[QUOTE=Noob4life;52890017]I'm confused
WHO WRITES THE STORIES? Does it start with English or Japanese?[/QUOTE]
From what I can tell, for Colors through Lost World, Sega of Japan and Sonic Team would create a sort of plot outline, and then Pontac and Graff did the actual dialogue and writing. Japan gets it back and localize it their own way. Forces, however, was written first by Japanese writers, and then localized for the west by Pontac.
[QUOTE=RikohZX;52890082]From what I can tell, for Colors through Lost World, Sega of Japan and Sonic Team would create a sort of plot outline, and then Pontac and Graff did the actual dialogue and writing. Japan gets it back and localize it their own way. Forces, however, was written first by Japanese writers, and then localized for the west by Pontac.[/QUOTE]
Actually Lost World was mostly Pontac and Graff that did the story for Lost World, it was the first time where the basic premise of a story and the newer character's personality can be fleshed out by the Duo... you can already tell how i feel about the Deathly Six.. Plus what's with the duo's fascination with Tails? It's really weird how they characterise him.
They always seem to make Tails a kinda snarky, ungrateful or just outright mentally-unstable prick.
It's such a fucking bizarre characterization, and I've always hated it ever since SA1 and 2 set him up as this kind little guy that just wants to work hard at being as good as Sonic.
Hell, in SA1 he has a whole scene where he lays there thinking about how much he'll always owe to Sonic.
Tails has sucked for years now. He never gets to do anything and is just a big whiny baby all the time. It sucks and is bad.
they should just get the boom writers to do the games or at least some of it.
[QUOTE=redBadger;52890505]they should just get the boom writers to do the games or at least some of it.[/QUOTE]
I know he's busy on the IDW Comic but Ian Flynn would be the best writer for the Sonic Series. His writing on the Post-Reboot Archie Sonic has shown me that he does his research and he gives his passion to a series riddled with many lore holes and unfit puzzle pieces.
Plus the Sonic Forces prequel Comics are really REALLY good.
I don't know about that. If there's one thing the series doesn't need more of, it's another unbroken cycle of stale self-references, and that's Ian's bread and butter. I would rather a fresh face take the reins, preferably one that isn't as steeped in the fandom as Flynn.
do you mind citing specific examples of this unbroken cycle of stale self-references from flynn because as far as I've seen he's done very well in creating stories that effectively use all the characters while also staying true to the general idea of the games
Is it possible to get Infinite's mask in the character creator?
Pingas, making King Acorn's first name "Nigel" and having him use the same mannerisms as Nigel Thornberry simply because both characters were voiced by Tim Curry (this was painful), making Naugus the brother of a recondite and forgettable villain like Wendy Witchcart, using the Battle Bird Armada for yet another adaptation of a game very few people know about, focusing three years of the new continuity on a drawn out [I]Sonic Unleashed[/I] adaptation rather than coming up with anything original, culling characters and events from every esoteric corner of the series rather than create compelling new material, etc.
I think the most creative he ever got was with Thrash the Devil and even he was painfully derivative. Everything he does is some misguided attempt at pandering to some portion of the fandom, and this doesn't create desirable results; I've stated this before, but if you try to pander to everyone, you end up pandering to no one. You're better off simply doing your own thing.
I can see where you're coming from with those first two points, but I find it hard to believe that you're complaining that a Sonic comic is using Sonic canon, no matter how obscure. If I wanted someone to write an adaptaion I'd greatly appreciate them knowing their stuff enough to pull out the obscure Tails Patrol shit
and yeah he spent three years on sonic unleashed but a lot of other stuff happened in that time, especially the egg bosses and their arcs which I think helped a lot to make the eggman empire seem more threatening and substantial an entity than just one guy with a lot of robots
granted a lot of this is subjective and up to personal opinion but I think calling usage of established canon is pandering. you might as well complain about the flash TV show using lesser known DC heroes. if using the series is pandering, why even bother wanting it to be a sonic comic at all?
