UPDATE: Well, that ending didn't age well. I've changed my mind. "The Sonic Forces We Never Had" is available to read on Google Drive right now! My Patreon is also cancelled as I shift gears in life. Thank you very much. drive.google.com/drive/folders/15WkUXQLKJcxffGFfZ4-P5cgDOwSY85fD?usp=sharing
Well thank you for opening my eyes on almost the only thing that seemed half good to me in this atrocious game, now i can let it fully fly away in the horizon. It's been 4-5 years now that i'm working on a story for a fangame, i only have some of the main points of the story for the moment but if it releases one day, i hope you'll enjoy it if hypothetically you play it. I'll read your story to see what it is.
To me, only one of the references worked: “What is your end goal?” “It varies, sometimes it’s a spinning sign, sometimes it’s a big ol’ ring.” That was genuinely funny.
Yeah their ARE some good lines here and there but overall this game's story was bland and safe as hell. It felt like it was trying to give off the LOOK that it was trying to bring the series back but once again falls back flat on its back wondering where it all went wrong. The dialogue still has that self aware, Marvel esque cringe that I've despised since the 2010s. This isn't how these characters should be talking
I really loved the Amy appreciation and I very much agree that late 90s/2000s Amy was the best she’s ever been! 🦔💖🔨 Also Amy's story in SA1 is a metaphor for young girls standing up to creepers. Hence how her levels is mainly running away from Zero then later towards the end Amy grows the courage and bravery to take on Zero with her Piko Piko Hammer and you fight him as boss.
1:02:40 Dude this part SERIOUSLY resonates with me, I swear, EVERY time a somewhat decent or barely decent Sonic game comes out, or like, the bare minimum of a game. The reviews and consensus is always “ITS A STEP IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION “ it’s never SOLID or actually just good, it’s always like, two steps forward (if that) and one step back, it’s like the team doesn’t know what they are doing at all, and they just spread themselves thin instead of having a strong idea. Like you said, no commitment. Like almost every Mario title is very strong, but Sonic always has a ton of issues. I still really like Unleashed though.
In some ways, Sonic and Mario traded places in terms of what they stood for in the 90’s to current. Now Mario is looking to break through his old safe space in new ways while Sonic is content in being a brand that guarantees an appeal for the sake of online entertainment. Gone of the days of the company wanting to push the IP past its limits in wanting to be something worth experiencing beyond a fundamental level. Now old fans seem only content of celebrating the past because that’s the only salvation they have that isn’t scrutinized by Sega’s corporate touch…yet. I want to love the current version of Sonic and his characters, but…it’s just not for me. And it’s not fair to talk down on others who enjoy them now because this is all they remember in current years. However, there’s something to be said when you neglect to take proper care of your creation for nearly 3 decades. Sonic is the embodiment of mismanaged potential that has no excuse to be; he was meant to be something greater from how he was created to be.
As mean as it may appear to say this, I think it's worse for people to just accept that the series has changed and just because of those who grew up with it being something it SHOULDN'T be
The animation in some of these cutscenes are KILLING me 😭 Like why does everyone move so linearly 🤖🤖`🤖🤖 What makes it even more ironic is that the people commenting below this are talking about how GOOD other sonic game's animation were 😂
Honestly the cutscene animation and voice work for SA2 has given the game its own special sort of cheesy charm. Things like characters interrupting each other, or themselves.
@@superduperbrain2001 You can find quotes of Yuji Naka saying the exact opposite. Sonic was going to exist whether Sega decided to make him their flagship character or not. The western marketing being super aggressively competitive with Nintendo has nothing to do with how Sonic Team actually envisioned the series.
omg i love youre videos, are you planning on making more? if not its fine, its just that they are so high quality (specially considering theyre from 6 years ago)
If they made The End a bigger presence in the games story, with it being the personification of death, it could've helped dig into Sonics character so much more. Imagine a story where Sonic has to acknowledge that at one point he will have to stop running, that at one point the End is inevitable and him being told that his world will suffer the same fate as the Ancients. Suddenly a higher power is justified as Sonic has to push past his limits to fight a force of nature. Even a Black Knight reference could be made in a sombre moment where Sonic is like "so this is how Merlina felt". Each flashback could serve as a way to hammer the point home and shake Sonic's resolve more. Instead of Sonic being corrupted on the outside, we could see him be corrupted in his conviction, only for his friends to snap him out of it in the end with some genuine dialogue instead of a stupid hand holding ring. This is just one more idea. The thing I hate most about Sonic Frontiers story is that there is no overall message or point to the story being told.
There is a message, or more likely a theme A respect from the past and the ones Who passed away and how future generations Will go forward on their lifes, thats how i see it
I like the use of the wording "this is how Merlina felt". Sonic in this hypothetical still thinks it was right to stop her but now he actually feels a similar sense of death close to him.
That's a cool idea, but I have to disagree. I don't think a storyline where Sonic have to accept death, is appropriate for his character. There are people who will/can explain my point better and longer than I'm going to do (and you can see that right now. I suggests Pariah695's 'What is it about Sonic?' And Characters In-Depth's 'The Signature Edge of Sonic the Hedgehog'. Both are on this very platform). Yet what I'm trying to say is that Sonic's strongest trait as a character is to due how static he is. He doesn't change and remains flat. Because he's the living embodiment of all that's good in the world, and he inspires those who he meet. And if the story of Frontiers were to explore this theme of death further. By, let's say, his friends knowing about The End, what they did to The Ancients, and that it might happen to their world. Sonic will be there to assure them that everything's fine, or that death isn't scary. Just like how he did with Merlina. Plus, if we were going to ignore his strongest trait; Sonic wouldn't be that bothered about it. I remember reading a comment section discussing what would it be if we had a third Storybook game based on H.P. Lovecraft's works; and one of them said Sonic will be the type of person who is told we are mere specks to entities bigger than us, than we ever imagined. Yet, he will respond afterwards with "so what?"
Yeah, I like the idea of The End symbolizing Sonic's worst fears and one of those fears being his mortality and death. It makes sense when you think about it and could have been a perfect character Arc in the game
Reposting this here so it gets slightly more exposure I have come to an insane realisation. The End is just a wayyyy shittier version of Nyx from Persona 3. Context: Nyx in Persona 3 is described as the embodiment of death that has to be reformed/released by defeating 12 bosses. Once reformed, it enters an avatar before then revealing its true form, the moon. In Persona 3 guidebooks, it is revealed that Nyx is an alien entity similar to Galactus that was sealed once it reached Earth. The End: Described as the embodiment of death in 1:48:30 Released after defeating 4 bosses. Enters an "avatar" (Supreme). Only to have it's true form revealed as a moon. An alien-Galactus like entity sealed once it reached Earth. EVEN the cryptic voice lines from the End in the final boss fight parallel "the arcana is the means by which all is revealed". SOMEONE ELSE MUST HAVE NOTICED THIS
The origin of the chaos emeralds make no sense in this game. How can the chaos emeralds exist without the Master emerald? They're literally the same thing, furthermore how can they be connected despite coming from two completely different sources of power and location? It just contradicts so much implied lore from the previous games
I think something made the "SA1 arc retreadings" pretty bad is that in SA1 they actually took the initiative for themselves. Sonic acts on his own and it inspired his friends into reaching their conclusion. In Frontiers they all need Sonic as a mouthpiece to tell them "it's okay bro you haven't regressed as a character 🙃"
@@ChiefMedicPururu I'm suprised he didn't bring up the conversation in Final Horizion where Tails explicitly says to Sonic "I know I can't fight like you or Knuckles"
Honestly this video is on point with all of my thoughts, criticisms and annoyances about this games story telling, characterization and what it signifies for this series future. The story constantly talking at you, characters telling you wikipedia articles disguised as dialogue, as well as putting references of itself before proper world building, is a new kind of annoyance. It’s not at all what I want from this series. I’m worried about how they’ll handle Shadow in SonicXShadow Generations. I expect it them to double down on making Shadow the versions the fans see him and not the real Shadow.
It worries me that they’ll try to retcon or insert the modern day portrayal of Shadow to how he was in SA2. They should be kept separate because it was interesting how he wasn’t suppose to come back until they decided to do so in Sonic Heroes. They have different interpretations.
@@denizenbydayI really hope they don't try to make SA2 Shadow again. I've started to realize what I liked about Shadow in the mid 2000's after SA2 was how he put the past behind him and kind of does whatever he feels he needs to. To me SA2 Shadow and Shadow afterwards are the same character in body but due to the amnesia and events from Shadow the Hedgehog (the Game) SA2 Shadow is dead in a way. I don't like aspects of Modern Shadow but reverting him back to his end of SA2 self is not a good decision that I hope they don't take.
@@castform7 I agree, I think I meant to say that. At the time they planned to have him as a one-time character, they should remember to how he was at the time because it fits with the tone and atmosphere that SA2 gave off. And then tie it to his character development after SA2 and anything before Sonic Colors. I meant to say that I hope they don’t try to force and insert meme humor throughout Shadows timelines just to tone down how dark some of his games and stories use to be, because he is a popular meme icon now…
'Hey, Peter! Remember the time you were transported to the medieval period & fought King Arthur?' 'This is worse than that one time I had to use a flying carpet & turned purple.
@@NintendanGX “Petah, you gotta fight Erazor Djinn, the evil genie that wanted to take over the Arabian Nights with the Seven World Rings.” I hate Frontiers’ “continuity” writing so fucking much.
I’m not sure if i’m the only one who notices this, but does anyone else feel like when Ian Flynn writes for a character they end up sounding like him? Like, i’ll read/hear something he wrote coming from a characters mouth and i’ll be like “this sounds like something he’d say himself on his podcast”. Prime example of this is Sonic describing his ideology to Surge in the IDW comics. It sounds like Flynn answering a question from a fan on his podcast. A lot of the writing in this game feels like that too and I think you summed up why/how pretty well with the whole “twitter writing” thing.
@@Nathan-rb3qp yeah I feel like IDW and the story of frontiers feels more like a Sonic fan writing the story rather a writer who just happens to be a fan
Brand era is pretty fitting of 2010s and 2020s Sonic tbh. Neither decade really stands for anything as a whole or has much interesting to add to the series beyond a few exceptions. Sonic exists because people expect him to keep running forever. But nobody in charge really knows what they're doing or how to execute their ideas well. So the series is just left to stagnate and coast off the name recognition and community passion. Every once in a while we get something like Mania or the Knuckles prologue that shows us glimpses of a bright future. But it never lasts when everyone is too busy pushing out things with Sonic's name on it to slow down. Frontiers is the prime example. It was promised to be a bold, new direction and ended up using a lot of the same tropes and ideas as most of the 3D games do. Feels less like a crazy experiment as much as a calculated risk to get the success of games like BOTW. Don't mean to be a doomer, but it's hard to not be cynical when it feels like Sonic is slowly being turned into a guinea pig for printing dollar signs and nothing more. And the same hostile community who swear they care about this series continue to encourage it. I think it's time for Sonic Team to ask some themselves really hard hitting questions about how the series and figure out what that next best step is. What does Sonic as a vision represent? How has that vision been represented over 30 years? And in what ways should we represent that vision going forward? Because I don't think these are questions that have been asked in a long time. I'm willing to give Kishimoto one last chance in whatever his next project will be, if only because I appreciate his transparency on twitter when accepting feedback. But I'm not holding my breath for it to blow me away.
Sonic's writing will always feel different from its adventure days because its no longer written by Japanese writers. Whole different cultures will produce different vibes in their scripts.
@@dragondelsur5156actually i think that was also written Japanese. Pontac and Graff translated and added questionable editions (Sonic being tortured). Better example is Lost World to me it’s right up there with Forces and ShTH as some of my least favorite Sonic stories.
If it insisted upon itself it wouldn't be so apologetic about what it is. Sonic 06 and SA2 insisted upon themselves. This game has nothing to insist upon, just a bunch of characters talking.
I'm confused by this comment; I don't get the joke. Is teaching English in Japan and Mission for Christianity's suppose to be a reference to something?
@@RightNowsReverie I have no idea, but ironically Amy is one of the few people in the series who says "oh my god." Combined ironically with the tarot cards they only NOW won't shut up about, it implies she's spiritual to some degree.
@@yuchun_ I find it strange they have been focusing on Amy's tarot cards, a lot recently. They're weren't suppose to be a main character trait, nor indicate her being spiritual. Fortune telling is a casual hobby for girls in Japan, and they decided it for Amy to show she's a normal girl.
