Unpopular opinion of the story

[NBOX21]

This... might actually be the best story that Pontac and Graff have ever written for this series. Yes, it's a complete mess, the villains felt like nostalgia baiting just as much as Green Hill and Chemical Plant, Tails had all his character development ruined and there's a lot of cringy lines that go against the series' appeal, but compared to anything else we've gotten in the 2010's except for the DS version of Colours, Sonic Forces felt like a masterpiece in storytelling.

If there's anything about the story in Sonic Forces that no other Sonic story in the 2010's except the DS version of Colours had, it was tension. It's not much, but it's something. As underdeveloped as Infinite was, at least he was an actual character with personality. Compared to all the villains in the 2010's decade of Sonic games, I actually cared about what Infinite was planning and what his motives were. He even turns against Eggman and actually has a good reasoning for doing so.

Compare that to Colours - I never cared about the wisps as there's no backstory involving their home planet, nothing that shows any signs of damage Eggman has done to their worlds or anything. The Deadly Six in Lost World are just as bland and generic as the Koopalings in Super Mario Bros. 3. Who are the Zeti and why are the Deadly Six the way they are? Nothing was explained. The plot in Generations may be non-existent, but at least they made references to past adventures and were (mostly) respectful about it.

There were also moments where Sonic actually has some good one-liners as well, such as when he escapes the Death Egg and mentions how there's no way he's sticking around because there's nothing to run on. That I thought was pretty cool and I wish there were more moments like these.

Classic Sonic can disappear outright, however. Replace all instances of Classic Sonic with "the avatar" and almost nothing would change. Heck, the "Cheer up Tails, I'm sure we'll run into them again" line would actually work in this case.

Also, spoilers for the ending: When Sonic mentions fixing the world we all live in, I can't help but feel that's something we could learn in real life. The last Sonic game I can ever recall having any life morals we could learn in the real world was in Sonic Unleashed.

Does anyone else agree with anything I've mentioned here?

[Null_User]

I do agree in one thing. Almost everything story-wise after Adventure was very bad (and SA itself wasn't much of a masterpiece either), with just a few points here and there worth the read. And the thing is that this bad story telling is not limited to Sonic games. Go and play PSO2 and try to make sense of the story there. It's not that it's hard to understand the main point. But the way it's presented, the lines the characters say, none of that makes any sense most of the time.

So there's someone at Sega whipping out horribly put stories, and someone above them signing 'yes' on them to be published. And I feel nobody at headquarters either cares about the final product or they are as blind as the writer to the lack of sense.. OR, since we can't rule this out, we could be losing quite a lot of stuff in the translation.

I still back up my feeling that Sonic stories should be simpler and less serious. But that's just me and my preferences. But if we are going to get something more on the serious side, might as well write it properly.

[NBOX21]

Ursprungligen skrivet av Hanuke:

I still back up my feeling that Sonic stories should be simpler and less serious. But that's just me and my preferences. But if we are going to get something more on the serious side, might as well write it properly.

Sonic Heroes felt like the kind of story I would expect out of a Sonic game since while it's mostly light-hearted and mostly simple, it felt like the kind of plot where the characters were having fun on their adventure. Most of the handheld games were like this as well, only presented through text instead of dialogue. I also enjoyed the story of Sonic Riders for a lot of the same reasons.

Sonic Unleashed was also a simple story done right since there were actual stakes and had an epic climax even if there wasn't much story throughout most of the adventure, yet was still able to tell a story about friendship. Most, if not all of these games I mentioned had stories that complimented their gameplay instead of getting in the way of it.

If we can't have stories that are as good as the Adventure games ever again, I'd like to see more stories like these in the series going forward.

[HaveACigar]

There were a few aspects of Lost World's story I liked (showing Sonic screwing up, Sonic and Tails having a disagreement, etc) but the story overall was flawed. Though to be fair, personally, the story might literally be the last reason I play Sonic.

[NBOX21]

Ursprungligen skrivet av HaveACigar:

There were a few aspects of Lost World's story I liked (showing Sonic screwing up, Sonic and Tails having a disagreement, etc) but the story overall was flawed. Though to be fair, the story might literally be the last reason I play Sonic.

Unless it's Sonic Adventure or even another attempt at a Sonic RPG, I don't think stories should be that big of a focus in the series; Unleashed, Riders 1 and Heroes were the perfect examples of what I expect out of the series.

However, I still stand by my point when I say good stories can make good or great games even better, which is why I'd like to see better stories in these games regardless, but as I said in my previous response, stories should compliment their gameplay, not get in the way of it.

Sonic and the Black Knight had a pretty good story too and I loved the art direction they went for with the cutscenes; it's just too bad though that the gameplay was utter garbage...

[Ikagura]

Colors and Lost World story were fine honestly.

@Hanuke: PSO2's story for the first 3 episodes made sense. It's just at ep 4 and 5 that it became confusing.

