Its really refreshing to see someone actually criticize the modern sonic media, instead of mindlessly praising it. Too much shilling and toxic positivity has formed as of late. Sure the stuff we are getting now is slightly better than the meta era. But its still not good. its mediocre. everything is bland and stale, people praise it like its the best thing ever when there could be more done for the storys and games. I am sick of "steps in the right direction" This is SEGA. Not an indie studio, They should understand how to make good sonic games, shows and comics. We are in an era of mid and people praise it likes its the best thing since the 2000s just because its slightly better than what we got before. I think that is much worse than the meta era, because atleast in the meta era people would admit the things we got weren't the best and should be done better. The only reason people are so scared to even criticize anything is because sonic team has historical been so bad at taking criticize that they always have taken a 180 approach to anything they have done instead of refining what the criticize feature of the game. 06 doing so bad is probably what lead to sega mandating shadow to be the way he is along with other features. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't hold back criticism. If you do that then you are lying to yourself and you wont get anything better. I have been noticing people start to feel similar to me. I've seen more videos criticizing idw popping up as of late. I think people might be starting to realize how stale the sonic franchise is right now. I do agree with you on sonic tubers. But it feels great to find some sonictubers who are actually gonna criticize the games and not blindly shill. this video got me hooked on the channel. I will check out your other videos.
I agree, Sega SHOULD know and DO know what it takes to make a good game, Sonic is not their only franchise. They are successful in many of the other games they’ve published. For whatever reason they tote Sonic around as their mascot, but they treat him the worst out of all of his sister IPs, afraid to dare, afraid to innovate, and afraid to spend money a the games to make them genuinely just good and polished. Sonic is their mascot and they’re afraid to spend money on him??? It SEEMS that Sega is taking a vastly new approach to Sonic the last two years, so I’m really hoping this all ends up paying off and we can return to Sonic being a AAA game. I want to get back to the deep stories, exciting gameplay, unique worlds, the lore, all of that. The next main-line Sonic game has to be MAJOR. I have high expectations for it, given the way Sonic Team are now operating. Also thank you so much! I’m glad I had the opportunity to show you what I can bring to the SonicTuber community! I have a ton of takes that would be considered pretty spicy, but at any time everybody is free to challenge me on anything I say, and we can discuss! I always back up what I’m saying with examples and try to remain as factual as possible.
We don’t know what the character mandates are so we don’t know what he’s working with but given my extensive knowledge of his interpretations of these characters and then seeing how Sega Of Japan writes Shadow over there. Flynn wants to write him the way he did in Archie where he was overly kind and he did everything in Maria’s name whereas Sega wants him to be written as he is in 06 and later games where he remained consistent over there through localization. They clash hard so Ian’s trying to put his own quirks onto Shadow while trying to make him somewhat like he’s mandated to act. Ian’s problem is that he wants to write these characters the way they were in Archie where he had complete control but they are nothing like their game counterparts which he has to write for.
I disagree on the bit that Sega wants him to be written like he was in 06. I do agree with you that Ian wants his Archie interpretation of Shadow to be present in the comics and the games, I personally cannot say whether Shadow is overly kind in those comics as I don’t have a solid memory for them anymore. You said you have extensive knowledge and interpretations of these characters, so I’d be interested to hear your argument for how every Shadow after 06 is still the same.
@kotytang Archie wrote Shadow as more of a superhero with him actively joining an organization full time. A lot of the discourse over Shadow's portayals circa from Forces onward are down to how Archie's portayals of the characters and world still deeply impacted fanon with Shadow especially getting it (note the notion that Team Dark is a "found family" rather than comrades in arms).
Thank you. You have no idea how relieving it is to see someone put this comic to legitimate scrutiny for once. By issue 50, I realized that my love for this comic during its earlier issues was more of a honeymoon phase than anything, and it started to get on my nerves to see fans ragging on about SEGA's mandates specifically, as if the writers that ACTIVELY produce the comic could do no wrong... Keep doing what you're doing, looking forward to more!
For sure! I’ve never been impressed by the overall comic, but it definitely has its moments. Everything has mandates, the thing about a good writer; they actively work with the mandates to make the best story they can, not against them to try and bulldoze their own interpretation’s in. Appreciate it, much more Sonic to come!
@@franklycentral48 i will eventually review the stories of every Sonic game. And I’m sure that that will cause a massive amount of hate and praise toward my channel. The stories of Sonic are, for the most part, pretty lackluster. It’s also important to note that many of them can’t even link together at all.
@@kotytang Generally they're not supposed to. The Adventure games, heroes, and Shadow tell a somewhat continuous narrative but everything else is pretty much standalone. Granted the Adventure games, heroes, and Shadow are the only ones that matter but....
The metal virus seems to share more similarities with a symbiote, as it can also alter the DNA structure of a living organism, transforming them into a blob of goop and then reassembling themselves. I don't think the writers were thinking that far ahead when trying to implament the rules of how it functions into the plot
That's the writers fault, establishing the rules of how things work is an incredibly important part of any narrative, as it helps the audience to follow the action and become invested, when things just work however the writers want them to in a story, especially an action adventure story, it becomes hard to care about the action scenes which is bad for a comic that uses a lot of action scenes.
I like the Metal Virus Arc, really I do, I really like how Sonic confronts Eggman. But my main gripe is how it essentially takes place after Forces, the world is just recovering. Say what you will about Forces. But people died. DIED. Human, Mobian (or anthro, I don't know what Sonic's kin is refer to as), man, women, and child. Whether it be by the sadistic screwed over villain Infinite or the robotic forces from the sadistic narcissistic callous Eggman himself (or should I say Eggman Forces, heh). People have died, it was shown on screen, mentioned by Amy in the Avatar level in Metropolis. PEOPLE DIED!! But here comes Eggman quite literally the next day with a mechanized bioweapon. Basically what I'm trying to say is, I don't like how Ian made everyone's efforts in Sonic Forces almost meaningless. I just don't.
If you like the saga that's fine, I don't find it very compelling for a large variety of reasons I listed. It's not the first time that a world ending event would have resulted in the lives of hundreds, if not thousands of civilians. Eggman has definitely killed people, if not directly so, then indirectly. Forces isn't really the only contender for this.
@@kotytang But it leaves a sour taste in my mouth on how so many people's efforts in Forces were essentially meaningless. The game made it seem like Eggman would be defeated for good or at least defeated for a good while. That's what irks me. Speaking of thousands of people dead. He sure has essentially gotten away with it...and it's all just BRUSHED aside.
@@kotytang "Eggman has definitely killed people, if not directly so, then indirectly. Forces isn't really the only contender for this." That's the problem, he's essentially gotten away with all these atrocities! But no, thousands of deaths and attempted genocide is all brushed aside. What the- does no one but me and a few see a problem here?!
What's with the constant attempts to make the Deadly Six an actual threat? They were barely a threat in their debut game and ended up getting punked out by Eggman at the end, but for some reason, Sega (and by extension here, IDW) keep bringing them back as though they're important villains when they're forgettable as anything.
The hard boiled heavies only showed up for one game, had zero dialogue yet they not only have more character than the deadly six ever did, they are loved. They deserve to return. Not these boring generic characters
Ian thinks they have lost potential. To me they never had potential but I was kind of liking them in this arc. They dropped the ball in the Zeti hunt arc though.
I don’t really think the Deadly Six has been pushed as a major threat at all? They’re in some spin-off material, Zavok has appeared in Forces as a throw back villain for a quick moment, and so far I can confirm they’ll be in two Sagas for IDW. I’m pretty sure they have never been shown to be a major threat consistently?
I fell like the reason why people mindlessly praise the idw comics is because people are tired of the stories of sonic games having NO meaning having NO stakes and those people are just finally getting a story thats not fucking sonic forces or lost world the idw comics have issues but the reason why some people ignore that is because the bar for a good sonic story at the time of these coming out was SO low but i just hope more people start addressing these issues.
That’s all an entirely fair argument and I wouldn’t fault people for being happy about the stories because of that. However, Nobody should be afraid to criticize something just because it’s a new thing, if it’s done bad then it’s done bad; The company themselves should do better, instead of folding under pressure. Sega is DISGUSTINGLY lucky that Sonic is so popular in the west, and they really need to stop taking that for granted just because it isn’t the Japanese audience. Just make a fun game and Japan will like it too, Frontiers proved that to them. So I hope that was an eye opener.
While the stories of Sonic Unleashed-Sonic Frontiers lacked the scale and impact of the SA duology (and JUST that duology, out of the countless Sonic releases) one could argue that the simple plot format is closer to the origin of the series and that there is nothing inherently wrong with that. If the fanbase part of the Sonic audience were waiting for stories like this, perhaps they were barking up the wrong tree, waiting for a direction that has long been abandoned by the franchise runners. This goes all the way back to Sonic Heroes, where there were already intentions to "return Sonic to his roots" and it had a very basic comedy oriented plot not unlike the present day releases.
@@kotytang SEGA does have a slew of other internationally popular mature-rated franchises so they likely keep Sonic around as just a heritage brand, like Pac Man. It just so happens that Sonic garnered a cult following in the west/US, the market he was intended for.
@@TheSultan1470 It isn't even a just so happened kind of thing. It was the full intention of the brand. Given the recent interviews, and the way they're canonizing everything, and even Froniter's story, and bringing on IDW writers, I think we can safely count on Sega trying to return to the major stories people have been wanting. Put Sonic back as Mario's rival, and he'll be one of the top figures of the industry again.
@@kotytang Hm, we'll see. Although being Mario's rival wouldn't be logical, as Mario is not targeting massive stories and lore. If Sonic pursues that goal, then his competitors lie elsrwhere, if he even has any, as the "mascot platformer" genre has pretty much dried up.
It's called Rivals of Aether, it's on steam. There's a free workshop section you can select and download a bunch of Sonic mods for it. They'll just automatically be added to your game through steam so no hassle or messing with the files. Very fun game
Glad you liked the video! Yup, Spinball is correct, its Rivals of Aether. The game goes on sale all the time, and the modding community is decently active and there’s going to be a second one.
35:13 you’re not entirely wrong, but Sega wants a game accurate shadow and shadow was never ruined in the games. She’s been the same throughout the entire series adventure two heroes shadow the hedgehog that’s where his amnesia ark ended because he regained all his memories and decided to move on move as not being shackled to his past, he still cares about Maria. A lot of people just misinterpret that and then 06 and continuation forces really good written shadow and Sega that game accurate something shiro maekawa and izuka (sorry if I got that name wrong) the two creators of shadow the hedgehogs (not the game, but the character) would write him but Flynn wants to write his shadow, which his shadow is the Archie comic shadow Archie comic shadow is a bitch boy who is very soft and not anywhere near game shadow so Flynn just tries to sneak that shadow under his nose, making him do very stupid things that he gets the shadow and gives him notes and he just tries to write his shadow while simultaneously doing the correct shadow until Sega like fine. Just do this one. You could see this at the end of the metal virus saga where should says I am the ultimate life form. I have to do better than that which is a common thing shadow does in the Archie. He beats himself up for failing and says he’s the ultimate life form. I shouldn’t fail that is not game shadow but that’s what he’s trying to tell, which Sega wants game accurate shadow but Ian Flynn is too stubborn and wants to write his shadow that he thinks is correct. It just pisses me off to research the game version and not right his version of the character. Just bring back. Shiro maekawa izuka never left and Shiro wants to be back. Izuka and Shiro know how to write the character, but Shiro isn’t there to write him even though he wants to come back
So even if sega didn’t tell Flynn how they want shadows personality then Ian Flynn, would just write Archie shadow which is nowhere near accurate shadow. It’s just a bitch boy which isn’t game accurate shadow while Ian wants Archie accurate shadow because he thinks Archie shadow is the correct one God it’s so annoying how Flynn does this
I disagree with that take on Shadow--him always acting the way he does after 2009. The OG Shadow WAS stand-offish, but he wasn't a complete dickhead about it, nor did he directly treat everybody with a ridiculous degree of disrespect right to them, to the point that you couldn't even take him seriously. Shadow was neutral to everybody in person, except for Sonic who he swapped between respecting and disrespecting in a competitive rival-sort of way. When he had Amnesia he essentially reverted back to his SA2 persona, however after his own game and into Sonic 06, regaining his memories returned him to his more relaxed persona that we assumed he would continue with until after Sonic Free Riders happened. I'm aware that Shadow still cares about Maria, he just isn't hyper-focused on her as he used to be, but he's still carrying on her legacy through his own convictions, and by proxy what she believed in as well. I don't have enough information about Ian's archie days, so I can only accept your take for it. I've heard that many people actually enjoyed Shadow in archie as well, though. I don't think that Shadow thinking over specifically Sonic's direction is a bad thing, Sonic is probably the only person Shadow would ever take the advice of as far as I can tell, as he recognizes Sonic's strength specifically. Shadow obviously would not have made the mistake he does in issue 19 in general. Can you point to some times where in the end, Shadow absolutely refused to ackowedge his own short-comings, or flaws in his line of thinking and that led to his downfall?
I wasn’t trying to say how shadow was acting because yes in the more modern self shadow is a bit of a dickhead which usually he is not that is like one flaw aside from that he is written pretty well everything about shadow was just on point but Ian Flynn doesn’t know how to write game shadow you knows how to write Archie shadow so when he tries to write game shadow because that’s what sega wants it goes horribly
Also, your takes on game shadow are like spot on. I’m just gonna say that right now. Yes he still cares about Maria. He’s just not hyperfocus. He’s not shackled to the past and he does not go around just disrespecting people being a dickhead. He’s neutral and he’s respectful along with that he is also very polite, not a bitchboy like he is an Archie He is standoffish and he’s very polite, but he’s brutally honest. He’s very honest and we’ll just say it to your face and when he set on a decision, he’s gonna pursue that decision and get in his way he will pursue it aggressively. The only time shadow just became out of character and IDW was when he met up with sonic when the virus started would just say let’s just get this fucking over with. Tell me what I need to know. Sonic will him and then shadow will pursue also being immune to all diseases. That’s Just ignored here but yes, you were very spot on the shadow. You didn’t even get stuff wrong which most people always do whatever you keep it real and actually discuss thank you for being one of the few people that are not a dickhead (you know shadow that I’m a just say right now there was a point in the story where he tried to make metal sonic a good person and then fails honestly, just search up Archie shadow and then go to images and you’ll see how he is so nice which is in character, but the way Ian makes it nice. Makes him look like a bitch. Boy shadow is nice in the way that he is very polite and honest first thing he said to the lizard and sonic shadow generations you tortured soul I’ll put you out of your misery and release you from your chains which shadow feels bad for the creature and it’s going to kill him because that’s what’s best for him being polite about it
@ezbeezee815 You're overall spot-on. Flynn even complained on his podcast on how the rules to write Shadow don't really fit how he'd write the character: >Overall, Flynn doesn’t seem to have a good grasp on Shadow’s character: he openly admitted his frustration at the fact that he was asked to tone down Shadow’s dialogue in #6, and voiced his disbelief that “he’s not a conversationalist, he doesn’t debate, he doesn’t speak his mind, he doesn’t tell people his opinions, he just does”. While Flynn was being sarcastically hyperbolic, Shadow in the games really does keep most of his feelings to himself; some of his main traits are that he’s terse, hands-on, and relies on body language to express himself, as seen in Adventure 2, ‘06 and arguably Heroes. For comparison: Caleb Goellner’s portrayal of Shadow in the Team Sonic Racing one-shot comic is nothing like how Flynn and Stanley wrote him in IDW and more in-line with his game counterpart, proving that SEGA is not insisting on “Vegeta Shadow”. It's in the FAQ talking about the problems with IDW and attempts to defend it. You can find links on reddit.
