thing the way I remember it. The world just doesn’t work that way, and it shouldn’t have to.

    All in all, I think Pontac is doing a rather decent job and that SEGA will be a little more attentive in providing info to him as well as any other artists they employ, whether they’ve known about Sonic or not. I hope his work gets better as time goes on and that SEGA will give him the opportunity to write a story that actually stands out more and feels much more encompassing.

    1. “… but you can at least tell that he knows and is aware that they happened and is really trying to show that.”

       He didn’t know. He claimed that he did his research, but it was most likely lie, or he did a very bad research. From the interview, it is obvious that he was not familiar that Sonic Adventure story existed. So he couldn’t have known anything that happened.
       I think that all he did was to check wikipedia for quick summaries of character personalities – and he still misinterpreted them.

30. Nice article. Nice attitude. Look forward to this column in the future. Keep it up, new guy

    1. Why thank you! Future articles may not necessarily focus on Sonic or Sonic fans though. I’ve got many, many things to say about many, many aspects of Sega — good and bad.

31. Y’know, I don’t get why he got so much flak. He is only the writer, and despite his lack of a full knowledge of the series, he has done decently well. He is trying his best. He should have done some solid research himself, sure– but I do think at the same time that SEGA should have gone through the main details, and provided that history for him to look over and study. Granted, Colors and Lost World didn’t really need any forced references to make sure the player knows that “hey, that game way back? Yeah that happened. Just thought you’d need to know.” Both stories had no reason to bring up the past, and did fine without it. In any case… since Colors, he has improved.

    I certainly wouldn’t mind any nods to the past… but its not like anything he has written has stated that previous games didn’t happen. Someone is bound to argue that “it didn’t say they did” too. (And anyone could bring up the moon in modern games– but that is an artistic error on SEGA. Not Pontac.)
    As far as Pontac’s knowledge goes, I’d say both sides are slightly at fault here: SEGA for not providing it for his material, and Pontiac not taking the initiative to firmly research to avoid issues beforehand.

32. *Pontac

    As far as the topic on gameplay… it is great that SEGA is trying new things. And sticking to one playing style can get real old. So I get the purpose of doing new play styles. Nothing wrong with being fresh. But Sonic is unique in that its always trying new things (for better or worse). So you can never really get tired of one style.
    But they shouldn’t change it too often as they have been. Who knows… maybe the Lost World style will stick. Maybe Unleashed style will come back. Or both are combined and– well it could try anything. Its still a fast, action focused plat former for the most part. But I do think they ditched the Unleashed style a bit too soon. It was doing well…

    1. “But I do think they ditched the Unleashed style a bit too soon. It was doing well…”
       Indeed.

       “maybe the Lost World style will stick”
       I hope not.

       “Maybe Unleashed style will come back.”
       Hopefully yes.

       “sticking to one playing style can get real old”
       Sure, but minimal changes are enough. Better keep gameplay solid and try different content. Complete overhaul of franchise every now and then is opposite of what *cough* Call of Duty *cough* does, and that’s not exactly what “good middle ground” is about.

       “So you can never really get tired of one style.”
       Maybe it’s just me, but i’m already tired of this new style.

       All my thoughts in a nutshell…

33. I wonder if you are kid if you wrote this article. Because if you are not kid, why do you defend the games being for kids? Most of the kids do not even buy those games. If the games are aimed so solely for kids, why Sega does not ask their fans to leave? That way, the criticism could stop and people who fell in love with Sonic for false reasons could finally move on, instead of waiting for a miracle and trying to make Sega listen. Because if Sega only wants Sonic for kids exclusively, it means two things:
    – Sega does not want to listen to opinions of people who are not kids (fans of the old Sonic games – the fans of the games that made Sonic popular)
    – Sega does not want to create a new fanbase for Sonic, because once the kids grow up, they are supposed to move on from Sonic. Sonic will be no longer appealing to them
    (if he was, that would mean that Sonic is indeed NOT solely for kids)

    Sonic canon is non existent, because Sega made many bad decisions. But it’s the result of their bad decisions, it’s not the REASON for their bad decisions. If the result is ALSO the reason, then it’s a never ending cycle that will result in stagnation and complete degradation. And the key is to know how to quit this endless cycle. If they do not want to quit it, it means that they are satisfied with the results. It means that we as fans are satisfied with the results if we don’t mind that.
    SEGA may be responsible for not giving Pontac any info (hell, SEGA IS VERY responsible), but if Pontac was a real professional writer who appreciated that he had gotten hired to do such important job for such a huge company and had realized that his work can shape one of the biggest gaming icons of all time (if Mario is the biggest, Sonic is the second biggest), he would approach his job in a more professional manner. Especially since Sonic is allegedly the biggest part of SEGA’s revenue. Especially if he proved to be very good, if not exceptional as a story writer, he could get paid much more and he could secure this position for a lifetime – instead of being hired every now and then when SEGA feels like it.
    And the fact that Pontac can’t do major creative decisions works in a different way than it was presented. Yes, it is very hard to work with this poor material like Deadly Six. And they wanted him to write for children. But even children have their standards. They are not aliens from another planet which psyche we will never understand. Just because the story is for them, it’s not acceptable to make it as stupid as possible. If nothing else, the dialogs could at least be much less painful. And all the inter-character relationships could be at least consistent and make sense. In fact, the creative decision for character personalities does not affect the work of the highest Sega executives at all. Heck, the characters could at least have consistent personalities, and it would be great if their personalities were similar to those from the older games. That can be done regardless of canon existence.
    And the fact that Deadly Six are the creation of SEGA, as well as most creative decisions, like Lost Hex and such… it only proves how SEGA does not care for Sonic at all. You really can’t EXCLUDE the writer from creative input. You can’t completely exclude him from the equation, think of your stuff, present him with the result and let him to do anything he wants with it, as long as he does use the material the way SEGA wanted. Those are practices that no successful company uses. At all. They at least work with the writers, and smart companies discuss their creative decision with the representatives from oversees as well. Smart and successful companies have multiple meetings where the story writers discuss the matters with programmers and level designers. And because the writing does affect the feel of the game, the voice of writers is not being ignored.
    You can all say that story is so insignificant that the failure of Sonic games has ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with story all you want. That won’t change the fact that Sonic games indeed are selling less and less and that they really do not need to fail so much. If people really think that appeal of the games does not matter in the slightest and all that matters is the control scheme of the character… I get it. It’s their opinion. It’s opinion of the people who really judge the game based solely on this criteria. But the question is: “How many people share that opinion?” If we take those 40000 people who bought SLW copy… versus the millions of people who were buying Sonic Adventure titles… one must ask – do we really believe, that games are heading the right way and have better quality nowadays? I am ALL FOR making sure that we make the games as high-quality as possible on the expense of less people actually buying them… but is it really what is happening there??!!
    I even heard an opinion that judging the game quality based on sales is bullshit. I have to agree, to an extent. The sales are just an indication. A serious indication nonetheless. We just can’t ignore that. If Sega thinks that they can keep forcing people to think that Sonic was always supposed to be what he is now – despite he was never like that before – they are basically killing themselves. Sonic became popular because of Sonic Adventures (or Classic games, but the new games are anything but Classic). If it was not for the first 3D Sonic games, Sonic would lost in the past and he would be just a nice nostalgic memory in the minds of today’s gamers. So if people REALLY believe that this modern Sonic is something that MUST DEFINE Sonic from now on forever… I wonder where did they get their ground for that argument. Because Sonic was famous for reasons that no longer apply – the games no longer have these elements at all. How come people even think that Sonic was supposed to be like that in the first place, when it’s just a custom from the past few years. A custom that made Sonic decline in popularity. If Sonic was always supposed to be like this, that means he was NEVER supposed to be popular in the first place. He was supposed to be only played by the few adults, who for some reason love to play games exclusive for children, and the few kids that think that Sonic is fun without a story and corny cutscenes. Do not underestimate children, they like stories and excitement. And if they keep to confuse the children, underestimate their intellect and standards… and claim that is how Sonic is supposed to be – than no wonder that this will keep happening. No wonder that Sonic will fail and recede.

    OK, I am able to live with a thought that Sonic had to change… I am able to live with a thought that Sonic was supposed to be from his creation something he was never before, something that never made him popular in the first place and something that was allegedly never achieved until Colors. I am able to accept the mentality that story will never matter. But the people who have these claims MUST understand that this approach will make Sonic recede and eventually make forgotten. Because those are features of not very fun games. Those are features of forgettable games. Those are feature of games that only small number of people buy by accident because they want to try them out and they like the cover for some reason. Those are features of the games that are not aspiring to acquire a fan base. (Not to mention that with Sonic, this philosophy aspires to lose it’s old fan-base)
    Only if the people who had these claims above accepted that, I could take them seriously. If they really thought that the current direction is so much better for Sonic than the Adventure one, they just must realize that they are saying that Sonic (for some reason) had to change in order to switch it’s target audience for another target audience, which is smaller, has lower expectations and does not wish to be immersed into Sonic’s world. If the people realize that – OK I have no arguments to prove you wrong. Sega obviously does it’s best to achieve that. But if that’s true, we should not be mad at the review scores, we should not be mad at the low sales. Those were the result that Sega (and the supporters of this direction) in fact tried to achieve here. To completely change Sonic and tell the old fans that Sonic is no longer for them. If this is really the right and good philosophy and if this is really the only universally accepted way to go, than we should be glad that only very small number of people like it. Then, we should not think that the low sales are problem.

    1. Amazing. You should be a writer

34. Just because it is aimed at children does not mean they need to dumb it down. Does anyone remember when they where a child? Did you like to be talked to like a moron?

    Didn’t think so.
    Sonic should be for EVERYONE. Mickey,Bugs,Mario, many Dreamwork and Disney movies, and countless other of fictional creations are aimed at children but at the same time EVERYONE can enjoy these creations(excluding work made with only children at mine ie Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, which is educational,Sonic..not so much)

    Targeting only for kids is a death trap for this franchise. Kids like hearing and imitating what older people or the “big kids” are doing. The “big kids” for the most part look down on this franchise. Are you going to say Sega should target at kids that probably do not care about this franchise(I have seen real life examples of this)

    The general audiences opinion of Sonic for the most part is negative unlike other old gaming icons. People refer to Mario always with a happy attitude. It is very hard to go out and tslk to people about Sonic without a dissapointed or mocking reaction. This is the truth. Sega seems to only care for aiming at the Sonic core fanbase(us) but that seems to not be working..
    The fanbase is mixed and so is this franchises general view, they might as well reboot it OR at least do what they did in 1998 and REVAMP the franchise so it still takes account of older canon. But for that to happen, it is safe to say this franchise and its devs need a break and some changes.

    Take a time out Sonic, it is for the better:(

    1. This.

       I honestly think that 5-year break and change of whole development team would do good.

       1. Let’s be realistic: A lot of us wouldn’t be able to wait that long and will probably give up and move on by then. Hell, last year we didn’t get no main Sonic game and all it result is the fanbase growing more and more impatient on when Sega going to announce the next Sonic game(s) and more crazy rumors popping up almost every few weeks.

35. Oh and the whole “animorphic Hedgeghog hurr durr” bullsh*t needs to stop. A movie called Kung Panda made people CRY. Many other stupid and silly fictional ideas, including Sonic, have made great stories before, why should Sonic decide to dumb it down and add more issue and break the base more to make it “for kids”

    Sonic fans are PASSION
    Thats a better explanation then your shallowed, narrowed minded, sheltered, immature, discriminating, foolish, idiotic, and down right insulting idea that they fanbase are ALL whiny and never pleased brats
    Good day.

    1. You don’t even need to refer to the most recent movies as an example. That’s nothing new that children are being treated with respect and that there can be still genuine emotions in the fiction for them.
       See Lion King for example. They are not even afraid to present death in the movie. But nowadays, children are suddenly unable to bear concepts like that.
       Sonic was always Accessible to children. He didn’t need to be Aimed at them for that.
       Most stories that have something to tell, some moral point to the story do have some dark element in them. On different possible scales of darkness. And even those stories which do not – those don’t need to be dumbed down in order to be for children. Lack of ambition and standard does not equal a fiction for children. It only equals a second rate, bad and generally not-memorable fiction.
       I never really understood why some more sensitive Sonic fans are afraid of dark content. Classic Sonic titles were generally filled with dark content. If you look at all the nature catastrophes in some of those levels… the huge and creepy robots shaped to a sick twisted form loosely reminding Eggman… Robotic copy of Sonic with red eyes bound to slaughter the real Sonic. The content in Sonic games was always serious. Maybe presented in lovely manner, but it was memorable because it was striking and exciting.
       Those people who claim that some Sonic game was just too dark are just Nintendo fans. At least it looks like that. Sonic had dark elements in the games. Honestly – some of you people on this forum will be most likely adults. I believe, that if you are not lost causes, that you have your own children, plan on having them or you have relatives who already have them.

       Can you HONESTLY tell me that you would freak out if you’ve seen your children play Sonic Adventure 2 because it was way too dark for them? Like really?

       Even if you feel the need to say: “But Mario… something something…” Mario was never supposed to be issue for Sonic. Sonic was made to compete with Mario in terms of marketing – on Sonic’s own terms. Not by copying him gameplay or atmosphere customs. And if Mario did not choose to go the route where story matters – too bad for him. Sonic was good in his time for his story, unlike Mario. The fans of Mario never brag about Mario’s story. And those Sonic fans who just didn’t think that story bears any importance could just ignore it. The same way Mario fans were doing the entire time.

    2. “While most Sonic fans commenting on the Pontac Story via TSSZ or elsewhere on the internet are engaging in thoughtful discussions over the importance of narrative in Sonic games, a startling proportion are genuinely upset at Pontac’s unfamiliarity with the finer details of Sonic’s past. Some have even gone as far as to insult the man and demand that Sega fire him.”

       Thanks for reading the article and thanks for taking the time out to leave not one, but TWO comments! You sir, are PASSION!

       1. I am truly blessed that you took the time to fully read my two comments and not just the last sentence.What an honor that Michael Westgarth read my two comments. I can die a happy man.

          I am a master in sarcasm,I would advice you to kindly stop. Nice article btw

          Oh almost forgot…
          https://www.google.com/search?q=passion+definition&oq=passion+definition&aqs=chrome..69i57&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8&hl=en-US&espv=1

    3. Finally SOMEONE understands!! Strongly agree

36. My main beef with this isn’t so much for any lack of knowledge or even respect Ken Pontac may have for the lore and characterization that the Sonic games had established before he came on board as one of the head writers (even simple things such as the fact that Knuckles had been established as the guardian of the Master Emerald since his debut in Sonic 3 & Knuckles and yet that has never even been implied as of late, or that Sonic is supposed to be the short-tempered wisecracker while Tails is the practical voice of reason–not the other way around like in Sonic Lost World), but moreso that this is the kind of lazy, half-assed research I would expect from a high school or maybe even a college student, NOT from a professional writer. If he was writing for any big-name TV or movie series and did that little of research, longtime fans of said series would be calling for his head on a platter even moreso than they are with this. Granted, I understand SEGA/Sonic Team was partially responsible for how much knowledge he had going in, but come on, if you know full well that you’ll be writing for one of the biggest names in video game history, the least you could do is familiarize yourself with said history a little more than this.

