Pontac and Graff Writing Story for Sonic Boom: Shattered Crystal
Nintendo World Report interviewed SEGA Producer Omar Woodley at this year’s Sonic Boom event and it was revealed that Sonic Boom: Shattered Crystal, the 3DS version, will see the return of writers Ken Pontac and Warren Graff for the game’s story. If you aren’t aware, the duo have written the stories to Sonic Colors, Sonic Generations, and Sonic Lost World.
It is unknown who is writing for Rise of Lyric on Wii U.
You can listen to the interview here.
This post was originally written by the author for TSSZ News.
Well, I’m hoping that they’ve learned from all the mistakes that they made in writing for Colors, Generations, and Lost World and that the plots for both games will be much more entertaining and less humor-centric. I’m not saying I don’t want any humor, I just think that they were trying way to hard to inject the humor into the story of Colors rather than let it become a natural process. As for any drama, suspense, or any sort of intense actiony stuff, I hope it actually makes sense and feels warranted instead of coming out of nowhere like most of the stuff from Lost World. I don’t think we need to worry about the absence of a plot like with Generations, but I still hope they’ve built the story strong enough to justify everything that takes place in the game. Overall, I’m just hoping for improvement on the weak parts of the past few games, and that if there are any mistakes, at least let them be new ones and not the same problem repeated again and again.
I think Lost World was at least a step in the right direction.
Colors was 105% cheese and those cutscenes were almost unbearable >.< Generations wasn't much better but at least the game didn't focus on plot.
Lost World's script kept humor but gave its villains a decent menacing aspect and made some timid but appreciable attempts to do something complex between Sonic, Tails, and Eggman.
Shattered Crystal might be a good chance to continue down that path.
No, Lost World was literally Colors 2, script included.
The humor in it was terrible. Eggman got mad sporadically when the plot needed him to, the “complexity” you speak of is no different from those drama shows, it was unbearable.
Sonic had blatant mood swings throughout the game, was REALLY out of character in my eyes, Tails acted like some hissy-fit girl the whole time, getting super mad when Sonic trusted Eggman ( even though he’s done this countless times in the past)
The writers took a kid’s show script and made it into a game; beings that live in a peaceful area and are filled with power, are being controlled by the antagonist, they break free and wreak havok, then the protagonist(s) has to help the antagonist stop them, then the antagonist backstabs them after they saved the day.
The whole game reminded me of an episode from AoSTH, the writers would be perfect for cartoon network.
I guess I never watched enough kid’s shows then XD
Yeah, I agree. I recently played through Lost World again and was surprised at how strongly I disliked almost everything about it. Still, I have a small amount of hope that with an alternate continuity, the writers can begin from scratch and think up a plot that isn’t quite as trope-studded as the previous games.
In defense of Sonic’s OOC, it’s because he had to deal with the consequences of how badly he f***ed up. Him kicking away the magic conch caused the Deadly Six to rebel and attempt to destroy Sonic’s world, his friendship with Tails was strained when T thought S trusted Eggamn more than him (“I DO trust you, Tails, but the whole world’s in danger because I did something STUPID!!”), then Sonic’s impatience actually caused Tails to get captured and just about roboticized, and worse, he thought everyone he loved and cared about was dead, and the Deadly Six were MOCKING HIM about it. I’d forgive Sonic being a little OOC in that situation. I know I would.
This is just my opinion, however, and I’m not trying to change yours in the slightest, just showing my POV on the issue. I don’t want to start a war; I’m not THAT kind of Sonic fan.
And, in my opinion, Cartoon Network’s been going downhill since 07 (the CN Real fisaco, Stuart Snyder retooling everything, and ESPECIALLY Toonami getting cancelled) though they have shown SOME signs of recovery (replaying the old shows that were from the golden age, MUCH less live action stuff, and ESPECIALLY Adult Swim reviving Toonami), so whether or not they would be good for CN is really up to you.
Just my opinions, though. Carry on.