@@newdawnhorizon9879 It's nothing confusing. For the purpouses of characters staying of consistent ages, they removed any direct numerical age values. Cream is still a child.
@@hanaheaven9058 Well, this is where the franchise's current plot situation takes it up the azz. Sure, Amee and Talés are intended to be younger kids/tweens, but they've supposedly had so much development and life experience that their characters should theoretically outgrow child status.
Thank you for saying that! I try to stay as factual as I possibly can in every one of my videos, and if I’m wrong about something anybody is free to try and change my mind, and I have had my mind changed before, that’s one of the major reasons I have such strong convictions in my words-I’ve debated about a lot of what I’m saying endlessly already. My goal is to try and find the objective truth about things and create discussions. I appreciate the comment, thanks again!
@@kotytang thanks for the good job man, I'm also kinda unpleased with the current direction of Sonic in the narrative apartment, so this channel Is like a breath of fresh air
Tecnically (akkhhshually), SA2's Shadow is the only "real" Shadow. Think about it, he was conceptualized for that game alone, died in said game and the game also perfectly ties the bow on his character ark. Anything post Heroes has seen Shadow only return as a legacy character and thus malleable to be interpreted in any way. Sorry that we're beating this horse again, but 06 Shadow cannot be "real" "canon" Shadow. Not to mention 06 basically deletes itself from existence, so anything that happens there is in practice irrelevant.
@kotytang Shadow's characterization in the games has not notably changed post-06. IDW by large is not significantly OOC for Shadow. The reality here is that much of the complaining is just from how Shadow's actual characterization in game canon is not how he is in fanon (being "awkward", running soup kitchens, being in a found family with Team Dark, overall acting like a Steven Universe character crossed with someone like Benedict Cumberbatch's characters).
@@galten7361 Strongly disagree. Shadow has absolutely made a signiifcant change in his appearances after 06. I also don't pull from Archie Shadow, I barely know anything about that version of the character, or even the archie series in general. So it's not a good argument against me.
@@galten7361 *l0l* Steven Universe and Bennedict Cumberpatch. Yeah, fanon has certanly had an impact on character perception, though I'd say IDW and the Tailst00b social media posts themselves are "Steven Universifying" the Sonic world and characters. If anyone is like Stooben, it's IDW Sonic. Guys probably go to church together, the church they founded.
While I somewhat agree that Flynn sometimes has a good ideas despite not being a competent writer, I can't say that he's that good at getting the lore? This is the guy who said that Team Dark aren't friends according to sega and then backpedaled on it, that money doesn't exist in Sonic's world (which is pretty insane statement,) only male hedgehogs can turn super - and that's just from the top of my head. And not mentioning how he deals with sega characters because yes, I absolutely do count characters' history and behaviour as lore, which Flynn absolutely does not respect when you know how he writes and talks about the game characters. I could give a loooot of examples even from up to the issue 32, but we'd be stuck here all day if I did. (Also, while I get where you're coming from trying to judge the guy only based on the writing but his refusal to recieve criticism, insistence on getting paid for answering quetions, scapegoating others, shitting on the source material, making sega into this awful corporation that just doesn't want him to write his archie fanfic... Let's just say that at best it makes him extremely unprofessional.) RE: Shadow in Forces - I actually assumed that Shadow was stuck in the Infinite's/Phantom Ruby's illusions the whole time until he (somehow) got out shortly before saving Sonic. That game is very much not clear about its story and was rushed.
I don’t think he’s good at getting the lore correct either. I just said that he actively researches it, unlike the majority of writers we have and, and do have. While watching his early Bumblekast, he was able to throw up a ton of current information and obscure information left and right. I even say that he flagrantly uses the lore, and has his own interpretations of everything I don’t agree with. Him not being a good writer also falls into all of the problems with how he uses, or refuses lore. I’ll leave the personal criticism of Ian to you guys for now. Maybe I can address all of that in a separate video, after I’m caught up with the comics. I just wanted to focus on the writing and not touch too much on the Ian Flynn drama, since it would make this video much longer than necessary. The only drama that I directly addressed was how Ian pretends mandates work. -- Shadow gets out of Infinites virtual reality right after getting pulled in. He couldn’t have been in there for too long, since Infinite was still right in front of Shadow. It doesn’t specify how long after Shadow saw infinite again that Sonic gets taken out, but it’s clear that it’s no longer on the same day. Either way, for the rest of the six months, Shadow still acted mostly outside of the Resistance, until meeting up with Sonic, and he joins the crew then.
@@kotytang Can you give me an example of his knowledge? Just so I'd know what you mean. In any case not sure if he should get a praise for researching the lore if he's not going to use it properly. He sounds like a cook that looks into the cooking book, who reads to add a pinch of salt in the meal and dumps sugar in instead. And if he were simply the overseer without being a writer himself, like you suggested, it could also possibly mean that he would convey it in a way that would still be skewed from his perspective.
@@rrrrrar Sure, just a few off the top of my head; he’s given various takes on Silver’s introduction for Sonic Rivals, he’s advocated for the use of Eggman Nega, he questioned the time travel usage of the Emeralds in Sonic 06, he’s directly judged the writing in Sonic Colors. The exact Bumblekast episodes that he talked about these things would take me a while to search for, but I suggest watching from the first and just running from there. He should get praised for knowing the lore, and in the same instance, get judged for not using what he should know about it properly. He could sway the story to be made to his liking, but the characterization, dialogue, etc could see an improvement, unless the entire writing room just bows to Ian and nothing they’ve ever written has ever been their own idea.
@kotytang my main issue with Ian's writing is that while he does know the lore, he doesn't seem to understand or respect the original stories that lore stems from for example Ian has repeatedly advocated for the idea of being able to use Chaos as a part of the Sonic cast based on his appearance in Sonic Battle where it was stated that he only appears in times of crisis. There are many things wrong with this, first reintroducing Chaos into the cannon completely undermines the ending of Sonic Adventure as the idea was that Super Sonic neutralized the hate inside Chaos and the reveal that the chao that the Echidna attacked were still alive (after over 4000 years of time but whatever) had calmed Chaos and brought him peace. And Tikal and Chaos rising up together into the sky. To me, this was obviously meant to imply that Chaos, with his anger finally subsided, was now able to pass on to the next world because Chaos' story was always a story of a spirit from the ancient past lashing out. Bringing him back completely undermines that story. And yeah Sonic Battle brought him back but this is the same game where neither Sonic nor any of his friends know what the Death Egg is, Knuckles apparently just watches the news on Angel Island somehow, and Amy is portrayed as a delusional fangirl who frequently misinterprets Sonics attempts to get away from her as him indirectly telling her she needs to prove herself as a mother. It should not be taken that seriously as a piece of cannon material. The stories of the mainline 3d games should always have precedence over the handheld titles that have been shown to misunderstand elements of the world and characters way more consistently than the mainline games.
@@franklycentral48 I don’t disagree with anything you’re saying. My point in praising his knowledge is just that; I directly address how he doesn’t properly use this knowledge afterward. I’m assuming the Chaos returning thing was within his Archie continuity? If so then I don’t think anything you’re saying actually applies. I haven’t read through Archie, but I am aware that it makes major changes to its entire world, and doesn’t follow anything from the games 1:1, even when they covered some of the stories.
Funny you should be using Rivals of Aether footage here. I used to be an open fan of Flynn's writing, but I was aware that there were some "naysayers" about it. A few years ago, however, I learned he was penning the tie-in comics for Rivals of Aether, the story in question being the one telling Clairen's origins, presumably something that would be like History of Trunks. I bought the comics with my own money out of curiosity, and what I read had bit-by-bit the EXACT SAME ISSUES as IDW Sonic - empty characters, empty themes, and with the setting and conflict not being properly established. And I'm not quite alone in thinking that, either, as per this review by fandom VIP member Adam Carra (who actually did his own RoA comic later on, one which I've found to be a more enticing read): th-cam.com/video/0AU-nqAbH8k/w-d-xo.html The "Tales of Aether" comic was what killed my view that "SEGA mandates" were the problem at play. After that, I mainly followed and praised IDW as an unconscious means of fitting into the community (and because I was afraid of agreeing with the Kenderoid crowd), but eventually all that just stopped mattering… and I stopped realizing that it was my fault. Even as someone who's stopped following these comics out of fear for my mental state and precious grey matter, I'm honestly just waiting for them to crash and burn so that everyone can move on from them already. Like tearing off a band-aid. (No offense meant to the people who work on it - the actual adults among them, at least. Sure, Yardley's proud of his scat edits, Foundraine's been hostile to criticism and Fonesca's claimed dubbing is racist, but at least Daniel Barnes is a pretty humble guy.)
That is some extremel levels of irony, lmfao. I didn't even know Rivals of Aether had a comic, much less the fact that it was written by Ian Flynn, I just saw it on steam one day and thought it looked cool, so I bought it. I'll definitely check out Adam's video, I'm interested to see what the comic is about. I'm not surpirsed to hear that Ian struggles to write when it comes to other stories, given his actual writing ability. It's really hard to blame a large corporataion, when the large corporation is an Indie Game Developer where the story is already not really in depth to begin with. It would be nice if Ian would actually research and practice different aspects of writing. TBH, when it comes to comic-book writers, the last thing they care about is how to tell a proper story. Comic books just aren't usually the best medium to look to when it comes to storytelling, which is why I don't enjoy many of them. They tend to go off brand recognition and spectacle, before they go off story. ------ I'm not familiar with Foundraine or Fonesca's escapades, so if you got some details to share, I'd be interested to hear them.
@@kotytang Yes. Extreme levels of irony. VERY extreme. Lost a number of friends in the crossfire, too, considering how cultish some IDW fans are in their hostility. Took me a while to get out of the mindset they imposed on me, even after I started having doubts. Spent a lot of time bitter and paranoid. Like them. Though to clarify, I myself was curious about Rivals of Aether at the time and learned about Flynn's involvement by happenstance rather than through following him; he's also become the "narrative director" of the series last I've heard. He wrote the Dungeons of Aether spin-off, for one. Couldn't tell you if it had the same problems, haven't played or watched it, no desire to. I'm not gonna discuss where Flynn is in terms of the greater American comic industry since I don't have ample information on why so many writers keep pulling this shit (my closest guess would be "the good and disciplined writers are the ones smart enough to NOT work at Marvel and DC" or something like that). As for Foundraine, I heard about her criticism issues secondhand so I won't be able to give you ample details right here, but Fonesca's escapade in particular - a tirade on how dubbing any media into another language is an "inherently xenophobic practice" - was such an embarrassment that even other IDW stans called bull on it: x.com/PPDPPL_art/status/1585124427398008832#m
I got the slightest feeling that Ian Flynn might know how to write a good shadow but he wanted shadow to be a zombot but would you look at shadows character that just wouldn’t happen also he’s immune to all diseases so he wouldn’t get affected even if he touched one so I guess is he made of go out of character on purpose so he would get affected everything everyone getting cured shadow gets worse because Evan Stanley also shadow saying I should’ve done better. I have the ultimate life form is the least in character for him. Maybe he was up on the ark with Maria when he was just barely made but present day noooo also, do you think the new shadow dark beginnings three episode anime prologue will be good. It is written by Ian Flynn but izuka there and he knows how to write shadow. Izuka literally helped make shadow
@@EzBeeZerK Dunno how much the Metal Virus counts as a common disease, but sure I can see it both ways. I have yet to see Ian succeed at writing for Shadow, so I doubt it. I think the Prologue will be interesting. As far as I’ve understood Shadow has never directly met Emerl outside of Sonic Battle. I’m interested to see where it goes and gonna have to really dive into Sonic Battle’s lore for this. Iizuka did help create Shadow, but I only trust Sega’s storytelling so far. Considering that they have hired terrible writers for over a decade, it means that they’re co-signing these writer’s ability to write for them. So we’ll see.
For most reasons you listed and just the simple fact that they brought in the Deadly Six, some of my absolute least favorite characters in all of media, on top of the ever increasingly annoying portrayal of both Sonic and Shadow, I just stopped reading IDW, it's just not worth the headache for me... I really tried to enjoy it, but the Neo Metal arc felt rushed and like it got solved all of a sudden out of nowhere, and they did the exact same thing again with the Zombot arc, while also running into plenty of plotholes and further desecrating Shadow and Sonc's portrayal... I tried coming back a few times only to see the exact same issues with characters like Shadow acting like a total jerk and getting his ass beat by Metal Sonic... It's just a really messy series that I'm just convinced I'll never fully like even if I genuinely find some of the ideas presented in there so compelling, the resolutions in storylines, the constant gag inducing references to song lyrics and such, and especially the character writing does nothing but make roll my eyes and want to do literally anything else... The most recent arc with the Riders stuff seems so genuinely interesting, I even felt somewhat compelled to check out the chaos city arc where they fight a bunch of Shadow Androids but I just can't bring myself to start reading knowing I'll be disappointed, let alone get caught up with storylines featuring original characters I hardly care about only to get blasted with a little bit of mediocre fanservice somewhere in the end...
I'm working my way through the comic series, so if you can't stomach the series, I'm always here to force my way through the entire thing! it's my first time going through the IDW comics, so while I loosely know what you're referring to, but I don't have any proper opinions on any of it at the moment, and I'm not sure how the story is going to unfold from here just yet. I agree with much of what you're saying in relation to the comis, I don't think the Deadly Six are THAT bad, but they definitely aren't very enjoyable characters. I'd like to hope it all gets better from here, but I won't know that until I get through the next Saga. Maybe you can hop on my train and we can get through the series together, lol.