    Although to be fair, there are worst things people could be constantly complaining about. Like physics engines, voice actors, or eye color.

    Actually, those would make for great new topics for future articles. How about it, new guy?

    1. I’d love to, but I think the Sonic fanbase has been lambasted enough over their obsession with the colour of Sonic’s eyes. That’s not to say that all Sonic fans are that anal — it’s simply a vocal minority. As for physics engines, well, it’s almost universal fact that some previous Sonic games have lacked a sensible physics engines or even fully functioning mechanics. Besides, I don’t intend to target Sonic fans in every article, it just so happened that this whole Pontac “fiasco” blew up as I was brought on to write for TSSZ.

       Thanks for the comment!

    2. Yes people disliking colored eyes and the most important aspect to a game are on the same level. Sonic 4 turning the superfans into pavlov’s dogs is the biggest development this fanbase has had in years, they are triggered now into a fury if anyone talks about the games on a design level.

    3. Dang! I finally forget the whole eye color thing. And now it jumped back to my memory. =/

37. SO SAD THIS CALLED LOYAL SONIC FAN BASE WERE NOT THAT LOYAL AFTER-ALL…JESUS I BEEN TELLING YOU PEOPLE I WAS RIGHT ABOUT THIS FLAW OF THIS GAME…WHY DON’T YOU THINK SONIC XTREME WAS CANCELLED FOR THAT REASONS…WE FANS ARE NOT READY OF THIS CHANGE…FROM REALISTIC ARTISTIC ARTWORK INTO SOME SHITING CRAYON DRAWINGS FROM A HOMELESS GUY ITS A BIG STEPWARDS BACK FROM SONIC GENERATIONS, COLORS, AND UNLEASHED…AND SONIC 06…….EVEN MODDERS AND FANBASE GAMES ARE BETTER THAN THIS DEPARTMENT SEGA HAS….PONTAC AND Aaron Webber ARE BIGGEST MISTAKE TO BE HIRE AT THE FIRSTPLACE…

    SONIC NEED A REBOOT FOR PS4 AND XBOX AND STEAMOS…AND THIS CAN’T BE MADE BY THIS PEOPLE AGAIN….

    1. I SURE LOVE HOW YOU WRITE EVERYTHING ALL CAPS BECAUSE THAT TOTALLY MEANS THAT YOU MUST BE RIGHT. THOSE GRAMMAR ERRORS ARE AWESOME TOO. AND SURE THIS MUST BE “STEPWARDS” FROM 06.

       My sarcasm is getting over the board.

38. Happy that I was the subject of your first column, and even happier that you GET how things WORK.

    You also get the intent of my comment on Facebook, which many others did not.

    1. Forgive me if I’m taking what you said the wrong way, Ken, but are you suggesting therefore that a lot of the fans who are providing legitimate criticisms and suggestions for your writing are people who “just don’t get it”?

       Not to harp on too much with this, but whether or not it really is Sega’s responsibility to fill you in on the Sonic mythos, there’s still nothing stopping you from doing some independent research of your own in your spare time to gain a better understanding of what it is you’re actually writing for (beyond just Wikipedia and a few cutscenes on YouTube). My advice, if you want some detailed profiles on the characters and scenarios of the series, Sonic Retro’s Wiki, The Sonic News Network and Concept: Mobius are much better options than Wikipedia.

       Believe me, Ken. A lot of us just want you and Warren to improve. We’re not all screaming for you two to get the sack. In the meantime, it’s cool that you’re someone who’s able to interact with the fans in this manner (if it really is you of course!).

       1. Not that anyone asked me, but as someone who has most likely spoken several of Ken’s words, allow me to add that sometimes a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing, and other times too much knowledge can be even more dangerous.

          I found rather amusing your point that “there’s still nothing stopping you from doing some independent research of your own in your spare time to gain a better understanding of what it is you’re actually writing for.” Back before my two children were old enough to absorb all my spare time (along with the constant search for work that being a freelancer brings with it) I had a few hours to do some extra research on my earlier roles, like Meat from “Ultimate Muscle.” As it turned out, 4Kids was adapting the show so heavily that most of the research I managed to do had little to no bearing on the world of Ultimate Muscle that 4Kids was creating. Setting aside for the moment the Universe’s hatred for all things 4Kids, the point remains that the producers have the final word on their vision of the project at hand, and if the talent or writers start objecting too heavily about “well that’s not how it’s always been done before,” that’s likely to cause more problems than it solves.

          If you hire a contractor, as we just did when we renovated our kitchen, you as the client have the final say, since you’re the one footing the bill. You may solicit the opinions and expertise of the contractor, and the contractor may even volunteer some information you hadn’t previously considered, but it’s your vision, so even though the contractor may warn you that the fancy imported Australian refrigerator/freezer you ordered may pose a problem if you need replacement parts, if it’s the only one you can find with a drawer freezer on the bottom and a water dispenser in the top refrigerator door, you’re ultimately gonna go with the fridge you wanna get.

          When I’m voicing something for a client — any client — I may raise a question over, say, a pronunciation issues, but if the client prefers “data” to be pronounced as “DAT-uh,” even though my research indicates that “DAY-tuh” is preferred, you can be sure I’m gonna do what the bosses want and I’ll say “DAT-uh.”

          The producer and director are ultimately responsible for the final product, and while you can be sure there have been some arguments on the other side of glass as to whether a particular line of dialog is something a specific character would say, what the producers decide goes, even if the writers, talent, or even the director may disagree.

          1. Well said, though it’s funny that you mention “Producer” as one who ultimately does decisions. Does that mean everyone of us can just blame Takashi Iizuka now. 😀

             Oh, and your doing great job by the way. Keep it up! 🙂

          2. Fair enough, Mike. I guess as long as Takashi Iizuka is still in charge of the series, nothing’s going to change anytime soon (unless Iizuka himself turns out to be the next big name to stubble across this article’s comment section!). But hey, at least I learned something new about the production of media products. Thank you for your insight on the matter.

          3. Hi Mike, thanks for taking the time to leave such an insightful comment.

             That Ken Pontac very likely was, and continues to be, hired on a game-by-game basis by Sega is a pint I considered raising in my article, however I didn’t want to be too presumptive. Therefore I’m very glad you’ve shared your general experience of contracted voice over work, even though it may or may not apply to what Ken does with Sega.

             Your kitchen analogy is great as well. I hope your fancy Australian fridge serves you and your family well. I personally prefer my fridge and freezer to be two separate appliances, mainly so the freezer can be dumped in an outside shed, allowing the miserable British weather to do most of the work. Lucky me.

    2. Hello Ken, thanks for taking the time to drop a comment, it’s much appreciated.

       In all honesty, I didn’t think there would be much need for an article on the back lash you received from your comments during that interview. I’d thought it was isolated to a few vocal and extremely grumpy fans, nothing more. But yeah, it struck me as odd that there were so many bitter fans out there who held you personally responsible for everything they subjectively found wrong with the writing in Sonic Lost World.

       And for the record, I like Sonic’s “act first think later” attitude as depicted in Sonic Lost World and I liked seeing some negative repercussions to his actions. Good stuff.

       Thanks again for the comment.

    3. If you are the real Ken Pontac, I would love to ask you so many things… I will have to make it short. You won’t probably answer anyway.

       Now when you know that Sega works in a way that it tries to not take into consideration the wishes of many fans out there… are you going to change your approach? It would be much more understandable if you realized tried to communicate with your employer about the issues sooner. Not after three games…

       Even if some fans are too rude, they have a point. And please, please, do not dismiss that point only because some rude people brought it up. Did you even think about the possibility that those people are rude for a reason that was not their fault? That those people are those who indirectly pay you for your job? If they see the outcome of your work or of Sega’s work as repulsing, both you And Sega should work on a solution to satisfy those people, not to ignore them. If you and they choose to ignore them, it will ONLY have all kinds of negative effects. You can all sleep comfortably with the thought that: “It was isolated to a few vocal and extremely grumpy fans, nothing more.” But that’s really… WEIRD. Why would you or Sega think that? Sega tried to change it’s approach only because of few vocal people who were not making any sense in the first place. And now, when the sales are lower than ever before, they will choose to think that any criticism is coming only from the people who don’t know any better? I mean, imagine the scenario that Sega or you REALLY DID A BAD JOB. What would in that case need to happen in order for you or Sega to realize that? Low sales? Lot’s of complaining? What’s happening now?
       Not many fans stayed with the series, and not many fans will be able to stand this kind of behavior: “You don’t like it – shut up.”

       And to discuss the point the man who might be Mike Pollock – OK, I know that people probably have limited time to get things right. But if Sega wanted you to do that research, you would have to spend that time regardless. And if they didn’t want you to, why did you do any research at all? Especially in a manner which made you misinterpret the characters. If that approach is acceptable, understandable, right and STANDARD thing to do, why do you and Sega not tell us? Why we are not officially told that the story does not matter? Why aren’t we told that we care about it more than the company that produces it itself? I tell you why – if they said that, they would lose the little people who still believe that they make games for gamers and not just for money. They think that the confusion they create by their complete inaccessibility is better than presenting people their own intentions. And in those cases, many people who defend this behavior (like the author of this article) can make people think that it is not a big deal and that it’s completely normal.

       I must ask you,.. do you enjoy working for this series? If you have no special reason, why do you want to work for the series? Why you, as a man, who knows very little about the series, can feel comfortable to tell people, who basically live for the series, that they are wrong if they don’t like your work? Why would you want to stay in a position, where your employer is directing you in a way that is not appreciated by fans and those fans hate you for it? If you have very little time to do your research as a part of your job, that means you have many other projects. Do you really believe that you are good enough to do this kind of job? A job that needs to consume much more of your time than what justifies the payroll? A job, for which many other people have greater knowledge and passion? A job many people could probably aspire to do for ages, thinking that all that it takes is to be really good, diligent and hard-working? Those people are surely not baring very well that there are no special requirements to get or keep this job. And those people will have a good reasons to wonder if it’s OK that the fans have higher standards than the producers of their favorite product.
       Do you know that it is possible that you are just a tool that Sega uses to get rid off it’s fans with standards? What if Sega wants to replace those people with fans who have much lower demands and are satisfied with any game, as long as there is good excuse why it was not as good as it could be? I mean,… forget about your job and money for a second. Just please tell me if you think that it is a good thing to do. Imagine all those people who were waiting for a good Sonic experience, but were rewarded only with something most of them did not like. You can’t teach people to like something. Just tell me if you think it’s OK for you to neglect a huge amount of people, who were fans of the SA days just because your boss tells you so. Tell me if you think it’s OK that many people will loose all hope and stop being Sonic fans just because one man wants to keep his job.
       I myself can’t honestly tell if I would be any better in considering wishes of people I never met, never cared about and never had any kind of relations with them… And considering, that I never needed to listen to those people in the first place and still getting paid… But still, I think it feels wrong.

       I wonder how bad the reception of Sonic games need to be before they realize that should really listen to their fans. If they really keep that mindset that it’s something wrong with the customers and not the product, I wonder how far will it go…

       1. As the man who might be Mike Pollock (to the extent that all my identification and loved ones are convinced), I research out of curiosity, mostly. In the fast-paced world of voice-over, there’s barely any time for rehearsal, let alone any pre-session prep. For most projects (with the general exception of lengthy narration and audiobook pieces for which scripts are provided well in advance and there are lots of tricky words whose pronunciations have to be looked up), you get your script when you walk into the studio, or if you’re lucky, the day before. Anything you need to know you’re told at session. If I happen to know ahead of time what character I’ve booked, I might spend a few minutes on Google seeing what I can find, but more often than not, I won’t know who I’m playing until I get to a session (unless, of course, it’s a recurring role.) Also, remember that the voice talent’s time with the project is usually very limited. Those games I’m in that you’ve been mentioning? My parts were recorded in less than four hours each. The writers at least have the luxury of spending several weeks with the material, whereas I have the better part of an afternoon.

          Not quite sure where your question to me ended, so I hope I’ve answered it.

          1. You really are Mike Pollock? That’s hard to believe on the Internet. But in case you are, I am honored that you reacted to my question. I think that from all the Sonic characters cast, your voice is always flawless in terms of what you can do with that script. Despite the low amount of time you probably have.
             However, the question was aimed only on Mr. Pontac. I was mentioning you only because it appeared that you just decided to defend him for no apparent reason. And that’s why I wanted ask Mr. Pontac how the process really went.
             If Mr. Pontac has been given several weeks,… what exactly was he doing that he did not discover Sonic Adventures mere existence? And if he was told not to bother with it, he could say so in the interviews or in the reaction to fan reactions. That would at least prove that he had little input on that matter and that he only was expected to do a below average job for below average payment.
             But what I don’t understand is, if he got weeks to research… why he did not ask for materials? I mean, if you are employed by this huge, famous, rich and all-powerful company, how is it possible that you are given a job related to something you don’t even understand, never saw before and you do not ask for materials – which would be much more accurate, relevant and would direct him the way SEGA wanted. Is it because he was afraid to ask them to provide the details describing and defining his job? How is it possible that the communication was so poor. What if SEGA did not like his job? They would throw away weeks of his work without any pay and told him: “Do it again!” Or maybe they would straight fire him?
             If he asked for the materials (which would be the first logical thing I would do), there could be only two outcomes:

             – SEGA would claim that he did not need anything. In that case, why didn’t he say that in the interview? Or later? Because he was afraid of losing job (if it’s some long lasting contract)? If he was afraid that he would lose job, his answers make no sense. I would in his place dodge the question about SA3 and never confessed that I don’t know SA games. Because this confession would logically cause an uproar. If his boss, SEGA, did not want to take the blame for it, it would be easier for them to fire him with the official statement that it was only his fault and that SEGA had no idea that they Mr. Pontac had no knowledge needed to make his job done.
             If SEGA tried to keep in secret from their fans that they don’t care about the story, wouldn’t they tell Mr. Pontac to be silent about this fact before he went to that convention?

             OR

             – He would get the materials. In that case, why would he say the stuff about wikipedia and youtube? Even if he got only very poor materials, it would still be a completely different story than what we witnessed.

             I just don’t get this entire situation.
             Anyway
             Thanks for your time Mr. Pollock.

39. @Distant Wanderer: I can agree that the Unleashed style suited Modern Sonic gameplay very well, and around Generations it was reaching great potential.

    I happen to like the Lost World gameplay so far a bit, as the parkour gameplay was interesting– but like any first experimented style it has its flaws. It may not be very well rounded and a solid gameplay style now, but I’m sure if it continues that just like the Unleashed style, it will improve. Given that its only one installment in, I’m willing to give it a chance and see where it goes.
    I’ll be glad if the Unleashed style returns… but I’m not disliking the new style. I’m just more or less slightly indifferent to it right now, since I’m not quite used to it entirely.