Ursprungligen skrivet av Hanuke:

I still back up my feeling that Sonic stories should be simpler and less serious.

I fully agree with that statement because the best Sonic game had simple stories.
And no platformer that got praised was about their story (yes, even Limbo got that minimalistic approach to its story so you could make your own idea of what happened)

[NBOX21]

Ursprungligen skrivet av Ikagura:

I fully agree with that statement because the best Sonic game had simple stories.
And no platformer that got praised was about their story

What about games like Klonoa or the PS2 Ratchet and Clank games? Those games actually had well written stories that complimented their gameplay and made the overall experience better for it.

I'm not asking for RPG levels of storytelling for a platformer or "cinematic" experiences - just something that motivates and contextualise gameplay.

[Ikagura]

Ursprungligen skrivet av NBOX21:

Ursprungligen skrivet av Ikagura:

I fully agree with that statement because the best Sonic game had simple stories.
And no platformer that got praised was about their story

What about games like Klonoa or the PS2 Ratchet and Clank games? Those games actually had well written stories that complimented their gameplay and made the overall experience better for it.

I'm not asking for RPG levels of storytelling for a platformer or "cinematic" experiences - just something that motivates and contextualise gameplay.

1) Klonoa has been forgotten by Namco themselves
2) R&C got like one reboot on the PS4 and? Crash got more recognition.

[NBOX21]

Ursprungligen skrivet av Ikagura:

1) Klonoa has been forgotten by Namco themselves
2) R&C got like one reboot on the PS4 and? Crash got more recognition.

Hence why I said PS2, back when the series was actually popular and got multiple games.

[Null_User]

Ursprungligen skrivet av Ikagura:

Ursprungligen skrivet av NBOX21:

What about games like Klonoa or the PS2 Ratchet and Clank games? Those games actually had well written stories that complimented their gameplay and made the overall experience better for it.

I'm not asking for RPG levels of storytelling for a platformer or "cinematic" experiences - just something that motivates and contextualise gameplay.

1) Klonoa has been forgotten by Namco themselves
2) R&C got like one reboot on the PS4 and? Crash got more recognition.

The games being forgotten doesn't change the fact that the stories seemed to have some dev love tossed into them. It's just that some companies have idiots at the helm who don't recognize what they have in their hands. I fully agree on the first Klonoa story. It was cute and magical. It had ups and downs and even some feels tossed in. It gave a ton of highlight to the game's setting, despite being just a platformer.

So yeah, while gameplay should still be the number one thing any game should focus on, a well written story that fulfills the game setting without being too much or too little, will always be a boon to any game and will raise it's sentimental value with players. The key here is to not go too overboard, but also not show way too little. That's why a simple story should work best with a Sonic game, while a bigger more complicated story should be reserved for RPGs or more story based games.

[NBOX21]

Ursprungligen skrivet av Hanuke:

So yeah, while gameplay should still be the number one thing any game should focus on, a well written story that fulfills the game setting without being too much or too little, will always be a boon to any game and will raise it's sentimental value with players. The key here is to not go too overboard, but also not show way too little. That's why a simple story should work best with a Sonic game, while a bigger more complicated story should be reserved for RPGs or more story based games.

Show, don't tell, is the key to good game writing. This is where Sonic Unleashed succeeds where Sonic Forces fails. In Sonic Unleashed, you actually watch as Eggman splits the planet into pieces, awakens Dark Gaia and ejects Sonic into space. In Sonic Forces, Eggman takes over the world, and all you see is a generic black screen with white text explaining the events to the player.

[Null_User]

Well one thing about showing Forces build up story, the part about big bad conquering things, would add way too much death, as seen in Buddy's flashback. Yes, a creative director would just show things from afar (as it happened when Perfect Chaos destroyed Station Square in SA. But as I said in another thread, it seems the creativity was kind of left at the door when making this game, and thus we get the text panels over a bare background instead.

[NBOX21]

Ursprungligen skrivet av Hanuke:

But as I said in another thread, it seems the creativity was kind of left at the door when making this game, and thus we get the text panels over a bare background instead.

So that explains why Sonic Free Riders and Team Sonic Racing just had plain text with character portraits and voice overs with no actual dynamic scenes of any sort like it's a PSP game, unlike CTR or the other Sonic Riders games...

[Crystal Sharrd]

I honestly agree. It's certainly not the best story, that goes to the first Sonic Adventure, but it's definitely the best they've done.

[NBOX21]

Ursprungligen skrivet av sonic65101:

I honestly agree. It's certainly not the best story, that goes to the first Sonic Adventure, but it's definitely the best they've done.

I still prefer Adventure 2's story honestly as it had much faster pacing, the scenes more memorable and the stakes even higher than ever before or since.

[El]

This is a garbage fire of a self-insert furry fanfic. It's like this was made to pander to the lunatics who infest the likes of DeviantArt.