Don't feel too compelled to read it if it doesn't do it for you. No reason to torture yourself with something you don't enjoy, there's plenty of good content out there. IDW at this point is kinda like a train wreck you can't look away from. Also, don't feel like you have to like something because other people do, there are plenty of people who feel as you do. But also don't read something if you're not enjoying it, life is short so have fun with it.
@@newdawnhorizon9879 Yeah. He basically became, if you've heard of it, Adrien from Miraculous. HELL, he was even voiced by Bryce in Team Sonic Racing (though he is a prolific VA) Where in 06 does it suggest he is a soft, cuddly boi? He's a bit innocent and naive, but otherwise sternly devoted and serious. Not a literal child
@@TheSultan1470 Silver in 06 was literally furry Trunks except a little more naive. I'm not a big fan of him being this innocent cute cinnamon roll either but I sure as hell don't want him to be a full on ripoff. Archie Silver imo is the best version of the character, especially in his Sonic Universe arcs.
@@Skeleton20133 A little bit is fine but full carbon copy is a no go. Seriously, this is why Silver was genuinely hated by everyone back in 06. People like him now because he has a unique personality and because the Archie comics also did him justice.
No comment.....I just agree.......Also Frontiers rewrite is going well......just added the Update 3 shit & reworking it.....also adding unused Frontiers content rn & later, I'll be adding my own personal stuff cuz yes & fun! Wish me luck! Have a really good time! 😉👍
@@kotytang thx.....also.....I wanna make the way to get up to the master trials easier & make the last one the hardest to complete, but not impossible..... u'll be able to parry normally....no perfect parry cuz fuck it......also u won't play the master king coco trials as super sonic, but instead super sonic 2, hyper sonic will return due to the cyber energy being so powerful, it can reach the unknown dimension where the super emeralds are & unlock their power......I'm too ambitious..... ;^;
Good review. Admittedly I don't know the ins and outs of writing so seeing you go this in depth about things not even I thought of was cool. This arc to me is okay but is heavily flawed and took me 3 times reading through it front to back until I started to kind of be fine with it. I think issues 13-24 while having good issues here or there (16 and 23.) feel aimless to me. I hate the Deadly six but they surprisingly weren't too bad here. It is definitely bad writing how they just take over as next bad guy because they use the toriyama style of writing of brute forcing their way through the plot, things felt more focused in 25-29 even with dumb moments like Gemerl going after people who can control robots. As a Silver fan seeing Super Silver again is cool. One thing that hampers this arc to me is IDW's world building sucks. When a place gets attacked there's idrc because it's A. Just some random place made up. or B. Is a place in Sonic Forces. The game with no hub worlds or locations from previous games besides Green Hill and Chemical Plant. There's the weird detail in Forces that the world is just one land mass instead of multiple continents which was shown as far back as Shadow the Hedgehog. That leads to another problem. This arc is just way too early imo. We haven't properly established any locations and a lot of the other prominent IDW characters in future arcs haven't been established yet. This arc was originally planed for Archie Sonic which might've been more fitting considering the fact that by the end of the Archie comics it had ran almost as long as the main franchise had. Though maybe not with Archie going through a reboot in a new universe for a bit before it's cancellation. idk haven't read much of preboot or reboot. Happy you made it to almost 700 subs btw seeing you do so well has me inspired to start pushing more with my channel since I'm also small. Again Good video 👍.
You definitely will look at every story you've ever seen differently when you learn how everything works, glad to hear I can present you some new ideas and things to think about! I don't really know how I feel about the traditional Earth map, vs the giant land-mass map. Even when Sonic has shown its world, the specifics take many liberties as to what is around there, and what everything looks like. I doubt there will ever be a coherent mapping of the actual world of Sonic, however, IDW could be the closest we could have to that I suppose. ============================================================================================= Three times reading through the Metal Virus and it's still okay? That's pretty charitable. I agree with you saying that it's way too early for a saga like this to take place. I think that it could have worked if they devloped the world more through this saga. I don't know enough about Archie to judge, but for IDW they would have benefitted from expanding the world and definitevely defining character relationships before tackling something like this. You're also correct that the cast is pretty small at the moment for an event like this, we're still introducing the characters from the actual games at this point, so we haven't quite established enough to throw a world ending saga. They essentially had to rely on shock-value and pulling heartstrings to keep reader attention, rather than much of the established drama around each character. Fandoms tend to fall easy prey to shock value, and emotional moments for the fact that they are shocking or that a scene is meant to be emotional--but I don't care about scenes like this if they have zero backing or set up toward them. If somebody just presents me a short comic where I don't know a single character/it's a traumatic scene out of context, I geniunly will not care, but most people who read these things will get immediately emotional about them. As a writer, I need the set up, I need the story, and I need to care about the character before I can feel any sort of geniune emotional attachment to the scene. ============================================================================================= Also thanks! I appreciate it, I'm planning to work harder to achieve that 1000 sub milestone. As a side note for you, keep working at TH-cam and improving any aspect that you notice you're lacking in. The majority of the time nobody will tell you where you're lacking until you start getting big. It helps to recognize what you can improve for yourself, before you rely on outsourcing to other people telling you what needs to change. One major reason that the vast majority of channels do not go anywhere is because their content isn't up to the standard of the sub-count they want to achieve. So work on overcoming atleast two new challenges in every video to gain high-quality content, such as editing, script-writing, thumbnails, or video titles. Once you feel like you're doing the best you can do at one aspect, move on to the next and keep at those until that new thing is operating as best as you can get it. Work on vocal delivery most importantly, vocal delivery is 75-80% of content, people like somebody who speaks clearly and doesn't mumble or mess up their speech, extra points if it all sounds natural, and not like you're reading off a script. There are many people that enjoy somebody that they can just play in the background while they do something, without the fear of having to rewind the video if they mishear them.
@@kotytang Hey Koty, first thanks for the advice on the comment, second I wanted to know your thoughts on a concept for the Metal Sonic saga. What if instead Omega was the one in issue 5 and 6 gunning for Dr. Tinker. The reason I find this interesting because Omega's character is heavily tied to killing Eggman and his machines so I think putting him in a situation where he'll kill someone who's (seemingly) innocent. Shadow also has ties to Eggman via Gerald Robotnick but they don't really explore that outside of SA2 and the semi hero dark ending of ShTH. I also think it'd be more interesting to see Sonic V Omega than Sonic V Shadow for the 60th time.
Although I agree with majority of your Arguments, the reason they aren't as explained are because the IDW Sonic Comics ALSO have Proper Miniseries where it's 1 Minor Comic or a Side Saga to go further in-depth with more of the Characters. There was the Tangle & Whisper Miniseries, the Bad Guys Miniseries, and even the Imposter Syndrome Miniseries (to explain quite a few of the Bigger Ones). There was also one for the Metal Virus Saga, although it was divided into 1-Comic Standalones for each scenario (such as how Vector & Espio FOUND CHARMY).
If I can summarise this Saga in a way... "Where's Tang0l?" "Infected." ... *TANNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNGGLLLLLLLLEEEEEE!!!!!* I find it kind of strange why you have such a gripe against that scene. I find it a touching, if a bit humorously OTT. Like, God Damn, how much visceralness, rawness and fire that panel portrays, it's unlike anything seen in Sanic in a long time. It's, and I hate this word, "cheesy" in the best possible way. Your arguments for why Whisper should not react like that are a bit flimsy, in your issue review you stated that she didn't react like this to her original friends' deaths, she was in shock and in hiding as it was occuring, so she did not have space to have a reaction. Plus, it was the first time, so there was no existing trauma. And about Cream... I don't know. She's a child, so throwing a fit would be kind of an expected reaction. Just wouldn't hit the same as a grown adult re-living her traumatic past. Plus, Adrenalin Dub's voice acting really sells it.
I expected to get hate over my take on the scene, lol Whisper's character from what I understand was supposed to be a war-hardened mercenary. The extreme display of emotion feels out of character for Whisper specifically, as she has never displayed this level of emotion toward anybody, not even enough to display pure conviction in killing Mimic, both times she was able to, all of that raw unfiltered emotion just goes away when she can finally get what she wants? The trauma, PTSD, etc. is all fine. As for Whisper not showing that much emotion toward her own friend's death, this would be an after-the-fact thing, the comic didn't show us any of that raw emotion from her after, for a team that we have no idea how much of a connection she even had to them, they were friends because they were in a mercenary group, that's as far as we know. The scene of Whisper shouting itself is great, the art is great, and it would be an incredible moment for Whisper, we just don't even know her character. IS it her first time experiencing trauma? Why did she decide to become a mercenary that ONLY takes on the HARDEST jobs? Why is she so good at sniping? What's her relationship with the Diamond Cutters? Are they the first team she's been with? Why did she WANT to become a mercenary? We know next to nothing about her character, what she's been through, or her past. HAS she ever even experienced hard-ship, did every single person she ever knew die around her before joining the Diamond Cutters, and that's the real reason she freaked out like that when losing Tangle? I know nothing about this character, so the scene is not set up properly. It's an attempt to pull at the heart-strings of the reader, did nothing for me. I have never watched the Adrenaline Dubs, so I'll take your word for it. Did you feel sadder seeing Cream display no emotion at all, or do you think the scene would have been better if we were given a scene of Cream freaking out like that toward her mother?
@@kotytang Aha, ok, this is how I see it and, considering the admitedly lack of information given (fair enough, they only have so much comic space to fill out with the story), some of it will be a bit speculative on my part. Whisper was a scout in their team, she was trained specifically for long distance reconissance where she spent much time away from direct danger, unlike her compadres. We have to take into account that the DC crew have had their specific ages posted (going off of the wiki - it might be a word of God thing, I'm going to treat it as rough age life stages) - Whisper is stated to be 16, so, in her younger adolescent years. Mimic is the oldest by far, 32. I forgot the other's ages but it's irrelevant. It seems that she's had some battle experience, enough to be made competent and spent enough time with the DC to form some level of friendly bond - fire forged friends you could say. She is shown in flashbacks to have been bright, cheerful and optimistic about pursuing their set cause. Mimic betraying her group was her first _actual_ hardship. It turned what she believed in upside down and made her distrustful of others and afraid to let friendly people into her personal zone, lest she lose another amigo. This is where the focal point of the drama lies - Whisper had just confided her deepest fear to Tangle (I can't lose another friend!) and opened up to her about her past. Tangle accepted her and vowed to support her through her hardship. It was Tangle who talked her out of coldly icing De Octoman. Tangle now matters a lot to Whisper, a lot is on the line. She is the first friend she's had since the incident. And BAM, it's taken away from her. Simple, but effective, it does tug the heartstrings. I have to set one thing straight, and that is that I don't care that much for Cream. As I said before, she's written as just a child, so her reactions will be child-like. Not really much depth outside of "noooo, my mom!". I felt more for Espio, crumbling to his knees and shedding a tear as his other partner and best friend sacrifices himself and is now lost to the horde. The addition of "Espio, you're lead detective now" works because it higlights the dynamic of the group. Vector was the man with the plan, the driving force of the trio. See, little bit extra depth there.
@@TheSultan1470 Very nice assessment of Whisper’s character, majority of that makes sense and definitely tracks. (Ian has gone on his Bumblekast saying Whisper/Tangle are around the age of Sonic and his friends generic age [15-18] so she isn’t directly 16, and Ian also said that Mimic was SUPPOSED to be older, but Sega said no to this, so he is also supposed to be around that age.) My core problem with Whisper’s character; is the fact that she isn’t just a regular mercenary the Diamond Cutters were THE mercenaries they took on the most daring, treacherous, and self-delete-grade missions during the war with Eggman. You don’t just become top of the food chain by… just being on top, you need a ton of experience to be a top of the line mercenary… If Whisper’s backstory was going to be that shallow in relation to her job description, then they should have just made her a mercenary performing her first few jobs where she became close friends with the group, and everything went horribly wrong and it f***ed her for life. I would be able to track her character much better that way. Her backstory is extremely contradictory, and that’s why I have such a problem with it. If what you’re saying is entirely true, then she is not war hardened at all, and for some reason her only official job as a mercenary was her performing the most death-defying missions of all time. Even as a scout, and sniper, she would be behind enemy lines, she would have to create her own vantage point in a high-stakes mission, so direct confrontation would be nearly expected, so she would need to have hand-to-hand training and close combat experience as well, otherwise she would die trying to find the best sniping position especially during her scouting missions. Unless she was so unbelievably lucky to never encounter a single patrol ever in her entire career. Her backstory just doesn’t track. To be facetious, it is entirely possible that Eggman is just SO ASS, that a top tier mission to the diamond cutters has never involved a single close call, never been difficult, and Eggman was so incompetent that he was simply no match for a regular mercenary group of 5, who just happen to be brave enough to walk up to his base, and he just didn’t ever expect it.
@@kotytang First of all, umm... SEGA ordered Mimic to be aged down? Euuuuhhhh... was it not the other way round? Mimic was supposed to be main character aged until SEGA ordered him to be aged up. His trading card states, directly, he is 32 years of age. UNLESS, the trading cards are some irrelevant franchise paraphenelia. If he is MC aged, this would rather dissapoint me, as I was going to further elaborate the relation between these two. That being, it is not Whisper who is battle hardened, instead *Mimic* is the one with that kind of experience. He has that nature and vibe of "man who has seen s**t". Befiting of a man, a gun for hire, entering his 30s. He has the foresight to prioritise personal survival at all costs. Not very sociable, perhaps, but to him this is nature, reality. He frequently pokes and jabs at Whisper for being innocent and naive. Again, makes sense if the age difference is so extreme. Mimic freely totes a knife and gun around and uses all sorts of tricks to close in for a backstab kill. He's a ruthless ice cold killa. He's done so time and time again. Whisper isn't, Tangle's words imply she hasn't even taken another organic life, he would be her first one. Do keep in mind, Whispers operations have been strictly Eggman bases, devoid of life (yeah, ok, it's a way to get around showing killin'. It's a comic for 4 year olds, not Manhunt. Manhunt style game starring Mimic? All right, that'd be cool) You've definitely got some info mixed up, Octoman is certanly not her age.
@@TheSultan1470 You’re absolutely right, I misremembered it as being the other way around. Mimic was aged up by Sega due to his appearance looking too old, Ian originally planned on him being a “teenager”. Your description of Mimic doesn’t address my issues with Whisper’s backstory, but I wouldn’t doubt that Mimic has been a mercenary for a long time, his description makes sense, Whispers doesn’t. Again, if Whisper were just a regular mercenary, I would be able to believe her first-time-trauma. She’s not supposed to be just any old mercenary though. Also, of course, actual killing isn’t really something in Whisper’s history, but these Eggman bases also aren’t anything to laugh off either. Sonic makes it all seem easy, when other characters that aren’t like Shadow or Blaze participate in these battles they don’t really have the grand sweeping “kills” that Sonic gets. Although I do have to stop you on the part where you say the comic is for 4 year olds? I’mma need you to explain why you think that is, given much of the subject matter inside this comic.