    As for you mentioning Call Of Duty– I’m not a fan of the ever constant FPS games. I just seem to like unique gameplay more rather than the same thing over and over again. Granted, in that genre innovation is a rare thing as you can only do so much. To me, beyond visuals and plots, they really are the same game– to me anyways. I don’t care for it, but I have nothing against those that do. (Except maybe those that berate others for playing other games, or shove “COD is the best game in the world, everything else sucks” down other people’s throats. People should be able to play whatever they like.)

    Anyways, I can understand why some don’t like the new style of Sonic, and why some do. Its not everyone’s cup of tea. Not everyone like the Unleashed style. Not everyone liked the Adventure style.
    In any case, with my experience with Lost World– it wasn’t a bad game to me. Wasn’t perfect either. But it is challenging. I think its fair opinion to say its an experimental/ stepping stone game. About as much an experimental game as Unleashed and Sonic Adventure 1 was for their styles in my thoughts.

    1. For being first experiment, i honestly found this worse than Unleashed. I think this needs much bigger changes than previous gameplay styles to be good. As for Adventure, i personally consider SA1 being best game out of those, and that is one gameplay style which deserve most improvement at this point imho.

       As for Cod, same here. I haven’t played those much, and i don’t care. I just had to use that overused example.

       Back to SLoW, i feel that this particular new style needs to be scracthed immediately. This series just get back on track, and further experimenting with parkour and colour powers seems not-so-good idea when developers are strugling once again with basic platforming and similar technical difficulties that series have already seen way too many times. Sure this could be better, but right now Sonic needs to stay on somewhat stable track. Sales can’t be risked too much if we want to see games in the future.

       Personally i would recommend sega to change developers, keep 3-4 year break, and do something that worked already, with small changes to keep things fresh.

40. I wonder if Tetris fanbase is angry that the Tetris games never had a scenario…
    Oh, and …. WHY THE HELL ARE PEOPLE STILL WHINING ABOUT SCENARIO AND DIALOGS IN SONIC GAMES ??? Sonic is gameplay, if you want scenrio, go play final fantasy, tales of symphonia etc… I hope one day the ALMOST NO SCENARIO STYLE from genesis will return, that would be the best option!

    1. “I hope one day the ALMOST NO SCENARIO STYLE from genesis will return, that would be the best option!”

       Sonic 4?

    2. The console versions of Tetris Worlds has a story. Serious, go look it up.

       But yes, the storyline of a Sonic games is not nearly as important than the actual gameplay, art direction and, you know, not sucking.

    3. “I hope one day the ALMOST NO SCENARIO STYLE from genesis will return, that would be the best option!”

       Then go play the Sonic 4 episodes if you don’t care about scenarios in the games. And no, they’re not always the best option.

41. Mike, I love you for writing this.
    I also really like Ken. They guy doesn’t deserve the about of shit being potted at him. Where have the events of SA2 impacted anything in the series?
    It’s almost like making a timeline out of Disney movies. XD

    1. “Where have the events of SA2 impacted anything in the series?”
       So, Heroes, Sonic Battle, ShadowTH, and Generations referencing SA2’s events don’t count to being impacted to the series? Just wondering.

    2. Many characters has backstories. Unlike Mario characters. That is what made them interesting. You just can’t act like the previous events never happened. Shadow would not exist if it was not for SA2. Knuckles would not exist if he was not revealed to be a Master Emerald sole guardian and protector. The story about how Sonic met Tails is also meaningless? Will we have a different origins story for each game? Will be keep rebooting their personalities for each game?
       I don’t think it would make any sense. People will NEVER accept that. Many people might give up. But as long as people the series would aspire to acquire a fanbase, many people will be irritated by the inconsistencies that do not need to be there.
       I know, some people who are not fans of the series don’t give a damn on what happened in previous titles. But those people will loose Nothing if the story was consistent.
       It would only make Sonic more popular. Now Sonic is a mess because he is all over the place. If the stories were clever and consistent, people would be excited how the stories will continue. That would result in buying the sequels. That would support the investment into the series.
       It would be a wise move if Sega decided to do that. But if Sega keeps thinking that it’s good enough to treat each game entry as a complete reboot, I wonder how they can think that this way they will acquire any fanbase and that people will be any interested in the characters.

       1. You are right, consistency would do more good for this franchise than keeping things all over the place. And it’s hard to see that doing harm. I would add that other things than story would benefit from consistency; gameplay, level-design, graphics, music…

          One of the Sonic Teams faults is that they never keep games consistant for too long.

42. When I read this article’s header, I was expecting something intellectual, something that could contribute to the chaos that the outspoken portion of the Sonic community is known for. So instead of defending the community, or attempting to find the good that can come out of the many differing opinions across the fanbase, what we get is something Sonic Stadium would have published circa mid 2000’s- another hateful dump on the fanbase and the blue blur as a character himself.

    Long story short, we need more positive-outlooking articles, not any more of this crap. The negative is welcome because there is a LOT of it out there and a lot of it is justified, but if I wanted to read an opinionated draft of why Sonic is meant for kids and anyone else who thinks otherwise is wrong, I would have gone to one of the many negative-outlooking forums spread across the fanbase. No thanks.

    I don’t see it as a problem if there are people who want Sonic to be more like Ratchet & Clank or expect each entry in the series to match The Lion King or the original Genesis quadrilogy, as it is just as acceptable if people have more or less expectations in terms of story.

    Let’s just get over this grumpy short-witted attitude the fanbase is known for and accept other peoples’ opinions. Pretty simple isn’t it?

43. Michael Westgarth, I liked your article, your points, and your sense of humor.

    You’re going places, kid.

    1. *Like. My bad.

44. The Producer Parfait is a many-layered thing, with producers, co-producers, executive producers, co-executive producers….

    Refer to the credits to try to figure out with whom the buck stops.

    Thanks!

45. Guys, please. This is not even the entire interview. Just wait for the whole thing it will be released soon. Then you will be able to judge the situation with the right context.

46. You do realized that The Legend of Zelda HAS a canon timeline, right? Every game, save the Phillips CD-I Abortions, fit neatly on this timeline. Granted, I’m sure it’ll be updated soon after Link between worlds drops, but whatever.

    http://static02.mediaite.com/geekosystem/uploads/2011/12/ztime.jpg

47. “Sonic games are aimed at children”

    No, Sonic COLORS was aimed at kids, and before then, the fanboys blamed them for liking the game they didn’t. If you want a game kids liked, look no further then Shadow the Hedgehog.

48. I’m not liking this condescending attitude that you seem to have. I created the thread at the Sega forums- most of us were only expressing our opinions. There were only a few that said Pontac and Graff should be fired. Although many of us “grumpy Sonic fans” think that Pontac should have done his research, we were mainly blaming Sega for not providing him with material. You would have known that if you actually read past the first three pages of the thread.

    “Just to restate that last part – there are those out there that would happily condemn Pontac to a life of unemployment purely because he doesn’t know the ending to Sonic Adventure 2.

    Excuse me now while I write my suicide note.”

    Most of us weren’t asking for Pontac to know the ending of SA2. Most of us wanted him to be aware of the Adventure games because of the backstory and character development arcs. Tails evolved as a character in SA1- he went from being the sidekick to the hero of Station Square and his new-found confidence is carried over into SA2. Amy evolved as a character- she went from being the damsel in distress to the tough girl who could fend for herself and fights off the stalker-bot; Knuckles’ backstory is given in SA1; SA2 introduced Shadow and Rouge, etc. People have every right to be upset that Pontac and Graff (accidently) skipped over the two games in the entire franchise that had the most character development and had the introduction of two new characters, especially Shadow since he became so popular.

    -“Pontac cannot make major creative decisions”: He was the one who wrote Lost World’s story, I’d say he had authority. He just didn’t have a say for the Deadly Stereotypes.

    -“Sonic games are aimed at children”: Far from correct. Sonic has always been designed to be a character everybody can relate too. He was created to go against Nintendo’s Mario, who was a character designed to appeal towards everyone, so it’d make little sense for Sega to make games targeted at one demographic.
    The only Sonic game that was arguably “meant for kids” was Colors, and most kids don’t care for the game. Mainly older fans and those who want Sonic to “return to his roots” for the 100th time cared for the game. Many kids don’t want to play a game that’s considered corny and childish- they want to play the “big kid games”, hence why half of the COD fanbase is made up of 10 to 13-year olds. Most kids want to play GTA. We’ve all been kids once- you should know this to be true.
    I also find it hilarious when older fans bring the “think of the children” logic into this. Since when did us older people care so much about what’s best for the children? Last time I checked older fans were blaming children for Sonic’s downfall and the creation of the “bad games” (ie: since children apparently loved Shadow the Hedgehog and ’06 so much). Now all of a sudden the children are the most important of the Sonic fanbase? It’s not so much the children who are being represented, but the fanboys.

    “Tell me, dear Sonic-canon apologist, where does Sonic Drift 2 fit into Sonic chronology? Why does the world as depicted in Sonic Heroes look so very different to that of Sonic Adventure 2 before it, and Shadow the Hedgehog after it, even though Shadow’s story-arc runs through all three?”

    Where does Sonic Drift 2 fit into the Sonic chronology? You’re referring to a spin-off kart-racing game. People may as well ask where does Mario Kart fit into the chronology of the Paper Mario series. Please, let’s be logical here. The most chronological of the games are Sonic Adventure through Shadow the Hedgehog. Sonic Adventure 2 carries some elements from Sonic Adventure (Tails has the Chaos Emerald awarded to him for saving the city; Knuckles repeats Tikal’s chant, etc); Heroes takes off from SA2 and brings Shadow back and Shadow the Hedgehog carries over the amnesia that Shadow seems to have in Heroes. Though many of the games aren’t tied together, these games are.

    -“If anything, Sega’s – not Pontac’s – decision to effectively reboot the series with Sonic Colours and Sonic Lost World was an incredibly wise move. Newcomers to the series – and there most certainly are new comers – aren’t bogged down with annoying, unimportant characters.”

    Though the new writers were introduced with Colors, Unleashed was the reboot. All Colors did was improve the daytime stages of Unleashed, add in 90% more 2D and introduce the Wisps. Unleashed brought in Solo-Sonic, the boost, the 2D gameplay, the heavier platforming, etc. Whether or not this reboot was effective or not is subjective. Then again, Unleashed had the opening cutscene with Super Sonic, who I’m SURE newcomers recognized, and the pitiful trial-and-error gameplay. Not so sure how effective this reboot was to newbies.

    As for your “Unimportant characters” remark, I’m glad you’re not the one who gets to decide what goes into the games or not. A reboot of the series is necessary, that I agree with- Sega needs to get themselves together and start making better decisions. They need to define Sonic’s world and keep things consistent rather than redefine it from game to game and confuse everybody. However, rebooting the series and wiping out most of Sonic’s friends, or “unimportant characters” as you call them? No. You might not like the other characters, but many of us do.

    I’ve read some of the comments in here, and it would seem that you’re a new writer. Try to keep the sarcasm to a minimum- Sonic fans already have a bad enough rep at being condescending jerks who think they’re right about everything and thinking that the franchise revolves around them.
    By the way, Roger only interviewed Pontac- he was not aiming to slander him in any way shape or form. He has little to do with this and I’d rather you keep him out of your articles for a backlash thread I created. If you’d like to talk about “overreacting Sonic fans” then come talk to me.

    tl;dr: Then don’t bother responding.

    1. Hi Ash, thanks for taking the time to jot down your thoughts.

       I’m sorry to hear that you don’t agree with the opinions I’ve expressed in the article, but they are just that — opinions. I get the impression from your comment that perhaps you’ve looked into my words too deeply and interpreted some of my comments too literally.

       Although I read your entire comment, I don’t think it would be entirely constructive to reply to each and every point, so I’ll just cover the ones I feel are the most important.

       I read the thread on the Sega forums. Granted, I didn’t read every single post, but I read enough to get an overall feel for the nature of the negative comments being made towards Pontac. Don’t forget, my article is aimed towards the Sonic fans that are either overly pedantic with Pontac’s level of Sonic-knowledge as well as those fans who have been vile towards him. Sonic fans who have done neither of those things are not in my line of fire — I’m simply calling out the ones that have, or at least the ones that have made their opinions known in publicly in an open forum.

       I have already explained that Pontac probably does not have all that much control over how he treats Sonic characters and plot points in his writing. Pontac confirmed that in a comment he made on this very article, and the lovely Mike Pollock continues to give his insight into the matter from his perspective as a choice actor for the Sonic series. I personally have nothing else to say on that particular matter.

       Sonic the Hedgehog is aimed at children. It always has been and it probably always will be. The only Sonic related game that Sega have ever openly confirmed was not for Children was Shadow the Hedgehog.

       As I’ve said, my opinion is that there is no Sonic canon. There are storylines that are linked very loosely between some games, but there’s no real overarching continuity. Characters such as Amy are completely extraneous and Sonic and Tails’ meeting was never originally and officially explained in any way shape or form.

       Roger interviewed Pontac and made the interview publicly available. At no point in my article did I say anything negative about the man, nor did I imply that he tried to generate controversy with his interview. In fact, I praised his work on Sonic Dissected. You asked me to read over the posts in your Sega forum thread — which I have done — I ask that you do the same with my article.

       I’m a new writer for TSSZ, but I’m by no means new to writing or the Sonic fanbase. It’s my opinion that particular groups and members of the Sonic fanbase are stuck far too far up their own arses to understand and appreciate the bigger picture.

       I’d be happy to discuss this further with you, but you’ve left no method for me to do so. My contact details are available on my website, so please go ahead and use them. You can also find me on Twitter if you’d prefer our conversation to be public:

       https://twitter.com/MegaWestgarth

       I look forward to hearing from you!

       1. ratings:
          SA – E
          SA2 – E
          Sonic Heroes – E
          Shadow the Hedgehog – E10
          Sonic the Hedgehog new gen – E10
          Sonic Unleashed – E10
          Sonic Colors – E
          Sonic Generations – E
          Sonic Lost World – E10

          E stands for everyone.
          And I am pretty sure that Shadow the Hedgehog was made for children. And I am pretty sure it was never stated that it was not for children, rather the contrary. Especially concerning the rating: E10 – ages ten and up. I believe that includes human beings at ages 10-18 are still children, SLW has the same rating
          And all the talks about how that game was made for children. It doesn’t compute really.