@Nick
I agree with you. Not just cartoon Network though, I’d say Nick, Disney channel, and Cartoon Network all began going downhill in 2007-2008. CN real made me question the morality of cartoon *ahem* CARTOON! Network. Because of successes like hannah montana and High school musical 2, Disney Channel would never leave that safety bubble ever again which would cause them to create the same sit-com over and over just with different actors and a different name. Plus, If it wasn’t for phineas and ferb, I bet disney would have abandon animation on their channel entirely once Kim Possible ended. I don’t even know where to begin with Nickelodoen. Basically, all the shows that have won them major sucess were ending and Nick just had nothing of good quality to replace them with. Shows like Fanboy and Chum Chum and extremely short lived sit-coms like “bucket and skinner’s epic adventures” just proved that Nick’s golden years are behind them. In fact, Nick probably realized their creative department is completely dead so they attempt to make the shows F.O.P. and SpongeBob, their most successful shows from the golden years, last as long as possible. However, nick is lucky that shows like Korra remain to help them out, but it’s hardly enough to hold up an entire channel especially when the show technically doesn’t even air on the channel anymore. Anyways, that is how I see things have rolled out since 2007-2008. Also, I actually don’t mind SpongeBob going on forever, but when Nick gets it wrong, Holy Sh*t, they get it wrong.
Can’t say I’m excited about this news, as their writing in Colors and Generations was atrocious. They’re professional writers who can’t even use correct grammar.
“That thing’s translating pretty GOOD.” – Sonic Colors
“I can’t believe THERE’S two of me.” – Sonic Generations
Their writing in Lost World was better, but that’s not saying much. They should just get whoever wrote for Sonic Unleashed and they’ll be fine.
It’s more correct to say ‘well’ instead of ‘good’, but that doesn’t make ‘good’ ungrammatical. The difference is merely the level of formality, and, well, let’s face it, a speedy wise-cracking blue hedgehog smashing robots doesn’t exactly scream tuxedo and bow tie, does it?
Either way, it’s grammatically correct.
Also grammatically correct. Again, it’s a question of formality, not grammar; ‘there’s’ is a perfectly acceptable, albeit informal, contraction of ‘there are’.
Remember that in both instances, these are ‘spoken word’; the grammar rules are, and have always been, looser when the language is spoken, especially informally, as it is in these games. And even if these are genuine grammatical errors, the errors are so slight they don’t change the meaning of the sentences at all.
Not everyone has to talk with the refinement and erudition of Stephen Fry 😛
Honestly, the only characters that would talk with complete refinement that would be a character like Blaze or such, someone with more regal/high class atmosphere to them. Someone like Sonic is a far more relaxed and casual person that speaking in with a bit more loose grammar would make sense for someone like him.
Eggman Nega speaks with complete refinement in my head canon. This will never change.
@100Rings
That I can agree on that wholeheartedly.
… SHIT!!! Colors, Lost World, and Generations had the absolute WORST stories for Sonic games!! What is SEGA doing?! They do know those games were a success because of the game-play (except Lost World) and not the story right? Where’s the writers for Sonic Adventure & Sonic Adventure 2? Those guys were genius
I also wish they’d bring back Adventure-type plots but that’s not going to happen. Sega will look at 06, which was the final result of the Adventure arc, and just shake their collective head.
I agree with the person above, that the Unleashed plot was refreshingly drama-free but still engaging and tastefully humorous. Colors and everything after that were too cheesy.
Who knows? Maybe with Sonic Boom going the comedic and cheesy direction they may want to bring that Adventure film vibe back in the main series, also the plans so far for the Sonic movie point to that direction so perhaps the games will do that too.
Unleashed was extremely boring narrative -wise.
At least it got the job done at the end of the day and allowed for the kind of range between serious and humor that Sonic games tend to involve. That’s more than what you can say about Pontac and Graff’s writing style, which would rather shoot itself in the head than dare take itself seriously for more than a couple moments.
I will be lying if I say I like their writting, but so far it looks like they are only working on Shattered Crystal, Big Red Button will probably use their usual writers, and I seriously hope with all my heart that Sonic Team will bring back any writer pre-Sonic Colors.
Is it really this hard fo SEGA to hire Shir Maekawa again….?
He did SA1, SA2, [the good] half of 06, Zero Gravity, Black Knight, and Secret Rings.