@@RightNowsReverie It's not even just a casual thing IN JAPAN, it's just a thing a lot of girls do, yknow like, zodiacs and shit, they're a mostly girl conquered hobby. Anyway the whole "god" thing was always just my own personal headcanon since I like silly details like that, like Vector in Chaotix being like a gospel culture archetype. Of course that got retconned alongside most info about the Chaotix in Heroes, but it was always kinda neat. See this is how I know the tarot cards are not a complete asspull, I was always really interested in the manual-given lore as a kid. The whole problem is that they have the nerve to act like they didn't ignore it for so long, and are now giving it to Amy instead of an actual personality. It's honestly really depressing how boring the dialogue is. A game like Riders showcases how genuinely fun the main cast can be.
I think one easy way to tell of a story sucks, is to ask yourself if you would enjoy the characters and story, if the game was unknown and completely new.
Good point. I’ve been a fan since Secret Rings, and we have and could be getting better. I think that way with myself, so it’s damning to see it with such a beloved character.
I disagree, I don't mind Amy being apart of the group since she has always been considered part of the team since Adventure, it was just less conventional. I mean she was always marketed as the player 4 with the trio, Advance games, Shuffle, Riders all did this. Even Sonic X, sure she wasn't like with Knuckles and Tails, but with Amy she got herself tangled up with them through her interaction with Sonic, she'd start out with her usual schtick, then end up entangled on the adventure with them. I also think it gives Amy more to do, I just wish she handn't lost her character in the transition from a non conventional, to conventional member. With Frontiers, I get what they wanted to do with Amy, especially since the Japanese script writes differently and much more in character, the main issue is the whole Multi media they are doing makes this inconsistent. It feels inconsistent because in IDW and TMOSTH, she feels like a mature outlook of her character, yet how's written in the games feels just like her Boom counterpart with less character, essentially just stripping her of any traits that aren't motherly, kind or generic action girl like in Dream Team, with her only defining characteristic in that game being she's girl Sonic. I can't really see Amy being her older version now, since its clear they have written the characters to be much older, but Amy doesn't feel like her own character is the problem, it never feels like her because subdued isn't how I would describe her. I also take issue with stripping away her temper because it implies a female character shouldn't be angry to be likable. But its okay for a male character to do so. I think going the TMOSTH or a nice balance of her SA1 with the idolization being less kiddish would work best. Since I find SA1 Amy to be well done, especially when you consider the context of her story beyond the independence, like ZERO chasing her being like running from and standing up to a creeper, or how older men kept hitting on her. Which is referenced in Heroes, speaking of, last thing I want to note regarding 2000s Amy is that she is overcriticized. Sonic Heroes is the game I feel is the most overcriticized version of Amy because the cutscene for 'Team Sonic vs. Team Rose' has Amy say "Sonic! There's no way ought of marrying me!"... The other thirteen cutscenes involving Amy are pretty good. And that's not including the in-level dialogue that expresses even more of Amy's positive traits. But fuck all of that, because of this one poorly written cutscene, which exists purely to set up a stupid boss fight. People are deeming Heroes' entire portrayal of Amy as "the worst" because of a single bad cutscene that wasn't even written as intended, people read it with the perspective of "abuse" when it was just poor dubbing and not even the intent of the actual scene. It wasn't even supposed to be taken seriously because nobody takes it seriously, even Rose's true motives are corrected within the boss fight itself and its AMY who 's the one who is the most furious about their missing friends and questions Sonic and Co about it. Every time I see a video analysis or video that talks about Amy, they always bring up Heroes like it "ruined her character" or that it started her decline, when I'm always asking myself is she really that bad? When the only thing people too is overreact to ONE scene and take it too literally when it's not the intent of the scene. Like I understanding from the outset that it looks as if Amy is wanting to "force" Sonic into marriage by fighting him, but that isn't even what the scene is saying, especially when it reads a bit differently in Japanese. Where she says "Today I'll get you to marry me" which implies that she wants to win his heart by proving her strength. That's not "assault" or force, even in English the scene is the same, if translated a bit poorly. Granted it does seem odd to transition into a boss fight, but like so did the Adventure games with a couple exceptions. As for Amy being more "extreme about it" like yeah, its more extreme, but I see it as her channeling her confidence compared to the Adventure games into her love for Sonic, Amy was a character who is shown to be extreme with her emotions, so it does make sense to channel her confidence into her love for Sonic, its just that her extreme emotions always pushed Sonic away, even when she tried to prove something. Even later in the story this is directly stated when she tells her team to go after Egg Albatross because "Sonic will be impressed by her". In reality though all the characters had bad reasons for boss fight transitions. Even Sonic and Dark's teams included. It's funny how a scene that's does not mention to be taken seriously has fans take it seriously to insert agendas clearly not even intended for the sake of inserting a particular "Women abusing men" narrative or that "Amy is crazy" when the point is Amy is being extreme with her emotions and just using it as an excuse to start a boss fight. If you ask me, I found Rouge to be more unlikable than Amy in her boss fights, because unlike Amy's which were just for a joke and nobody was taking it seriously, Rouge was absolutely serious when starting a fight with the Chaotix. Rouge was worse than Amy because her reason for starting a fight with Chaotix was more petty and out of character. Rather than just being a joke that was done out of poor context, Rouge is being serious in that she just sees three random guys minding their own business, assumes they are out for her "treasure" then has herself and her teammates JUMP them out of furious paranoia, which is worse because she's accusing people of something they didn't do then forces an unnecessary scuffle. It also doesn't help that afterwards she just assumes they are up to no good. But you never hear anyone call Rouge a paranoid psycho. Sorry for long comments. Amy is my favorite Sonic character and I hate how the fandom places her in weird double standards and treat her character. lol
@@Antonio-is2cn Yes, but I'm directly referring to everyone who brings it up in Amy videos as they constantly cite it ruining her character, then its just them taking a scene WAY too seriously from the intention. Or fans who do it in general.
I unfortunately was one of the people convinced that Amy was awful in Heroes. It actually took a video defending Heroes Amy for me to realize that she's actually awesome. Heroes feels like an extension of her arc in Adventure 1 kind of like Adventure 2 Tails. She leads a team featuring characters that aren't really that strong (yes I know Big is physically strong but the dude fishes and sleeps throughout the day) and keeps their spirits high always reminding them of the friends they want to save. The game shows off Amy's energy, passion, perseverance and want to help so well. The reason she went out on this adventure to find Sonic was admittedly to see him again but equally if not more to help Cream and Big find Froggy and Chocola since it appeared that Sonic took them. Once she realizes Eggman's the actual culprit, finding Froggy and Chocola is the main goal. I now think Heroes is probably peak Amy and can't believe one panned cutscene convinced me otherwise. I'll take that Amy any day over the stale bread we have now.
1:06:35 thank you for acknowledging a genuine problem I have with people being so defensive of Ian but attempting to dunk on the previous writers. It just screams bias when both writers had restrictions
I hated Pontac and Graff for the longest time but I realize that they didn't hire themselves. SEGA did with full knowledge that both knew nothing about Sonic. Does that make me like their writing? No not at all but I'm not gonna fall into this double standard.
@@ashuraomega1000 No, he had limits even back then. Penders caused a huge shift that caused both Archie and Sega to start clamping down on writers. There was never a point in time where Flynn was simply free to do what he wanted, at the end of the day he's still writing for a company. You want to know what Flynn's writing looks like completely unrestricted though? Read Drogune, an indie comic where he has full creative control over that nobody cares about because Ian's writing there is lifeless and dull. He needs Sonic WAY more than Sonic needs him.
22:10 I think you’d like the Japanese version of this scene a lot better In that version, Amy reflects on her actions towards Sonic and how “just loving someone isn’t enough”; she says she wants to take a step back and figure herself out. It’s essentially her saying she wants to stop thinking about the immediate future; she wants to consider what would actually happen if her and sonic did develop a relationship and how she would have to mature to be proper to him.
i really don't understand why they seem to insist on having the english and japanese scripts be entirely separate. the 2000s games weren't perfect with this kind of thing, but i feel like none of those games had it this bad...
@@lolita_cat afaik kishimoto wrote a different script for the japanese version because he wanted this game to appeal to a japanese audience given the series' long history of not being too succesful in japan. from what ive seen tho the writing in the japanese script is actually worse so idk if they really achieved that
@@autumn_leaves1011 It's speculated to be partially machine translated because the speech patterns of characters are different from past games. But could you blame him though, he needed to wrangle through the shitty American interpretations of the characters. ig you could say he's writing an entirely new script tbh And I mean, Frontiers is the best selling Sonic game in Japan so yes Kishimoto definitely fluked it.
I feel like "We'll be better next time" should've just been this games marketing tagline cause the game, the fans and the developers alike really seem to want you to believe that despite hearing that same thing multiple times throughout the last decade. I feel like we've grown so used to this series trying to chase past glory at this point that literally getting back to the beginning is seen as an improvement which is kind of sad.
It leaves you wondering not only when the hell "next time" is but also if that next time will turn into a consistent quality for the series gameplay and story wise. How many times do I need to wait for us to move forward and not get "potential for the future".
@@castform7 Yeah, that's kind of where i've been at for a while now. Everyone always talks about potential for the future but why can't that be now? You don't wait 50 years for brand new Mario game just for it to be the equivalent of a unity tech demo, you get a game that you can feel Nintendo's heart and soul in with everything you do in them and they always have well developed mechanics and levels that are fully realized. I don't even like Mario that much but I envy that we don't get games with that kind of quality, I wouldn't mind waiting longer for Sonic games if we could get that but after this game and Forces I don't even think time matters.
@@megasoniczxx Time absolutely doesn't matter. The gap between Forces and Frontiers' releases is one month away from 5 years and Frontiers is just a step in the right direction. After 10 years of the only quality experience being a Classic Sonic game not made by Sonic Team, I'm kinda tired of them meandering around for years on end just to come out to "eh it's pretty good I guess can't wait for next time" I get wanting a foundation to build upon but in the state Sonic's in we can't just have foundation right now.
Honestly, I couldn't agree more with the issues of how Amy's written in this game and how Cindy was directed to act, because unlike Knuckles and Tails who had a decent number of moments I liked, there was nothing for Amy that even felt like her, and I was baffled, especially looking back, that there was no mention of her love for Sonic or even how events on Kronos affected how she felt about their current relationship, no discussion between the two about how they may have been immature about how they truly felt. Suffice to say, it wasn't a good first impression when it came to Sonic interacting with his friends, and it's rather telling that he's got more chemistry with Knuckles than who's the closest he has to an official love interest. I appreciate that you've gotten all this off your chest, especially after the fallout of that one offhand tweet, though if I may, I'd probably suggest that this is the last video explicitly tackling a more negative opinion for a while, not because I think you shouldn't dislike anything, lord knows I'm not exactly hopeful about the future of Sonic myself, but because it seems to be all what the channel is known for beyond its fans, completely disregarding the times where you were flat out nice or hopeful, like in the F-Zero video, a lot of the Ratchet videos, or even the Rewriting Sonic video. I know the Forces JebCut video will more than likely be a fun time, but perhaps it's time to tackle Xenoblade and show how much the series means to you, maybe even get some new subscribers in with that. Not to mention, I and many others have been wanting to hear your thoughts about it in-depth ever since you made it clear how much you love Xenoblade. One final note is that watching this video did get me to boot up Frontiers again, not for ragging on it or anything of the sort, but for fun, like trying to experiment with Homing Dashes on 4-3 Rumble Rave as that's one of the small handful of Cyber Space stages I jive with, but also just to dick about in certain areas of the Open Zones, like the submerged ruins in Rhea Island, as I kinda found it therapeutic using the Spin Dash and other moves to get myself on top of structures of all kinds to get some pretty nice views and screenshots, as if I was subconsciously reminding myself that what you say doesn't ever need to affect my opinion, and no doubt, I'll still like Frontiers after all is said and done, even if Final Horizon legitimately pissed me off. Then again, what else is new given that I consider KHIII an A tier game whereas you're the opposite. That's the beauty of having more independent opinions that don't hinge on whether or not your favourite TH-camr think the same thing. With all that said, it's funny that this video dropped six days after bickuribox12 uploaded his Final Horizon video, and Somecallmejohnny is doing his first Round 2 video in lord knows how long on the Frontiers updates, as if February's spontaneously become the month of Frontiers videos, which I don't really mind as I've been looking forward to each of these projects and I'm fairly confident it's gonna be three for three. Besides, I got Ben 10 Omniverse to watch in the meanwhile, and that's been going great so far. See you whenever Jeb, and btw, the best part of the video was when you said "Frontiering all over the place", glad that meme's persisting.