This just popped up in my recommended so I'm a bit late to this. But yeah, the IDW Sonic comics definitely have their flaws. I still enjoyed the Metal Virus arc along with the Neo Metal arc in the beginning but they definitely could've done more for these stories. And it doesn't help that the arcs right after felt like a bunch of misadventures. Only the Chao Races and Surge arcs are standouts and even they have flaws of their own. The problem is that IDW Sonic is too safe and doesn't really expand on its world and characters like Archie did. Hell, they barely even focus on the rest of the game characters and instead always give spotlight to Sonic, Tails, Amy, Tangle, and Whisper, the latter two whom I am SICK of seeing. I know Archie kind of did the same thing with the Freedom Fighters always being the main focus but at least the Sonic Universe stories were there to let the other characters shine while also expanding upon the world of Archie Sonic. I still enjoy IDW Sonic for the most part so I'm personally always gonna tune in but I don't blame those who don't like them. Hopefully, things might be looking up from now as the current arc has Sonic, Tails, and Amy feel the closest to their 2000s characterizations and the Babylon Rogues are there as well. Maybe they might even start writing Shadow correctly as he was ok in his recent appearance in these comics as well. Sorry for the long rant but good video.
You're just in time tbh, I've only just finished the Metal Virus Saga! I'm extremely late to the IDW party, and this is my first time through, but I'm catching up, so no spoilers! My channel is basically a timewarp to when IDW was first being released right now. Unfortunately I don't know enough about Archie to give any proper judgements on who did what better---but It is true that the IDW team are struggling to give much narrative weight to many of the events going on and characters inside the stories. I'm not sure what Tangle and Whisper do in the future just yet, but so far--they're basically nonexistent, so the only problem I have with them is that they AREN'T used in the stories.. If they're gettting more attention in the future I'd actualy LIKE that because they serve no purpose currently. I'm willing to give IDW more chances before I completely say this Comic as a whole is bad, but for me they have two strikes, both the first and second saga were really, really bad.
@@kotytang I disagree on the first two arcs being outright bad but I understand why you think so. However, I do recommend checking out the Archie comics, specifically from issue 160 when Ian Flynn took over since everything before that is....quite the fever dream I'll just say. And if you do pick up the Archie comics, I highly recommend the Sonic Universe stories as they pretty much run parallel to the main series and show what the other characters are up to.
@@SonicSwift99 Oh don’t worry, I’ve been recommended the Archie comics over the IDW comics many times. If I ever end up covering the Archie Comics I will be starting from Issue 1, I don’t want to just hop right in. As somebody who enjoys the writing process, I have to start at the beginning to I’ll feel like I’m missing so much. ======== It’s an interesting topic many people give out different responses; what do you think would constitute a story being bad? And What do you think makes a story good?
@@kotytang i dont think having plotholes make a story bad, naturally a story should be tightly written as having too many plot holes or a too big plot hole can ruin the immersion, but stories are more than the litteral things that happen and how they tie together. Think of it this way, which would you rather read? A school textbook which covers World War 2 or the diary of a holocaust survivor? Probably the diary, why? Because you aren't just reading about some events that happened followed by some numbers that don't really mean anything to you, instead you're reading about someone's personal experiences during an atrocity and how it affected them. Stories are about the characters and how they deal with the problems at hand and how those experiences affect them. Thats why I say that character writing is the most important skill for a storyteller to have. Thats why i can say that Sonic Adventure 2 is a genuinely great story despite all of the plot holes and contrivances because it has some genuinely great character writing especially in regards to Sonic and Shadow. I also think that hyperfocusing on plotholes and contrivances can cause you to miss out on the really good character stuff going on. Ive seen this many times.
@@franklycentral48 What you said is only partially true. Hopefully you don’t find any of this offensive, I’m really just trying to show you the importance to the parts you’re missing; This is a clear case of the Dunning Krueger Effect. You’ve heard enough about writing to understand that character is important, but you don’t seem to understand why every other aspect of writing is just as important, and because of that, you’re giving a major focus on the importance of character. No amount of love you have for a character is going to save you from a plot that is mind-numbingly boring, or irritating to follow along with. It may get you through the story, but it won’t enhance the story-if anything it will show the glaring issues. ------- You’re correct that the majority of good stories rely on the characters, and how they act. The problem is that a good writer knows that you have to fuse both characrer and story together in order to tell a compelling tale. If you go to any acclaimed writer ever, or while being taught in school about writing, they will always tell you something along these lines; Character happens in the moments of the story. Or Plot does not happen without the characters, and character development doesn’t happen without a plot. -------- If you add scenes of just pure character you have what’s referred to as “filler” or completely pointless scenes/chapters. Next to every single editor ever will tell you that you have to remove that entire chapter or scene; because it doesn’t progress the story. If you can’t make character moments happen within the confines of your story, and you HAVE to go out of your way to make it happen, it makes for bad storytelling, and completely destroys your pacing. The way anime uses filler tends to be some of the most egregious versions of filler you’ll ever see. 99% of anime filler leads to nothing and won’t even be referenced again. ========================================================================================================================================================== If a story was purely about character, you could just make a completely random scene in your story where Sonic runs from one end of the world to the other that takes up 40 pages, and all he does is talk about how he feels about the water and grass under his feet as he runs. If all that mattered was character, then that would be considered a compelling and great chapter in your book. But nobody would enjoy that, this is just not how writing works, a character’s thoughts are not all you need, you need the context of those thoughts, and then a specific goal that lines up with your plot. This is why I heavily criticize the scene where Whisper freaks out about Tangle’s infection. There is NOTHING for the audience to actually pull from in regard to the main plot, you have to search for supplementary material to even get an ounce of why Whisper acted that way. As is; the scene happens without context, and even when you finally do witness Whisper’s history, her backstory directly contradicts the logical conclusion that would be imposed on Whisper’s established character. In SA2 every single event works toward the plot, you won’t find a single scene that doesn’t directly progress the plot of that game. There are also no moments in the story that removes the context required to understand a scene. Even your diary example has a plot to it, the character is guiding you through a sequence of events filled with drama, and giving their thoughts and feelings on the plot, they’re not just telling you about the time they went to the store and found some meat they had been looking for and it made them happy. There’s nothing compelling about that. -------- Comedies are especially good at exposing the structure of storytelling. We could do a story where the person’s hometown stopped selling a certain meat-lovers meal that he absolutely adored, and in the story he finds that thing of meat by going to the store out of town, but before they officially get the meat, they would have to deal with something wild; and that’s where we create our characters and our plot. Let’s say that the protagonist is a LOVER of meat, he is out of town at his girlfriends house… but in order impress his girlfriends mother, who has raised her family to all be aggressive vegans, and animal rights activities, the protagonist pretends that he doesn’t really eat meat either. The protagonist then comes across his favorite meal of meat at his girlfriend’s local store, and now he has to find several ways to purchase the meat-lover meal, bring it back, and cook it, without disgracing his girlfriend’s entire family. You build both character and plot together, always. You’ll see this in every critically acclaimed piece of writing; Twilight, Game of Thrones, Hunger Games, To Kill a Mockingbird, Lord of the Rings, Peaky Blinders, The Last of Us, Red Dead Redemption 2, God of war (PS4); character development always happens in relation to the plot. ------ A story is never just, “Here’s Tommy Shelby, he’s a mobster and acts cool, and he’s gonna go shoot some guys because he’s a gangster.” It’s going to generally always be a how and a what question; “How is Tommy Shelby going to do deal with an entire rival gang moving in to his gang’s territory trying to kill everybody around him? What will the deaths and possible deaths of his loved ones do to Tommy as a person?” It is all about Tommy, but the plot and events are written in a believable way to create a reaction from the protagonist that can be relatable and understandable for the audience. That way Tommy’s reactions to these events can satisfyingly influence the plot. The events don’t just happen for no reason to cause character development, they all have build up and result in a consequence; The plot is what forces that character development. In every story your plot must always be progressing, with every word said, and action performed by an actor. You can’t purely rely on character to push your plot, you need the plot for the character to react to. ========================================================================================================================================================== Your other topic was contrivances and plotholes, and why they don’t matter. The way you talk about them is also not true, and a misunderstanding of storytelling; Yes, every single story ever is built off contrivances, this is how drama is crafted. For the majority of stories, you don’t want your contrivances to be obvious though. You want these moments to make sense in the universe you have crafted, and have a proper set up that also makes sense; a writer who just doesn’t really care to create a believable world and sequence of events is a lazy, or even a terrible writer. This is the major reason why virtually nobody likes the ending of Game of Thrones, or anything new that Star Wars and Marvel puts out. Most of the events in them have massive character moments, but none of it makes any logical sense, so everybody hates them. Contrivances and plot holes can and WILL 100% destroy your story if left unaddressed. Especially if the frequency and severity of the two are high enough. You can’t just write whatever you want and say “but interesting character development” it also has to actually make sense. ------------ Let’s use a more detailed example of Game of Thrones. George RR Martin created a character dubbed; The King in the North. George created an extremely likable, intelligent, and compelling character, but he had a problem…. “The King in the North does nothing but take W’s, he’s way too smart. I need him dead, otherwise my book will end early, and none of the antagonist will get anywhere…. I can’t just kill this character out of nowhere, everybody would be PISSED. I need to write some plot developments and have them fall in place to justify this death, and the scene that his death will happen in.” Enter the Red Wedding… George needed the Red Wedding to happen to get the plot going how he wanted it to, but it wouldn’t be compelling if he just wrote the Red Wedding. George needed to build these characters and the events first, in order to get them to the point that everybody cared about the cast, and what’s happening in the world around them. Sure he could have just written the Red Wedding, and be done with it. But the most important thing-it’s memorable, and left a massive impact for the plot and the characters going forward; The Red Wedding was entirely the fault of The King in the North, due to his decisions in the plot that was unfolding around him. You witness every single thing that the King in the North did wrong, and you understand the politics of the world that led him to making that one massive mistake, that cost his life. That’s called set up, and pay off. It requires both character and plot.
These are always the best comments because they literally give nothing of value to the video; It’s a sweeping statement “my video is ultimately wrong.” Name one single thing that I’m wrong about and try to explain why then. I am tackling plot holes, characters, glaring issues, inconsistencies, story decisions, and story uses. There are over 100 things you could highlight, yet every single person who types a comment like this fails to even name just one solid thing that they can properly dispute. Feel free to also try and show what an actual criticism would be, instead of a nitpick.
Ian describes the status quo as that, as well as saying that he can’t make these characters develop beyond who they are in the games. The thing I am showing is that many of the characters don’t even act like how they should to begin with, so the question is; what exactly would they be developing from
I just have to say this... Are Sonic fans _still_ going on about Shadoe's character and his supposed "mischaracterization" and "poor writing"? I find it a bit obnoxious as the examples presented as "proper Shadoe" now date back like TWO decades. He's been "wrong" longer than he's been "right". I think we should take into account that Shadoe's arc technically concludes in SA2. That is his origin game, it was supposed to be the last Sanic game and it LITERALLY kills him off in the same. His story was wrapped up in a pretty bow and concluded, end of. Then they brought him back for Heroes. Already, anything they do with a dead character is derailment. Shadow had to be tweaked and altered to now casually be alive again. The way I understand Shadow's mandate is, as you've explained yourself in the video, to keep a consistent handle on a character who is now a recurring one and a brand symbol. It's not inherently wrong, it's reasonable, as they've already screwed with him when they brought him back. Yes, he's an Anti-Hero. Yes, he's a loner. Yes, he's stand offish. And arrogant. All these traits are like saying Sonic is a free spirit. Tails is genius. Amy is loving. Vector likes earning $$$. Espio is stoic. Because these characters are now brand icons and will be recurring elements of Sanic, they must have base line traits. If Shadoe suddenly went and made friends, it's not very "Shadow", is it? Development be damned.
Wow, people are upset that one of the most popular characters isn't being written to the heights of what we've previously had? How entitled to simply want back what we had. Christ.
I’d personally like them to stop with the branded identities and get back to writing and developing these characters. Stagnant franchises are so boring, and Sonic is one of the franchises with an enormous amount of potential. As for Shadow’s personality being different for over a decade; Just because a company locks in with an idea, doesn’t mean it’s a good idea, nor does it make the idea correct. That just means their vision sucks. Franchises have been killed off for doing even less, it’s only because it’s an IP as popular as Sonic that it’s gotten away with locking into so many faults and genuine slaps in the face to its core audience. The point of fan outcry is for the franchise to listen, it doesn’t matter how long something is wrong, if it’s wrong forever, it remains wrong forever. Even Sonic Team’s recent interviews don’t even match with how SEGA are writing Shadow, so it just becomes increasingly dumb.
Its really refreshing to see someone actually criticize the modern sonic media, instead of mindlessly praising it. Too much shilling and toxic positivity has formed as of late. Sure the stuff we are getting now is slightly better than the meta era. But its still not good. its mediocre. everything is bland and stale, people praise it like its the best thing ever when there could be more done for the storys and games. I am sick of "steps in the right direction" This is SEGA. Not an indie studio, They should understand how to make good sonic games, shows and comics.
We are in an era of mid and people praise it likes its the best thing since the 2000s just because its slightly better than what we got before. I think that is much worse than the meta era, because atleast in the meta era people would admit the things we got weren't the best and should be done better. The only reason people are so scared to even criticize anything is because sonic team has historical been so bad at taking criticize that they always have taken a 180 approach to anything they have done instead of refining what the criticize feature of the game. 06 doing so bad is probably what lead to sega mandating shadow to be the way he is along with other features. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't hold back criticism. If you do that then you are lying to yourself and you wont get anything better.
I have been noticing people start to feel similar to me. I've seen more videos criticizing idw popping up as of late. I think people might be starting to realize how stale the sonic franchise is right now. I do agree with you on sonic tubers. But it feels great to find some sonictubers who are actually gonna criticize the games and not blindly shill. this video got me hooked on the channel. I will check out your other videos.
I agree, Sega SHOULD know and DO know what it takes to make a good game, Sonic is not their only franchise. They are successful in many of the other games they’ve published.
For whatever reason they tote Sonic around as their mascot, but they treat him the worst out of all of his sister IPs, afraid to dare, afraid to innovate, and afraid to spend money a the games to make them genuinely just good and polished. Sonic is their mascot and they’re afraid to spend money on him???
It SEEMS that Sega is taking a vastly new approach to Sonic the last two years, so I’m really hoping this all ends up paying off and we can return to Sonic being a AAA game.