[QUOTE=Conro101;52890682]I can see where you're coming from with those first two points, but I find it hard to believe that you're complaining that a Sonic comic is using Sonic canon, no matter how obscure. If I wanted someone to write an adaptaion I'd greatly appreciate them knowing their stuff enough to pull out the obscure Tails Patrol shit
and yeah he spent three years on sonic unleashed but a lot of other stuff happened in that time, especially the egg bosses and their arcs which I think helped a lot to make the eggman empire seem more threatening and substantial an entity than just one guy with a lot of robots
granted a lot of this is subjective and up to personal opinion but I think calling usage of established canon is pandering. you might as well complain about the flash TV show using lesser known DC heroes. if using the series is pandering, why even bother wanting it to be a sonic comic at all?[/QUOTE]
It comes down to this: We know what Tails Sky Patrol and Tails Adventure are, we've all played Sonic Unleashed (much to our chagrin)--so why do we need to experience them again? The purpose of a medium like this is to expand upon the property, not recall it in an endless loop. Tell new stories; explore new territory; introduce novel characters; create settings we've never seen before; tell stories the series hasn't yet attempted. Imagine if the DC or Marvel comics constantly adapted their own respective movies rather than tell original stories set in their own universes? Imagine how dull and repetitive that would be.
I value creativity, and Ian hasn't ever impressed me in that regard. I've always seen the adaptations as unnecessary.
I don't get why Tails is such a lil' bitch
Remember when Tails was a huge bitch after Sonic "died" in SA2 and ran away crying
Yeah I don't either
@2:04
[video]https://youtu.be/8Uv0YYHO0Oo?t=124[/video]
[editline]yep[/editline]
It's a shame he didn't develop at all from SA1 when he ran away crying when Eggman confronted him while Sonic wasn't around to do all the work
Oh wait that didn't happen either
[video=youtube;R9YvH2VcoT8p]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9YvH2VcoT8p[/video]
Why are they writing Tails so shitty in every modern Sonic game? He's gone from one of my favorite characters to a walking pseudo-science exposition device that flees when conflict happens in his immediate vicinity, as if he hasn't spent all this time following around a guy who fucks with a crazy man with a robot army every week for kicks. What the fuck Sega?
[QUOTE=Lord Exor;52891046]It comes down to this: We know what Tails Sky Patrol and Tails Adventure are, we've all played Sonic Unleashed (much to our chagrin)--so why do we need to experience them again? The purpose of a medium like this is to expand upon the property, not recall it in an endless loop. Tell new stories; explore new territory; introduce novel characters; create settings we've never seen before; tell stories the series hasn't yet attempted. Imagine if the DC or Marvel comics constantly adapted their own respective movies rather than tell original stories set in their own universes? Imagine how dull and repetitive that would be.
I value creativity, and Ian hasn't ever impressed me in that regard. I've always seen the adaptations as unnecessary.[/QUOTE]
new stories: the new silver future, the egg bosses against wendy, the very last arc with the chaotix; new characters: too numerous to list, but the aforementioned egg bosses, the fish people, gold; I could go on with these but it's a waste of both of our time. your dc and marvel analogy doesn't work because we just had a marvel movie based on a popular comic event, Civil War, and DC has been making a pretty good series of animated movies based on famous comic arcs.
If you want wholly original stuff without using characters and concepts from the series it's based off of because that's "pandering to some portion of the fandom," then it sounds to me like what you want isn't a sonic comic, it's a comic that also incidentally has sonic in it. a comic that has no relation to the series except for the title character, a comic that will further fracture the fanbase with characters only the readers are familiar with because the game fans won't touch it for not being anything like the games.
it's a comic adaptation, which means it [I]adapts[/I] the source material to another medium. it pays respect to the material while also going in the new directions you want, which I've already listed. yeah, we all played unleashed before, but the plot can be summed up as "evil earth monster gets stopped by temples around the earth." with the comic, this simple idea gets expanded upon, with new characters, adventures, and other additions adding depth to the concept. if you don't like the comic, that's fine, but don't try to ignore what you want is actually there, and ESPECIALLY don't act like being faithful to the source material is a negative.