44:05 Eggman’s line here makes me think that they were trying to make Eggman and Sonic like Batman and the Joker, where they can’t live without the other thwarting their plans or creating chaos
@@platinum3690I was more thinking of the scene from Batman: The Killing Joke, where they actually sit down and have a conversation for once, and Batman refuses to beat the joker this time. Bruce even offers to rehabilitate the Joker, which of course he denies, and Batman laughs at his joke. It’s honestly one of my favorite Batman scenes
@@platinum3690 I was more thinking about the scene from Batman: The Killing Joke where Batman and the Joker actually sit down and have a conversation for once, and Bruce refuses to beat him down this time. Bruce even offers to rehabilitate him, which of course he denies. Batman even laughs at the Joker’s joke, it’s a heartwarming scene, one of my favorite Batman scenes
And it's to that I call bullshit, Sonic and Eggman would absolutely prefer to be without the other. No Sonic means Eggman is free to rule. No Eggman means Sonic will experience new places on his own.
@@mitch_universe4058 The plot of The Killing Joke was that the Joker and Batman's dynamic has escalated to the point that one is doomed to kill the other and Batman is trying to stop that so the Joker can finally get actual help. Alan Moore was commenting on how the two were and still are ridiculous characters who aren't relevant to the real world with the Joker as he wrote him ultimately not being Moriarty or a "badass" edgelord who's killing all the normies but a pathetic man who just used his traumas and suffering to become a supervillain. Batman not just murdering him shows the Joker isn't some wise sage who sees how society really is since in the end many in this world suffer yet hardly anyone became the Joker.
The thing with Amy many fail to mention This is a freaking japanese series, she's the ultimate Genki Girl That bold and energetic girl who ends up in the same situation as the guy she likes and takes the chance
I feel like I've come to learn that that's why I liked Amy and why I'm so sour on her now. It's also why Heroes is my favorite portrayal of her character. She was an energetic go getter with a fierce passion, wanting to help those in need while also having a crush on someone who ultimately inspired her to do better. This Amy is just.....kind and..... yeah I'm drawing a blank on other discernable characteristics.
The localization of the series has messed with a lot of people's perception of these characters. Sonic was also a lot of people's first exposure to Japanese tropes, so characters like Shadow and Amy were a lot more divisive back then.
@@ZaiDrizzleDrop Oh don't even get me started. Where the hell did this tarot card resurgence come from. I know tarot cards have been stated to be her hobby since her first appearance but outside of one issue of IDW, we have not heard about it since Sonic CD. I'd be fine with a little nod here and there like Tails mint love in one of the Twitter takeovers but they ham fisted it back into relevance to where she uses them more than her hammer in Final Horizon y'know the thing she's actually been associated with (yeah yeah I know they try to explain it but it's still super weird). It's the most forced fanservice in this game cause it feels the most like the writers going "SEE?! WE KNOW SONIC! LOOK, IT'S AMY'S CARDS FROM A 1993 MANUAL! SEE SEE!?"
@@castform7 Seriously it’s like these people don’t actually know these characters at all. (They don’t, I actually don’t think the fans do either). It’s like a desperate attempt to give her character traits due to a lack of character. Thisreminds me of when Naruto spent most of season 1 saying BELIEVE IT, but then in Shippuden he meets his dead mom, and starts saying “Ya know!” because that’s something his mom said. And THEN the story tries to tell you he’s ALWAYS said “Ya know” even though he NEVER HAS!! There’s even a flashback when he’s a kid that has him saying Ya know as if it’s always been in the series. What’s even the point?! It’s STUPID, and if anything it just shows that you’re forcefully trying to have a connection between Naruto and his parents that was never there because they are barely in the series. It’s just showing your ass, and nobody would have cared until you forced it in. I don’t like Naruto by the way.
You know, I almost feel emotional about this video. I really despise the way Sonic is nowdays, and for a period I thought I was the only one. It was like if I was invited to a special friend's house and the day I came there i was recieved by a bunch of strangers. Sonic is not Sonic anymore, is a void Shell with a huge arsenal of member berries. For a huge time I thought I was just in a paralel reality, but when i encounter these types of video I realise that im not the only one thinking it. The positive recivement of frontiers was not a natural thing, people are just coping to hard to continue the end less cycle of consumerism. They are no longer fans of sonic but of the Brand. They no longer care about Sonic but for the idea of sonic. As a Sonic fan, its sad to see my favorite franchise, from which i'm a hardcore fan, geting blander and blander with the time. Sonic in this moment is a moving corpse, only surviving by pure determination and unconditional loyality to the brand. Thanks for making this video, you give me the determination to make a video of my own talking about frontiers in the channel im starting. At first I doubt if starting with a rant would be a good idea, but now I really want to talk about this game and its impact in the franchise in my native languaje. Thanks a lot, and sorry for the grammar mistakes, its because im not a english native speaker (and my phone is messing up the things I wrote) (its replacing the text with spanish terms).
the Sonic main cast is like SEGA brand ambassadors or Safe Corporate V-Tubers, not allowed to show flaws, their ugly side, their unpopular opinions, their real emotions. if you imagine SEGA standing behind the camera and filming these cutscenes, like yeah it sure looks like sonic doesnt wanna piss off the executives staring him down while he's recording a take.
@@kaobunn Well they do, its just not done in an interesting way, the presentation is just so awful and boring ,with characters just standing around and talking
I still find nonsensicval that the majority of Sonic Fanbase hates the line "Green Hill looks more like Sand Hill" in Forces, while at the same time is okay with the many references in Frontiers.
They hate it because it's a stupid line where Sonic takes the destruction of Green Hill very lightly. It was probably not even a REFERENCE to Sand Hill, I bet those motherfuckers just thought it was funny. and the reason they're okay with the ones in frontiers is- oh wait, they're not, everyone made fun of them. Even the biggest bootlickers could only say "stop nitpicking" since they knew they were unnatural.
I think it’s best I finally say this now: This game only got as much praise as it did from critics and Sonic fans solely because the last mainline game before it was Forces, expectations were beyond low.
@@AYTM1200 Like hell it is. Say what you will about Lost World, but that game had actual level design and production value. Frontiers is a cobbled together mess that railroadsthe player into poorly thought out combat sections, boring minigames, or levels straight out of much better games. An open world game that doesn't have confidence in its own premise is not a good game.
Man it's draining that the supposed "foundation for the next decade of Sonic" is hellbent on reusing Generations assets and ideas. Riding off the coattails of games that actually got it, both in and out of the series... just like the last half a decade. The are even making a remaster of Generations as we speak (that we have to cross fingers that they don't manage to have it be glitchy for the third time). Yippie
It's a bad sign when I don't want them touching the base game that came out almost 13 years ago because I don't trust them to "improve" upon the awesome controls because of what we got afterwards.
Honesty the depressing thing is i honestly wish fountiers was a just a complete train wreck. At least then we chould move on to something potentially good. Instead we're stuck with an another decade of middle of the road games.
You really hit the nail on the head when it came to the English voice direction because it's something that absolutely bothered me upon playing on launch that I switched to Japanese mid playthrough, the character voices suddenly deepening because it's a more "serious" game sounds really unnatural. I felt like I was crazy when I saw people saying that this was the best they've ever sounded when I'd argue that it's only gotten worse, it sucks because like the Studiopolis actors are not bad like I can think of ten roles that I liked their performances in and none of them would be from Sonic, I gave them a chance I really did but Frontiers specifically has really shown that the direction for this cast will never improve. I would say to really solidify that this is a new era of Sonic I think it's time for another recast, but we really don't need the voices of these characters to become inconsistent AGAIN and get someone new. At the same time though, I don't see SEGA bringing back the VAs from the days of Adventure or Sonic X because they hate fun. I've come to terms that we'll likely never get a good english dub from Sonic ever again but if it bothers me that much, I'll stick to Japanese from now on because Junichi Kanemaru never misses.
Junichi been killing it since Sonic adventure no need to deepen his voice to make Sonic sound serious, I wish people would bring him up in va discussions because he's so great
@@hype5456 he's just sonic to me and even if he gets replaced i can feel confident knowing they'll get someone that sounds as close to him as possible the 2010s english cast at this point i can't stand except for tails he actually sounds fine to me
I'm one of those guys that can't fully enjoy something in a different language, so I'm really hoping they change Sonic's English VA at the very least. Jason and Ryan were so good as Sonic, but I'll also take someone new. The subtitles not matching the JP script doesn't help either.
FINALLY SOMEONE MENTIONS THE BULLSHIT AMY CHARACTER ATTACK OVER THE YEARS! Amy’s dynamic with sonic has *always* been cute, simple, but cute. People tried to make it deeper than what it really was and somehow tried to interpret her as a creep. It’s a side effect of the grass-touching deprivation.
I hated how people looked at her character in the 2000s and called her annoying, but in the 2010s even no she's so incredibly boring and people thinks that they fixed the character in all the 2010s and IDW even though there were glimpses, but she lost a lot of what made her special. I never had a problem with Amy's character until now that people treat her like annoying girl character even though what JebZone said is literally how I feel about her. Even her voice acting doesn't do the character's justice.
@@nerodoesart5886 Have Amy instead, say, "One day I want to share that love with you Sonic". This would show that Amy's love for Sonic is growing beyond just a cute crush. But it's something that's becoming gradual, because people change over time.
Yeah, honestly I am not sold on Eggman and Sage's chemistry. And no, the Egg Memos don't help me with this problem, it really hit me with a massive amount of whiplash.
Me and my buddy Ben couldn’t disagree more. Eggman having a chance to be more than “Muhahahaha **mustache twirling**” the character and actually having a chance to see and hear Mike Polluck emote is insane. Is this game perfect? No. Is it peak Eggman? No. Is it still amazing in the Robotnik category? Hell yes.
@@PirateKingBoros He was more than a mustache twirly evil villain long before this. Not that it'd be a bad thing, the straightforward route isn't inherently wrong. But anyway Sage is just another creation for him to banter with like Orbot, Cubot and others in various media (if she even comes back after this). Just i suppose most folks' issue with her that do have one are that the more emotional aspect is thrown in very akwardly. I mean we saw that Egg montage lol. I'd be bothered by it more too but keep forgetting she exists to begin with and am not 100% we'll always have her around going forward, if at all.
You gotta keep in mind that the vast majority of fans who were hyping up Ian Flynn being the writer for Sonic Frontiers, have never even picked up a Sonic comic in their life. I know this because the sales for the Sonic comics are abysmal and are essentially on life support. So why the hype? Well, the most likely reason is a little known thing called Social Contagion. Since seemingly everyone is of the belief that Ian Flynn is some amazing writer who can do no wrong, then word spreads leading other people to echo the same sentiment. Because if everyone says something is true, then it must be true, right? This is how misinformation begins to spread and is a common occurrence throughout the internet. But, there's still one lingering question. Why does everyone think Sonic Frontiers' story is actually good? Well, this is something that is largely a problem with the Sonic fanbase itself. Sonic fans have a problem with deluding each other into thinking this mediocre thing is good, actually. Why? Because all they want is for Sonic to be great again and are sick of game journalist dunking on the franchise every opportunity they get. So, whenever Sonic fans get served a bowel of shit, they'll tell each other it's actually chocolate and eat it all up. And if you dare say otherwise, then you must hate Sonic or you're nostalgia blind! This is preventing the franchise from actually moving forward, because Sega is of the belief that they are doing just fine the way they are and the fans are happy anyways, so there's no point in trying harder. If we just stop blindly praising everything they put out, then maybe things will change. Hell, remember how everyone clowned on Sonic '06 for being an absolute bug fest of a videogame? That caused them to actually lock in and try to deliver something that was truly made with passion and love for the franchise, that being Sonic Unleashed that was to hopefully win the fans and critics back over. But, by that point the damage was already done and at the time, critics and fans alike slammed it, because of the Werehog. That's when Sonic Team just stopped trying and is now the franchise is a shell of it's former self.