The man is MORE than qualified to write for Sonic again. Screw Unleashed’s “much mislead” intro and boring plot progression. It started super awesome but dissipated into a plot ful of yacking, food jokes and COUNTLESS annoying dialogue panels. The same writer for Unleashed did Sonic’s story for 06…..enough said. Sure it was “balanced” but what is the use of balance if the plot puts you to sleep in the end?? I won’t wig out if Yoshimura (Unleashed writer) returns but I won’t be super excited either. Given the choice Between Markawa and Yoshimura I choosing Maekawa in a heart beat.
As for Pontaff….they can heat up a hulking vat of pig semen and cannon ball themselves into the simmering goo.
Wait, you say that Maekawa did the “good half” of 06, but the story is still crap? (and please tell me you’re not referring to Shadow’s bullshit inclusion in there) And just because Yoshimura wrote 06 automaticly means Unleashed is bad for not having as big a plot as the Adventure games? I understand Unleashed didn’t have the same level of plot of SA1, SA2 and such, but it should still more or less stand as a basis on what is the least that is needed for a good Sonic plot.
Tho, I still found Rush and Rush Adventure’s stories the best, heck, we wouldn’t really HAVE Unleashed if it weren’t for those games. When can we get another Rush game that finally builds on the whole Sol and Chaos Dimension concept?
“(and please tell me you’re not referring to Shadow’s bullshit inclusion in there)”
Well Shadow’s story WAS the most coherent and intersting one.
“When can we get another Rush game that finally builds on the whole Sol and Chaos Dimension concept?”
This. So much this. I want to see where they were going with their interdimentional duality, but even more so their character duality with Sonic, Tails, & Knuckles/ Blaze, Marine, & Silver (not introduced in the Rush games but clearly part of that dynamic).
Shadow’s to me just felt like the same thing from Shad’s own game all over again, but far less interesting, and I call bullshit on him just leaving the Scepter of Darkness in the past, if he knew just what was gonna happen to it in the future, then why not 1. destroy Mephiles in his weakest point which was right there, he was seen just destroying all those Meph clones/illusions or whatever during the final battle of his story, couldn’t he just go full power and erradicate him at that point? Or 2. seal the Scepter of Darkness somewhere were NO ONE would find it or where it would be extremely hard to get to, yet he just leaves it with young Elise.
Tbh, I found Silver’s story a bit more entertaining, but I still wished we actually got to SEE the interaction of Silver and Blaze’s supposed friendship in here a bit more, all we really got were just a few scenes of Blaze just going “You’re so naive” and “Calm down, Silver” and her somehow knowing about the Chaos Emeralds (tho that could be the fact that this Blaze is a Chaos Dimension version of her as opposed to her main Sol Dimension counterpart.) It would have been better to see them actually acting as a team story and/or gameplay wise, the Silver version of White Acropolis did that rather well with letting you swap out the two in mid-stage imo.
Idk about Silver being a Sol Dimension parralel to Knux, it could work, but you’d have to pull quite a bit of strings to actually get not only the Sol Dimension but the future as well to be in trouble. Unless they went with retooling Silver’s backstory so that he’s a part of the Sol Dimension in the current time-line, possibly from a land of Blaze’s world where people are training to be psychics and Silver is their star pupil or something like that. Idk, something I just thought up in a few minutes, but it would be interesting to see something like that.
(Note to self: Be very, very specific when speaking with the mentally comatose.)
When did I say at ANY point in my comment that I am biased against Unleashed simply because Yoshimura wrote it??? I would OBVIOUSLY be making a judgement based off of her past works, and looking at the STARK contrasts in quality between Sonic’s story (Yoshimura) and Shadow’s story (Maekawa) I can easily tell who would be more suited to write a better Sonic story. Yoshimura wrote a very boring and passive Sonic with him placed in the center of a stiff, forced love story. He had no attitude or edge whatsoever and was played almost as straight as Superman. Sonic was also severely depowered, having to be saved by Shadow, Amy and maybe even Silver. Point is that Sonic was boring and the conplete opposite of his usual dynamic self.
The same goes for Unleashed. Eggman had just ejected Sonic from outer-space and yet his new (and very random) objective is finding the name of some random puppy thing?? I know in Sonic CD or SA2 Sonic eould have placed Chip out of danger and immediately scouted out Eggman and demanded answers. Sonic in Unleashed is also painfully passive, being essentially the same exact character whether he was in Werehog form ir not. One would think a form charged by negative energy would be a tad more aggresive than his usual self…but there was literally no differene. Combine all this with a rushed prophecy of destiny trope and an illogical finale and there t
You have Yoshimura’s work.