          And the games ever never exclusively made for children. The games were always made for children. Yet the games were never exclusively made for children. See that difference? You state your sentence about 20-30 year olds in a way it looks like they are not allowed to voice any criticism. Only the older people who already became fans of the series can see it’s patterns and can construct more reasonable criticism. Something which children can’t. If children were put on the task of being story and level designers, it would fail horribly. Despite that the children are included in the rating, they still need to be guided by adults who should know better about their standards.
          If you want to contribute to that mindset that adults are not allowed to criticize the poor attempts to make the story appealing, you are – whether you like it or not – trying to shut up those people by force. Claiming that their views don’t matter just because they are not part of particular age group is really bad. Since when is not listening to Sonic fans a good strategy? Since when it is good to listen only to those who don’t know anything about Sonic? Listen to Pontac or children who never knew anything about him prior to Colors. If there really doesn’t have to be consistency and continuity, why is it Sonic? Why that game features him and his characters? If they continue a franchise, they must stick with it. If their excuses are: it’s for children, canon does not matter, we can change whatever we want… then there is NO reason for it to be a Sonic game. Other than the fact that they want to milk money from it because people will more easily recognize Sonic than a brand new one time gaming character.
          I mean… it doesn’t even make sense. They want to earn money thanks to Sonic’s popularity he had in the past… yet they neglect his whole past altogether. The only thing that remotely resembles Sonic is the cover and the character models. But the fans of the series are no longer familiar with it. There are many series of games aimed for children, which do not have any problems with staying consistent and evading Internet jokes just for the sake of laughs. They are not afraid of offering dark content and they are not afraid of continue the story from the oldest games, despite those who played the oldest games are no longer children. And those game series would be damaged if they suddenly decided that they can create any plotholes they like as long as some children will not mind. For example Ratchet and Clank, Jak and Daxter, Sly and others.
          For people who say that Sonic doesn’t need to be like Ratchet… OK, maybe he doesn’t, but why does he has to be like Mario? I think it would be better if Sonic was unique. Of course that Sonic can be unique… but is really being random the same like being unique? Is not having any long lasting standards being unique? Is it really unique if SEGA presents us with a story and then it neglects it in future entries as it doesn’t matter? If they already bothers us with the story in the first place, why are they wasting our time with it if it does not matter? How unique is to confuse us with giving us characters with backstories, and then saying that it was just a bull. Especially if it’s made for children. Do you think that children will understand that concept that each game has it’s separate story? What if one child learns who Sonic was (or other Sonic character) and when discussing it with his pears, who played other games with different takes on Sonic, he will start to argue that they are wrong. Is that really unique way to present characters to children? “Do you remember how Sonic in Generations defeated Shadow?” “Nah, what are you talking about, Shadow never existed!” I don’t really see what makes this approach kiddy. It’s only stupid. If they want to make stories for kids, they need to put an equal amount of effort into them,… maybe even MORE effort. Because if you want to fabricate story for some individuals you don’t understand, you don’t write random stories for that. You first need to try and understand them and ONLY after that you start writing. If you think that: “Eh, they are just children, they will accept anything,” it will really ruin the experience.

          All of this could be avoided if they presented no story. And that could be really easy to do. They wouldn’t have to pay any writer and all Classic fans would be satisfied. If you remove all the cutscenes from SLW, you’d not be missing anything really. And playing that game would be suddenly much less painful. And don’t even tell me that giving the story there just to scare the adults away was a good idea. It is not a good idea if they want Sonic to be famous again and if they want to earn some money.

          1. Y’know what was made for children? http://youtu.be/4I7sicfYauA, and no one ever mentions that one!

             Learn more here: http://sonic.wikia.com/wiki/Sonic_X_(Leapster)

          2. Whoa… whoa… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4I7sicfYauA&feature=youtu.be

             “It is aimed towards children between the ages of 5 and 7 and progress is made primarily through solving mathematical problems such as numerical ordering, addition and subtraction.”
             “There are also occasions where Eggman’s Badniks will pick Sonic up and ask questions about rings, and the pen must be used to answer the questions.”

             Hm… I HOPE this is not herald of things yet to come.
             Because, you know… there would be so many “happy” fans that they finally got Eggman asking them to calculate 5+7. That would be finally the TRUE Sonic gameplay. Everyone would be happy. Nobody would ever complain… Ah, what a paradise.

             Heh… somehow I feel if Sonic was Always like that, it would even be true. That’s scary.

          3. Very nice points, Shadow. I especially like and agree with your last paragraph. Sega chose to include stories when Sonic Adventure came out and decided to have the games relate to one another (at least for the games following Adventure up to Shadow the Hedgehog). It’s up to them to make sure everything is consistent and the content in the games is enjoyable by people of ALL ages. “Scaring away adults”, as you say, is not going to help them in the long run, especially when it comes to profits.

          4. “and all Classic fans would be satisfied”

             I doubt that all “Classic fans” would satisfied. Some of them might disagree.

             Aside from that, i agree with you.

       2. Michael,

          I prefer not to post my personal email all over the internet. I’d prefer it if we discussed things here, but I’ll try to keep my responses as condensed as possible. And by all means, please refute my points. I find it is very constructive.

          -“I get the impression from your comment that perhaps you’ve looked into my words too deeply and interpreted some of my comments too literally.”

          I am fully aware that what you said were opinions, but the tone you’re using makes it seem like you believe these opinions to be fact, much like this comment: “There is no Sonic canon” which is untrue and I just provided you examples of games that follow each other in chronological order. The thing about opinions is that they’re opinions, so you shouldn’t try to pass them off as fact. It’d be better to say “I believe there is no Sonic canon”.

          -“Don’t forget, my article is aimed towards the Sonic fans that are either overly pedantic with Pontac’s level of Sonic-knowledge as well as those fans who have been vile towards him.”

          That’s not what you made it seem like. This is what you wrote: “a startling proportion are genuinely upset at Pontac’s unfamiliarity with the finer details of Sonic’s past. Some have even gone as far as to insult the man and demand that Sega fire him.” You’re not just referring to the people who want him fired or the people who were overreacting, but the people who were “genuinely upset at Pontac’s unfamiliarity with the finer details of Sonic’s past.” You need to clearly address your audience, because there are a lot of people who criticized Pontac who read this and they were offended by your sarcastic attitude. The tone in this entire article made it seem like we were being criticized for giving our opinions on Pontac and that we were being put in the same boat as the insensible people who wanted him to be fired.

          -As for Sonic games being aimed at children, once again, no they are not. They never have. All Sonic games are rated either E or E10+. The “E” stands for “everyone”. And the series is about a blue cartoon hedgehog, yes, but he’s a teenager. Kids can look up to him, but teenagers can RELATE to him. And by the time they’re adults, they’re attached to him. Sonic is for everyone.

          -“The glaring irony of this whole situation though, is that Ken Pontac’s apparent crimes against humanity were brought to light by an interview conducted by “Rogerregorroger””

          While you did praise his work, this statement doesn’t sound positive at all. Your use of negative language (ie: Ken Pontac’s “crimes against humanity”) comes off in a negative manner and it seems that you’re connecting this negativity to the fact that Roger interviewed him. Now I can definitely admit that I’m reading too far into this statement, but this is how it comes off to me. I’d rather Roger not be mentioned at all in regards to the flack Pontac received because, once again, the one who created the backlash thread was me.

          Well, this wasn’t so condensed but I try to make sure I reply to all points made. You don’t have to respond to each point, you don’t have to respond at all. Just know this is where I stand.

          1. Thank you for the points you’ve made here, Ash. It’s nice to see someone who understands where the people like myself who have reasonably criticized Pontac are coming from.

             No-one deserves to be ridiculed or talked down to in a condescending way because they dare to suggest there’s something wrong with the writing of a game series like Sonic (which I fully agree is a series meant for EVERYONE).

    2. You got a point here.

49. First of all, it’s true that Sonic fans have a habbit of over-reacting to things they don’t like, but don’t try to defend Pontac on this.

    When the guy was brought in to write plots for the Sonic series, he should have been well-versed in the previous stories. Rather it was SEGA failing to properly catch him up (something we don’t know for sure), or Pontac failing to do proper research, Pontac is still to blame.

    Less so in the first case, but he still could have taken some initiative and gotten himself up to date. And in the second case, it’s obvious why it’s his fault.
    *
    Secondly, your whole argument here that a messy continuity means SEGA should just scrap it is probably the weakest defense poiny of the whole article.

    See… the thing SEGA (and some people in the fanbase) don’t seem to be understanding is: negativity is not an excuse (much less, a reason) for slacking off.

    Yes, Sonic has an inconsistent continuity that’s all over the place. Yes, SEGA are to blame for that.

    But that doesn’t mean Ken Pontac is off the hook for not even attempting to keep up. And SEGA being in control of most of Sonic’s creative direction doesn’t cut it, either. Again, Pontac could always keep himself up to date – he’s a grown man, he doesn’t need his hand held.

    It’s like the people who argue that Sonic games today shouldn’t have a storyline just because they didn’t need one all the way back in 1991. That’s nonsense. The fact is, it’s too late for that.

    If Sonic had never even tried, then sure: he could get by with being a crap clone of Mario. But he DID try (and has even succeeded, at times). So now, SEGA are obligated to tell good stories with their games.

    And continuity is a basic quality that audiences have a right to expect from any series, of any kind. Including video game series. And Sonic The Hedgehog.

    Retro fans – or just any fans that didn’t like many games from Adventure-Black Knight – like to pretend that Sonic Colors means that SEGA have now cancelled all the games they didn’t like from before it.

    But here’s the reality: those games still happened. They happened, and they cannot be made to un-happen. They must be acknowledged.

    SEGA don’t get to just throw their hands up and say “f*ck it”. Neither does Ken Pontac.

50. The most annoying thing anybody’s ever said about Sonic is that it’s “for kids”. You know, like that’s supposed to mean something…

    Sonic isn’t “for kids”. It’s for an everyone audience. Which means it just has to be acceptable for kids. And it always has been. If a person is old enough to even play a video game at all, then they can handle anything Sonic’s ever done.

    But even following the logic that Sonic is “for kids”… why are we making games like Colors and Generations? Kids don’t like games like that. People who USED to be kids do.

    Kids aren’t too dumb to know that if they get a game called “Sonic: Lost World” for Christmas, they got screwed. Especially when they watch their older siblings unwrapping games like Mass Effect, Halo, or Assassin’s Creed next to them.

    Kids also aren’t too stupid to know when something has been dumbed down because the people who made it think they can’t handle anything more than flowers and rainbows.

    They also understand the concept of peers. They know if they go to school and say, “I got Sonic Colors”, they’ll be laughed at. The title alone will probably get them punched in the mouth. Especially since most kids 10, 9, or younger are playing Call of Duty.

    They know how to follow a storyline. They know how to care about its characters, or if its well-made. And they know that “comedy” is often used as a cop-out to make a situation that calls for seriousness sound like it isn’t a big deal when it really is.

    This new fixation with making Sonic more “kid-friendly” isn’t really about kids. It’s about pandering for better review scores.

    Except that nobody in the real world (the one off the internet and away from the commenting sections) really cares about the dumb complaints in most of the reviews. Complaints that are usually over-exaggerated, or just plain made up.

    They don’t care if they have to adjust the camera. They expect to play the game with a thumb on each control stick. They do in most games, after all.

    They don’t care if it takes them a level or two to get used to the controls – they expect it from a character who moves that fast. But, at the same time, they don’t want video games that move so stupidly non-stop fast that it takes miles to get a few minutes of gameplay out of the levels.

    They don’t want claustrophobic and narrow levels, either. Or to hassle with annoying and archaic map systems, or to be thrust jarringly right into the next level. They expect large worlds to explore.

    And they don’t want those worlds to be depressingly-empty, either. They want it to be inhabbited with people they can interact with. And they don’t care if the inhabitants are humans and the main characters are anthropomorphic animals.

    They don’t think about if the main characters are anthroporphic animals when they judge the story or the graphics, either – they still expect a certain amount of darkness in the overtone and realism in the graphics. Because that’s how games are.

    They don’t want synthesized music instead of rock, piano, orchestra, etc. And they don’t care if the game has multiple playable characters, each with a different play style. They expect the other members of the cast to get a fair share of the spotlight.

    But most importantly, they don’t judge Sonic games by different standards than they judge everything else. When they see a Sonic game on the store shelves, they see it with the same eyes as they see every game around it.

    And if they see the word “colors” in the title… or two Sonics, but one of them is fat and short… or ANYTHING that looks even remotely like the “Deadly” Six… they’ll drop it like a hot coal. Because it’s stupid, and the cover art alone shows it, and they wouldn’t want to be seen playing it.

    And it doesn’t matter to them how Sonic USED to be back in 1991, either. With each new Sonic title that is released, there’s a constant influx of potential new fans to the series. Potential new fans that won’t ever give the series a chance if it doesn’t stop producing outdated titles like the ones they’re making now.

    Heck, not even everyone who’s already IN the Sonic fanbase likes what they’re doing now. They’re not even taking into account all of the fans they already have.

    Not because they aren’t trying. But to solve a large part of the series’ problem, SEGA are going to have to put their foot down with the people that want the Sonic series to follow the standards of the caveman days of video gaming.

    Sorta like how they had to do with Sonic 4 when people started complaining about Sonic having green eyes. They just need to lessen the boundaries of what they will give in to the fanbase (or, well… it’s more the critics, but still, some of the fanbase) on.

    1. Okay, let’s keep Mass Effect, Halo, Assassin’s Creed and Call of Duty out of here, shall we?

       The point still stands. It’s way more cool for kids to play likes of Rayman, Ratchet and Clank, and even Mario. Playing Sonic gets laughed at, unless one can prove that said Sonic game is cool.

       “Except that nobody in the real world (the one off the internet and away from the commenting sections) really cares about the dumb complaints in most of the reviews.”

       People have criticism in real world. There is reviews and “dumb complaints” in real life outside the internet, i have seen that.

       “They don’t care if they have to adjust the camera. They expect to play the game with a thumb on each control stick.”

       Believe me, even people who doesn’t wander across internet every day, like i, have problems with camera controls in some games.

       “They don’t care if it takes them a level or two to get used to the controls”

       Except, they actually care.

       “they don’t want video games that move so stupidly non-stop fast that it takes miles to get a few minutes of gameplay out of the levels.

       They don’t want claustrophobic and narrow levels, either.”

       Is your point bashing those boost games?

       “Or to hassle with annoying and archaic map systems, or to be thrust jarringly right into the next level.”

       Not sure what’s your point with this, though.

       “they still expect a certain amount of darkness in the overtone and realism in the graphics. Because that’s how games are.”

       Fan of Shadow and 06? It’s okay, but lot of people disagree with this. Though, i personally expect certain amount of these from Sonic games; Classics, SA1 and Generations are fine for me. ^___^

       “They don’t want synthesized music instead of rock, piano, orchestra, etc.”

       Subjective, and debatable, but i agree with you. Though, synthesized music is fine as long as it’s good, which is not really case with 90% of tracks.

       “And they don’t care if the game has multiple playable characters, each with a different play style.”

       Depends on how things are done. For example, Sonic, Tails, Knuckles and Gamma in SA1 are fine for me. Big and Amy? Nope.

       “They expect the other members of the cast to get a fair share of the spotlight.”

       Yes, friends deserve some more attention.

       “But most importantly, they don’t judge Sonic games by different standards than they judge everything else. When they see a Sonic game on the store shelves, they see it with the same eyes as they see every game around it.”