The entire comic book industry is on life support, don't make it solely about IDW when you and I both know that this is completely detached from reality. Flynn is a garbage writer, but he's not to blame for numbers, he's not the sole writer of this book, hell, not even the lead writer (that's Evan Stanley). There is interest for IDW (and more interest than Archie has ever gotten from Sega), does it have issues? Obviously, the most blatant being the multiple attempts to "Archiefy" the book, but I don't like being a drone for Jeb's opinions when I don't agree with everything he says. Flynn is only popular for "saving" the already decaying corpse that was Archie Sonic, but in reality, the only thing he did was to clean up the mess left by Penders and make the books more game accurate on the worst possible ways (i.e: Giving Charmy brain damage to make him sync with his game counterpart, eliminating the Knuckles OC pantheon, immediately validate the garbage claims the fandom made about Amy, blah blah blah).
When sonic picked up the sword and says to knight "ah yes my swordsmans technics...I haven't use these since the round table era" it was truly the reference of all time
Colors has maybe one or two instances of Sonic turning to the camera and breaking the fourth wall. Generations is an anniversary game, so meta references are to be expected. Generations is often criticized for not doing ENOUGH with the premise. There's no fourth wall breaking at all in Lost World. Yet this game is somehow "not meta", even though by definition, it fits the bill more than the entire "meta era" combined.
My comment will be long, so I apologize, I have a lot to say in regards to Amy and I agree with you 100% she was much better back then than now. (I'll also post a shorter part 2) Here is my overall main issue with the Modern Amy vs 2000s Amy Fan debates, the basis I see a lot of people use is the fact that she is no longer stereotypical or the fact she has motivation in her modern form. When in reality they didn't make her "less stereotypical" they just made her stereotypical in a different way that people are fine with because she fits THEIR image of what they like about her (which feels rather sexist), especially since prior to her change nobody ever offered solutions to improve her character, they just complained about her existence while using a lot of hyperbole in their arguments. Even though I myself didn't hate her character, speaking from the perspective of a detractor, if I wanted to say she's better, the only reason I have is just because I prefer this one over the older one, which by then isn't even an argument, what exactly makes her more progressive or better beyond she doesn't crush on Sonic? Because all they have done in modern media is make her a female stereotype, she's the main girl of the group, she's a voice of reason, has a motherly disposition, and is overall defined by kindness. But yet this is exactly the type of characteristics that solely defined female characters back in the 50s, 60, 70s, 80s and even early 90s media. This was even the designated role for female characters in sitcoms. This was typical in tradition of female housewife characters (or the girl the protagonist had to save), in which those traits solely defined them, which were often criticized for subjecting female characters to dull and sexist roles, but is somehow progressive for Amy? I've always found it so weird how the fanbase always puts Amy in a weird double standard, while ranting how she invokes double standards in certain instances, when tbh I find this has evolved into people just inserting any type of rant they can find based on systemic issues. Yes, it is important to note it's just as important to take male harassment seriously as it is female, but not every situation written with the perspective of "female gives unwanted advances" is them doing that. I think people take it too seriously or insert things that aren't even that intent. Not to mention the purpose of Amy initially was supposed to be more extreme with her emotions compared to everyone, she won't just be excited, she would exclude energy in her excitement. I mean really, she was also an immature pre-teen girl, so it's not exact farfetched to say that yeah, she's going to be annoying, but like that could be said for literally anybody at their younger age in a dose of self-reflection as you get older. Pre-teens and teens do stupid and immature things! Amy's crush reflects that (when not being flanderized anyway) It's like the whole "mature vs immature" thing the fanbase uses toward her. Firstly, being immature doesn't inheritably make a character bad. Secondly, when you mature you don't strip away everything about yourself to where outside of one attribute, your entire persona doesn't just fade away, you can change things about yourself or have a more mature outlook and even outgrow things, but Modern Amy feels like diet version of Boom Amy and had all her traits outside of kindness removed, that's not how mature works, she didn't redefine any of her characteristics in a different way, she just isn't showing them period, Amy losing all her traits wouldn't be "mature" its just subdued, which is not what she was. Even with how Boom Amy displays her crush on Sonic, moments where its referenced showcase some creepy factor too. Only Boom Amy was doing it in secret. And tbh, the whole "two characters secretly like each other, but don't admit it" trope is even more tropey than the unrecruited crush. This isn't me shaming Boom Amy btw, she's obviously supposed to be a different character, but I'm just annoyed how the fanbase uses her as an excuse to bash Retro Amy, while also making Modern Amy less distinct as a character due to similar traits she displays with Boom Amy, just having every one of her flaws stripped, while only taking the motherly, female and subdued attributes of Boom Amy. Speaking of Boom Amy, the only reason Boom Amy gets a pass is because she's "mature" yet beyond this reasoning, I NEVER see anyone analyze why her flaws her okay in Boom and not in the games pre-Lost World, despite displaying the same flaws outright. Since both Amy's displayed the same level of meanness with their tone when it came to their temper, hell Boom Amy would often death glare at someone for questioning her ethics, like that scene in the episode where they try to help Tails ask out Zooey where she yells at Tails about being a "refined woman" only to go back to a composed disposition the same moment, this is exactly what 2000's Amy would do, as evident of things like Heroes or even X. Or how in other scenes in the show she is shown to be bossy and mean toward her friends. Boom Amy was much more bossy and self-righteous, often bossing her friends around and scolding them whenever she believes they have done something wrong. On: Sonic Boom a comic book written by Ian Flynn that predates the cartoon, introduces Amy as bossy and with temper problems, having problems with Knuckles and being passive aggressive with him in particular. And as the cartoon went on she became Increasingly pushy and egocentric, again these are similar traits people unanimously hated Amy for but are fine for Boom Amy because she's "mature" when these flaws are just as apparent here. And both of them were used for comedy. When it came to Sonic X, I find a lot of her actions exaggerated there too. Like the cruise ship episode or the date one. I never understood why people hated Amy in that episode, while Sonic doesn't like water and its fine for him to feel that way (and admittedly everyone could've tried to be more understanding) it was wrong for him to attempt to gaslight Amy and Tails as an excuse to get off the ship. He intentionally used Amy's feelings for him to make her swing her hammer around so people think she's unhinged so they can leave the ship, she ONLY decides to react the way she does because she catches onto his plan and uses that against him. He asked her to swing her hammer. Well, she does that. She also calls him out. Keep in mind, he did this with TAILS as well! As a side note, I don't understand how everyone criticizes Sonic X Amy for being a stalker, when like how is she a stalker when she's literally with the group at all times, is part of the friend group, is chilling out in the Thorndyke Mansion, and actively gets herself in mishaps with the group? She's even often invited by Tails on missions because any time he appears with the Tornado Amy's often with him, being a stalker would imply she's some random girl who stumps upon the group and follows their every move and action, how can someone be a stalker if they are apart of the same group and live in the same residence? LOL when in Sonic X Again this feels like a tacked on negative connotation because it was easy for people to do that. Amy having flaws didn't make her a bad character. Quite the opposite. Characters who have room for personal growth and development are infinitely more interesting than characters who are perfect angels with nothing to learn. Amy was the former, but has become the latter outside of TMOSTH, which is the ONLY Modern version of her I like outside of IDW. And even so, the latter has done her inconsistently at times.
Yeah Frontiers botched Amy so hard and that bio about "not chasing Sonic anymore, wants to spread love to everyone (whatever that means) doesnt give me any hope for her future
This was such a cathartic video to watch. I remember beating the game last year after taking a 6 month break and thinking "...did I miss something? I have no idea what's going on. Who is The End? Did we build up to this? Did I forget stuff over the past 6 months or was I just not paying attention?" "What even happens in this game?" That's the thing about this game. You're spot on when you say that this game merely entertains the idea of a story. *This game literally has no plot.* Nothing _happens._ While a "story" has to do with themes and messaging and characters and whatnot, plot is strictly the events that transpire _in_ a story; there is technically a difference. I bring up that difference to point out that while I still retained the gist of the "story" the game attempts to tell, I could not ascertain what the _plot_ was. After watching this video, the plot is literally just "Sonic fights all of the titans and then he climbs the towers to free his friends. But he also frees The End, who he then defeats." You may say "that's not really fair, you can sum up any good story like that if you just focus on the main events", but a story and plot goes hand in hand. If your story doesn't have a plot, then it's just... an amorphous blob of floating ideals, which is exactly what this game's story is. Compare the plot (the literal events that happen) in this game to the plot of games like SA1 and 2, Black Knight, and even Unleashed. It's the type of drawback that I've only really seen in non-linear games like this, which is obviously the point of them, which may again call attention to the "unfairness" of me comparing Frontiers' open-ended plot to that of its more linear predecessors, but... Where Frontiers fails in places that Breath of the Wild succeeds, is that part of BotW's story comes from the unique experience you as the player have as you play the game. The things you discover, the trials you overcome, the Divine Beasts you tame, the wild you breathe; all of that contributes to the player-specific "story" you experience in the game. That's an example of a game with "no plot" like Frontiers that uses that TO IT'S ADVANTAGE. But Frontiers does not. The issue of ludonarrative dissonance that BotW manages to precisely eradicate by virtue of its core gameplay philosophy is everpresent in Frontiers. All they did was patch it with verbal references and name dropping here and there and hope we wouldn't notice. In BotW, everything is carefully thought out to maximize immersion. Almost everything you do in the game fits in line with what someone would think Link would do if you gave them a somewhat vague description of the premise, setting and main objective of the game. But if I did the same with Frontiers' premise and setting, I highly doubt they would think of Sonic traversing floating platforms and disembodied rails that pop in as he gets close to them, which that aren't even explained at all until a throwaway conversation in a DLC campaign that came out a year after the game released. Whatever sense of immersion you have with any given story beat is forcefully wrought from you the moment you reenter gameplay, where as in BotW, it's enhanced. And I'm one of the apparent few who both understands BotW's true vision AND enjoyed basking in it when I played the game, so it's extra noticeable to me just how much Frontiers misses the point on every single aspect of BotW it tried to copy.
omgggg telekinesticman hiiii i love your videos, your bayonetta 3 one is pretty good! and also the sonic action adventure game concept one, thats a pipe dream of mine!
@@nicoexists Morio Kishimoto is the director of Colours, Lost World, Forces and Frontiers, which all have very similar blocky level design. A "Kishimoment" in this situation would be referring to all the 2D block platforming thrown around this big "open zone".
There's so much I want to say, but to condense it down, a lot of the problems like "explain-writing" comes from Flynn. I'm being honest. A lot of the explain writing, the tropey depictions of the characters, and talking *at* each other comes from Flynn's part. This isn't to say that the story in Frontiers is perfect as it still has many holes, but the reason why the english script suffers from these issues is because of him. Mischaracterization is riddled in his Archie Sonic comic run and especially his IDW. The primary reason why Flynn was praised is because at the time of dealing with abysmal writing like Lost World and Colors, or straight up floundered opportunities like Forces, Flynn seem to be a "better" writer compared to Graff and Pontac. But what wasn't considered is that anyone could've done better than Pontac and Graff (although I believe it was said recently by Pontac that they barely had a say-so in the script for Sonic). This isn't me just bashing either. Look at Flynn's personal podcast. He consistently over-explains himself over the tiniest questions. IDW is filled to the brim of long wordy dialogue boxes to explain almost every action in the story. Same with exaggerating character traits by telling them to the reader instead of showing us. Despite Flynn being in the series for years, something fans didn't consider is that he spent most of his time writing completely different iterations of the characters in his Archie run, the run he has said to miss repeatedly. The Archie versions of the Sonic characters are vastly different from their game counterparts. Then when the series got discontinued and IDW came onto the scene, Flynn clearly didn't adapt to having to write the game versions of the characters in comic form, which showed very early on in the run. He was never expected to properly learn and write the game counterparts in his Archie run because the Archie line was a different continuity entirely. But again, this was after Forces heavily disappointed fans and fans hooked onto what seemed to be the next best thing (Flynn). The other major problem is, because the quality of Sonic stories have declined when we were getting presented with the 2010s games (Colors, Gens, Lost World, Forces), any hint of "improvement" is seen as a massive step forward. Forces was seen this way with its first trailer as well. This is why even when the presentation for Frontiers is clearly a downgrade from previous Sonic games (animations, frame delays, pop ins, etc) like Unleashed and Gens, because we haven't gotten a game like Unleashed and Gens for a full decade and some change, it's praised as the best thing. It's because Frontiers has no real recent competition in the Sonic 3D area. Games like Forces and Lost World really don't do too much better than Frontiers. Frontiers' competition is a bunch of mediocre games that the fanbase has already ripped into and want nothing to do with. So of course because it *appears* to be better than those games, then it's the greatest thing ever. If Unleashed and Gens were released in 2013 and 2017 respectively, the level of grace given to Frontiers would be revoked immediately. They would KNOW that Frontiers is a downgrade because they have recent examples to compare it to in the Sonic series. It's the same with Pontac/Graff. Pontac/Graff were the most recent examples of Sonic writers in the series. A writer like Shiro Maekawa who wrote for SA2, Heroes, Black Knight and '06 wasn't compared as heavily to Flynn because Maekawa's work has been gone since 2009. This is yet another case of being able to "outshine" (Flynn) already mediocre competition (Pontac/Graff). Again, any "step" in the "right" direction is paraded in the streets of Sonic Twitter as the greatest thing the series has ever done when we already had better quality of writing in the past. Not perfect but still much better than now. Combine that with the longer gaps between 3D Sonic games now being on 4 to 5 years on average, and you have fans that are so ready and raring to treat the newest Sonic game as something fiction has never seen. Because it "improved" since last time.