I want to get back to the deep stories, exciting gameplay, unique worlds, the lore, all of that. The next main-line Sonic game has to be MAJOR. I have high expectations for it, given the way Sonic Team are now operating.
Also thank you so much! I’m glad I had the opportunity to show you what I can bring to the SonicTuber community! I have a ton of takes that would be considered pretty spicy, but at any time everybody is free to challenge me on anything I say, and we can discuss! I always back up what I’m saying with examples and try to remain as factual as possible.
God forbids anyone have a different opinion... :/ look if you dislike what we are getting that's fine but don't insult others for liking stuff.
SOMEONE WHO FINALLY GETS IT AND UNDERSTANDS THE MANDATE DEBATE
We don’t know what the character mandates are so we don’t know what he’s working with but given my extensive knowledge of his interpretations of these characters and then seeing how Sega Of Japan writes Shadow over there. Flynn wants to write him the way he did in Archie where he was overly kind and he did everything in Maria’s name whereas Sega wants him to be written as he is in 06 and later games where he remained consistent over there through localization.
They clash hard so Ian’s trying to put his own quirks onto Shadow while trying to make him somewhat like he’s mandated to act.
Ian’s problem is that he wants to write these characters the way they were in Archie where he had complete control but they are nothing like their game counterparts which he has to write for.
I disagree on the bit that Sega wants him to be written like he was in 06. I do agree with you that Ian wants his Archie interpretation of Shadow to be present in the comics and the games, I personally cannot say whether Shadow is overly kind in those comics as I don’t have a solid memory for them anymore.
You said you have extensive knowledge and interpretations of these characters, so I’d be interested to hear your argument for how every Shadow after 06 is still the same.
@kotytang Archie wrote Shadow as more of a superhero with him actively joining an organization full time. A lot of the discourse over Shadow's portayals circa from Forces onward are down to how Archie's portayals of the characters and world still deeply impacted fanon with Shadow especially getting it (note the notion that Team Dark is a "found family" rather than comrades in arms).
Shadow joined GUN in 06, and his story in 06 was clearly about Team Dark coming together as a friend group.
Thank you. You have no idea how relieving it is to see someone put this comic to legitimate scrutiny for once. By issue 50, I realized that my love for this comic during its earlier issues was more of a honeymoon phase than anything, and it started to get on my nerves to see fans ragging on about SEGA's mandates specifically, as if the writers that ACTIVELY produce the comic could do no wrong... Keep doing what you're doing, looking forward to more!
Always honeymoons with you. When are you taking Sonic to bed?
For sure! I’ve never been impressed by the overall comic, but it definitely has its moments. Everything has mandates, the thing about a good writer; they actively work with the mandates to make the best story they can, not against them to try and bulldoze their own interpretation’s in. Appreciate it, much more Sonic to come!
Id rather an SA2 review, although that would probably grate my nerves.
@@franklycentral48 i will eventually review the stories of every Sonic game. And I’m sure that that will cause a massive amount of hate and praise toward my channel. The stories of Sonic are, for the most part, pretty lackluster. It’s also important to note that many of them can’t even link together at all.
@@kotytang Generally they're not supposed to. The Adventure games, heroes, and Shadow tell a somewhat continuous narrative but everything else is pretty much standalone. Granted the Adventure games, heroes, and Shadow are the only ones that matter but....
The metal virus seems to share more similarities with a symbiote, as it can also alter the DNA structure of a living organism, transforming them into a blob of goop and then reassembling themselves. I don't think the writers were thinking that far ahead when trying to implament the rules of how it functions into the plot
The writers need to do a better job explaining the plot of their… plot lmfao.
That's the writers fault, establishing the rules of how things work is an incredibly important part of any narrative, as it helps the audience to follow the action and become invested, when things just work however the writers want them to in a story, especially an action adventure story, it becomes hard to care about the action scenes which is bad for a comic that uses a lot of action scenes.
I like the Metal Virus Arc, really I do, I really like how Sonic confronts Eggman. But my main gripe is how it essentially takes place after Forces, the world is just recovering. Say what you will about Forces. But people died. DIED. Human, Mobian (or anthro, I don't know what Sonic's kin is refer to as), man, women, and child.
Whether it be by the sadistic screwed over villain Infinite or the robotic forces from the sadistic narcissistic callous Eggman himself (or should I say Eggman Forces, heh). People have died, it was shown on screen, mentioned by Amy in the Avatar level in Metropolis. PEOPLE DIED!! But here comes Eggman quite literally the next day with a mechanized bioweapon.
Basically what I'm trying to say is, I don't like how Ian made everyone's efforts in Sonic Forces almost meaningless. I just don't.
If you like the saga that's fine, I don't find it very compelling for a large variety of reasons I listed.
It's not the first time that a world ending event would have resulted in the lives of hundreds, if not thousands of civilians. Eggman has definitely killed people, if not directly so, then indirectly. Forces isn't really the only contender for this.
@@kotytang But it leaves a sour taste in my mouth on how so many people's efforts in Forces were essentially meaningless. The game made it seem like Eggman would be defeated for good or at least defeated for a good while. That's what irks me. Speaking of thousands of people dead. He sure has essentially gotten away with it...and it's all just BRUSHED aside.
@@kotytang "Eggman has definitely killed people, if not directly so, then indirectly. Forces isn't really the only contender for this."
That's the problem, he's essentially gotten away with all these atrocities! But no, thousands of deaths and attempted genocide is all brushed aside. What the- does no one but me and a few see a problem here?!
What's with the constant attempts to make the Deadly Six an actual threat? They were barely a threat in their debut game and ended up getting punked out by Eggman at the end, but for some reason, Sega (and by extension here, IDW) keep bringing them back as though they're important villains when they're forgettable as anything.
The hard boiled heavies only showed up for one game, had zero dialogue yet they not only have more character than the deadly six ever did, they are loved. They deserve to return. Not these boring generic characters
Why not? They're pretty cool in IDW, especially Zavok
Ian thinks they have lost potential. To me they never had potential but I was kind of liking them in this arc. They dropped the ball in the Zeti hunt arc though.
I don’t really think the Deadly Six has been pushed as a major threat at all? They’re in some spin-off material, Zavok has appeared in Forces as a throw back villain for a quick moment, and so far I can confirm they’ll be in two Sagas for IDW.
I’m pretty sure they have never been shown to be a major threat consistently?
@@kotytang You could argue they're a higher level threat in this arc already, and Zavok himself later on in IDW, you'll see when you get there.
I fell like the reason why people mindlessly praise the idw comics is because people are tired of the stories of sonic games having NO meaning having NO stakes and those people are just finally getting a story thats not fucking sonic forces or lost world the idw comics have issues but the reason why some people ignore that is because the bar for a good sonic story at the time of these coming out was SO low but i just hope more people start addressing these issues.
That’s all an entirely fair argument and I wouldn’t fault people for being happy about the stories because of that.
However, Nobody should be afraid to criticize something just because it’s a new thing, if it’s done bad then it’s done bad; The company themselves should do better, instead of folding under pressure.
Sega is DISGUSTINGLY lucky that Sonic is so popular in the west, and they really need to stop taking that for granted just because it isn’t the Japanese audience. Just make a fun game and Japan will like it too, Frontiers proved that to them. So I hope that was an eye opener.
While the stories of Sonic Unleashed-Sonic Frontiers lacked the scale and impact of the SA duology (and JUST that duology, out of the countless Sonic releases) one could argue that the simple plot format is closer to the origin of the series and that there is nothing inherently wrong with that. If the fanbase part of the Sonic audience were waiting for stories like this, perhaps they were barking up the wrong tree, waiting for a direction that has long been abandoned by the franchise runners. This goes all the way back to Sonic Heroes, where there were already intentions to "return Sonic to his roots" and it had a very basic comedy oriented plot not unlike the present day releases.
@@kotytang SEGA does have a slew of other internationally popular mature-rated franchises so they likely keep Sonic around as just a heritage brand, like Pac Man. It just so happens that Sonic garnered a cult following in the west/US, the market he was intended for.
@@TheSultan1470 It isn't even a just so happened kind of thing. It was the full intention of the brand.
Given the recent interviews, and the way they're canonizing everything, and even Froniter's story, and bringing on IDW writers, I think we can safely count on Sega trying to return to the major stories people have been wanting.
Put Sonic back as Mario's rival, and he'll be one of the top figures of the industry again.
@@kotytang Hm, we'll see. Although being Mario's rival wouldn't be logical, as Mario is not targeting massive stories and lore. If Sonic pursues that goal, then his competitors lie elsrwhere, if he even has any, as the "mascot platformer" genre has pretty much dried up.
What Sonic game is that on the video? Looks really cool
It's called Rivals of Aether, it's on steam.
There's a free workshop section you can select and download a bunch of Sonic mods for it. They'll just automatically be added to your game through steam so no hassle or messing with the files. Very fun game
KotyTang I still have the emeralds for our villain group
Oh damn! It's still on!
We just have to wait for the right moment to strike 🐒
Great video,really well made.
Btw what game are you playing in the background
He’s using Sonic, Dragon Ball, and Mario mods in Rivals of Aether
@@spinballproduction9678thanks
Glad you liked the video!
Yup, Spinball is correct, its Rivals of Aether. The game goes on sale all the time, and the modding community is decently active and there’s going to be a second one.
Oh shit, the goat is back!
35:13 you’re not entirely wrong, but Sega wants a game accurate shadow and shadow was never ruined in the games. She’s been the same throughout the entire series adventure two heroes shadow the hedgehog that’s where his amnesia ark ended because he regained all his memories and decided to move on move as not being shackled to his past, he still cares about Maria. A lot of people just misinterpret that and then 06 and continuation forces really good written shadow and Sega that game accurate something shiro maekawa and izuka (sorry if I got that name wrong) the two creators of shadow the hedgehogs (not the game, but the character) would write him but Flynn wants to write his shadow, which his shadow is the Archie comic shadow Archie comic shadow is a bitch boy who is very soft and not anywhere near game shadow so Flynn just tries to sneak that shadow under his nose, making him do very stupid things that he gets the shadow and gives him notes and he just tries to write his shadow while simultaneously doing the correct shadow until Sega like fine. Just do this one. You could see this at the end of the metal virus saga where should says I am the ultimate life form. I have to do better than that which is a common thing shadow does in the Archie. He beats himself up for failing and says he’s the ultimate life form. I shouldn’t fail that is not game shadow but that’s what he’s trying to tell, which Sega wants game accurate shadow but Ian Flynn is too stubborn and wants to write his shadow that he thinks is correct. It just pisses me off to research the game version and not right his version of the character. Just bring back. Shiro maekawa izuka never left and Shiro wants to be back. Izuka and Shiro know how to write the character, but Shiro isn’t there to write him even though he wants to come back
So even if sega didn’t tell Flynn how they want shadows personality then Ian Flynn, would just write Archie shadow which is nowhere near accurate shadow. It’s just a bitch boy which isn’t game accurate shadow while Ian wants Archie accurate shadow because he thinks Archie shadow is the correct one God it’s so annoying how Flynn does this
I disagree with that take on Shadow--him always acting the way he does after 2009. The OG Shadow WAS stand-offish, but he wasn't a complete dickhead about it, nor did he directly treat everybody with a ridiculous degree of disrespect right to them, to the point that you couldn't even take him seriously. Shadow was neutral to everybody in person, except for Sonic who he swapped between respecting and disrespecting in a competitive rival-sort of way. When he had Amnesia he essentially reverted back to his SA2 persona, however after his own game and into Sonic 06, regaining his memories returned him to his more relaxed persona that we assumed he would continue with until after Sonic Free Riders happened.
I'm aware that Shadow still cares about Maria, he just isn't hyper-focused on her as he used to be, but he's still carrying on her legacy through his own convictions, and by proxy what she believed in as well.
I don't have enough information about Ian's archie days, so I can only accept your take for it. I've heard that many people actually enjoyed Shadow in archie as well, though.
I don't think that Shadow thinking over specifically Sonic's direction is a bad thing, Sonic is probably the only person Shadow would ever take the advice of as far as I can tell, as he recognizes Sonic's strength specifically. Shadow obviously would not have made the mistake he does in issue 19 in general. Can you point to some times where in the end, Shadow absolutely refused to ackowedge his own short-comings, or flaws in his line of thinking and that led to his downfall?
I wasn’t trying to say how shadow was acting because yes in the more modern self shadow is a bit of a dickhead which usually he is not that is like one flaw aside from that he is written pretty well everything about shadow was just on point but Ian Flynn doesn’t know how to write game shadow you knows how to write Archie shadow so when he tries to write game shadow because that’s what sega wants it goes horribly
Also, your takes on game shadow are like spot on. I’m just gonna say that right now. Yes he still cares about Maria. He’s just not hyperfocus. He’s not shackled to the past and he does not go around just disrespecting people being a dickhead. He’s neutral and he’s respectful along with that he is also very polite, not a bitchboy like he is an Archie He is standoffish and he’s very polite, but he’s brutally honest. He’s very honest and we’ll just say it to your face and when he set on a decision, he’s gonna pursue that decision and get in his way he will pursue it aggressively. The only time shadow just became out of character and IDW was when he met up with sonic when the virus started would just say let’s just get this fucking over with. Tell me what I need to know. Sonic will him and then shadow will pursue also being immune to all diseases. That’s Just ignored here but yes, you were very spot on the shadow. You didn’t even get stuff wrong which most people always do whatever you keep it real and actually discuss thank you for being one of the few people that are not a dickhead (you know shadow that I’m a just say right now there was a point in the story where he tried to make metal sonic a good person and then fails honestly, just search up Archie shadow and then go to images and you’ll see how he is so nice which is in character, but the way Ian makes it nice. Makes him look like a bitch. Boy shadow is nice in the way that he is very polite and honest first thing he said to the lizard and sonic shadow generations you tortured soul I’ll put you out of your misery and release you from your chains which shadow feels bad for the creature and it’s going to kill him because that’s what’s best for him being polite about it
@ezbeezee815 You're overall spot-on. Flynn even complained on his podcast on how the rules to write Shadow don't really fit how he'd write the character:
>Overall, Flynn doesn’t seem to have a good grasp on Shadow’s character: he openly admitted his frustration at the fact that he was asked to tone down Shadow’s dialogue in #6, and voiced his disbelief that “he’s not a conversationalist, he doesn’t debate, he doesn’t speak his mind, he doesn’t tell people his opinions, he just does”. While Flynn was being sarcastically hyperbolic, Shadow in the games really does keep most of his feelings to himself; some of his main traits are that he’s terse, hands-on, and relies on body language to express himself, as seen in Adventure 2, ‘06 and arguably Heroes. For comparison: Caleb Goellner’s portrayal of Shadow in the Team Sonic Racing one-shot comic is nothing like how Flynn and Stanley wrote him in IDW and more in-line with his game counterpart, proving that SEGA is not insisting on “Vegeta Shadow”.