       Yes, that’s exactly what every sane person should think. Though, most games have their own unique touches. One does simply not make Sonic play or look like yesteryears first person shooter, for example. Sonic is unique in many ways, and one should hold on that. One does expect same qualities, not similarity.

       “And it doesn’t matter to them how Sonic USED to be back in 1991, either.”

       Maybe Sonic should not be EXACTLY like back then, but some things shouldn’t be just plain ignored.

       “there’s a constant influx of potential new fans to the series. Potential new fans that won’t ever give the series a chance if it doesn’t stop producing outdated titles like the ones they’re making now.

       Heck, not even everyone who’s already IN the Sonic fanbase likes what they’re doing now. They’re not even taking into account all of the fans they already have.”

       I agree with this.

       That should cover most of things i wanted to say. Thanks for comment, it helped me to summarize most of my thoughts.

       1. I don’t believe in the slightest that children would choose not to want a Sonic game because there are camera issues on some places.
          Camera needs to be fixed. But it’s not a global issue. It goes and in hand with the level design. There are certain people in the programmer team assigned to make the programming for camera. And in special cases it needs to be scripted. It doesn’t mean that in order to fix the camera as number one priority, all other content can suffer.

          And fan of ShtH and 06 or not, talks like Sonic must be lighthearted because he is for kids are just plain lies. You never mentioned that you liked SA2. Tell me, when you were a child, you would stop enjoying SA2 once Biolizard appeared? Or sooner? Would you lose all appeal just because of some of it’s cutscenes? And was that your opinion as a child or as an adult?

          And if Sonic has to be unique, … of course. And that’s the real reason why he must go back to SA style. Back then, he was unique. Now he just copies Mario with everything he does. Literally everything. It’s not even a big secret. I don’t really think that Sonic is being unique by not being consistent or by forcing dumbed-down dialogs on players while adding in the single breath that they don’t matter…
          I would like to have some elements from Classics. But these neo classic games are nothing like them. They had all this animal trapped inside of robots thing there because it was fresh idea. But after a while, Eggman stopped doing that. For him to start doing this again is just a nostalgia without any context. It has no creative undertone. It’s just there to attract Classic fans and shut them up. And Classics were not so good anyway. The first game was not really a fast paced paltformer. It was a game of waiting. Waiting for moving platforms to come to you, waiting for elevators, waiting for bubbles… and it was really hard, unforgiving and full of sucker punches. Sonic already evolved beyond that. Sonic 2 and Sonic 3 improved on that design a bit. And for 3D games, I feel that in 3D environment, Adventure games improved the mechanics even further. No need to get back to classics in 3D games.

          1. “It doesn’t mean that in order to fix the camera as number one priority, all other content can suffer.”

             You know what, i never really had huge problems with camera in Sonic games. I just want to point out that it’s fair to kindly point out an issue.

             “And fan of ShtH and 06 or not, talks like Sonic must be lighthearted because he is for kids are just plain lies.”

             I expect Sonic games to be sort of lighthearted. That being said, Adventure games and Unleashed are lighthearted enough for me. Over-kiddy is bad, though. I don’t like Lost World and direction it goes.

             “You never mentioned that you liked SA2”

             Sure, i really like SA1, but i’m kind of fifty-fifty with SA2 in terms of story, atmosphere, gameplay, just everything. Back then i finished whole game. After that, i returned to it couple of times, mostly due to chao garden and especially multiplayer, which i think is best in the series. Then, sadly, gamecube disc accidentally broke.

             I of course returned to SA2 in form of HD re-release, only to find that my opinion haven’t somehow changed at all. I still haven’t finished last story in HD version, though, because Cannon’s core is very frustrating level.

             I always considered game to be okay at best, even back then, to an extent that i actually prefer Sonic Heroes single-player wise (yeah, i know what everyone thinks about that), but i still like re-playing best levels and playing multiplayer. That multiplayer is just so much more fun than story mode.

             “Would you lose all appeal just because of some of it’s cutscenes?”

             Long story short, no. I never liked too much about general direction of story, but i think it has many cool cutscenes, and best structure of all stories in Sonic games.

             “And if Sonic has to be unique, … of course. And that’s the real reason why he must go back to SA style.”

             Yes, i like SA1, lot, it’s one of my favorite Sonic games, 3D ones to say the least. I do like Generations and it’s design philosophy lot, though, just saying.

             “Now he just copies Mario with everything he does. Literally everything.”

             Not everything, but too much. Not before Lost World, though. Colours was more like inspired, not exactly copied, i give it that.

             “And Classics were not so good anyway”

             I think they are. I don’t let that blind me though.

             “Sonic 2 and Sonic 3 improved on that design a bit.”

             Not just a bit, a lot. Sonic 2 is very fluid to play, honestly.

             “Adventure games improved the mechanics even further.”

             Yes, but i also think same goes for classic Sonic in Generations and some Dimps games.

             1. To clarify things for everyone, i’m more of a level-design guy. Gameplay is secondary for me in case of many Sonic games. It’s not the mechanics themselves, it’s how those mesh with levels.

    2. This comment….. It’s beautiful. *sniff* ( ;w;)

51. No, I will not keep Mass Effect, Halo, etc. “out of here”. They are major games that have a big impact on the market. More importantly, they’re played by a lot of people. Including kids. Mostly because the market for kids’ video games sucks. So, they are instrumental in demonstrating why the mindset behind this whole idea that Sonic is a “kids only” franchise… and that kids are supposedly more attracted to stupid games than good games… is faulty.

    And there’s no reason to not bring them up. Each and every video game that is released is nothing more or less than just yet-another-video-game. Each and every one will have its fans and its haters.

    Ratchet’s not just a “kid game”. It’s more of an “in the middle game”. Rayman is currently doing what Sonic is doing: appealing to its older audience but claiming it’s focused mostly on kids. And Mario’s been about its longtime audience for over a decade – it certainly is kid-friendly, but it cares more about its established audience than kids who are fresh into the gaming scene.

    Yeah, people have criticism in the real world. They encounter problems with cameras, controls, etc. They just don’t make such a big deal about it. When a person is actually playing a game or discussing it face-to-face with someone else, they don’t throw fits like they do on comments and YouTube videos. And when they’re actually playing, the main thought in their mind is simply, “I’m playing a video game”. Not, “Do these camera and controls suck”. A review is written by taking an initial reaction to something in a video game (be it a positive reaction or a negative one) and blowing it up to ten times the size it actually was when they experienced it.

    No, my point is the boost games’ design is not in keeping with the general desires of today’s gaming audience. Yes, it may have gotten good reviews (which nobody cares about until they need something to hide behind in an argument on the internet) but that’s because critics are retro Sonic fans. They were kids or young adults when the series first came along, so they have a personal agenda for how they think Sonic should be made. And their reviews will naturally reflect that. But if SEGA want Sonic to have any appeal to a crowd outside one black-and-white portion of the Sonic fanbasr, they’re going to have to learn to find a much better balance between old and new than they’ve got now. MUCH better balance.

    My point is the same as above: maps and being moved from level-to-level is outdated. There’s a reason most games don’t do that anymore: it’s annoying and archaic. Stuff like that was fine back in Super Mario Bros. 3. Not anymore.

    I don’t like Shadow the Hedgehog’s gangsta act. But that’s got more to do with the gangsta act, itself. Not that the game is a Sonic game. Sonic 06, I enjoy more than Shadow… but I’m not the world’s biggest anime fan, either. So I just have more tolerance for it.

    See, just because I expect Sonic games to act like they’re from this day and age, rather than the caveman days, that doesn’t mean I’m automatically a fan of Shadow the Hedgehog and Sonic 06. I like them well enough – they are a far better building foundation to work on, simply because they at least TRY – but that doesn’t mean I’m okay with their flaws. (The ones that actually exist, though. THAT’S the key.) I want Sonic games that are of a more complete and polished quality.

    And there’s no way to know how many people agree with something. You kind of can’t trust what you read on the internet – there’s no way to know who’s being honest and who’s just jumping on a bandwagon. You can’t look to reviews/Metacritic, either – there’s too many people in this world to trust a Metascore assigned to a product by only 30-40 reviews.

    Yes, it is subjective and debatable. But when it comes to video games… or ANYTHING that’s made for the purposes of entertainment… EVERYTHING is subjective and debatable. I do agree that there is such a thing as good synthesized music, though. Still, I don’t ever want to hear another soundtrack like Colors’ ever again. Not just in Sonic. In anything. At all.

    It depends on how it’s done, yes. But like with synthesized music, that applies to everything. As far as the general opinion on Amy and Big that is put forth goes, it would have been fine if the characters moved faster and didn’t focus on fishing. I liked it, but I don’t ask for it to come back. I can see why it isn’t so popular. Funny how nobody minded it when it first came out and then clamed they did later, though… But that can be said about a lot of people who are backpeddaling about the Adventures.

    No, Sonic is not unique. No game is. Every game has defining characteristics, but there’s a difference between that and uniqueness. BUT… I do agree that Sonic should be mostly about platforming. I don’t mind experiments… and I’ll take guns, Werehogs, and swords over jell-o cubes (Wisps) any day… but I like to focus mostly on platforming. Things like the mech shooting and Silver’s psychokinesis are better, because they are still about platforming in the end. They just have the added elements of shooting and throwing things. And even then, I would speed them up A LITTLE and polish their mechanics.

    Sure, Sonic should hold onto some qualities from the Genesis days. Rings, platforming core gameplay, and Sonic. That’s all that really HAS to be there (although it would be preferable to have at least Eggman and Chaos Emeralds, as well). Everything else is fair game, as long as it’s well-handled! Including story and gameplay additions/edits.

    Er… you’re welcome for the comment. And thank you for your well-thought-out and polite response. And please, don’t be offended by mine. No insults were intended. And sorry it’s so long… It just takes time and a lot of words to talk about things like Sonic, with such a varied and complicated nature…

    1. “No, I will not keep Mass Effect, Halo, etc. “out of here”. They are major games that have a big impact on the market.”

       I just prefer examples that are more on same level with Sonic, having similar audience.

       “they don’t throw fits like they do on comments and YouTube videos”

       That’s actually true.

       “boost games’ design is not in keeping with the general desires of today’s gaming audience.”

       To be fair, that type of gameplay counts as more of an arcade type of games. It’s something most games don’t do, yet many people found that sort of approach very appealing. It’s different than “exploring vast worlds”, but general audiences may actually consider that better way to go for this particular series. There is no shame being different, sometimes it’s better to be.

       “because critics are retro Sonic fans”

       Not all of them.

       “much better balance between old and new than they’ve got now”

       When it comes to Lost World, yes.

       “My point is the same as above: maps and being moved from level-to-level is outdated.”

       Not really, i think. Do you have alternative for that? Personally, i’m fine with hub and structure of Generations. But how about you?

       “just because I expect Sonic games to act like they’re from this day and age, rather than the caveman days, that doesn’t mean I’m automatically a fan of Shadow the Hedgehog and Sonic 06”

       Same here. I do think they have to keep modern touch for the franchise, and i do understand that you are not fan of 06 and Shadow, but please reconsider next time you are about to mention “caveman days”. Many of us still like classics, and we don’t exactly like when someone talk’s about them in disrespective ways. Heck, Sonic 2 is still my favorite Sonic game. I don’t want series to go back there, that wouldn’t lead franchise anywhere, but please, bit of respect wouldn’t do harm.

       “there’s no way to know who’s being honest and who’s just jumping on a bandwagon”

       True, but i can ensure you that everything i say is my honest opinion. =)

    2. “Still, I don’t ever want to hear another soundtrack like Colors’ ever again”

       I like Colours soundtrack. =/

       “No, Sonic is not unique. No game is. Every game has defining characteristics”

       Sonic IS unique because of those defining characteristics. Every game is. That is the thing that makes games unique. Characteristics in gameplay, art style, general direction of game… that makes games unique. That applies to every form of culture. Sure, they all are still games, but still. Games have differences you know.

    3. “Rings, platforming core gameplay, and Sonic. That’s all that really HAS to be there (although it would be preferable to have at least Eggman and Chaos Emeralds, as well)”

       I think it needs more to capture the core and essence of Sonic. Like design philosophy of those old games. It’s not simple thing, but not rocket science either.

       And i’m not offended at all by your thoughts. It’s nice to hear them. =)

52. Yes, the fanbase sucks. What else is new?

    1. Fanbase has found new ways to suck, i guess?

53. This comment…it’s beautiful too. ( ;w;)

    I REALLY like your point about the Classics. It’s completely true- if anyone dared to say they didn’t like one of the Classic games or pointed out a flaw, they’d be called out of their name and dismissed as a troll. I’ve seen it happen to many Adventure fans who’ve said that they liked the Adventure games better than the Classics.

    It’s really sad that a lot of Adventure fans don’t want to speak their mind out of fear of being shot down by the Classic fanboys.

54. I think that the fear of being able to confess that one likes ShtH or StH06 is also a thing that completely destroys any idea of constructive criticism.
    I get your point about dull and colorless environments in ShtH. I personally didn’t find them as dull as in other Sonic game. They were a bit colorless though… I am sure that they could really make a better job on that game. I will not praise it as it was my deity. Making it look more like other Sonic games would probably help. Guns were one time gimmick. Cussing… I don’t know. It was not so bad, but it didn’t need to be there. I really don’t see why it would be linked so tightly with Sonic stories that fans need to dismiss the cussing AND story in one single package.
    And as for 06, I don’t think that any of those points even address. The environment looked fairly colorful and generally not-dull. Well, except for some open space areas. Like the grassy area behind the Soleana city. That was way too open and empty. I really believe that it was because they didn’t have nearly enough development time. It was no bug or anything preventing you from completing the game, so they had to focus on other issues. (We all know the story about the rushed game, right?) I really don’t think that 06 would get even fraction of the hatred it got if it was properly finished. And if the feedback to that game was not so unilaterally negative, they could think of something Sonic fans would like better in a next Sonic game. Instead of getting scared of everything and ditching that game to the depths of underworld.
    Since they didn’t get that feedback (everyone was afraid to provide anything else except of complete hatred), Sonic team ended up making few mistakes with Unleashed while trying to avoid Everything 06ish. They returned back to the sucker punches to control the speed… but on the other hand they designed the levels in such fashion that they promoted the speed the very moment you were able to run again. Needles to say that the transitions between 3D and 2D really break the pace especially since the speed works differently in those segments. I personally thought it sounded like a good idea. But it does not really bring so many positive things to the enjoyment of the game. All of this was made to return to Classics. Except for more linear approach to the level design… And they just had to keep the 2D/3D transitions, because 2D elements reminded of the more critically acclaimed games – as opposed to keeping that because it made sense and because it contributed to the experience.
    I bet that wast majority of people who hate the idea of getting back to fairly well received SA formula always gravitate to one argument: “Yeah, because we need another 06!” or “SA3 was StH06, it failed horribly. Never again!”
    I really don’t think that people would even dismiss the story of 06 so much if that game was enjoyable to play. I mean, the game critics don’t usually give many points for story anyway. And those people who think that story doesn’t matter always ignored them.
    And those people who couldn’t live with some weird elements in 06 story… I just can’t help it, but I feel that Pontac stories make it even worse than 06. The only thing that makes people think otherwise is that the story is packed in toddlers graphics and with the mindset that the player is supposed to laugh at everything… But the moments in which characters act weird are still there. But it’s suddenly not an issue…
    Heh, I have even heard some people claim that Sonic was never cool and he only thought of himself as a cool person. They thought that he was portrayed like a parody of coolness. If I ignore that I do not really see it in his previous appearances and if I ignore that Pontac himself does not seem to realize that he writes Sonic like that,… it just makes no sense. Do Sonic fans really want Sonic games to parody the previously established character personalities, behavior and story? For laughs? SA titles were there only because we needed to introduce these characters, but now we will keep making fun of them for the sake of it? I think that people overestimate the significance of humor. Humor shouldn’t be the only characteristic in games that portray fictional characters on their fictional adventurous journey. The very existence of story itself is there just to: “provide a supporting fiction to make the game environments feel more meaningful.” [citation from bonus material in R&C CiT] It’s not just a filler between two stages of gameplay. It’s an extension of the experience. It should provide something that will intensify the gameplay experience. I really don’t think that the enjoyment of the gameplay manifests itself in laughing all the time.