@@Nathan-rb3qp Shiro is working for Marvelous atm. If they somehow really want to get Shiro back to write they need to collab with Marvelous just like how they collabed with Arzest to make Superstars.
@@kilometersperminute4113 I didn’t know that. I wonder if he’s working on the Switch remaster of Monster Hunter Stories considering he was credited on the original versions.
This game alone has made people back pedal on their stance on Ian Flynn; saying he shouldn’t write for the games lol Just shows you how bad the story is despite the good character moments
My problem with sonic as a whole is that i don't know who sonic is anymore. Everyone has their own interpretation on who sonic was that, in all the chaos from each era, im left wondering if sonic is today. Is sonic an calm introvert? idk. Is he a snarky guy? who can say. Is he a heroic shounen protagonist? I can't tell you anymore. Sonic has been changed so much over the years and people constantly tell you who sonic is supposed to be that im left wondering who sonic is anymore. He needs his own shadow the hedgehog game to fully understand who sonic is anymore.
*Answer: Sonic can be everything* Sonic has done what other characters in entertainment wished they could do - Sonic can be snarky, stylish, likeable and epic at the same time while still remaining a popular video game icon even if his games are bad good or ridiculous, the fans will continue to buy Sonic games for years to come.
@@Antonio-is2cn Personally speaking I don't like Sonic being everything. Mario can be anything because his personality is non existent so he can be whatever the series needs him to be. The problem with Sonic is that they gave him a well defined character that people become attached to and then shifted his personality into something different leaving the old personality behind. In my personal opinion they're trying to make Sonic into a character that can appeal to everyone but ironically leads him to feel like he has no stand out personality. What I love about Sonic is that he was a well defined character with his own personality and with shifting it around multiple times it leads Sonic into feeling like he lost his identity.
I mean, I don’t think any of those things you mentioned are mutually exclusive. But maybe because I consumed so many different types of sonic media coming up, I feel like there aren’t a lot of games where I felt Sonic is extremely OOC. Maybe because at their core a lot of them are relatively similar imo or I could imagine Sonic acting like that, even if some are better than others. I felt the same way about Eggman, but this was actually the first piece of Sonic media ever where I felt Eggman was really OOC.
It really feels like Ian's entire goal minute 1 after being hired as lead writer for the game was to write it with under the basis of a question he asked himself: "If I am *never* allowed to write for another Sonic game again, how can I use this one-time opportunity to course-correct the future of the franchise in such a way that future writers cannot go without acknowledging the impact of Sonic Frontiers in the context of the entire series?" If he really did this, then in a sense, I find it admirable to try and acknowledge the past in order to develop a more consistent future instead of just sweeping it under the rug in another typical self-contained Sonic story. I truly believe this is the entire reason there was an astronomical emphasis on the callbacks to previous games and stories, rather than just raw "nostalgia bait" like everyone claims it to be. Sometimes it's a little *too* on-the-nose, but considering how Sonic fans will take the teeniest tiniest details and run with them until they can't anymore in pointless arguments, I really can't blame Ian for doing it. I don't want to speak *for* Ian or anything. But I also think this isn't something Ian can likely speak about since he is still employed by SEGA. Hopefully now it's not something he has to worry about moving forward. Going from writing for a comic to a full-fledged game is not going to be a perfect transition because the process of developing a story and balancing it with gameplay elements is not something comics have to worry about. Either he or SEGA handicapped themselves by making 99% of the story about characters just standing around talking to each other because it was the safest thing to do without blowing through a ton of budget and resources (something we know Frontiers had very minimal of) to make the gameplay more bombastic because of its comic-level narrative. A lot of the issues the series has had revolves around the fan discourse concerning the inconsistencies of character writing. In SEGA's minds, it likely made more sense to "canonize everything" for the sake of producing consistencies while also not trying to pretend the inconsistencies don't exist (like they tried to do for the better half of the 2010s post-Generations).
Yeah, it felt very much like getting everyone back to their established characteristics since they had been portrayed a certain way for a decade. Getting characters back to where they were wasn’t going to be the most efficient use of time, but most younger fans don’t have immediate access to those older games (outside of steam), so a lot of that context is missing unless they look it up. I do at least hope that have other writers work on other games like they did in the past (Shiro Maekawa and Kiyoko Yoshimura if they are able) since it helps to give the series that much needed flavor that it’s known for. Ian Flynn is cool, but even the comics change writers every few issues/arcs, so there’s no reason the games can do the same.
Completely agreed. If anything, what he did here was what he did when he first got onto Archie: establish immediate status quo for characters, refine and recontextualize past continuity so it fits together, and set up stuff for the future
He's said before on his podcast that part of the reason for the side characters' personal arcs was him planting seeds for him or other writers to use in future installments so you're not that far off. He had no control of the actual plot of the game but he did have control of the dialogue so he could shape the direction their conversations went.
I said this some time ago in the Sonic subreddit: in a lot of ways, Sonic Frontiers feel like a game that should have been released between Heroes and '06, because a lot of the "story" (in the english script only) tries to reestablish the position these characters had after the events of SA2. Of course, because Ian Flynn doesn't fully understands these characters, their "arcs" in Frontiers are butchered versions of their arcs in SA1: Amy wants her own adventure, Knuckles wants to understand his tribe's past, and Tails learns to be confident in his abilities.
@@bluestar5812 I see where you'r egetting at with the SA1 rehashing, but I saw it more as establishing that either they're really gonna COMMIT to doing these things (Amy), refocus on becoming their own person capable in their own right instead of saying they'll become independent and then not being that ever again (Tails), or actually trying to find their own purpose (Knuckles)
The JP side purposely mistranslating the original EN script indeed shows they don't highly prioritize the storytelling or its convergence across different regions, regardless of which version anyone thinks is better or canon. They effectively believe that the dialogue doesn't matter as long as it doesn't breach the character bibles. It's embarrassing to see game localization regress like this, especially after EN SA1's effort to be more faithful to the Japanese canon over two decades ago.
How is it that the Sonic movies from Paramount are better at storytelling than the Sonic games from the 2010s to now? Even despite those films' flaws. Especially when Sonic Unleashed proved to us that Sonic is capable of Cinematic storytelling, through that game's opening cutscene.
I agree with everything you said in this video. Another point I'd like to bring up though is that I think people were always going to heap praise on Frontiers just because it wasn't goofy in tone. Unfortunately I think this fanbase has developed to the point where the primary motivator for any feedback given is fear. Sonic Frontiers (half-heartedly) brings back, darker stories with themes, 3D movement, multiple playable characters and other things people have been begging for, and the fanbase is terrified of losing that. The hyperbolic praise surrounding this game is what I perceive to be a desperate attempt by the fanbase to get them to keep this direction this time, so the franchise doesn't turn into a joke again. Ironically enough, as you pointed out in your video, this game is no less Meta than any of the other games made in the last decade. It's doing the exact same things, in the exact same way, only with 80% less energy to fool you into believing it's mature and deep. All this done in the hopes that "Next time will be the real one" but let's be honest, these games aren't going to get better. Frontiers represents the very best they can do especially with the focus on maintaining a consistent brand. The fans will get more of this current direction sure, but the ennui is bound to settle in.
To be honest, i feel like this video is a bit over dramatic and....i don't know, weird? I think that's the word. (And looking at your other videos, i feel like you tend to see things in a "glass is empty" sort of way.)
It is over dramatic you are not crazy I got the same vibe and feeling from this video it looks like it's one of those depressed old fans never be pleased with anything if you ask me.
@@احمدمحسن-ل1ذ Oh yeah sure just make it into another fucking era war, you tribalist. Congrats for ignoring the entire point of the video, which actually complains about retreading the story arcs of past games, complains about shallow fanservice from the 2000s games, and simply wants something new. Oh no, how dare these Sonic fans want their games to be produced under the same dignity as other series of it's ranks? We should all just be satisfied with bare minimum slop, otherwise we're just "2000s fanboys." or some other stupid shit.
@@JakeThehedgehog-m1x Not liking a game ≠ depressed old fan. We can all agree this game is a step up from forces but it definitely has some major flaws.
This video is pretty much how I feel about Frontiers' story. A bunch of references and clunky dialogue in a painful attempt at overcorrecting on criticisms of the series. Like you said, im sure Ian Flynn is a cool guy and all, and I appreciate his earnestness when it comes to the series. BUT, Frontiers has given me a very bad impression of his writing. It almost makes me feel like he's too much of a sonic fan for his own good, inlcuding superfluous details because they would make a fan coom rather than because they make sense. I like his work on the comics (even if i do feel like IDW plays it far too safe, though im sure he has less control over that aspect), and I'd even like to see him try his hand at writing spinoffs (whenever the series stops trying to play it safe and actually does spin offs again), but I cant say i feel at all confident in him writing for the mainline series from now on.
If you read the comics you can how much he references stuff even when it's not needed or ruins scenes. A good example would be Surge telling Metal Sonic "and your not even good enough to be my fake" which makes genuinely no sense. I liked it better when he was a writer that happens to be a fan of Sonic then a Sonic fan writing it
Actually, Ian has gone on record stating that he has a good deal of creative freedom with the comics; _"I can kvetch all I want about, y'know, the mandates... and the conflicts of creativity here and there, but really... getting down to it, I feel like I have enjoyed a great deal of creative freedom both Pre and Post (Archie) as well as IDW. Most of the hangups are over very minor things, which in some cases, have been for the better."_ And it will surprise you to know that Ian didn't even think that the Metal Virus Arc would get approved AT ALL. He presented it as something he wanted to do, but had another story as a backup in case it got turned down. And he said that SEGA was "incredibly generous with about 99% of it." In one episode of his podcast, he's even said he's grown tired of "mandates" being used as a buzzword.
@@E-102GammaMKII That's... unfortunately more depressing than I'd hoped. I've also heard stories about how Ian was planning on making the Archie comics more in-line with the games before it got canceled, and if the IDW plot is his realization of that, then I suppose there never really was any hope.
@@gavinislightning Yeah, that's been Ian's plan since long ago. Even called the Archie Sonic Reboot the "fast-forward button" in that regard. But you know what I think? I don't think Ian is a game purist, either. I've seen him call Jet the Hawk a "fantasy bird-man from a mediocre video game series." I ultimately think Ian is just in it for himself. To line his pockets. He intends to cling to Sonic for as long as he can and profit from it, as he's called Sonic a "spiky blue money-maker." And his "KnowingSmile" hashtag is such an irritation.
@@E-102GammaMKII So basically Ian has devolved into being Penders 2: Electric Boogaloo. And it's depressing because unlike Penders, Ian has gaslighted and cultivated a hardcore fanbase who'll defend ANYTHING he does just because he lazily panders to them 24/7.
@@megaturtleman1218 the English dub really has course corrected into parody, given how desperately it wants to be taken seriously, after the past decade. But lower one's voice to sound older and not come across as "cartoony" a serious story does not make. Seriously, going from the Japanese dub to English gives some major whiplash, given that the characters, in the Japanese dub, sound like they should do, and have done for the past 25 years. The English dub however, much like I said earlier, comes across more like a child trying to act like what they believe is a mature adult. For when its trying to do these heartfelt moment, it all comes across as very insincere and fake.