The problem with Modern Tails is the same problem that faces the Modern Youth, he can't keep his damn nose away from his iPad and doesn't care about any meaningful interaction with his peers. Technology is the devil I say.
This is kind of why I prefer the boom characters - Tails invents shit...weapons, wacky devices - he fights but he fights with his inventions. Another example - Amy isn't a personification of a Sonic fangirl she's actually a dynamic interesting character.
If we're being fair to Amy, what little she gets in Forces is her being pretty in charge. Her only swooning line is at the end of Death Egg (classic) when she says two sonics is dreamy, and even then it's in relation to how useful it is.
(She also has a line of "I wish he was still here" near the start but literally every character is saying it so I'm not counting that)
[QUOTE=Conro101;52891408]new stories: the new silver future, the egg bosses against wendy, the very last arc with the chaotix; new characters: too numerous to list, but the aforementioned egg bosses, the fish people, gold; I could go on with these but it's a waste of both of our time. your dc and marvel analogy doesn't work because we just had a marvel movie based on a popular comic event, Civil War, and DC has been making a pretty good series of animated movies based on famous comic arcs.
If you want wholly original stuff without using characters and concepts from the series it's based off of because that's "pandering to some portion of the fandom," then it sounds to me like what you want isn't a sonic comic, it's a comic that also incidentally has sonic in it. a comic that has no relation to the series except for the title character, a comic that will further fracture the fanbase with characters only the readers are familiar with because the game fans won't touch it for not being anything like the games.
it's a comic adaptation, which means it [I]adapts[/I] the source material to another medium. it pays respect to the material while also going in the new directions you want, which I've already listed. yeah, we all played unleashed before, but the plot can be summed up as "evil earth monster gets stopped by temples around the earth." with the comic, this simple idea gets expanded upon, with new characters, adventures, and other additions adding depth to the concept. if you don't like the comic, that's fine, but don't try to ignore what you want is actually there, and ESPECIALLY don't act like being faithful to the source material is a negative.[/QUOTE]
I never stated there weren't new stories, just that most of them are derivative in some fashion, and that the comic leaned too heavily on the game material. And as far as semantics go, it isn't an [I]adaptation[/I], it's a comic based upon an existing property. Nowhere in any of the marketing materials are these books positioned as adaptations outside of when an arc within them is being used to adapt a plot from the games.
The Marvel and DC analogies cover the fact that those characters receive inventive reimaginings of the material quite frequently, especially with the tie-in media. Would you compare [I]The Batman[/I] with [I]Batman: The Brave and the Bold[/I], or the short-lived [I]Beware the Batman[/I]? If we're going beyond comics, what about Transformers? [I]Beast Machines[/I] versus [I]Robots in Disguise[/I] (2014)? The Bayverse? The IDW comics? They're all wildly different while retaining the elemental components that make it Transformers. Why are you so opposed to the same being done for Sonic?
It isn't like the source material being drawn from is laudable by any stretch of the imagination. Sonic's extended cast of characters in the games are about as fleshed out as the cardboard boxes I receive from Amazon, and about as necessary as a gaming chair. The stories, as I'm sure [I]Sonic Forces[/I] has reminded you, are also rather poor. For a series that has such mediocre games on a regular basis, so many people seem to hold accuracy to them as sacred. I'll use the same argument here as the one I use for people that insist all American dubs of Japanese cartoons should be 100% faithful: If you like the stories of the games, you can play the games. For those of us that want [I]good[/I] stories told with our favorite hedgehog, let those stories be told in any way seen fit, even if it means making major concessions in accuracy.
Now this is entirely tangential, but I also hate Ian's portrayal of Eggman. When Sonic Team of all things manages to do a better job with the character than Ian does...
as someone who enjoys the series, I can ask you a similar question: why are you so insistent that using them is a bad thing?
in terms of the re-imagining thing, that's exactly what happened with Sonic Boom, and that was enjoyable, too (and a few episodes are written by your ol' pal Ian!) I'm not against new characters, sticks has quickly become one of my favorites, and you're right that plenty of these characters aren't exactly beacons of shining personality. that just means it's very easy to take them and give them new personality traits. surprisingly, people like mighty and bean and honey, and since they're essentially blank slates it means they can be used for a number of different roles. Why invent an entirely new character when a classic character can be used for the same purpose, while also feeling more connected with the series as a whole?