It's in the FAQ talking about the problems with IDW and attempts to defend it. You can find links on reddit.
Hey Koty, I showed this video to my hemorrhoids, is that good exposure?
Yes, I hope it made them worse.
@@kotytang Oh, OH GOD NO
I actually liked the Metal Virus. The writers have the actual balls to scare its audience and make the stakes real
@@jamestolbert1856 I wouldn’t say something was good based on one merit, especially one that wasn’t even executed well.
@@kotytang tbf, it could’ve been written better but I’m so glad that the writers were willing to go for it
Sega removed the ages from the sonic characters,so technically Cream and Charmee aren’t kids anymore.
Ok, but look at Cream On The Rabit's drawings. Young kid.
@@TheSultan1470
Sega befuddles me
@@newdawnhorizon9879 It's nothing confusing. For the purpouses of characters staying of consistent ages, they removed any direct numerical age values. Cream is still a child.
Amy and tails are kids too yet the fandom treat them like grown adults lol
@@hanaheaven9058 Well, this is where the franchise's current plot situation takes it up the azz. Sure, Amee and Talés are intended to be younger kids/tweens, but they've supposedly had so much development and life experience that their characters should theoretically outgrow child status.
I really like this channel, its like if a sonictuber was actually honest
Thank you for saying that! I try to stay as factual as I possibly can in every one of my videos, and if I’m wrong about something anybody is free to try and change my mind, and I have had my mind changed before, that’s one of the major reasons I have such strong convictions in my words-I’ve debated about a lot of what I’m saying endlessly already.
My goal is to try and find the objective truth about things and create discussions.
I appreciate the comment, thanks again!
@@kotytang thanks for the good job man, I'm also kinda unpleased with the current direction of Sonic in the narrative apartment, so this channel Is like a breath of fresh air
The Metal Virus Saga is so popular because... does anyone still read IDW?
Only the people on twitter
@@newdawnhorizon9879Also, the Sonic Wiki admins, who are stuck in an ethernal position of updating Sonic information.
@@newdawnhorizon9879 who rarely pay and what I get just read scans so they aren't necessarily helping the failing company known as IDW
And people say shadow's game was "Edgy" yet they like this because.......? I can't tell you
Shadow in Sonic 06 is (in my opinion) the real Shadow The Hedgehog.
Agreed, he's the direction Shadow should have kept going in. Unfortunately, the 2010 era was a different beast for this franchise.
Tecnically (akkhhshually), SA2's Shadow is the only "real" Shadow. Think about it, he was conceptualized for that game alone, died in said game and the game also perfectly ties the bow on his character ark. Anything post Heroes has seen Shadow only return as a legacy character and thus malleable to be interpreted in any way. Sorry that we're beating this horse again, but 06 Shadow cannot be "real" "canon" Shadow. Not to mention 06 basically deletes itself from existence, so anything that happens there is in practice irrelevant.
@kotytang Shadow's characterization in the games has not notably changed post-06. IDW by large is not significantly OOC for Shadow. The reality here is that much of the complaining is just from how Shadow's actual characterization in game canon is not how he is in fanon (being "awkward", running soup kitchens, being in a found family with Team Dark, overall acting like a Steven Universe character crossed with someone like Benedict Cumberbatch's characters).
@@galten7361 Strongly disagree. Shadow has absolutely made a signiifcant change in his appearances after 06.
I also don't pull from Archie Shadow, I barely know anything about that version of the character, or even the archie series in general. So it's not a good argument against me.
@@galten7361 *l0l* Steven Universe and Bennedict Cumberpatch. Yeah, fanon has certanly had an impact on character perception, though I'd say IDW and the Tailst00b social media posts themselves are "Steven Universifying" the Sonic world and characters. If anyone is like Stooben, it's IDW Sonic. Guys probably go to church together, the church they founded.
While I somewhat agree that Flynn sometimes has a good ideas despite not being a competent writer, I can't say that he's that good at getting the lore? This is the guy who said that Team Dark aren't friends according to sega and then backpedaled on it, that money doesn't exist in Sonic's world (which is pretty insane statement,) only male hedgehogs can turn super - and that's just from the top of my head. And not mentioning how he deals with sega characters because yes, I absolutely do count characters' history and behaviour as lore, which Flynn absolutely does not respect when you know how he writes and talks about the game characters. I could give a loooot of examples even from up to the issue 32, but we'd be stuck here all day if I did.
(Also, while I get where you're coming from trying to judge the guy only based on the writing but his refusal to recieve criticism, insistence on getting paid for answering quetions, scapegoating others, shitting on the source material, making sega into this awful corporation that just doesn't want him to write his archie fanfic... Let's just say that at best it makes him extremely unprofessional.)
RE: Shadow in Forces - I actually assumed that Shadow was stuck in the Infinite's/Phantom Ruby's illusions the whole time until he (somehow) got out shortly before saving Sonic. That game is very much not clear about its story and was rushed.
I don’t think he’s good at getting the lore correct either. I just said that he actively researches it, unlike the majority of writers we have and, and do have. While watching his early Bumblekast, he was able to throw up a ton of current information and obscure information left and right. I even say that he flagrantly uses the lore, and has his own interpretations of everything I don’t agree with. Him not being a good writer also falls into all of the problems with how he uses, or refuses lore.
I’ll leave the personal criticism of Ian to you guys for now. Maybe I can address all of that in a separate video, after I’m caught up with the comics. I just wanted to focus on the writing and not touch too much on the Ian Flynn drama, since it would make this video much longer than necessary. The only drama that I directly addressed was how Ian pretends mandates work.
--
Shadow gets out of Infinites virtual reality right after getting pulled in. He couldn’t have been in there for too long, since Infinite was still right in front of Shadow. It doesn’t specify how long after Shadow saw infinite again that Sonic gets taken out, but it’s clear that it’s no longer on the same day.
Either way, for the rest of the six months, Shadow still acted mostly outside of the Resistance, until meeting up with Sonic, and he joins the crew then.
@@kotytang Can you give me an example of his knowledge? Just so I'd know what you mean.
In any case not sure if he should get a praise for researching the lore if he's not going to use it properly. He sounds like a cook that looks into the cooking book, who reads to add a pinch of salt in the meal and dumps sugar in instead. And if he were simply the overseer without being a writer himself, like you suggested, it could also possibly mean that he would convey it in a way that would still be skewed from his perspective.
@@rrrrrar Sure, just a few off the top of my head; he’s given various takes on Silver’s introduction for Sonic Rivals, he’s advocated for the use of Eggman Nega, he questioned the time travel usage of the Emeralds in Sonic 06, he’s directly judged the writing in Sonic Colors. The exact Bumblekast episodes that he talked about these things would take me a while to search for, but I suggest watching from the first and just running from there.
He should get praised for knowing the lore, and in the same instance, get judged for not using what he should know about it properly.
He could sway the story to be made to his liking, but the characterization, dialogue, etc could see an improvement, unless the entire writing room just bows to Ian and nothing they’ve ever written has ever been their own idea.
@kotytang my main issue with Ian's writing is that while he does know the lore, he doesn't seem to understand or respect the original stories that lore stems from for example Ian has repeatedly advocated for the idea of being able to use Chaos as a part of the Sonic cast based on his appearance in Sonic Battle where it was stated that he only appears in times of crisis. There are many things wrong with this, first reintroducing Chaos into the cannon completely undermines the ending of Sonic Adventure as the idea was that Super Sonic neutralized the hate inside Chaos and the reveal that the chao that the Echidna attacked were still alive (after over 4000 years of time but whatever) had calmed Chaos and brought him peace. And Tikal and Chaos rising up together into the sky. To me, this was obviously meant to imply that Chaos, with his anger finally subsided, was now able to pass on to the next world because Chaos' story was always a story of a spirit from the ancient past lashing out. Bringing him back completely undermines that story. And yeah Sonic Battle brought him back but this is the same game where neither Sonic nor any of his friends know what the Death Egg is, Knuckles apparently just watches the news on Angel Island somehow, and Amy is portrayed as a delusional fangirl who frequently misinterprets Sonics attempts to get away from her as him indirectly telling her she needs to prove herself as a mother. It should not be taken that seriously as a piece of cannon material. The stories of the mainline 3d games should always have precedence over the handheld titles that have been shown to misunderstand elements of the world and characters way more consistently than the mainline games.
@@franklycentral48 I don’t disagree with anything you’re saying.
My point in praising his knowledge is just that; I directly address how he doesn’t properly use this knowledge afterward. I’m assuming the Chaos returning thing was within his Archie continuity? If so then I don’t think anything you’re saying actually applies. I haven’t read through Archie, but I am aware that it makes major changes to its entire world, and doesn’t follow anything from the games 1:1, even when they covered some of the stories.
Oh don't worry.......it doesn't get better
Don’t say that, I have to believe it will lmfao
It Gets worse...
I’ve lowk been lacking on my comments type shi. W vid from the goat💯💯💯💯
But ur wrong it'zz SEGUH's falt
Funny you should be using Rivals of Aether footage here.
I used to be an open fan of Flynn's writing, but I was aware that there were some "naysayers" about it. A few years ago, however, I learned he was penning the tie-in comics for Rivals of Aether, the story in question being the one telling Clairen's origins, presumably something that would be like History of Trunks.
I bought the comics with my own money out of curiosity, and what I read had bit-by-bit the EXACT SAME ISSUES as IDW Sonic - empty characters, empty themes, and with the setting and conflict not being properly established. And I'm not quite alone in thinking that, either, as per this review by fandom VIP member Adam Carra (who actually did his own RoA comic later on, one which I've found to be a more enticing read): th-cam.com/video/0AU-nqAbH8k/w-d-xo.html
The "Tales of Aether" comic was what killed my view that "SEGA mandates" were the problem at play. After that, I mainly followed and praised IDW as an unconscious means of fitting into the community (and because I was afraid of agreeing with the Kenderoid crowd), but eventually all that just stopped mattering… and I stopped realizing that it was my fault.
Even as someone who's stopped following these comics out of fear for my mental state and precious grey matter, I'm honestly just waiting for them to crash and burn so that everyone can move on from them already. Like tearing off a band-aid. (No offense meant to the people who work on it - the actual adults among them, at least. Sure, Yardley's proud of his scat edits, Foundraine's been hostile to criticism and Fonesca's claimed dubbing is racist, but at least Daniel Barnes is a pretty humble guy.)
That is some extremel levels of irony, lmfao. I didn't even know Rivals of Aether had a comic, much less the fact that it was written by Ian Flynn, I just saw it on steam one day and thought it looked cool, so I bought it. I'll definitely check out Adam's video, I'm interested to see what the comic is about.
I'm not surpirsed to hear that Ian struggles to write when it comes to other stories, given his actual writing ability. It's really hard to blame a large corporataion, when the large corporation is an Indie Game Developer where the story is already not really in depth to begin with.
It would be nice if Ian would actually research and practice different aspects of writing. TBH, when it comes to comic-book writers, the last thing they care about is how to tell a proper story. Comic books just aren't usually the best medium to look to when it comes to storytelling, which is why I don't enjoy many of them. They tend to go off brand recognition and spectacle, before they go off story.
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I'm not familiar with Foundraine or Fonesca's escapades, so if you got some details to share, I'd be interested to hear them.
Sounds like IDW.
@@kotytang Yes. Extreme levels of irony. VERY extreme. Lost a number of friends in the crossfire, too, considering how cultish some IDW fans are in their hostility. Took me a while to get out of the mindset they imposed on me, even after I started having doubts. Spent a lot of time bitter and paranoid. Like them.
Though to clarify, I myself was curious about Rivals of Aether at the time and learned about Flynn's involvement by happenstance rather than through following him; he's also become the "narrative director" of the series last I've heard. He wrote the Dungeons of Aether spin-off, for one. Couldn't tell you if it had the same problems, haven't played or watched it, no desire to.
I'm not gonna discuss where Flynn is in terms of the greater American comic industry since I don't have ample information on why so many writers keep pulling this shit (my closest guess would be "the good and disciplined writers are the ones smart enough to NOT work at Marvel and DC" or something like that). As for Foundraine, I heard about her criticism issues secondhand so I won't be able to give you ample details right here, but Fonesca's escapade in particular - a tirade on how dubbing any media into another language is an "inherently xenophobic practice" - was such an embarrassment that even other IDW stans called bull on it:
x.com/PPDPPL_art/status/1585124427398008832#m
Generic comment for the algorithm.
I got the slightest feeling that Ian Flynn might know how to write a good shadow but he wanted shadow to be a zombot but would you look at shadows character that just wouldn’t happen also he’s immune to all diseases so he wouldn’t get affected even if he touched one so I guess is he made of go out of character on purpose so he would get affected everything everyone getting cured shadow gets worse because Evan Stanley also shadow saying I should’ve done better. I have the ultimate life form is the least in character for him. Maybe he was up on the ark with Maria when he was just barely made but present day noooo also, do you think the new shadow dark beginnings three episode anime prologue will be good. It is written by Ian Flynn but izuka there and he knows how to write shadow. Izuka literally helped make shadow
@@EzBeeZerK Dunno how much the Metal Virus counts as a common disease, but sure I can see it both ways. I have yet to see Ian succeed at writing for Shadow, so I doubt it.
I think the Prologue will be interesting. As far as I’ve understood Shadow has never directly met Emerl outside of Sonic Battle. I’m interested to see where it goes and gonna have to really dive into Sonic Battle’s lore for this.
Iizuka did help create Shadow, but I only trust Sega’s storytelling so far. Considering that they have hired terrible writers for over a decade, it means that they’re co-signing these writer’s ability to write for them. So we’ll see.
For most reasons you listed and just the simple fact that they brought in the Deadly Six, some of my absolute least favorite characters in all of media, on top of the ever increasingly annoying portrayal of both Sonic and Shadow, I just stopped reading IDW, it's just not worth the headache for me...
I really tried to enjoy it, but the Neo Metal arc felt rushed and like it got solved all of a sudden out of nowhere, and they did the exact same thing again with the Zombot arc, while also running into plenty of plotholes and further desecrating Shadow and Sonc's portrayal...
I tried coming back a few times only to see the exact same issues with characters like Shadow acting like a total jerk and getting his ass beat by Metal Sonic... It's just a really messy series that I'm just convinced I'll never fully like even if I genuinely find some of the ideas presented in there so compelling, the resolutions in storylines, the constant gag inducing references to song lyrics and such, and especially the character writing does nothing but make roll my eyes and want to do literally anything else...