@yrooxrksvi7142 what I mean by standing on his own is I'm refering to how boom is it's own and cause sonic acts very differently there it feels better tailored to Roger it felt made for him it doesn't save boom from being nothing to me tho
I think the problem with SEGA writing Amy's "new" character stems them wanting to forget the old character, rather than embracing it. Both Sonic & Amy's arc has to come down to maturity, cause her goals were to impress Sonic. She was a fan of him in CD. She started chasing him down in the Dreamcast Era, but Sonic doesn't like the idea of settling down. Turning them into rivals in a comedic sense. Now we're at the point of Sonic & Amy lives where they can stop and think how much value thay have in their friendship. (Or more if needed) Amy could now realize it takes time to build up something so long term. So that gives her time to improve on herself, and show that's she's just as a strong/stand out character as the main trio. Most importantly, she's learning not only to embrace her past feelings, but move on from them. Giving her the perfect chance to actually take the time to KNOW Sonic. Rather than continue playing his game of chasing him around, and get rejected. This is the best scenario we can get from the two.... *Problem is, we don't get that.* It's because of the fact SEGA/Writers keep trying to scrub her old character way, this new "I'm so mature now" Amy comes across as forced. Yet at the same time they keep going "HEY HEY Look at this cute and intimate moment between Sonic & Amy, nudge nudge." It doesn't feel genuine. I do like the idea of her trying to find herself, without needing/wanting Sonic. At the same time she shouldn't shy away from the fact that she was obsessively inlove with him. Instead, she should be learning from it, and take approaches to casually join Sonic in his adventures. Or see how they can better their dynamic, now they're at a time where they're passed the chasing game. Basically, let Amy grow into maturity instead of forcing her to be mature.
This whole game reeks of "we didn't really have that many ideas and this is what our team of all junior devs who are just learning unreal engine could cobble together before we had to get something out the door"
Made all the more rage-inducing by the pre-launch gaslighting in interviews, and the game's constant "We're so much better now!" patronization. This publisher and dev team need to be shut down if they're gonna keep pulling scams this blatant.
@@theholygamer969yeah what was up with that? I remember sonic team being like “we’re done rushing games and we’re gonna learn from our mistakes”. They just lied.
@jimmybob5541 It's marketing drivel. They don't have to be sincere. They have to manipulate you into giving them your money. The problem is, they don't offer anything worth buying anymore. They know exactly what to say to keep this starved cult of a fandom interested.
Jeb, thank you so much for seeing me as worthy to have my name on Patreon be a special shoutout! You have no idea how happy it made me when I was watching the final portions of the video!
I honestly think that Amy's original nickname "Rosie the rascal" encapsulates what her character was always meant to be so well that it's all you need to hear to get the gist of her energy and charm. Like, frontiers Amy is so devoid of the energy and personality that was so rare to see in female video game characters in the 90s and it makes me so sad. People didn't like her because she was the only sonic female, they liked her because she was genuinely likable. I think sonic writers need to take more out of the OVA character dynamics, because it's so legitimately amazing how perfectly the character interactions are written. They just really understood those characters. The handling of tails especially is just perfect in the ova. He keeps up with sonic and is shown to be just as competent and capable while still having that younger brother type vibe. This is really emphasized in the fight with robo-robotnik.
Imo Sonic X nailed Sonic and Amy's dynamic. Even Season 1, which is usually regarded as a slog, has some of the funniest scenes with them as the focus (specifically the part where sonic faints, idk why I've just always liked that one). Keep in mind that I specifically mean the original Japanese dub, the 4kids script removes basically all the silly fourth wall humor and that's a real shame. It also adds dialogue to a moment Sonic Team specifically asked to keep completely silent by the end of season 2, which to me takes away a rather nuanced decision. The french dub ironically did the same but in the exact opposite way. If you know you know. just thought I'd throw it out there. Sonic X isn't even that good but a lot of the character writing was it's saving grace.
(REPOSTED BECAUSE OF ERROR) It's funny you should bring up the "kids' stuff" bit regarding Ian Flynn. Following issue #50 of the IDW comics, people started getting more openly upset towards how its version of Sonic was portrayed. The short version is that the central theme of the comic (intentionally or no) is about Sonic's heroic philosophy of compassion and mercy coming into conflict with both villains who refuse to change and the impact they leave on Sonic's friends and other innocent people. Fundamental misunderstanding of Sonic's core character aside (Sonic doesn't have a philosophy, he's a nice guy who just does what he wants for the sake of it), the comic never has Sonic outright confront his ideals, and instead has him go on wordy and pretentious platitudes about how he's a superhero and he wants everyone to be free and blah blah blah you suck for not agreeing with him. The comic can't be totally in favor of Sonic's ideals because it indeed shows the negative consequences of them, it can't be totally against Sonic's ideals because it puts him on a pedestal both in-universe and from a storytelling perspective, and it can't be a case of "the true answer is somewhere in between" because it never reaches any sort of resolution or answer. Kids reading the book will likely either think Sonic's self-righteous attitude is something that should be emulated (a bad takeaway), or they'll hate Sonic for being a pushover and think the lesson is to always punish evil and never look for the good in people (also a bad takeaway). Crap on the Sonic movies all you want, but at least they have narrative stakes and themes. Sonic learns he can't run from his problems, Tails learns to become more confident, Knuckles learns that heroism is about helping others rather than just the glory of handling yourself. Kids have something meaningful to take away when they leave the theater. Now, after seeing all the discourse surrounding it, how did Mr. Ian Flynn, the so-called "best Sonic writer" who "understands the characters" and "is pretty much a god for Sonic", respond? Did Flynn acknowledge criticism from people (some of his own fans included), and vow to do better in the future? Nah, but Daniel Barnes did that for his own work, so good on that guy. Did Flynn try to explain why he chose to write Sonic a certain way, thus showing his mindset as a writer and allowing readers to judge it more fairly? Nah, that requires valuing personal introspection and personal responsibility, and nobody has time for that. If neither of those were the case, then what did Mr. Flynn do? Well, after stating that issue #50 was about Sonic conveying the "SEGA standard" for his character to the audience, he followed up with this: "[Sonic's] point of view is very simple and idealized, but it's also a children's fantasy. You know, we're not going to be able to answer these high-level moral questions that humanity has been grappling with since we had an understanding of morality to begin with in a Sonic book, this is introductory level. And if you're in your twenties or thirties or forties and you don't find this surface-level approach fully satisfying… go read adult material. Go read stuff that does delve into that, and does try to tackle it, and does something smarter. This- this is not something smarter." Need I say more?
Ok thats dumb, he aknowledges the criticisms and even his Friends Evan does. Many times people had criticized his work and he Will improve with enough time, heck the Next Game he wrote being dream team doesn't even have any references apart from lets do It to it
So much this. I hate how he writes Sonic like he is Superman or something with constant lectures and speeches on morality, forgiveness, ect. Sonic isn’t Superman or the heroic dub version of Goku. He doesn’t constantly talk. Instead he lets his actions speak for themselves, and nothing in the games or prior media ever fixated on Sonic having some weird fascination with forgiveness and redemption. Sure, he went with Shadow being a good guy but he didn’t lecture Shadow or even register it beyond “You’re one of us now? Cool!”
@@joaquindiaz3621 Flynn wrote PART of Dream Team and I can tell when some aspects of his writing show up ("Kidnapping a child is low even for you, Doctor"; "I've heard of falling asleep, but this is ridiculous"; "giant enemy crab"), but the other half of the story was done by Don Rosatti, and I feel like Rosatti did a lot more of the work when it comes to the game's overall story and characterization. I especially don't think Flynn was responsible for the game's basic premise and story, considering how he's been known to say less-than-flattering things about Amy, Cream and Rouge's game portrayals. To quote, Amy is "all over the place", Cream is a little girl who "isn't supposed to get involved", and Rouge has "that odd sex appeal for a cartoon bat", indicating that they aren't as interesting because they aren't solely defined as being "kick-butt females" like Blaze or Tangle. And funny thing, too; just like how Flynn tries to prop up Frontiers' story by knocking down or leaning on the stories of previous games, so too did he try to prop up Tangle through directly knocking down other female Sonic mainstays: www.gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2018/02/15/writer-ian-flynn-discusses-giving-the-sonic-comic-series-a-fresh-start.aspx
Part of what made adventure-era Amy so cool was that her arc was about becoming more independent and improving herself so that she could be worthy of Sonic's love- leading to really interesting scenarios like her repeatedly sneaking into and breaking people out of jail, and giving her more believable justification in thrusting herself into dangerous adventures Heroes and Riders and those games that portrayed Amy in a more manic and stalker-y way wasn't disappointing because it was creepy or whatever, it's because it kind of flanderized her into a character with less dimension And that portrayal of her just being a wild hammer-swinging maniac who wants to hunt down Sonic is what laid the groundwork for her now just being a generic Strong Female Character whose only character traits are being nice and using a hammer(and also tarot cards now, because she is also a wizard now I guess)
I just passed the first chapter of this video, and I already have to thank you for not skimping on critiquing the presentation and smaller details. It makes me happy knowing that you're not giving this "next gen Sonic experience" a pass. It's the lens I've viewed the games with Unleashed, as that game actively made me feel like I was playing a Sonic game on a next generation console. Animation quality, cutscene direction, opening, ending, fucking lip flaps, all of it speaks volumes about the production values. it's everything BUT nitpicking, so I thank you for not skipping over that stuff. it's these things that have been in my mind ever since the game dropped, but it felt like I was in another universe... thinking that the game was supposed to encite me from the first few minutes.. pfff silly me.
After all is said and done, what is Frontiers without the references? Without the goal of "fixing" what came before? What is Frontiers without the 2010's?
a open beta, seriously without the sonic brand in the game frontiers would have been torn to shreds by the gaming community, more since is in theory a "AAA" game.
I want to mention that, from a franchise point of view, the ending of Frontiers holds no weight. You have this sunsetting visage of the characters telling each other they are going to go it alone for a while in the immediate future, parting separate ways to each grow independently. However, IMMEDIATELY after this, they have...a birthday party on a train? Ok that's fine, they're friends after all. Oh, actually, now they're all together again in Cream's dreams fighting Eggman. So the ending of Frontiers is less-so a real indicator of any of Tails, Amy, or Knuckles' potential growth and moreso a "hypothetical growing" that is happening "off-screen" lol. Ian can explain-text this problem away though in the 'next game' im sure with more riveting dialogue!
@@kaobunnI mean, nothing really contradicts it's canonicity. There is even a reference to Frontiers near the end. I guess a point against it is the team behind it saying "believe in the power of headcanon" but this series in particular and headcanons go together like chili and hotdogs.
Some won't say it, some think it'd be lazy and bad but I don't and I don't care, what Tails was in Sonic Forces was so horribly bad that it should've been, in fact, been retconned out of existence, that horrible idea doesn't DESERVE to be acknowledged as part of the series' past and I absolutely DESPISE the idea of it NEEDING to be acknowledged because I found it THAT disgusting of a thing.
What I didn't like about the Ancients-Chao connection is that Chao are creatures that can ONLY live in pure and clean waters, far from pollution. What angered Chaos was the destruction of their home. There was an environmental theme about the impact of pollution due to selfish interests (shown by Pachacamac/Eggman) and divine punishment for not taking care of the environment resulting in natural disasters (Chaos). This theme falls apart now because they are aliens that had no connection with the planet. Oh, and fun fact: The Chaos Emeralds are named after Chaos after the disaster, they didn't have a name before... So, another thing they didn't take into account when writing Frontiers because in Frontiers the Ancients started calling them like that.
@@HeavilyArmedCute Thank you. I searched it up and seeing that it's japan-only is slightly disappointing, but it's honestly really cool that the Emeralds are canonically name after Chaos. It makes him feel even more like a god.
29:44 To be fair, Sonic likely doesn’t know this is a Titan pilot, or that they even had pilots. All we see is an Ancient in something, not obviously a Titan, and Sonic might have just thought the memory was random chance.
Between the redundant lines, Family Guy-esque flashbacks, stilted cutscene animations and member-berry references bolted into all of the character interactions in Frontiers, I zoned out so often when watching this game’s story on TH-cam. So glad I completely ignored Frontiers before and after release. Been massively let down with Lost World and Forces before and I wasn’t gonna be fooled a 3rd time.