I'm not saying that these stories are anything amazing or sacred. I'm saying we've seen what a sonic comic that goes out and does its own thing is like. It was incredibly confusing and strange and silly to anyone who wasn't already in the know, even diehard sonic fans. That's not even getting into Fleetway, which is so far removed from everything else sonic that it just seems daunting and essentially pointless.
It's just baffling to me that you can see a writer knowing and using older, obscure characters, and using them effectively in a way that ties them in with everything else, as "pandering." look at the IDW ghostbusters comic. It brought in Kylie from Extreme Ghostbusters as an easter egg, and people loved it so much she became a full fledged character and member of the team. Is that pandering? Is it bad that they were able to draw from the canon of ghostbusters like that? or that the rookie from the ghostbusters game is a character? people [I]like[/I] these characters. people [I]like[/I] these games. I know someone who [I]really[/I] likes mighty the armadillo. why shouldn't mighty show up, then? if there's room for him, and you can develop his paper thin character, what's the problem? why is that bad?
[QUOTE=Conro101;52891853]as someone who enjoys the series, I can ask you a similar question: why are you so insistent that using them is a bad thing?
in terms of the re-imagining thing, that's exactly what happened with Sonic Boom, and that was enjoyable, too (and a few episodes are written by your ol' pal Ian!) I'm not against new characters, sticks has quickly become one of my favorites, and you're right that plenty of these characters aren't exactly beacons of shining personality. that just means it's very easy to take them and give them new personality traits. surprisingly, people like mighty and bean and honey, and since they're essentially blank slates it means they can be used for a number of different roles. Why invent an entirely new character when a classic character can be used for the same purpose, while also feeling more connected with the series as a whole?
I'm not saying that these stories are anything amazing or sacred. I'm saying we've seen what a sonic comic that goes out and does its own thing is like. It was incredibly confusing and strange and silly to anyone who wasn't already in the know, even diehard sonic fans. That's not even getting into Fleetway, which is so far removed from everything else sonic that it just seems daunting and essentially pointless.
It's just baffling to me that you can see a writer knowing and using older, obscure characters, and using them effectively in a way that ties them in with everything else, as "pandering." look at the IDW ghostbusters comic. It brought in Kylie from Extreme Ghostbusters as an easter egg, and people loved it so much she became a full fledged character and member of the team. Is that pandering? Is it bad that they were able to draw from the canon of ghostbusters like that? or that the rookie from the ghostbusters game is a character? people [I]like[/I] these characters. people [I]like[/I] these games. I know someone who [I]really[/I] likes mighty the armadillo. why shouldn't mighty show up, then? if there's room for him, and you can develop his paper thin character, what's the problem? why is that bad?[/QUOTE]
The Archie comic pre-Ian Flynn was a discordant mess not because it deviated so drastically from the source material, but due to clashes of writers, a disorganized publisher, terrible editors, interference from SEGA, and many other complications. And yes, Ian panders; many times he's doing nothing but winking at fans, not drawing from the varied history of the franchise for a greater purpose.
Speaking of which, there are numerous instances where culling concepts from multiple sources can be troublesome. You mention how people [I]like[/I] those characters and [I]like[/I] those games, but what happens when the topic at hand is one that is tonally dissonant from the rest of the series? I [I]really[/I] like SatAM Robotnik, the aesthetic of his empire, and the dystopian idea behind the world he inhabits. Are those elements something that can be integrated into a comic that fancies itself a hodgepodge of everything that's come before? Probably not, otherwise you'll end up with these guys:
[IMG]https://pre00.deviantart.net/78ef/th/pre/i/2015/052/e/7/egg_swat_by_doodleystudios-d8itj28.png[/IMG]
I was never elated over their introduction, even though Ian's aim was to please (AKA pander to) both the Egg Pawn and SWATbot camps. This chimera completely misses the mark entirely on just what both parties desired out of Eggman and his robots: people enjoy Egg Pawns for their absurdity and joviality; people enjoy SWATbots for the faceless totalitarian shock trooper aesthetic.