55. I can’t read and respond to everything you said right now. But let me explain to start that I am NOT a hater of Shadow the Hedgehog. And definitely not of Sonic 06.

    Even though I can see that it has its problems, I find 85% or more of the criticisms against them to be stupid.

    And the key to trumping them? Mass Effect.

    People who say that Shadow looks stupid holding a gun should take a good, long, hard look at Mass Effect. Those characters look a million times stupider than any of the cast members in Sonic. Especially the aliens.

    And speaking of the aliens… people who claim to have a problem with Sonic and Elise should refer to the graphic, M-rated sex scenes in Mass Effect. You think one little kiss is weird… try watching a human woman having sex with a blue space woman.

    Not that I don’t like Mass Effect, ’cause I do. I’m just honest enough to admit that it’s weird. And that it’s okay for it to be weird.

    And I don’t try to pretend the concept of inter-species relationships is any less acceptable in a Sonic game than it is in Mass Effect.

    I also don’t try to say things like, “Well, it’s okay in Mass Effect because it’s handled better”.

    And I don’t try to pretend Sonic’s different because it’s Sonic. And I don’t buy into the “Sonic is for kids” thing, either.

    But rest easy. I agree with you. 🙂

    1. Maybe i should take Mass Effect 1 out of my backlog and finally play it. Because your comment seems to have good point which i don’t fully get.

       “I find 85% or more of the criticisms against them to be stupid.”

       I found huge junk of the criticism fair. But about quarter of it is just stupid. I tried to enjoy Shadow and 06 on their own right, but i still find them bad.

56. Why, thanks! 😀

57. I’m glad you thought so.

    And yes, the classic fans are what is called, “A vocal minority”. In other words, a crowd of people who scream really, really loud until they get what they want by convincing the people who make what they’re obsessing about that they’re the “majority”.

    Yet, again: as I pointed out, all these people who claim to hate these “bad” Sonic games play them a lot more often than they do the “perfect” classic games. And when they upload them on the internet, they even demonstrate evidence exactly to the contrary of the fits they’re throwing…

    It’s all a huge load of nonsense.

    1. And it works every time.

       Sonic by himself? Check. Platforming only? Check. Nostalgia up the ass? Triple check. The fact that their sentiments are echoed by Metacritic only makes things worse.

       1. Well… take a look at Lost World. I still don’t like it, but I still acknowledge that SEGA were trying to make it more appealing to modern fans. They tried to make the story slightly darker, and to include more characters in it. And they tried to make the gameplay more “Adventure-esque” by slowing the whole thing way the hell down.

          Yes, Lost World was definitely more for the retro fans than the modern fans, but they still tried. And part of the reason for that is probably because SEGA noticed that more and more fans were getting sick of it. Even fans that liked Colors and Generations were starting to complain a little. I think SEGA are discovering that Metacritic isn’t the end-all, be-all. More people must disagree with it than they thought.

          Or else they wouldn’t have ever even tried.

          1. I believe Lost World is more like horrendous attempt to make metacritic score higher.

58. “It WAS really bad how you just sort of assumed he was a fan of Shadow the Hedgehog and Sonic 06 over that comment”

    Hey, sorry, misunderstandings do happen when you write here 2 am… I understanded those words wrong way.

    “And just because he wants the graphics and settings to look respectable instead of like something out of a painful Nickelodeon cartoon, it means he must want dull and colorless environments?”

    I do agree with him on this. I’m studying visual design myself, and i have problem with visuals of Lost World, 06 and Shadow. I’m looking for that good middle ground.

    “the classic games are objectively not so great. They use sucker punches to control the speed, and the whole thing is about waiting. It’s a little bit better than the boost games, but that’s only because it requires players to actually… you know, play.”

    I do disagree on this. Classic’s still have the flow, and i still have to do… you know, a lot of platforming… in Colours and Generations. Likes of Unleashed and Sonic 1 have problems, though.

    “People will happily claim the Adventure games are terrible even though they’re not…”

    SA1 is still one of my favorite Sonic games, i prefer it over Sonic 1 any day. I don’t like SA2 that much, though, but it’s still okay, not terrible. Same goes for Sonic Heroes, actually, in my humble opinion.

    1. You have a degree in visual design? OK, I need to explain on a professional level what is wrong with level design in StH06. I really do grave to know this. Honestly. I am really bugged by what would possible people find bad about it.

       Classic’s had their flow for their own time. Now, we learned that the games could have a better flow. The flow in Classics was all the time interrupted for stupid reasons. Who the hell did invent the concept of two springs throwing Sonic on one another? If it was on one place only, but it keeps on appearing again and again. And the idea of springs that will throw you back, why? Why is the idea of environmental dangers, that will interrupt the flow by hurting you used so often? Instead of the idea where environment design slows you down naturally so you would have an easier time to easier dodge the real environmental dangers that would hurt you? Sonic Unleashed needed to go back to the Classics, where the Classics themselves were trying to evolve this formula on their own – see the difference between Sonic 1 and Sonic 3. Why would they suddenly feel the need to get back just because people loved 2D games? When they had no idea why in the first place.

       Humble opinions are good. As long as they are not used to dismiss the real points people are making.
       “I liked SA2 story.”
       “Well, I didn’t, that means that Pontac’s stories do not deserve the criticism for not even remotely resembling it.”
       That’s not a way to go.

       1. “You have a degree in visual design?”

          Not yet.

          “Humble opinions are good. As long as they are not used to dismiss the real points people are making.”

          Did i do that? I’m just trying to point out my own opinions, not to dismiss others. I mean no harm…

59. Pingback: No Mr. Westgarth. Sonic fans are Pissed. | Conflicting Views

60. http://conflictingviews.wordpress.com/2013/11/24/no-mr-westgarth-sonic-fans-are-pissed/

    1. Oh, hey, thanks for posting your article on here. I already promoted it via Twitter, but now those who aren’t on Twitter can find it too. Thanks for the constructive criticism, I totally forgot about Knuckles’ attraction to that cat lady — to be honest I thought the Sonic OVA was a complete and utter spin off, even more so than Sonic Drift 2.

       1. Not my article, a friend of mine told me about it. 😀

61. The people that play Sonic also play games like Mass Effect. The audiences aren’t different.

    In fact, that’s exactly the POINT. A lot of the reason Sonic’s fans are becoming tired of what the series is currently doing is BECAUSE the audiences aren’t different. People don’t play a Sonic game with different or lower standards than they do everything else.

    Sure, they may not expect Sonic to be as mature and dark as a game like Mass Effect. Or as complex and dramatic. But they don’t tolerate a game with standards as low as Sonic’s are, at the moment.

    And again, they don’t care that Sonic’s a blue hedgehog. Or what he used to be like. There’s still certain things they expect. And they’re things they have a perfect right and reason to expect.

62. It depends on the criticism. Criticizing ths story for being “too much” just because it’s a “game about a blue hedgehog” is stupid. But criticizing the story for having bad voice acting is valid.

    Criticizing the gameplay because it’s not about running in a straight line in 2D is stupid. Finding the controls and camera to be a problem is fine, though… within certain limits.

    Complaing about the graphics for using a human world as a setting or for having a more realistic look to it is dumb. Thinking that the graphics are too dull and don’t have enough detail in them is fine.

    Hating the rock music because it’s a Sonic game is stupid. But finding the rock music to just not be one’s style is okay.

    It’s all about the attitude and the context behind it. If a person who hates, for example, Shadow the Hedgehog hates it for reasons that they’s hate ANY game, that’s fine.

    But if a person discriminates against Shadow the Hedgehog for being a Sonic game… and acts like all its flaws are somehow made extra worse for it being a Sonic game… then they’re full of crap.

63. BTW, here is the full interview

64. Sonic and Tetris aren’t even comparable. By today’s standards, even calling something like Tetris a video game is a stretch. It’s like, it’s a game… but not a VIDEO game, if y’all know what I mean.

    But ridiculously over-exaggerated comparisons aside, the time is way over to argue that nobody should care about the story and dialogue in Sonic or ANY video game. To the point that doing so is basically just shamelessly conforming to what the critics say to try to make oneself look smart and “mature”.

    And I always want to say, to the people who argue that Sonic stories are stupid: “Congratulations. You figured out a video game’s story starring a blue hedgehog is full of sh*t. Just like every story ever written for every book, movie, TV show, video game, and/or every other product meant for entertainment ever made, ever. Want a medal, or something a pat on the back?”

    Or, when people make it sound like, “Well, it’s only stupid when it tries to be serious. ‘Cause then it’s pretentious and cliche. But comedies are awesome, dawg!”

    Yes, because a cliche alien invasion plot like in Shadow the Hedgehog is so much worse than a cliche villain-pretends-to-apologize-but-is-lying-and-the-hero-figures-it-out plot like in Colors. Or like the attempts to be funny and stupid in Generations are better than the attempts to be serious and dramatic in Sonic 06.

    Point is, everything’s pretentious ’cause everything tries to entertain. And everything’s cliche ’cause there’s no such thing as an original story idea anymore.

    The story of EVERY video game matters, now. Even in games that have light stories, that story still matters. And in Sonic’s case, there was a time when SEGA cared more about their stories. Because whatever one’s opinion of the storylines in Sonic over that eleven-year-period is, the fact remains that SEGA still tried.

    So downgrading to Cartoon Network levels of dumb and lazy isn’t an option. Not really. Not now that they’ve created a whole fanbase of people who like darker and more involved plots. And pretending that those people are in the “minority” doesn’t work, either. Elsewise, there wouldn’t even be so much debate about it to begin with.

    So… typical-retro-fan-comment-begging-for-the-90s-back thoroughly answered. Moving right along…!

65. One thing to consider is that 4Kids didn’t know jack about Sonic when they got the rights to Sonic X…and look how that turned out. It’s always a good idea to be at least somewhat aware of the backstory of your source material.

    Ken doesn’t need to be fired, though. He just has to do his research. If he doesn’t…well, that’s another story.

    1. His research on what? It’s not like games like Colors and Lost World need any past references and nods to previous games. Generations, yeah you need research on that since it’s the 20 anniversary game and all.

       1. I’m not saying that they do. But if you’re going to be writing for a long-running series like this, you have to know your material or you’re flying blind.

          1. true but even if he did it blind, I don’t think he did a bad job with the material he had to work with. Thats why I don’t understand the backlash he’s getting all of a sudden when I’d thought people liked what he’s done for Lost World (story isn’t nowhere perfect however)

       2. “His research on what? It’s not like games like Colors and Lost World need any past references and nods to previous games.”
          Those 2 games are the reason the current writers are disliked by people who care more about the series beyond gameplay and misguided notions on what does or doesn’t belong in a Sonic game. So yeah, I think research is needed, since a lot of people who follow this series is because of it’s history.

          1. Yeah, I guess you’re right but I don’t mind the current writers though.

66. @sonicfan1984:
    Hey, if you don’t mind, that’s fine, but I lot of people do mind and for good reason. People talk a lot about quality gameplay in the games, but the story needs quality to.

    =============
    (general post)
    Something I want to say to, many people(the same who talk about gameplay) are free to bash the stories for the past 3D games and say they aren’t important, but keep in mind that many of the same people also praise the stories of the recent games. What I’m getting at here is that there always seem to be a double standards with the people who consider many of the 3D games to be bad games or figures the series doesn’t need this or that(the writer of this article is a glaring example), but when something they like comes under criticism, all kinds of arguments comes flying out, many of them being only the same arguments people have repeated and are repeating 10x over. While this part isn’t aimed at Sonicfan1984, I feel a lot of these people I was talking about(and you know who they/you are), really need to leave forums like this, because it’s always the more vocal Sonic fans who end up making the rest of us look bad. Aknotholeresedent during the Sonic 4 debacle, Mariotehplumber and Gligar13vids every time they open their mouths, that Spax guy back in the VA wars years ago, are good examples of the people I’m talking about.

    1. Hey, just cause I like the writers doesn’t mean I don’t want quality or improvement in the stories. :S It’s like ever since they got on board, the new guys just becomes the new target for the fans to blame when they don’t like something when it’s SEGA/Sonic Team’s fault too.

       1. That quality part was also a general statement, but I should have moved that into the bigger part of my post. Also, while I do think the writing sucks, I’m fully aware that it’s Sega’s fault, but the writers aren’t completely innocent.

          1. Not saying that they are innocent. I’m just talking about those people who has some huge grudge against them and pretty much blame them for the current direction of the series and acting like if Sega gets rid of them then that will make everything better again.

67. Lost World was an awkward attempt to please more of the fanbase.

    A lot of SEGA’s problem is in the extremes they go to whenever a Sonic game is criticized. Something we should all have figured out by now IS going to happen. No matter what SEGA does with this franchise now, it will always be bitched about by one part of the gaming community or another.

    After Shadow the Hedgehog, they lightened the tone up a bit, but made it super complicated and dramatic. They set the game in a large, fully 3D environment and gave the camera over to playet completely. They made the controls super sensitive to counter complaints that Shadow always felt like skating on ice. Which it didn’t, but that’s what the reviews said, so… -_- The almighty game critics had spoken, and SEGA rushed to listen to whatever they said.

    So then comes Sonic 06. A game that has been in development since before Shadow the Hedgehog, but also a game that was meant to be a rapid response to those who had moaned and whined about the last outing. It was a critical disaster, if a financial success. Blah, blah, blah…

    The key point was at Secret Rings. After Sonic 06 came down on the critical rocks, SEGA’s answer was to totally freak out and quickly throw away anything even remotely similar to Sonic 06 so as to avoid being criticized like that ever again. What they should have done was stop and realize: “It’s not the ideas that were the problem. It’s the way we handled them.”