I mean personally it’s not worse than adventure1 or 2’s Like seriously Between bad audio mixing, stilted cutscenes bogged down my mascot suit Motion capture Straight up bad or weird voice acting some of the Weidest background art I’ve ever seen. and Characters Like Amy having that asspull Thing with Shadow before I think they’re on the same level
@@RaiginAnimator Yes it is worse because Adventure 1 and 2's storylines actually committed to what it was doing and doesn't shy away for what it wants to do.
I think an interesting way to rewrite Sage's character would be to have her think of Eggman as her father, but instead Eggman just sees her as another servant, which would break her heart. In Archie, he had a "son and daughter", but he only mourned them for a few seconds. Once they were both dead, he just said "So much for family." Once they weren't useful, or just because one of them betrayed him, he immediately stopped caring about family.
@@sonic5993 Indeed. I liked Frontiers story at the time, and even after this video I still like it (to an extent), but I can't deny most of what Jeb said. I just hope Shadow Generations will be good. As for movie 3, I'm expecting it to be bad. But if I lower my expectations so much, I'll enjoy it more.
This is sort of what happens in the game, but only in the japanese version of the script. One of the many changes is that the father x daughter relationship is pretty much erased, with Sage referring to Eggman only as "the doctor", being loyal to him because this is the will that was programmed into her by him. In japanese Eggman never sees Sage has his daughter, but only an incredible machine, proof of his great genius. In the old ending when he died at the explosion it is the first time she calls Eggman "father", which makes her death hits harder because the entire game Eggman never sees Sage as more than just a soulless machine. In the Final Horizon Eggman just compliments Sage and invites her for dinner. Overall Frontiers' story has a lot of issues, and I'm not sure who came up with the idea of the whole Dad Eggman thing, but the final japanese script at least tries to erase this and much of the weird stuff Ian Flynn wrote.
Personally I loved Frontiers. Some may have turned on the game since launch, but I still find it very fun. While the story is admittedly as flawed as you mentioned (but i actually liked the character writing and don't quite agree with you), I think the fanbase are too forgiving towards Sonic Team. The way they react to new releases show me that Sonic will not improve enough when there's not enough "harshness" from the fanbase. Fans always say some stuff like "They'll learn from their mistakes and will have a bigger budget NEXT TIME". That's such an immature and unreasonable answer! OK first of all, this is Sega we are talking about here. Just because they said to some investors they plan on increasing labor power doesn't mean they'll commit to their words. They didn't earn themselves a very trustworthy status. Secondly, who's to say Sonic Team even learned the right lessons from your feedback? Maybe Sonic Team are such amatuars at game design that all of the fans' criticisms was misunderstood by them. Who knows... maybe the next game WILL include all the stuff fans asked for, but Sonic Team will implement these features in the most questionable manners possible, resulting an EVEN WORSE game! Frontiers took 5 years to be made (6 if you count the updates) and, while I (and I repeat, "I") loved it, a handful of people didn't. Sonic Team were given more than enough time to make a steller game and they STILL disappointed plenty of people. Some argue that it's the result of a lack of budget (and because Frontiers sold well than NEXT TIME they'll have enough money to make the game and ONLY THAN get it right), but I GREATLY disagree. Budget doesn't mean anything when the dev team has no idea how to design a game. I don't know how to program or draw. 300 people like me wouldn't be able to make the next Half-Life 2, even if we had a budget of 500M$. Indie games have far smaller budgets and can still craft excellent games. Other AA (yes I said AA, not AAA) games are greatly loved by the general public without any major asterisks. If Sonic Team were great developers, they would've utilized the (admittedly small) budget they DO have and made a game that's AT THE VERY LEAST acceptable BY EVERYONE. Sadly, that has been proven not to be the case. I feel like people should finally realize that maybe the problem isn't strictly sega's faults (although they do definately have their issues), and perhaps realize the real issue lies at the roots of the tree. I don't encourage this move in the media industry, but productivity matters above all so it has to happen this time. Sonic Team... HAS TO GO! They were given way too many chances and wasted them. And before you scream at me for being a heartless bastard I want to remind you 2 things: A. I REALLY love Frontiers! It's tied with SA2 as my favorite Sonic game. I just really love the gameplay. If it was up to me, I would've kept Kishimoto and Sonic Team in charge. I'm saying what I'm saying because of the general public's reception. B. Try to envision the devs of Mario or Insomnac making a Sonic game. Even with a small budget like Sonic Team's, do you think the product they would've made had turned out better or worse than Sonic Team's? I think it would've been a lot better, and I won't be surprised if plenty others think the same way. C. Sega makes the Yakuza games. If my point isn't clear now, nothing will make it clear. I honestly feel bad for Kishimoto, because he clearly wants his games to be the best they can be. However, Mike Wasaoski wanted to be a scarer, did everything he could to be one, but was simply not cut out for that. There's supposed to be a point in which you realize you aren't fitting for a certain job because, regardless of your good intentions, you still mess things up. If Kishimoto REALLY likes Sonic, maybe he should take responsibility for his failures and step down from the IP. Until a major MAJOR change happens behind the scenes, mistakes and pitfalls will be repeated. Don't expect the next game to suddenly be THE ONE!
I wish there was more frontiers fans like you. Loving the game while also being comfortable with criticizing and seeing others criticize it. I really hate how nowadays criticism of any kind turn into us vs them arguments. I won’t say i agree with booting everyone though perhaps that will do them some justice. I like frontiers and i think it’s a fine enough foundation but I really hope the next game doesn’t also have us saying “WELL NEXT TIME it’ll be good” over the year’s we’ve had too many of those.
Ah...yes you're one of those people blindly say that Sega should sell sonic or sonic team must die or get blacklisted and everything will automatically get fixed look you need to realize that nothing and no one is perfect we all make mistakes but I need you to understand if you say sonic team has to go which team is going take an accountability to make sonic games? Do we even know if they're gonna do a better job or not? Absolutely not! There's no certainty here.. And if you say Sega should sell sonic to another company but who's worthy enough to even be the holder of the sonic IP? Nintendo? Please these guys will cease the fandom out of existence and copy strike people left and right Sony? Would be the same case for Nintendo but do we even know if they are gonna have any respect for Sonic they would just build this franchise from the group up which completely destroys what we even loved about this franchise in the first place. Microsoft? ABSOLUTELY NOT! these mfs won't do any justice for sonic either it's a bad idea look what did they do to banjo Kazooie or rare! EA(electronic arts)? Please these guys are worse than Sega! Etc you see what I mean here none of these companies and options are a 100% guarantee option to ensure sonic would be in a better place. Besides when you say sonic team are a bunch of amateur game designers (ok before you call me a sonic team defender no I'm not Infact I Think what happened with sonic forces was their fault mostly not Sega) I need to remind you that most of the sonic games we enjoy are usually sonic colors, generations, unleashed and frontiers and specially sonic adventure 1,2 etc.. these two games are too beloved actually but let me ask you this where did all these games come from? All of these games came from Sonic team I'm not saying they're perfect by any means though and they made mistakes before but saying sonic team as A WHOLE are amateur game designers and they must go it sounds oblivious...and saying sonic team has to go and should lose their job because of some amount of people in general thinks this way doesn't mean they must stop and give up now no the hell they won't there's no going back now I just think people are blinded with hate at some point and it's kind of justified but saying they should lose their job etc..is just so immature and I need to remind you that the sonic community is so divisive and you can't please everyone in general and that's just reality and the same thing can be said for sonic frontiers' aswell.. If anything I said here doesn't make sense then start to hate me it's always your choice.
@@JakeThehedgehog-m1x 1. Insomniac are good devs. I don't think their owner Sony will DMCA Sonic fan games. 2. I only suggested it as an idea. I didn't mean that I think getting rid of Sonic Team is the only right choice.
Just starting the video, and I'm glad someone thinks the story is bad. I've been thinking the same since launch, I didn't agree that Tails' and Amy's arc were any good (Knuckles gets a pass), I like Sage but lacks good execution (that crying scene with the lyrics makes EVERYONE LAUGH AND THAT IS NOT A GOOD THING), the Final Horizons DLC didn't do anything groundbreaking to fix the ending lol, and the constant references to the past are so annoying I feel someone wrote all that just to appease sonictwt
I'm honestly surprised you understand Amy a lot better than the majority of this fandom (which all they do is throw shit terms to a wall and see if they stick as liquid shit).
@@dragondelsur5156 Yes you are, that's why everytime I see you chimp rampage, its about how Amy doesn't expresses her crush to Sonic as much anymore. Most classic sonamy behavior. And did you really use primate as an insult? Like okay, I am a primate, that's what humans generally fall under. 😂
@@yungmuney5903 I can just as easily encapsulate all Sonic fans under a toilet full of shit, just as you're doing with Sonamy fans (which I'm not a part of). I am an Amy fan first and foremost, and yes, I take issue with how she's an emotionless brick wall nowadays with none of the love she used to express.
I don't really think I have an overall summation of the criticisms on display. Just disjointed comments. So I'll just keep it all in one post. We can make Breath of the Wild comparisons all day, but I have little doubt Frontiers was supposed to be a 30th anniversary game, regardless of the localization quirks. But like BotW, they needed more development and couldn't reach the deadline for the anniversary. Which, I think looking at these side by side, Frontiers just doesn't hold up whatsoever. From a marketing standpoint, BotW was able to showcase so much from just 1 plateau. The sheer density of what BotW has in the game is so painstakingly crafted. And Frontier's story is just inferior. That's not me praising Nintendo like they can do no wrong. I thoroughly think Tears of the Kingdom's story is trash. BotW's story problem lies in its oversimplicity, but the devs at least believe in its simple story. Frontiers has scripts with multiple versions depending on region and DLC apparently. So much of this feels like a heavy-handed response to fans, that even when listening to the english voice acting it feels like the director went "Hey look, they keep complaining about the comedy, so we're gonna make this sound like a CBS court drama that gets canceled after 1 season." And maybe they're not actually that bitter, but the delivery was sure sounding like they only had 2 options. Either you either get maximum comedy to the point of shitposting, or you get so serious its unenthusiastic. This logic only applies if they're ignoring every other story out there. I'm not saying it cant be difficult to keep a good tonal balance when it comes to writing superpowered anthropomorphic animals, but come on. No one saw Amy The damn Hedgehog sounding like this and thought this sounds bad? Btw, I hope you don't get too much flak for mentioning the voice direction. From what I recall years back, another youtuber made a tame tweet saying "I don't criticize the voice actors themselves, I criticize the voice direction" and the voice of Eggman completely bombarded him on twitter. That made me look at things in a different perspective. It wasn't even like the youtuber @'d him. Eggman pushed him off the platform for a time. And people celebrated because the youtuber criticized Pokemon. Random, I know. Years later, this event just ages worse, even if I never believed the youtuber wasn't acting in good faith when it came to Pokemon critisism. It had nothing to do with his irrelevant sonic opinion. He was doing no harm until Eggman chimed in. I don't even know what to say about the references in the sense that the company intentionally did this for the western audience. I mean, Sonic was MADE for the western audience appeal, so its not shocking. But at the same time, that puts even less faith in Sonic Team's storytelling that there's no conviction in trying to maintain consistent writing and pacing across all languages. One could argue it could've at least worked if it came out on the actual 30th anniversary. I'd argue that it would be weird that the game is trying to imply this is the greatest threat Sonic has faced, but instead of it taking place where where Sonic resides for nostalgic callbacks, it takes place in a cyberspace away from where they all live, and all you get is dialogue in its place. The Sage stuff is so undercooked and is literally banking on viewers ignoring that in favor of "cuteness". Its not like SEGA as a whole is incapable of taking the time to properly develop kids or even robots. Hell Persona alone has been proving that. This is just...Sonic Team not wanting to bother. And even that could've been compensated if Sage or Eggman did some new cool things as a result of their haphazard bond, but most of Frontiers is just them standing around. And that credits song. That credits song "Dear Father" is.....I cringe when I find out people request youtube reactors to hear that after the rest of the Frontiers OST. At best, its a poor man's "Still Alive", "Want You Gone", or "Your Reality". At worst, this is the devs literally appealing to the cuteness one last time to distract you from how unfulfilling that boss was. A 60 cent song in a $60 game. To imply at this point, that all sonic fans have to do is potentially wait another 5 years for character progression is outright insulting. The question remains, is it more insulting than the Japanese version that promised nothing but Sage? Legitimately, what is she supposed to provide to future games beyond a unique design? What does she bring to the table that couldn't have happened without her? But I guess you have to wait half a decade for that answer. I mean this across the industry, game devs do know we're not immortal, right? People are less inclined to care about character arcs if these games come out 7 years at a time. Sega announced some initiative to release a ton of games from a lot of franchises that are coming out in the next few years. Kinda seems like some test footage from that idea leaked months back and that's when we saw P3 Reload, Jet Set Radio, and a graphically better looking Sonic Frontiers. But who knows what that truly was for. I won't criticize that effort until we see more stuff. But I do get the feeling Sonic Adventure is finally going to be addressed. But with more and more games like Sonic, people get more critical when stuff like Frontiers happens. Hell, we're days away from a Pokemon Direct that will either announce a brand new region, or a remake. And people just...don't think either is preferable. Especially if its a Unova remake as they feel Game Freak can only ruin it at this point. that's almost the same energy Sonic is facing currently. I could not tell you how to fix it. But perhaps with fanbases getting more and more critical, something in that can bring the change needed to get back on track.