Take even the Freedom Fighters--why is that the name of their group? They're not rebelling against an evil dictatorship anymore, since the balance of power in the comics has shifted dramatically to better emulate the landscape of the games. Why are they even there to begin with? When translated into the game world, there's a major discrepency between what these characters embody and the environment around them. I'll tell you why they're there, they're there because Ian wants to make fans of them happy. But are they really pleased by his efforts?
They can't mend the fractured fanbase, no matter how many times they try. When a property is launched with so may disparate perspectives on the same thing, you're never going to pacify all your customers by reconciling and consolidating. You're better off continuing to venture into new directions with different takes. If I can't get what I most desire out of the property, I sure as hell don't want to see the same things regurgitated, and the same goes for something like Star Wars. Do you think I enjoyed [I]The Force Awakens[/I]? Do you think I wanted another Episode IV?
As far as being opposed to using elements from the games, I think we've already agreed upon their spotty quality, and in that case, why would I want to see them? You could call some of the characters blank slates, but even visually, they aren't particularly interesting. The insistence on homogenizing all of the anthropomorphic animals so they retain Sonic's proportions doesn't do them any favors in granting each of them visual distinctiveness, that's for sure.
[QUOTE=RikohZX;52889830]While the Japanese dialogue is a lot less joke-laden compared to how Pontac likes to roll as we know, Sonic and Infinite had a hell of a lot of rewrites - though for Sonic at least, this isn't anything new since Pontac/Graff's Sonic in English is almost a different character compared to the Japanese Sonic. [/QUOTE]
Sonic in these doesn't seem very different from the English version, if at all. Which is fine by me since his dialogue in this game is easily the best part of the story. As a matter of fact most of these cutscenes seem to be no different, perhaps the in game dialogue and the map screen conversations are a lot different but I'm not noticing a lot of differences in these scenes.
[editline]15th November 2017[/editline]
[QUOTE=Sift;52891484]The problem with Modern Tails is the same problem that faces the Modern Youth, he can't keep his damn nose away from his iPad and doesn't care about any meaningful interaction with his peers. Technology is the devil I say.[/QUOTE]
Is it that, or his piss yellow colouring and his HURR HURR I CAN BUILD A TV WITH TOOTHPICKS NICE JOB SRANICCCC
I'm about to get a platinum in this dumb game that makes me mad what is wrong with me.
I need to find a stage I can slide into 5 enemies as sonic and grind out SOS missions and I'm good.
[QUOTE=Sift;52892212]I'm about to get a platinum in this dumb game that makes me mad what is wrong with me.
I need to find a stage I can slide into 5 enemies as sonic and grind out SOS missions and I'm good.[/QUOTE]
Can't you do that first one in like any stage? Most groups of basic enemies are in 5 right?
[QUOTE=Lord Exor;52892006]:words:[/QUOTE]
this conversation has gone on long enough, and I'm tired, so I'll just say this
if you can show me overwhelming proof that a majority of the fanbase of comic readers [I]was[/I] upset by these changes, and not just [I]you[/I], I'll agree that Flynn on the games is a bad idea.
Heck, I'll even buy you a copy of the Lara-Su Chronicles, if penders ever finishes it
[QUOTE=Pokepunch;52892360]Can't you do that first one in like any stage? Most groups of basic enemies are in 5 right?[/QUOTE]
Yeah I thought that too, but if you do it in any of the 3D sections sonic begins to slide like a maniac and doesn't hit all the enemies you need unless you're REALLY lucky. He doesn't have a AOE damage field around him either so it's not like I can do it in the middle of the formations of enemies.
Sonic General Discussion Thread v1