The most recent arc with the Riders stuff seems so genuinely interesting, I even felt somewhat compelled to check out the chaos city arc where they fight a bunch of Shadow Androids but I just can't bring myself to start reading knowing I'll be disappointed, let alone get caught up with storylines featuring original characters I hardly care about only to get blasted with a little bit of mediocre fanservice somewhere in the end...
I'm working my way through the comic series, so if you can't stomach the series, I'm always here to force my way through the entire thing! it's my first time going through the IDW comics, so while I loosely know what you're referring to, but I don't have any proper opinions on any of it at the moment, and I'm not sure how the story is going to unfold from here just yet.
I agree with much of what you're saying in relation to the comis, I don't think the Deadly Six are THAT bad, but they definitely aren't very enjoyable characters. I'd like to hope it all gets better from here, but I won't know that until I get through the next Saga. Maybe you can hop on my train and we can get through the series together, lol.
Don't feel too compelled to read it if it doesn't do it for you. No reason to torture yourself with something you don't enjoy, there's plenty of good content out there. IDW at this point is kinda like a train wreck you can't look away from. Also, don't feel like you have to like something because other people do, there are plenty of people who feel as you do. But also don't read something if you're not enjoying it, life is short so have fun with it.
wtf is IDW Silver.
A stupid ass cinnamon roll
@@newdawnhorizon9879 Yeah. He basically became, if you've heard of it, Adrien from Miraculous. HELL, he was even voiced by Bryce in Team Sonic Racing (though he is a prolific VA)
Where in 06 does it suggest he is a soft, cuddly boi? He's a bit innocent and naive, but otherwise sternly devoted and serious. Not a literal child
@@TheSultan1470 Silver in 06 was literally furry Trunks except a little more naive. I'm not a big fan of him being this innocent cute cinnamon roll either but I sure as hell don't want him to be a full on ripoff. Archie Silver imo is the best version of the character, especially in his Sonic Universe arcs.
@@SonicSwift99 Silver was inspired by Trunks so of course he's going to have a little bit of a ripoff.
@@Skeleton20133 A little bit is fine but full carbon copy is a no go. Seriously, this is why Silver was genuinely hated by everyone back in 06. People like him now because he has a unique personality and because the Archie comics also did him justice.
No comment.....I just agree.......Also Frontiers rewrite is going well......just added the Update 3 shit & reworking it.....also adding unused Frontiers content rn & later, I'll be adding my own personal stuff cuz yes & fun! Wish me luck! Have a really good time! 😉👍
Very nice! Good luck! Hope you can show it off soon
@@kotytang thx.....also.....I wanna make the way to get up to the master trials easier & make the last one the hardest to complete, but not impossible..... u'll be able to parry normally....no perfect parry cuz fuck it......also u won't play the master king coco trials as super sonic, but instead super sonic 2, hyper sonic will return due to the cyber energy being so powerful, it can reach the unknown dimension where the super emeralds are & unlock their power......I'm too ambitious.....
;^;
Good review. Admittedly I don't know the ins and outs of writing so seeing you go this in depth about things not even I thought of was cool. This arc to me is okay but is heavily flawed and took me 3 times reading through it front to back until I started to kind of be fine with it. I think issues 13-24 while having good issues here or there (16 and 23.) feel aimless to me. I hate the Deadly six but they surprisingly weren't too bad here. It is definitely bad writing how they just take over as next bad guy because they use the toriyama style of writing of brute forcing their way through the plot, things felt more focused in 25-29 even with dumb moments like Gemerl going after people who can control robots. As a Silver fan seeing Super Silver again is cool. One thing that hampers this arc to me is IDW's world building sucks. When a place gets attacked there's idrc because it's A. Just some random place made up. or B. Is a place in Sonic Forces. The game with no hub worlds or locations from previous games besides Green Hill and Chemical Plant. There's the weird detail in Forces that the world is just one land mass instead of multiple continents which was shown as far back as Shadow the Hedgehog. That leads to another problem. This arc is just way too early imo. We haven't properly established any locations and a lot of the other prominent IDW characters in future arcs haven't been established yet. This arc was originally planed for Archie Sonic which might've been more fitting considering the fact that by the end of the Archie comics it had ran almost as long as the main franchise had. Though maybe not with Archie going through a reboot in a new universe for a bit before it's cancellation. idk haven't read much of preboot or reboot.
Happy you made it to almost 700 subs btw seeing you do so well has me inspired to start pushing more with my channel since I'm also small. Again Good video 👍.
You definitely will look at every story you've ever seen differently when you learn how everything works, glad to hear I can present you some new ideas and things to think about!
I don't really know how I feel about the traditional Earth map, vs the giant land-mass map. Even when Sonic has shown its world, the specifics take many liberties as to what is around there, and what everything looks like. I doubt there will ever be a coherent mapping of the actual world of Sonic, however, IDW could be the closest we could have to that I suppose.
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Three times reading through the Metal Virus and it's still okay? That's pretty charitable.
I agree with you saying that it's way too early for a saga like this to take place. I think that it could have worked if they devloped the world more through this saga. I don't know enough about Archie to judge, but for IDW they would have benefitted from expanding the world and definitevely defining character relationships before tackling something like this. You're also correct that the cast is pretty small at the moment for an event like this, we're still introducing the characters from the actual games at this point, so we haven't quite established enough to throw a world ending saga. They essentially had to rely on shock-value and pulling heartstrings to keep reader attention, rather than much of the established drama around each character.
Fandoms tend to fall easy prey to shock value, and emotional moments for the fact that they are shocking or that a scene is meant to be emotional--but I don't care about scenes like this if they have zero backing or set up toward them.
If somebody just presents me a short comic where I don't know a single character/it's a traumatic scene out of context, I geniunly will not care, but most people who read these things will get immediately emotional about them. As a writer, I need the set up, I need the story, and I need to care about the character before I can feel any sort of geniune emotional attachment to the scene.
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Also thanks! I appreciate it, I'm planning to work harder to achieve that 1000 sub milestone.
As a side note for you, keep working at TH-cam and improving any aspect that you notice you're lacking in. The majority of the time nobody will tell you where you're lacking until you start getting big. It helps to recognize what you can improve for yourself, before you rely on outsourcing to other people telling you what needs to change. One major reason that the vast majority of channels do not go anywhere is because their content isn't up to the standard of the sub-count they want to achieve. So work on overcoming atleast two new challenges in every video to gain high-quality content, such as editing, script-writing, thumbnails, or video titles.
Once you feel like you're doing the best you can do at one aspect, move on to the next and keep at those until that new thing is operating as best as you can get it.
Work on vocal delivery most importantly, vocal delivery is 75-80% of content, people like somebody who speaks clearly and doesn't mumble or mess up their speech, extra points if it all sounds natural, and not like you're reading off a script. There are many people that enjoy somebody that they can just play in the background while they do something, without the fear of having to rewind the video if they mishear them.
@@kotytang Hey Koty, first thanks for the advice on the comment, second I wanted to know your thoughts on a concept for the Metal Sonic saga. What if instead Omega was the one in issue 5 and 6 gunning for Dr. Tinker. The reason I find this interesting because Omega's character is heavily tied to killing Eggman and his machines so I think putting him in a situation where he'll kill someone who's (seemingly) innocent. Shadow also has ties to Eggman via Gerald Robotnick but they don't really explore that outside of SA2 and the semi hero dark ending of ShTH. I also think it'd be more interesting to see Sonic V Omega than Sonic V Shadow for the 60th time.
1:20:26
Although I agree with majority of your Arguments, the reason they aren't as explained are because the IDW Sonic Comics ALSO have Proper Miniseries where it's 1 Minor Comic or a Side Saga to go further in-depth with more of the Characters. There was the Tangle & Whisper Miniseries, the Bad Guys Miniseries, and even the Imposter Syndrome Miniseries (to explain quite a few of the Bigger Ones). There was also one for the Metal Virus Saga, although it was divided into 1-Comic Standalones for each scenario (such as how Vector & Espio FOUND CHARMY).
Yup, I go over everything you said in this comment in this video.
Good stuff 👍🏽
Appreciate it! Happy to hear you enjoyed
If I can summarise this Saga in a way...
"Where's Tang0l?"
"Infected."
...
*TANNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNGGLLLLLLLLEEEEEE!!!!!*
I find it kind of strange why you have such a gripe against that scene. I find it a touching, if a bit humorously OTT. Like, God Damn, how much visceralness, rawness and fire that panel portrays, it's unlike anything seen in Sanic in a long time. It's, and I hate this word, "cheesy" in the best possible way. Your arguments for why Whisper should not react like that are a bit flimsy, in your issue review you stated that she didn't react like this to her original friends' deaths, she was in shock and in hiding as it was occuring, so she did not have space to have a reaction. Plus, it was the first time, so there was no existing trauma. And about Cream... I don't know. She's a child, so throwing a fit would be kind of an expected reaction. Just wouldn't hit the same as a grown adult re-living her traumatic past.
Plus, Adrenalin Dub's voice acting really sells it.
I expected to get hate over my take on the scene, lol
Whisper's character from what I understand was supposed to be a war-hardened mercenary. The extreme display of emotion feels out of character for Whisper specifically, as she has never displayed this level of emotion toward anybody, not even enough to display pure conviction in killing Mimic, both times she was able to, all of that raw unfiltered emotion just goes away when she can finally get what she wants? The trauma, PTSD, etc. is all fine. As for Whisper not showing that much emotion toward her own friend's death, this would be an after-the-fact thing, the comic didn't show us any of that raw emotion from her after, for a team that we have no idea how much of a connection she even had to them, they were friends because they were in a mercenary group, that's as far as we know.
The scene of Whisper shouting itself is great, the art is great, and it would be an incredible moment for Whisper, we just don't even know her character. IS it her first time experiencing trauma? Why did she decide to become a mercenary that ONLY takes on the HARDEST jobs? Why is she so good at sniping? What's her relationship with the Diamond Cutters? Are they the first team she's been with? Why did she WANT to become a mercenary? We know next to nothing about her character, what she's been through, or her past. HAS she ever even experienced hard-ship, did every single person she ever knew die around her before joining the Diamond Cutters, and that's the real reason she freaked out like that when losing Tangle? I know nothing about this character, so the scene is not set up properly. It's an attempt to pull at the heart-strings of the reader, did nothing for me.
I have never watched the Adrenaline Dubs, so I'll take your word for it.
Did you feel sadder seeing Cream display no emotion at all, or do you think the scene would have been better if we were given a scene of Cream freaking out like that toward her mother?
@@kotytang Aha, ok, this is how I see it and, considering the admitedly lack of information given (fair enough, they only have so much comic space to fill out with the story), some of it will be a bit speculative on my part.
Whisper was a scout in their team, she was trained specifically for long distance reconissance where she spent much time away from direct danger, unlike her compadres. We have to take into account that the DC crew have had their specific ages posted (going off of the wiki - it might be a word of God thing, I'm going to treat it as rough age life stages) - Whisper is stated to be 16, so, in her younger adolescent years. Mimic is the oldest by far, 32. I forgot the other's ages but it's irrelevant. It seems that she's had some battle experience, enough to be made competent and spent enough time with the DC to form some level of friendly bond - fire forged friends you could say. She is shown in flashbacks to have been bright, cheerful and optimistic about pursuing their set cause. Mimic betraying her group was her first _actual_ hardship. It turned what she believed in upside down and made her distrustful of others and afraid to let friendly people into her personal zone, lest she lose another amigo. This is where the focal point of the drama lies - Whisper had just confided her deepest fear to Tangle (I can't lose another friend!) and opened up to her about her past. Tangle accepted her and vowed to support her through her hardship. It was Tangle who talked her out of coldly icing De Octoman. Tangle now matters a lot to Whisper, a lot is on the line. She is the first friend she's had since the incident. And BAM, it's taken away from her. Simple, but effective, it does tug the heartstrings.
I have to set one thing straight, and that is that I don't care that much for Cream. As I said before, she's written as just a child, so her reactions will be child-like. Not really much depth outside of "noooo, my mom!". I felt more for Espio, crumbling to his knees and shedding a tear as his other partner and best friend sacrifices himself and is now lost to the horde. The addition of "Espio, you're lead detective now" works because it higlights the dynamic of the group. Vector was the man with the plan, the driving force of the trio. See, little bit extra depth there.
@@TheSultan1470 Very nice assessment of Whisper’s character, majority of that makes sense and definitely tracks.
(Ian has gone on his Bumblekast saying Whisper/Tangle are around the age of Sonic and his friends generic age [15-18] so she isn’t directly 16, and Ian also said that Mimic was SUPPOSED to be older, but Sega said no to this, so he is also supposed to be around that age.)
My core problem with Whisper’s character; is the fact that she isn’t just a regular mercenary the Diamond Cutters were THE mercenaries they took on the most daring, treacherous, and self-delete-grade missions during the war with Eggman. You don’t just become top of the food chain by… just being on top, you need a ton of experience to be a top of the line mercenary… If Whisper’s backstory was going to be that shallow in relation to her job description, then they should have just made her a mercenary performing her first few jobs where she became close friends with the group, and everything went horribly wrong and it f***ed her for life. I would be able to track her character much better that way. Her backstory is extremely contradictory, and that’s why I have such a problem with it. If what you’re saying is entirely true, then she is not war hardened at all, and for some reason her only official job as a mercenary was her performing the most death-defying missions of all time. Even as a scout, and sniper, she would be behind enemy lines, she would have to create her own vantage point in a high-stakes mission, so direct confrontation would be nearly expected, so she would need to have hand-to-hand training and close combat experience as well, otherwise she would die trying to find the best sniping position especially during her scouting missions. Unless she was so unbelievably lucky to never encounter a single patrol ever in her entire career.
Her backstory just doesn’t track.
To be facetious, it is entirely possible that Eggman is just SO ASS, that a top tier mission to the diamond cutters has never involved a single close call, never been difficult, and Eggman was so incompetent that he was simply no match for a regular mercenary group of 5, who just happen to be brave enough to walk up to his base, and he just didn’t ever expect it.
@@kotytang First of all, umm... SEGA ordered Mimic to be aged down? Euuuuhhhh... was it not the other way round? Mimic was supposed to be main character aged until SEGA ordered him to be aged up. His trading card states, directly, he is 32 years of age. UNLESS, the trading cards are some irrelevant franchise paraphenelia.