    Instead, they turned Secret Rings into an on-rails arcade game. But the controls still sucked because of the Wiimote and the camera was still a pain in the ass. At least, according to the critics. The story was still serious and involved, but they tried to make Sonic brush everything off like it was no big deal. To shut people who complained about a “blue hedgehog” taking serious situations seriously being “stupid” up.

    Since then, it’s just been a ride through the trenches. Unleashed was a good idea, according to the critics, but the Werehog was no good. Colors was crap, but the critics thought it was great, so therefore it must have been, right? But by Generations, SEGA had a new problem.

    More and more fans were disagreeing with the reviews. Meaning that there was a world outside of Metacritic, after all. A world that didn’t care what a bunch of people in a cubicle typing reviews on a computer all day thought.

    So, with Lost World, they tried to walk a tight line. They didn’t want to piss off critics or those who agreed with them. But they didn’t want to chase their modern audience away, either. And they know that modern Sonic fans are far less prone to be patient than classic fans.

    So they can’t take as much time trying to nail the formula for modern Sonic as they can classic.

    I kind of feel bad for them, actually…

    1. Honestly, you’re just blaming critics here, like if they are specific hipster group with no idea of reality at all.

       I’m not saying that “they’re always right, because they are critics”, i’m saying that they aren’t completely wrong just because fanbase loves to constantly bitch about them.

       Many critics have made good points i can agree with. For example, i’m sure that controls Shadow the Hedgehog are slippery. Not exactly ice skating, true, but skating is a metaphor here. It’s wording. That’s what professional writers do.

68. I do, too. They haven’t figured out the best way to handle these things is to start putting their foot down. As you said, they hurry too fast to do whatever it takes to get good reviews. And they miss out on so much they could do for this series because they’re too busy panicking to stop and think calmly.

    When the gameplay was being criticized because of controls, they should have just fixed the controls instead of changing it so that the gameplay was almost impossible to fail at.

    When the camera came into question, it would have been better to make it move faster and more intelligently than to put the whole experience on rails.

    When HUBs were criticized because some people don’t like to wander, than they should have just added a map and mini-map. That way, anyone who likes exploring can do it easily. And anyone who doesn’t can just follow the map to the next story destination.

    Side missions complained about? Okay, just make sure they’re not about walking dogs or solving math puzzles.

    Same thing with the playable characters. Don’t like ’em? Then design them to play more like Sonic. Make everyone move at the same speed for gameplay purposes only, but design levels around individual abilities. Like, put gaps for Tails to fly over in his levels. Put walls for Rouge to climb on. Give Knuckles some of that combat you gave the Werehog, just make sure he moves fast and doesn’t have SO MUCH of it.

    Whining about the voices and dialogue sounding bad? Make your actors deliver their lines with feeling. And aim to write more natural sounding dialogue. That’s something they should be doing, anyway…

    Complaints that the story’s too serious and realistic? Okay, so don’t do certain things like give anthros guns. And don’t cut all humans out of the proceedings, because then it feels empty and dead. Just make sure Sonic doesn’t kiss any of them.

    And now comes the most important part: accepting that, as you also said, there WILL be criticisms, no matter what. At a certain point, you have to start ignoring them.

    And if anybody has any complaints after that, put your foot down. Say, “No. This is not 1991, it is 2014. We are doing modern Sonic games this way, as a general rule. For the purists looking for a throwback, refer to the downloadable catalogue of the classics. Or any future 2D digital releases. We will try to do better next time, but that is all.”

    This floundering around isn’t actually helping anything. It’s making people more and more disenfranchised with the series. And it’s not that SEGA won’t get there eventually. It’s just, we can do it faster and easier by realizing a couple things… Even the retro fans didn’t totally love Lost World. All it takes is a little thought.

    1. Now, this is the big problem of Sonic Team as developer. They favour complete overhauls over substle and consistant changes. Sure, thanks to that, series has stayed somewhat fresh, but in the long run, there must be some balance. Unfortunately for them, it seems that this “long run”
       has lasted since 90’s and end is still not in sight.

       I recommed temporary change of dev team, to see how it works.

69. Just because they’ve made points you can agree with doesn’t mean they’re good ones, dude.

    Of course, it also doesn’t mean they’re bad ones, either.

    It just means that you happen to think a lot like the critics do. At least, in Shadow the Hedgehog’s case.

    I know what a metaphor is, and I understand how professional writing is supposed to work. But Shadow the Hedgehog’s controls didn’t feel all that slippery. They were definitely troublesome once the pace really picked up, but they were still better than Colors and Generations’ controls. Far less slippery and FAR less… well, uncontrollable.

    1. Uncontroller? I can control both games just fine.

       1. *uncontrollable

    2. Can i disagree about those controls? If you were talking about Unleashed, then yes, but Colours/Generations are just fine enough imho.

70. I don’t think what the critics do can be called “professional”. Especially not when it comes to a Sonic game they don’t like. Read IGN’S review of Sonic Unleashed. Or GameTrailer’s review of Sonic 06. Or GamesRadar’s review of ANY of them. Making snarky remarks and insults like a kid in grade school who didn’t get exactly what they want for Christmas is not professional.

    They can’t even stop themselves from making immature and childish comments when they review a Sonic game they DO like. The guy who reviewed Generations at IGN (with a more annoying voice than Omochao) just had to say, “If you like Sonic’s rock music… why?”. -_- Ugh… Grow up.
    *
    Oh, Shadow the Hedgehog’s controls are fine. So are most of the 3D games’ controls. This whole thing about controls and cameras is dumb.

    Again, when people play a game, they adapt to its issues. After a level or two of playing almost ANY game, you just automatically get used to the controls and camera.

    The only reason Colors and Generations don’t get to benefit from that is because they are literally too fast to allow you to get used to it. It’s PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE to get used to it. And playing through the levels over and over doesn’t make one get used to the camera and controls – it just makes one memorize the layout of the levels. Something that was never necessary in previous Sonic games.

    1. “Oh, Shadow the Hedgehog’s controls are fine. So are most of the 3D games’ controls. This whole thing about controls and cameras is dumb.

       Again, when people play a game, they adapt to its issues. After a level or two of playing almost ANY game, you just automatically get used to the controls and camera.”

       I can’t remember getting used to controls of Shadow the Hedgehog during last eight years.

    2. Oh, and;

       “The only reason Colors and Generations don’t get to benefit from that is because they are literally too fast to allow you to get used to it. It’s PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE to get used to it.”

       I’m used to those controls, just fine. Much better than controls in Shadow.

    3. “They can’t even stop themselves from making immature and childish comments when they review a Sonic game they DO like. The guy who reviewed Generations at IGN (with a more annoying voice than Omochao) just had to say, “If you like Sonic’s rock music… why?”. -_- Ugh… Grow up.”
       Yeah, I remember that, and I mean really, WHEN did rock music become a problem? It seems mainly Sonic and Nintendo fans hate it all of a sudden. Also, that same guy called Sonic’s friends stupid for no reason at all, and it sounded pretty childish, as if he’s mad that they’re even there. Of course, he says this during the mission where you get Knuckles to dig holes for you…..

71. I hate to say it, but I’m becoming more and more intrigued by the idea of Sonic in the hands of another developer. For two or three games, I’d say…

    Not that I support the idea of giving Sonic over to someone else. But why not have another game developer… one with a really good reputation… come in and heavily-involve themselves with the building and construction of a Sonic game? To help Sonic Team figure out what problems they keep running into.

    And don’t ask someone like Nintendo or Dimps to do it. Do it with someone who makes really GOOD games, like BioWare or the people who make Metal Gear Solid.

    And yes, I know BioWare developed Sonic Chronicles (for which a sequel is way overdue). But what they need to do is develop a Sonic game proper. And show Sonic Team how to do it.

    1. This is something i have said a lot. Change of developer. Not publisher, series shall stay on Sega, but someone else probably could do the job better. Maybe not Bioware or Kojima productions, though.

72. No, you’re not REALLY used to those controls. It’s just, the gameplay formula and level design are so simple, it gives off the illusion that you are.

    Sonic is a fast character. That means there’s a very limited number of ways to make successful platforming video games with him.
    *
    One is to make the games slower and more platforming focused. Use speed as a spectacle, something that is added in at key points during the gameplay for show. Sometimes, include a section or two where you expect the players to actually control the speed… but make sure that the main gameplay is about platforming and defeating enemies. Like in most Sonic games up until 06.

    But then, fans either complain that it’s too slow or that the controls are too sensitive. And because the game actually requires skill… people fail more frequently when they play. And they blame the game for it.

    (Not to say that EVERY time someone has a hard time playing Shadow the Hedgehog, it’s always their fault – just that the game isn’t that effing hard, no matter how much some people like to moan that it is.)
    *
    Two is to do what Colors and Generations did. Fence off a large portion of the levels and make the pace so ridiculously over-fast that players don’t even have time to think about it. Add in a few areas with slower platforming and a few enemies to defeat so it isn’t a complete and total kart racer game… but for the most part, have the game play itself. It’s not completely on rails, but it’s pretty damn close. This way, they hope that players don’t notice that the controls are actually very loose.

    And that Sonic doesn’t turn very well. And that he is WAY too heavy when he jumps. And that it’s actually a very shallow experience – the whole focus is on trying to be fancy and showy. But, trouble is, after three games, fans are starting to catch on. Colors and Generations definitely still have their fans… but enough people are starting to see through it, now. They’re getting bored by it, so they have to change it.

    (And that isn’t to say Colors and Generations had absolutely no challenge or good qualities at all. They did have their pros, it’s just they weren’t THAT good, either. Just like how Shadow the Hedgehog and Sonic 06 weren’t THAT bad, Colors and Generations weren’t THAT good.)
    *
    Third is to go down the road of the first two Wii games: Secret Rings and Black Knight. Put the whole thing completely on rails, and only allow a few inches of movement from left to right. Take almost all of the control away from the player, and put it in the hands of the game.

    But that’s so boring, it’s not even a viable option. Asking players to give up at least 80% of their control in Colors and Generations was a risky choice. It paid off well enough, but it was a risk. So asking players to give up 95% in Secret Rings and Black Knight is too much.
    *
    Honestly, the best thing they can do is learn to nail the Adventure formula. It’s the most acceptable, and it’s got the most potential to be something amazing.

    And all they have to do to nail it is make the camera smarter, tweak the controls, and take as long as necessary to correct all the technical problems such as bugs.

    That’s the best they’ll be able to do to make Sonic accessible to more people than just the retro fans.

    1. I agree, they should take what they already had in SA1 and add in all necessary tweaking and polish.

73. Something that occurred to me: if you don’t like Shadow the Hedgehog, how about you just don’t play it? I mean, whenever I come to a game I don’t like, I don’t play it much whenever I’ve completed it at least twice. It’s an older game, and I’m sure you’ve finished it by now…

    Perhaps not Kojima, but BioWare is a viable option. Remember, the point is to simply demonstrate to Sonic Team how to avoud making the technical mistakes they keep making. Not to completely give it over to someone else.
    AS kong as it’s not
    A

    1. “Something that occurred to me: if you don’t like Shadow the Hedgehog, how about you just don’t play it? I mean, whenever I come to a game I don’t like, I don’t play it much whenever I’ve completed it at least twice. It’s an older game, and I’m sure you’ve finished it by now…”

       Guess what? I actually don’t play it because i don’t like it, and i only got about half of the story endings. That includes most levels, though.

       “Perhaps not Kojima, but BioWare is a viable option. Remember, the point is to simply demonstrate to Sonic Team how to avoud making the technical mistakes they keep making. Not to completely give it over to someone else.”

       I know it’s for demonstration, but RPG developer BioWare isn’t really the best possible choice, i believe. Even considering the fact that they made Chronicles.

74. Something that occurred to me: if you don’t like Shadow the Hedgehog, how about you just don’t play it? I mean, whenever I come to a game I don’t like, I don’t play it much whenever I’ve completed it at least twice. It’s an older game, and I’m sure you’ve finished it by now…

    Perhaps not Kojima, but BioWare is a viable option. Remember, the point is to simply demonstrate to Sonic Team how to avoud making the technical mistakes they keep making. Not to completely give it over to someone else.

    As long as it’s not Ubisoft, Nintendo, or the people who make Ratchet and Clank, almost anyone sounds good, at this point.

    1. “As long as it’s not Ubisoft, Nintendo, or the people who make Ratchet and Clank, almost anyone sounds good, at this point.”

       I agree about Nintendo, they should stay away, but what you think is wrong with the others? Please enlighten me about it.

75. Hold up son, the Ratchet and Clank games have great elements for Sonic games, even All 4 one at least had 4P co-op. If anything, I feel Insomniac(the people who make R&C) would be great with a Sonic game, they just have to leave behind the whole deal about trying to be Pixar, it has been chaining R&C down but the series still keeps a good balance.

76. Shadow the Hedgehog has good controls for its design. But if it were like Colors or Generations… or even, like the Adventures… it wouldn’t. I kind of liked the way Shadow felt so unwieldy. It made him feel more powerful. And honestly, he wasn’t THAT hard to get used to.

    Colors and Generations are similar in the sense that the controls are fine, as long as you don’t get going too fast. Again, the main difference between is in the level design.

    Levels in Colors and Generations are fenced off. And they’re all about showmanship. So they create the illusion of being better because of how easy they are.

    I mean, when a game actually STOPS you from dying, it’s easier.

    But I’d rather have Shadow’s complex level design which is more platforming centric and has more enemies to defeat. I don’t play Sonic, or ANYTHING, just so I can watch the game play itself…

    Not that I didn’t like some things about Colors and Generations. I just started to see a few things about them, as time went on.

77. 4-player co-op would be terrible for Sonic. Actually, co-op of any kind would…

    Ratchet and Clank do not have great elements for Sonic games. They’re a lot better than Colors and Generations, but they’re still way too cartoony and “comedic”. They kind of wreak of bad old Nickeloden cartoons like FairlyOdd Parents and Jimmy Neutron. I don’t want Sonic games to be like that. And I’m guessing not a whole lot of people do. Because if they did, there wouldn’t be all this debate amongst Sonic fans.

    I suppose, a Sonic game similar to Ratchet and Clank wouldn’t be so bad if they changed their sense of humor. To something that’s actually… you know, funny. But they’d also have to slow the gameplay way, way down. Which I’d be fine with, but retro fans and critics would probably give birth to a cow over it.

    And they’d also have to make the graphics more detailed and less embrassing. As you said, Ratchet and Clank are too much like Pixar. Which sucks.

78. Because they’re immature. I mean, yeah, Generations challenges weren’t great or anything… but that was because of the challenges themselves. Not because of Sonic’s friends.

    And just because Sonic’s friends have never been used to their potential doesn’t mean they’re bad. And it DOESN’T mean we should all just stop using them and try to pretend they don’t exist. It means, SEGA should start using them better.