I don’t think I need to highlight Maekawa’s past history as his works speak for themselves.
Moving on to the Rush games. The first Rush had an ok plot, it’s only problem was being cliche and far too cut and dry. It did NO universe expansion of the Sol Dimension and it literally to this day still looks like a dimensions with nothing inside it sans Blaze and Marine. The first plot tought Blaze that she can depend on others and didn’t have to live alone. This sentiment would have been more powerful if wr actually saw and knew when Blaze was choosing to live alone but that didn’t happen since the Sol Dimension is an empty shell. We don’t even know why she had this attitude or where it stems from outside of “doing princess duties” abd again we don’t see these duties either. All of this is heavily and unfairly implied. The Sol Dimension isn’t interesting since it’s only lore is the titular Sol Emeralds. Whoever wrote the Rush games did a horrible job of making the Sol Emeralds seem like it’s own workable world and remains empty to this day. I can also tell you from a writer’s standpoint it would be EXTREMELY difficult to write Blaze in a new Sonic game as she is sectioned off in an entirely new Universe and must travel to Sonic’s world constantly or have her own Verse filled with a ton of new characters…donwe want new characters? I should hope not. We have a ton as it is. Creating more only cutters the canon and franchise worse than it already is. Having her travel to Sonic’s dimension is even more pointless since she would hardly be doing her princess duties in any of the games in the first place and would be off galivanting with Sonic on his adventures. They have “wrote themselves in corner” if I can use the phrase.
Rush Adventure has such an asinine, inane plot that in all honesty I really shouldn’t have to sit here and explain it. Just go refresh your memory on the Wikia ir something. Hopefully you will see it immediately…
There was no detail on the Sol Dimension in the first Rush game because it took place in the Chaos Dimension, focusing the story on Blaze getting back her Emeralds, and then the second game showed her dimension, and there is more in Blaze’s dimension than just her and Marine, the Coconut Crew, that polar bear tribe in the Blizzard Peaks zone, and Eggman Nega (fuck Rivals, he’s from the Sol Dimension not the future)
If they wrote themselfs into a corner with Blaze, then I could say the same thing about Knuckles, yet he still appeared in all the Advance games, Battle, Generations and (sadly) Lost World. And what about Shadow? His story was done in SA2 yet he came back for Heroes and his own game as well as Battle. If characters like these can be written into the plot when their arcs are pretty much done and they’re off doing their own thing, then why can’t the same be done for Blaze?
Who wrote the Sonic Rush games?
I tried to find out, but not even Sonic News Network nor Sonic Retro have that info. Even the credits roll published on Retro doesn’t mention a story writer.
The best I can find is the director: Akinori Nishiyama for Rush, and Sakae Osumi for Rush Adventure.
That’s a shame…I would have really like to give them a pat in the back…with my largest kitchen knife in hand…coincidentally of course.
I know right? It’s really hard to find out but I would love to know, the interaction between characters was one of the best I have seen in the entire franchise.
The spectre of Sonic ’06 has Sonic Team afraid to use both drama and more characters where needed, this problem leaves me with little faith for the story, especially after the last 4 games. All I look forward to now is gameplay.
Wow I know I’ll be torn apart for this but I actually like Graff and Pontac. The stories weren’t deep or anything but they were fun.
I feel they give the characters more personality than anyone else outside of Ian Flynn. Hell I’d say Their take on Sonic is far more true to the characters origins as a “Mascot with an Attitude” than it ever had been in any 3D game before Colors.
Also Boom’s a comedy so writers that write, y’know, comedy are a pretty good fit IMHO.
I respect your opinion though I don’t think they gave characters more personality, they make characters talk a lot more that’s for sure, but I feel they’re all one dimensional when written by Pontac and Graff.
Cant say im excited about this :/ the jokes they tell always has more importance then the story itself. Im kinda sick of seeing story elements getting tossed out the window in favour for a joke.