If he is MC aged, this would rather dissapoint me, as I was going to further elaborate the relation between these two. That being, it is not Whisper who is battle hardened, instead *Mimic* is the one with that kind of experience. He has that nature and vibe of "man who has seen s**t". Befiting of a man, a gun for hire, entering his 30s. He has the foresight to prioritise personal survival at all costs. Not very sociable, perhaps, but to him this is nature, reality. He frequently pokes and jabs at Whisper for being innocent and naive. Again, makes sense if the age difference is so extreme. Mimic freely totes a knife and gun around and uses all sorts of tricks to close in for a backstab kill. He's a ruthless ice cold killa. He's done so time and time again. Whisper isn't, Tangle's words imply she hasn't even taken another organic life, he would be her first one. Do keep in mind, Whispers operations have been strictly Eggman bases, devoid of life (yeah, ok, it's a way to get around showing killin'. It's a comic for 4 year olds, not Manhunt. Manhunt style game starring Mimic? All right, that'd be cool)
You've definitely got some info mixed up, Octoman is certanly not her age.
@@TheSultan1470 You’re absolutely right, I misremembered it as being the other way around. Mimic was aged up by Sega due to his appearance looking too old, Ian originally planned on him being a “teenager”.
Your description of Mimic doesn’t address my issues with Whisper’s backstory, but I wouldn’t doubt that Mimic has been a mercenary for a long time, his description makes sense, Whispers doesn’t. Again, if Whisper were just a regular mercenary, I would be able to believe her first-time-trauma. She’s not supposed to be just any old mercenary though.
Also, of course, actual killing isn’t really something in Whisper’s history, but these Eggman bases also aren’t anything to laugh off either. Sonic makes it all seem easy, when other characters that aren’t like Shadow or Blaze participate in these battles they don’t really have the grand sweeping “kills” that Sonic gets.
Although I do have to stop you on the part where you say the comic is for 4 year olds? I’mma need you to explain why you think that is, given much of the subject matter inside this comic.
This just popped up in my recommended so I'm a bit late to this. But yeah, the IDW Sonic comics definitely have their flaws. I still enjoyed the Metal Virus arc along with the Neo Metal arc in the beginning but they definitely could've done more for these stories. And it doesn't help that the arcs right after felt like a bunch of misadventures. Only the Chao Races and Surge arcs are standouts and even they have flaws of their own. The problem is that IDW Sonic is too safe and doesn't really expand on its world and characters like Archie did. Hell, they barely even focus on the rest of the game characters and instead always give spotlight to Sonic, Tails, Amy, Tangle, and Whisper, the latter two whom I am SICK of seeing. I know Archie kind of did the same thing with the Freedom Fighters always being the main focus but at least the Sonic Universe stories were there to let the other characters shine while also expanding upon the world of Archie Sonic.
I still enjoy IDW Sonic for the most part so I'm personally always gonna tune in but I don't blame those who don't like them. Hopefully, things might be looking up from now as the current arc has Sonic, Tails, and Amy feel the closest to their 2000s characterizations and the Babylon Rogues are there as well. Maybe they might even start writing Shadow correctly as he was ok in his recent appearance in these comics as well.
Sorry for the long rant but good video.
You're just in time tbh, I've only just finished the Metal Virus Saga! I'm extremely late to the IDW party, and this is my first time through, but I'm catching up, so no spoilers! My channel is basically a timewarp to when IDW was first being released right now.
Unfortunately I don't know enough about Archie to give any proper judgements on who did what better---but It is true that the IDW team are struggling to give much narrative weight to many of the events going on and characters inside the stories. I'm not sure what Tangle and Whisper do in the future just yet, but so far--they're basically nonexistent, so the only problem I have with them is that they AREN'T used in the stories.. If they're gettting more attention in the future I'd actualy LIKE that because they serve no purpose currently.
I'm willing to give IDW more chances before I completely say this Comic as a whole is bad, but for me they have two strikes, both the first and second saga were really, really bad.
@@kotytang I disagree on the first two arcs being outright bad but I understand why you think so. However, I do recommend checking out the Archie comics, specifically from issue 160 when Ian Flynn took over since everything before that is....quite the fever dream I'll just say. And if you do pick up the Archie comics, I highly recommend the Sonic Universe stories as they pretty much run parallel to the main series and show what the other characters are up to.
@@SonicSwift99 Oh don’t worry, I’ve been recommended the Archie comics over the IDW comics many times. If I ever end up covering the Archie Comics I will be starting from Issue 1, I don’t want to just hop right in. As somebody who enjoys the writing process, I have to start at the beginning to I’ll feel like I’m missing so much.
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It’s an interesting topic many people give out different responses;
what do you think would constitute a story being bad?
And
What do you think makes a story good?
@@kotytang i dont think having plotholes make a story bad, naturally a story should be tightly written as having too many plot holes or a too big plot hole can ruin the immersion, but stories are more than the litteral things that happen and how they tie together. Think of it this way, which would you rather read? A school textbook which covers World War 2 or the diary of a holocaust survivor? Probably the diary, why? Because you aren't just reading about some events that happened followed by some numbers that don't really mean anything to you, instead you're reading about someone's personal experiences during an atrocity and how it affected them. Stories are about the characters and how they deal with the problems at hand and how those experiences affect them. Thats why I say that character writing is the most important skill for a storyteller to have. Thats why i can say that Sonic Adventure 2 is a genuinely great story despite all of the plot holes and contrivances because it has some genuinely great character writing especially in regards to Sonic and Shadow. I also think that hyperfocusing on plotholes and contrivances can cause you to miss out on the really good character stuff going on. Ive seen this many times.
@@franklycentral48 What you said is only partially true.
Hopefully you don’t find any of this offensive, I’m really just trying to show you the importance to the parts you’re missing;
This is a clear case of the Dunning Krueger Effect. You’ve heard enough about writing to understand that character is important, but you don’t seem to understand why every other aspect of writing is just as important, and because of that, you’re giving a major focus on the importance of character.
No amount of love you have for a character is going to save you from a plot that is mind-numbingly boring, or irritating to follow along with. It may get you through the story, but it won’t enhance the story-if anything it will show the glaring issues.
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You’re correct that the majority of good stories rely on the characters, and how they act. The problem is that a good writer knows that you have to fuse both characrer and story together in order to tell a compelling tale. If you go to any acclaimed writer ever, or while being taught in school about writing, they will always tell you something along these lines;
Character happens in the moments of the story.
Or
Plot does not happen without the characters, and character development doesn’t happen without a plot.
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If you add scenes of just pure character you have what’s referred to as “filler” or completely pointless scenes/chapters. Next to every single editor ever will tell you that you have to remove that entire chapter or scene; because it doesn’t progress the story. If you can’t make character moments happen within the confines of your story, and you HAVE to go out of your way to make it happen, it makes for bad storytelling, and completely destroys your pacing.
The way anime uses filler tends to be some of the most egregious versions of filler you’ll ever see. 99% of anime filler leads to nothing and won’t even be referenced again.
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If a story was purely about character, you could just make a completely random scene in your story where Sonic runs from one end of the world to the other that takes up 40 pages, and all he does is talk about how he feels about the water and grass under his feet as he runs. If all that mattered was character, then that would be considered a compelling and great chapter in your book. But nobody would enjoy that, this is just not how writing works, a character’s thoughts are not all you need, you need the context of those thoughts, and then a specific goal that lines up with your plot.
This is why I heavily criticize the scene where Whisper freaks out about Tangle’s infection. There is NOTHING for the audience to actually pull from in regard to the main plot, you have to search for supplementary material to even get an ounce of why Whisper acted that way. As is; the scene happens without context, and even when you finally do witness Whisper’s history, her backstory directly contradicts the logical conclusion that would be imposed on Whisper’s established character.
In SA2 every single event works toward the plot, you won’t find a single scene that doesn’t directly progress the plot of that game. There are also no moments in the story that removes the context required to understand a scene.
Even your diary example has a plot to it, the character is guiding you through a sequence of events filled with drama, and giving their thoughts and feelings on the plot, they’re not just telling you about the time they went to the store and found some meat they had been looking for and it made them happy. There’s nothing compelling about that.
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Comedies are especially good at exposing the structure of storytelling. We could do a story where the person’s hometown stopped selling a certain meat-lovers meal that he absolutely adored, and in the story he finds that thing of meat by going to the store out of town, but before they officially get the meat, they would have to deal with something wild; and that’s where we create our characters and our plot.
Let’s say that the protagonist is a LOVER of meat, he is out of town at his girlfriends house… but in order impress his girlfriends mother, who has raised her family to all be aggressive vegans, and animal rights activities, the protagonist pretends that he doesn’t really eat meat either. The protagonist then comes across his favorite meal of meat at his girlfriend’s local store, and now he has to find several ways to purchase the meat-lover meal, bring it back, and cook it, without disgracing his girlfriend’s entire family.
You build both character and plot together, always.
You’ll see this in every critically acclaimed piece of writing; Twilight, Game of Thrones, Hunger Games, To Kill a Mockingbird, Lord of the Rings, Peaky Blinders, The Last of Us, Red Dead Redemption 2, God of war (PS4); character development always happens in relation to the plot.
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A story is never just, “Here’s Tommy Shelby, he’s a mobster and acts cool, and he’s gonna go shoot some guys because he’s a gangster.”
It’s going to generally always be a how and a what question; “How is Tommy Shelby going to do deal with an entire rival gang moving in to his gang’s territory trying to kill everybody around him? What will the deaths and possible deaths of his loved ones do to Tommy as a person?”
It is all about Tommy, but the plot and events are written in a believable way to create a reaction from the protagonist that can be relatable and understandable for the audience. That way Tommy’s reactions to these events can satisfyingly influence the plot. The events don’t just happen for no reason to cause character development, they all have build up and result in a consequence; The plot is what forces that character development.
In every story your plot must always be progressing, with every word said, and action performed by an actor. You can’t purely rely on character to push your plot, you need the plot for the character to react to.
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Your other topic was contrivances and plotholes, and why they don’t matter. The way you talk about them is also not true, and a misunderstanding of storytelling; Yes, every single story ever is built off contrivances, this is how drama is crafted. For the majority of stories, you don’t want your contrivances to be obvious though. You want these moments to make sense in the universe you have crafted, and have a proper set up that also makes sense; a writer who just doesn’t really care to create a believable world and sequence of events is a lazy, or even a terrible writer.
This is the major reason why virtually nobody likes the ending of Game of Thrones, or anything new that Star Wars and Marvel puts out. Most of the events in them have massive character moments, but none of it makes any logical sense, so everybody hates them. Contrivances and plot holes can and WILL 100% destroy your story if left unaddressed. Especially if the frequency and severity of the two are high enough. You can’t just write whatever you want and say “but interesting character development” it also has to actually make sense.
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Let’s use a more detailed example of Game of Thrones.
George RR Martin created a character dubbed; The King in the North. George created an extremely likable, intelligent, and compelling character, but he had a problem….
“The King in the North does nothing but take W’s, he’s way too smart. I need him dead, otherwise my book will end early, and none of the antagonist will get anywhere…. I can’t just kill this character out of nowhere, everybody would be PISSED. I need to write some plot developments and have them fall in place to justify this death, and the scene that his death will happen in.”
Enter the Red Wedding… George needed the Red Wedding to happen to get the plot going how he wanted it to, but it wouldn’t be compelling if he just wrote the Red Wedding. George needed to build these characters and the events first, in order to get them to the point that everybody cared about the cast, and what’s happening in the world around them.
Sure he could have just written the Red Wedding, and be done with it. But the most important thing-it’s memorable, and left a massive impact for the plot and the characters going forward; The Red Wedding was entirely the fault of The King in the North, due to his decisions in the plot that was unfolding around him. You witness every single thing that the King in the North did wrong, and you understand the politics of the world that led him to making that one massive mistake, that cost his life.
That’s called set up, and pay off. It requires both character and plot.
Honestly this is one of those videos that says something but is ultimately wrong
So, you're going to say what he said wrong, or you're dismissing criticism that's in the video
@@sofiamaisena3796it's more nitpicking if anything
These are always the best comments because they literally give nothing of value to the video;
It’s a sweeping statement “my video is ultimately wrong.” Name one single thing that I’m wrong about and try to explain why then.
I am tackling plot holes, characters, glaring issues, inconsistencies, story decisions, and story uses. There are over 100 things you could highlight, yet every single person who types a comment like this fails to even name just one solid thing that they can properly dispute.
Feel free to also try and show what an actual criticism would be, instead of a nitpick.
@@kotytang Classic Kotytang comment section moment
The status quo Ian is referring to is sonic fighting eggman
Ian describes the status quo as that, as well as saying that he can’t make these characters develop beyond who they are in the games.
The thing I am showing is that many of the characters don’t even act like how they should to begin with, so the question is; what exactly would they be developing from
I just have to say this...
Are Sonic fans _still_ going on about Shadoe's character and his supposed "mischaracterization" and "poor writing"? I find it a bit obnoxious as the examples presented as "proper Shadoe" now date back like TWO decades. He's been "wrong" longer than he's been "right". I think we should take into account that Shadoe's arc technically concludes in SA2. That is his origin game, it was supposed to be the last Sanic game and it LITERALLY kills him off in the same. His story was wrapped up in a pretty bow and concluded, end of. Then they brought him back for Heroes. Already, anything they do with a dead character is derailment. Shadow had to be tweaked and altered to now casually be alive again. The way I understand Shadow's mandate is, as you've explained yourself in the video, to keep a consistent handle on a character who is now a recurring one and a brand symbol. It's not inherently wrong, it's reasonable, as they've already screwed with him when they brought him back.
Yes, he's an Anti-Hero. Yes, he's a loner. Yes, he's stand offish. And arrogant. All these traits are like saying Sonic is a free spirit. Tails is genius. Amy is loving. Vector likes earning $$$. Espio is stoic. Because these characters are now brand icons and will be recurring elements of Sanic, they must have base line traits. If Shadoe suddenly went and made friends, it's not very "Shadow", is it? Development be damned.
Why do you spell it like that? I'm so confused.
@@PriorityPrime16 I don't know, as a stupid joke
Wow, people are upset that one of the most popular characters isn't being written to the heights of what we've previously had? How entitled to simply want back what we had. Christ.
@@KayyVEVO Ok, it's a bit more nuanced than that
I’d personally like them to stop with the branded identities and get back to writing and developing these characters. Stagnant franchises are so boring, and Sonic is one of the franchises with an enormous amount of potential.
As for Shadow’s personality being different for over a decade; Just because a company locks in with an idea, doesn’t mean it’s a good idea, nor does it make the idea correct. That just means their vision sucks. Franchises have been killed off for doing even less, it’s only because it’s an IP as popular as Sonic that it’s gotten away with locking into so many faults and genuine slaps in the face to its core audience. The point of fan outcry is for the franchise to listen, it doesn’t matter how long something is wrong, if it’s wrong forever, it remains wrong forever. Even Sonic Team’s recent interviews don’t even match with how SEGA are writing Shadow, so it just becomes increasingly dumb.
About g.u.n they gone
Yup, I’m aware of that
Rip.