    In fact, that’s the answer to almost all the things critics complain about in Sonic. Don’t just get rid of it – use it better, next time.

79. SA1 is a good direction. SA2 is my favorite Sonic game, currently, but I have issues with it. Like the lack of a HUB world.

    And the way the levels feel like they are just suspended pathways in the air. The levels should feel like they are a part of the world. Not like they are just floating in the air. It was okay for SA1 to do it with Speed Highway, because it was only one level. But SA2 did it with almost all of its levels.

    SA2 does have better controls, though. SA1’s are even more over-sensitive than Sonic 06’s.

    1. “It was okay for SA1 to do it with Speed Highway, because it was only one level. But SA2 did it with almost all of its levels.”

       Windy Valley? Twinkle Park? Oh well, all the levels felt like immersive enviroments in SA1, despite having “mid-air” section. Also, SA2 isn’t really more like that at all. Some yes, but likes of space levels have sort of excuse for that.

       “SA2 does have better controls, though. SA1′s are even more over-sensitive than Sonic 06′s.”

       What!? Which game have you actually played?

80. Wait a minute… You haven’t even completed it? Not even played through every level, at least once? That sort of limits your right to complain about it, then. I managed to complete both Colors and Generations at least twice. So I can be certain that I have an understanding of my reaction to them.

    Sonic should definitely have RPG elements. Not multiple-choice answers or make-your-own storylines… but better HUBs, better side-missions, and better NPC interactions are not unreasonable to expect. Map screens and level-to-level is not okay. Maybe for a few games, every once in a while, but not as a standard.

    BioWare could be particularly helpful with getting that down. But that’s not why BioWare came to mind. Nor is it because they developed Chronicles. They came to mind because they consistently create good games. And they are just an example.

    1. “Not even played through every level, at least once? That sort of limits your right to complain about it, then.”

       Maybe, but my complaints aren’t completely pointless either, especially since i have played almost all the levels.

       “Sonic should definitely have RPG elements.”

       That would be nice, sometimes.

       “Map screens and level-to-level is not okay. Maybe for a few games, every once in a while, but not as a standard.”

       If it’s used to give variety to “RPG” then it’s definitely okay.

81. Ratchet and Clank are still too cartoony. One of the best things about Sonic is its ability to break stereotype. When done with effort and polish, Sonic can easily be so much more than just another game that crams as many jokes into a sentence as possible just because that’s what stereotype tells us a game for “kids” is supposed to be like.

    Ratchet and Clank are too much of a stereotypical “younger audience” game. Their sense of humor is pretty miserable. The graphics also look too much like a Pixar. They’re better than Colors and Generations, and they have some very great development philospohies, but still… not quite.
    *
    There are two problems with Ubisoft. The first is the Rayman series. Just… no. No. No Rayman for Sonic. No.

    The second is the Assassin’s Creed series. I don’t know if you’ve ever played them, but the earlier ones are absolutely ingenious. There was this amazing, dual-layered storyline about a man in 2012 who uses a machine that reads his DNA so he can relive the lives of gis ancestors. At the end of the second game, there was a fantastic plot twist involving the sun and a race of people on Earth before humanity. And it had this cool sub-plot about a guy who went insane, too. It was just amazing.

    The trouble is, about four games in, Ubisoft completely and totally botched the whole series up. They started unnecessarily killing characters off and coming up with crap excuses for it. They made a ton of obnoxious changes to the gameplay, which Sonic has already done too often. They started letting technical problems slip in, something else Sonic has done before. And then they started going too far in their attempts to make each game bigger and better than the last one, to the point that it has gotten so ridiculous, it’s beyond helping – I don’t think I need to remind you that Sonic has just come out of a long, hard slog through the trenches.

    Worst of all, they’ve proven that they are WAY too sensitive to criticisms. When the first game was criticized for certain things, they COMPLETELY over did the second one. Just to make sure that nobody who ever complained about anything in the first one at all would be unhappy. SEGA already cater too much to their fans’ childish temper tantrums – we don’t need Ubisoft encouraging them to do it all the more.

    So Ubisoft’s bad habits of listening too closely to every criticism, trying too hard, and making blatantly bad decisions with their storylines (and then making excuses for it) is why I wouldn’t want them to have any kind of control with the Sonic series.

    1. “The graphics also look too much like a Pixar.”

       What is problem with that? I favour Pixar-look over plasticine-look of Lost World.

       “They’re better than Colors and Generations, and they have some very great development philospohies, but still… not quite.”

       Never played, but i still think Colours and especially Generations are good games in their own right.

       “There are two problems with Ubisoft. The first is the Rayman series. Just… no. No. No Rayman for Sonic. No.”

       Okay…

       “The second is the Assassin’s Creed series. I don’t know if you’ve ever played them”

       I have, pretty nice series imho.

       “The trouble is, about four games in, Ubisoft completely and totally botched the whole series up.”

       Agree. Though they have improved since Revelations. Have only tried 4, but it seems to be good on it’s own right, and that should be enough. Same goes for Sonic, quality matters more than nitpicks.

       “Worst of all, they’ve proven that they are WAY too sensitive to criticisms. When the first game was criticized for certain things, they COMPLETELY over did the second one.”

       Ehh… i don’t see that.

       “SEGA already cater too much to their fans’ childish temper tantrums – we don’t need Ubisoft encouraging them to do it all the more.”

       We wouldn’t even know where this what if -scenario would go. I would like to remind that Ubisoft has multiple studios.

82. Of course you can disagree about the controls. Anyone can disagree with whatever they want. It’s good that people disagree, sometimes. It helps to shape things up into something awesome when different opinions all come together to make something.

    Although, I don’t really see a difference in the controls between Unleashed and Colors/Generations… As far as I’m concerned, there’s really no difference. I liked Unleashed a bit better, but that was because of its beautiful environments. Not ’cause of its gameplay.

    I do think I would take certain elements from Unleashed/Colors/Generations for future Sonics, definitely. Like, I would include the aiming reticule. I would make it optional, but I’d include it. I would also put button prompts in, occasionally. For example, if Sonic was grinding down a railing and hit a spring attached to the end of it…

    …I would have the game kick into slow motion and then have a button prompt show up saying to hit the jump button to use a homing attack to reach another spring nearby to keep going.

    But, I would do it in a fully 3D, Adventure-style game. Instead of one on rails. It would be slower, too.

83. Geez, this is still going. After 3 weeks.

84. Oops. Forgot about Windy Valley. Weakest level in the game. Depressing, actually…

    Space levels, sure. But not the jungle levels, the pyramid levels, some of the city levels, the Prison Island levels…
    *
    Dude… don’t do that. When someone says something you strongly disagree with about a video game, don’t react to it by demanding to know if they’ve ever played the game. As if there’s just no possible way they could have played the same game as you. JUST because they arrived at a different conclusion than you did. That’s how retro fanboys behave, and it’s very unattractive. You’re better than that.

    I own and have finished all three incarnations of Sonic Adventure: Dreamcast, GameCube, and HD. I once owned Sonic 06 on the Xbox 360. Then, after I got a PS3, I bought it for that. I have also played several other people’s copies of it. I have completed it many times, even collected all the medals in it a few times.

    I honestly found it to have better ground controls than SA1. Not better air controls, but better ground controls.

85. No, your complaints are definitely not pointless. Please, don’t misunderstand me. Just because I don’t hate Shadow the Hedgehog with a burning passion doesn’t mean I don’t know it has problems.

    Sure would. The primary reason being that a game without them feels too old. Sometimes, a nice throwback is great. But then, the problem of the game feeling dead becomes an issue… In that case, SEGA’s best move is to just make sure they do what they did with SA2… and to an extent, Shadow the Hedgehog. Which is be sure to show people in the cutscenes and make it clear that the world is inhabited.

    Sure, a map screen can be sometimes used to enhance RPG elements. Not often, but it can be. If it’s used similarly to Unleashed or the Mass Effect games… But not like in Colors.

86. Meh… Lost World looks okay enough. But neither graphical scheme is a good standard for the Sonic series to follow. Just because you found the Pixar look to be better than Lost World’s, it doesn’t mean the Sonic series has to settle for that. Pixar still looks bad.

    Sonic should not be photo-realistic. But it’s not unreasonable to expect less painfully-bright and saturated graphics. Everything in Sonic doesn’t have to look like a drug trip to candy land. It’s okay to have some less undignified and juvenile environments, as well. And the overall art direction can still be more detailed and realistic-looking than Colors OR Lost World. It’s about finding a balance.
    *
    Assassin’s Creed hasn’t improved since Revelations. Quite the opposite, with each game since then getting worse and worse. And not just in story, in everything else as well.

    Dude, just because something is good in its own right, that doesn’t always make it okay. Think of it like this: what if Shadow the Hedgehog had been fun for you? You still would probably not have liked the guns and cussing… or the death and destruction everywhere. You still would likely have been bothered by it.

    And it’s the same for Assassin’s Creed. It’s arguably worse, actually. Because Assassin’s Creed didn’t even make it five games in before they started screwing it up. At least Sonic had been around for a while.

    And it’s not like the decisions they started making were good experiments, at the time, either – they were blatantly bad. Even in Shadow the Hedgehog’s case, SEGA aren’t totally to blame – there was a demand for a game starring Shadow (from most of the fanbase) and a game with guns (from the kids), so it wasn’t that hard to see how SEGA came to believe it would be a good idea to combine the two.

    Assassin’s Creed doesn’t have that excuse. NOBODY asked for a campy retelling of the Revolutionary War… or a terrible Pirates of the Caribbean rip-off with the AC label slapped on it. We just trusted that it wouldn’t suck because AC had been a mostly-high quality series, up to that point.

    In Shadow the Hedgehog, at least SEGA delivered on the resolution and answers they promised. We may not all have LIKED those answers… but those answers were still there.

    And at the end of the long journey of Shadow’s that we invested ourselves in… we didn’t have to watch our protagonist die a cheesy and uncaring death just to get him out of the way simply because SEGA read ten negative comments about him on their forum. But we did have to in ACIII.

    There are definitely Sonic fans that may not have liked the character of Elise. And more fans who thought the ending to Sonic 06 was badly-handled by pressing the reset button. But at least we didn’t have to watch Elise die for no reason… and then be kicked in the balls a year later with the half-assed excuse that she was really a traitor the whole time. We did have to in ACB and ACR.

    Perhaps there is a lot of debate amongst Sonic fans about Unleashed, and the games it spawned after it. But at least SEGA didn’t totally throw 95% of everything that made their series what it was out the door with it. Ubisoft did with ACIII and ACIV.
    *
    Ubisoft having multiple studios doesn’t quite solve the problem. No fewer than six studios work on each Assassin’s Creed game, now. And these problems still continue to exist, so obviously, most of Ubisoft is on board with whatever plan the main studio of Ubisoft throws on the table.

    This what-if scenario is probably never going to happen, ever. Not just with Ubisoft, but with anything. SEGA and Sonic Team aren’t about to hand over any more creative control to anyone else. They have a deal with Nintendo, and it’s not going so well for them. They’ve shared in the past, and they probably will again. But not with any big names. They don’t want to be made to look bad by having to give credit to another developer studio.

    1. Okay, i’ve been in this comment section for three weeks now, and i have no much time to respond to long comments. I’m just going to say that i don’t exactly agree with all your opinions, if thats okay.

       “No, your complaints are definitely not pointless. Please, don’t misunderstand me. Just because I don’t hate Shadow the Hedgehog with a burning passion doesn’t mean I don’t know it has problems.”

       Same here, i didn’t hate it. I just think that problems it has makes it bad in my opinion.

       “Dude, just because something is good in its own right, that doesn’t always make it okay.”

       Yeah, things can be GREAT on their own right. It depends on point of view you know.

       “Sonic should not be photo-realistic.” “It’s about finding a balance.”

       Yes, it’s about balance, Generations has good balance imho. And it’s not photorealistic. As an student of audiovisual media, i know what that word actually means.

       “Pixar still looks bad.”

       Pixar still looks good, imho. Those films aren’t exactly too photorealistic either, as of early 2000’s ones.

       “Assassin’s Creed hasn’t improved since Revelations”

       Debatable, my friend.

       “Dude… don’t do that. When someone says something you strongly disagree with about a video game, don’t react to it by demanding to know if they’ve ever played the game.”

       It still should be okay to ask people where their arguments are based of.

       That should cover it for now. Again, just my two sents. Let’s leave it to that.

87. If you don’t want to talk about it anymore, you don’t have to. I don’t know what’s going on in your life, you know…? I can’t read minds, either. I don’t know for sure how much time you have to respond. And it’s not like I’m putting a gun to your head. Stop replying, I guess, if it’s really that much of a bother. It won’t hurt my feelings.
    *
    Great. And I just think the problems it has make it a game that has problems. Just like every other game. I expect problems when I play any game. I adapt to them, decide how much they bother me, and then keep going or stop. I don’t tend to get myself all tied up in knots about it. I’ve played far worse games than Shadow the Hedgehog that get far better reviews. It’s one of the reasons I started to notice why reviews are rarely very trustworthy.
    *
    I didn’t say Pixar was photo-realistic. Or that Sonic Generations was photo-realistic. Sonic 06 wasn’t even photo-realistic. There’s never been a photo-realistic Sonic game in all of its history. But there HAVE been Sonic games with a more realistic animation style. Which is fine for it to have, up to a point. A point farther than Generations.

    Dude, so what if you’re a student in audio-visual? That doesn’t make your opinion more valid than mine. And I don’t have to be a student in audio-visual to know what photo-realistic means. If you feel that you’re okay with, or even like, the Pixar look in Sonic games… fine, then. But not everyone is, you know? There’s been a fair amount of complaints about it.
    *
    Everything in video games is debatable. That’s one of the points of commenting sections, such as this very one. Again, having different opinions on things is good. It helps to have variety. If we didn’t have variety, every video game would be a first-person shooter by now.
    *
    Yeah, you can ask someone what their arguments are based off of. But surely you can think of a less… rude-sounding way to do it than that. If you had simply asked me, I would have known what you meant right away and just given you an example.

    One is Lost World in SA versus Flame Core in Sonic 06. In the tunnel with the flaming stones in Lost World and the opening part of the second section in Flame Core. It’s much harder to swerve in between the stones that pop out of the walls in Lost World than it is to swerve in between the enemies and spiked balls lodged in the floor in Flame Core.

    Another is Speed Highway versus Tropical Jungle. It’s harder to stay on the path in Speed Highway than it is to stay on the path in Tropical Jungle.

    Or Windy Valley versus Aquatic Base. The jumpy ground controls in Adventure make it a lot harder to avoid bumping into the walls in Windy Valley than to avoid bumping into the walls in Aquatic Base.

    Not that Sonic 06 doesn’t have somewhat jumpy controls. They just aren’t as jumpy, and don’t take so long to get used to.
    *
    Hey, again, man: you don’t have to answer me if you don’t want to. Or you could just do what you did this time. Just answer whatever you feel like you DO want to. It’s no big deal to me, either way.

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