Pontac can’t write to save his life. He will write some BS that will be again only loved by the “positive” part of the Internet and despised by the whole world, which will be politely silent. People who already loved him in the abomination of stories he wrote for the last 3 games will love him now too. And I can’t stand anything he writes.
People think that Shadow’s character was destroyed in his own game. Wait for Pontac’s version of Shadow. You will wish every game since SA2 had ShtH Shadow in it compared to what Pontac will create.
Didn’t he write for ReBoot and Bump in the Night? Those were some very good shows.
@RobotHobo64
“and there is more in Blaze’s dimension than just her and Marine, the Coconut Crew, that polar bear tribe in the Blizzard Peaks zone, and Eggman Nega”
To be frank, no one gives not one single crap about these characters so they might as well not even exist and in many fans mind, they don’t. You see including Blaze in this ambiguously defined “dimension” is similar to Shade. (Bet you forgot she existed lel) Her “dimension” feels just as empty and soulless as the Sol Dimension because these plot device locations were created for a GAME, not the CANON. Creating a sub-universe is NOT the same as creating a character with a backstory that partially connects with the other characters. You see Knuckles and Shadow both had backstories that related to present day events. Blaze, hailing from another Dimension would have to have a COMPLETELY independent and annexed backstory and current life complete with exclusive new characters all having their own backstories as well. I’m not saying it can’t be done, what I a saying is it is likely not worth all the trouble as we ALL know these new characters will be criticized for cluttering the cast and stealing time from characters we actually like. Thats part of the reason for the Sticks’ shunning. (Although ironically she seems to be the only naturally fitting character in the series.) I have my own theory on how Blaze could be less cumbersome to write for but I seriously doubt you would care to hear my Fanon concepts and ideas.
Point being this: Blaze would need some serious altering in order to be more accessible to the plot.
Let’s try settling on if she should relate more to Sonic or Silver before we try and shoehorn her in a game. If anyone, I say let Shiro have a whack at trying to write a suitable plot for Blaze. That would surely prove interesting if nothing else.
As for this idea that a character’s arc being done means they should exit the series. I call bs on this. A character being “done” is exclusively up to the writer, not the events of the things they write. Vegeta was supposed to die after the Saiyan Saga but due to fan demand he was kept alive. Sonic has never enjoyed the luxury of having the same writer writing all the games, the character portrayal hasn’t been very consistent but my point is this: The writer with SUITABLE PLANNING can keep any character in top condition. The Frieza saga was planned from the start, the Android saga was planned from the start and notice that the weakest saga wasn’t planned at all, the Buu saga. This saga dragged on for far too long and almost lost my interest at many points. Vegeta was also undergoing character demolition and eventually ended up becoming a “Goku 2.0” good guy for no clear reason other than “random admiration for Goku”. This can be compared to Shadow’s backstory which felt more “start/stop” and random than anything anything. There was no build up to the events of that game and I guess that is what makes it seem unfitting to some people. In a way, it didn’t fit NOT because it was “2edgy4meh” but because nothing previously led up to it at all.
That just about covers it all I think.
Whist I can agree that there should have been more to the Sol Dimension to detail it out, it is a video game, there’s kinda a point where you just have to stop with the detail story-wise to actually go forward with the game itself. Besides, I could say that the Chaos Emeralds have been plot device items for quite some time now as well.
And even if no one gives a damn about a character, what’s to say you can’t get a writer that would make them interesting and likeable? How many people actually gave a damn about the Guardians of the Galaxy before their movie was made?
Honestly, as long as your ideas about Blaze aren’t at all tied to her being Silver’s sidekick or any of that jazz that 06 tried to push on us, then I’m open to hear.
But in the end, if we just got Hirohiko Araki (writer of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure) then we’d probably get the best damn Sonic story ever. We all know that Mephiles could be a great Dio Brando if done right. (I’m joking, but it would be pretty damn cool nonetheless)
I would like to hear your ideas and concepts on making Blaze viable, it sounds like it’d be interesting to read.
Want to know what would be funny? Seeing as Pontac and Graff have very little knowledge of the franchise, imagine if they weren’t aware that Boom was a different continuity, and made references to Colors and Lost World lol. Actually, I hope they do that. It may just push Sega to finally get rid of them.
Aaaand my comment got eaten by the system….Mod Gods please recover it for me?