Above all else, I appreciate you mentioning that event on Twitter, for I remember it very, very well. I'm glad that at least someone else here remembers what truly happened that day. (The side of the story that isn't "DR. EGGMAN OWNS TOXIC TH-camR!!!") Thank you.
@JebZone Are you guys talking about T**p, or was it a different person that got bombarded? I do remember Eggman getting on his case about the criticisms of the voices.
What’s crazy is the Silver and Amy montage wouldn’t have been that bad since those minor ass characters had more on screen development and reasons to be bonded than Sage and Eggman lmao
Your video is sobering as ever. I feel just like when you released the sonic goodbye video from 2019. Where you put to words all the feelings I've had deep within me. Feels so amazing to see those thoughts expressed in your video. The sign of a true literary master. Ian definitely needs a fire lit under his ass, as much as I like him. He definitely understands the Sonic cast and their history but I feel like he is not ballsy enough to write them in the kind of wacky zaney situations that the characters thrive in ala SA2, 06, riders etc. I think he feels the weight of his role and is almost overly conservative with the characters, He treats them like adult colleagues with lofty titles that need to be dealt with respectfully under the purview of an HR supervisor. Not like a bunch of teens getting into hijinx together.
Might as well comment on this again since Frontiers' writing is the gift that keeps on giving. I don't like "Eggdad" or "Dadbotnik" or whatever you call it, either. Not just because it highlights how Sage's character starts and ends with being Eggman's morality pet, but because it involves Eggman being completely derailed as a character- he's not nice and cordial, he just ACTS nice and cordial to stroke his ego and "gentleman genius" persona. However, there is ONE way I could imagine a concept like that would work, and even then I'm not 100% confident that it'd be satisfying: have it be a complete inversion of the Bowser Jr. dynamic. The way I see it, Bowser Jr. is meant to emphasize that Bowser isn't just a scary fairy tale monster. Bowser kidnaps princesses, torments Mario and friends, and has a chip on his shoulder the size of Brooklyn, but multiple games show that he does ultimately care about his minions even if he doesn't always show it. He's the kind of villain who ACTUALLY has a soft side despite how he loves to prop himself up as the biggest and baddest guy around, and he cares about Junior and even tries to spend quality time with him. You can understand from that alone why Junior admires him, and why his minions are so loyal to him of their own free will. By contrast, have Eggman openly show off to the entire world that he's a "loving father", so that HAS to mean that he has a good heart deep down, right? It can't just be that it's all a performance to make himself look better and that Sage is just a prop. Rather than having Sage be a window into the hidden heart of gold Eggman has deep down (since it, y'know, doesn't exist), have her presence emphasize how shallow and vain Eggman really is. Eggman doesn't actually care about her as a person, he sees her as a means of stroking his ego and hopefully making people a little more comfortable with his ambitions of conquest. And when Sage can't do that for him anymore, he gets rid of her without a shred of regret. ~~And I mean, come on, politicians and corporations do this kinda shit all the time, "I can't be homophobic or ableist my son is those things"~~
Fair, I personally don't mind the idea of extending the main villain cast and I think giving the doctor a "daughter" can work, but I agree that it's only in the same way that having a "son" in Metal Sonic works: they are HIS creations meant to do HIS bidding. No matter how much he may act like he loves them, it's only as long as they're useful in fulfilling HIS plans and ambition.
I don't think the creators at Sonic Team have any vision for what to do with this franchise or characters. They seemly just copy what they think is popular without fully understanding why and have any side characters present just cheerlead. This whole game was the definition of boring, bland, and tedious
Do you want to know what's funny? Sonic Team actually do understand Sonic Stories and Characters, but... Their only in Japanese. Jebtube does mentions the Japanese doesn't have most of the issues that are stated in the English, in terms of voice acting, characters, and what not even the references since Sonic team removed most of Ian's writing from the JP script even the animation isn't mixed well and the writting isn't all that great, but if you want the 2000s Sonic characters again... The Japanese still have them, but the English lost them since 2009. In the English Localization... They show they don't understand it or they do, but are willing to write it their own way to make it worst like Ian Flynn.
the biggest problem with this game is that its staking so much of its promises it made in the story, on the next game being EVEN BETTER. which realistically seems impossible for SEGA and Sonic Team to do. and if Sonic Frontiers 2 doesnt improve on all your criticisms, it will just be another Sonic Forces development cycle of wasted potential and time wasted. people will then look back on Sonic Frontiers 1 as a game that lied to us and spat in our faces for all the false promises it setup for the future of the franchise. i bet the next mainline sonic game will also look like a PS3 game remastered for the PS4, and will still have the outdated obselete Hedgehog Engine 2, and have all the same flaws just expressed in different ways. our only hope is for Fans to do it themselves.
Sonic frontiers 2 according to midori you know that leaker in the most community who has a good track record with their leaks said that sonic frontiers 2 is more like a sequel to the gameplay not a continuation of frontiers' story just let you know.
A lot of the stale story ideas comes from the initial ridiculous idea that there was *ever* something wrong with the adventure era depictions. There wasn’t. Those games were successful for a reason.
@@martinaguiluz4063yet those stories have the biggest moments people make fan art of, the moments merchandise depict on t-shirts and mugs, and what the next sonic movie is currently trying to emulate. Lol.
On the contrary, the main issue is the near religious reverence to the Adventure era, to the point where it's created a warped idea of what those games actually are. Frontiers' story sucks because it keeps trying to call back to that idea, to regress the characters into the internet's idea of the Adventure mold, instead of simply moving on and trying something new.
@@felixdaniels37 This entire story warps the characters into how the fanbase see them as: Sonic the pretentious hero who talks too much, Tails the kid who got ruined in Colors, Lost World and Forces, Knuckles the previous resistance commander who somehow makes an official statement to abandon his responsibilities, and Amy the girl who used to be bad but now is good by expressing nothing.
You absolutely nailed what they did wrong with Eggman in this game. It’s not something I’ve been anyone really talk about regarding criticisms of the characters portrayals in frontiers. I find his portrayal in this game pretty much character assassination, and i don’t look forward to how he’s gonna be characterized in future games. But like seriously-how do you mess up eggman so bad?
Ian Flynn's Eggman in general is bafflingly poorly written. Ian only ever thinks of him in two extremes, the "oh so sympathetic father figure that respects Sonic" and "hypercompetent embodiment of evil". And these two interpretations come to a head constantly, especially in IDW where he could commit war crimes and brutalize the OC characters with ease, while Sonic and co. treat him like his game counterpart. Ian's handling of the character is schizophrenic at best, partly because he's trying to graft as much as he can from Archie comics into the game canon.
Flynn's been too fond of Eggman to write him properly since Archie, not exactly shocking. We're just lucky that Eggman wasn't actually an active participant in this game's plot, otherwise we could've had the same hilariously schmaltzy father-daughter cutscenes with Sage, juxtaposed with Eggman warcriming the extended cast for cutscene after cutscene, as Flynn tends to write him in the comics. Nothing sums up Flynn's Eggman quite like the Archie panel where he's singing E.G.G.M.A.N. and dancing... right next to the vivisected mechanical corpse that he turned Sally Acorn into for 18 months of comics. Ain't that funny, guys! It's Eggman being goofy and singing his theme song from that game you like! Just ignore the actual sympathetic character suffering constant mental (and probably physical) agony right next to him!
@@TheSultan1470 It's a problem since Flynn obviously would write Eggman as his SatAM/Archie version if he could but that's just not how SoJ sees the character. Flynn's overall view of the franchise is the lens of the DiC shows and Archie so he can't really write the main cast in line with their actual game established game characterizations. He's not alone on this either seeing the others at IDW's staff (to the point that the Resistance/Restoration/Neo Diamond are written as a wannabe Freedom Fighter faction with Lanolin a Sally stand-in without the romance or being a princess alongside having Tangle/Silver as a proxy for Sonic with Sonic himself written as more of a superhero).
Ian’s writing style really hasn’t changed that much from his Archie days, where he would look at problems or bad stories from older days and bring them up to create something new. In those it felt like he was cleaning up shop while telling an ACTUAL story, not just clearing the board and waiting years before telling a good story. Even stuff like the dialogue and references were handled with much more grace back then, and it kinda sucks how it started getting exaggerated around the reboot era of Archie, and reached its boiling point in IDW and Frontiers. I love Ian as a writer and he’s a huge inspiration to me, but it sucks that I find a lot of his newer stuff so middling. Good video.
No offense meant to you specifically, but Flynn feels like one of those writers praised for "fixing" things… except that he was more so the only one left who COULD fix things, given that Bollers and Penders jumped ship and he was the only one left as a candidate for Archie. It's the writing equivalent of two people taking a shit and the third one being praised for washing their hands. I think that if almost any other writer came in, they would've done the exact same changes to the book that Flynn did, and possibly even better ones overall. I don't think there was anything special or decent about Flynn besides the very fact that he was the one who showed up. He was Archie's last line of defense, absolutely, but he wasn't its trump card (I don't think anyone who worked on the book was).
@@Nathan-rb3qp Bollers is majorly underrated. He wrote one bad story (Issue 134), which was itself just a piece of a larger, incomplete arc and had its negative qualities vastly overblown by annoying people online taking it out of context so they could use it as proof that Sally was a bad character, and that's all the wider fandom remember him for. The guy wrote some stories that were straight-up _bangers,_ and he barely ever gets credit for them. At best, they're part of the vague blob of pre-Flynn Archie that people don't care about because it's not Ian Flynn, at worst they label everything he did as Penders' work. I'll even go to bat for 134 a little. I totally get why people are mad about it, but given all the shit Sally went through before that point, an ugly, explosive, and painful break where she finally cracks under the weight of world after eleven long years of shouldering more than any child should ever have had to (and she _is_ still a child at that point, she's like 17 by the reboot) just feels... expected. She had a metric fuckton of trauma, and basically none of it ever got treated. Maybe that's a little too real for a Sonic book, but hey. That's Archie for you.
So basically, Frontiers is a patronizing, apathetic, lifeless fanfiction (with a bizarre daughter figure insert) that unenthusiastically jingles a few keys of acknowledgment in front of the terminally online brand-obsessed fanatics to get them to calm down for a few more years, while ironically regressing things even further through said acknowledgments. This isn't anything new, honestly. Just another nothing burger to add to the pile. SEGA and the current Sonic Team are shit at their jobs, and the sky is blue. Fuck video games, I'm going outside.
I think the reason why Sonic Frontiers got so much praise was because it followed the most atrocious sonic thing of all Compared to it, sonic frontiers is a godsend
I agree that the praise was amplified by Forces' existence. But now I'm wondering.... how will Frontiers hold up once once "the most atrocious sonic thing" becomes nothing more than a distant memory (Espcially for the newer generation that never experienced the long frustrations of Forces or even the Meta Era)?
@@adrianleonce455oh trust me those atrocious sonic thing will NEVER gonna be a distant memory like EVER. If sonic 06 is still mentioned till today, It won't happen to forces either. If you think about it, weirdly japan is the only one that gave 5 awards to frontiers even when sonic was never popular there since adventure, makes you wonder if they judge the game as its own merit or from forces standard. 🤔
@@AYTM1200Because it didn’t come after the most atrocious thing in the series, it came after sonic and the secret rings which did come after sonic 06 and was well received on release
One of the things i admire about your youtube videos that I don’t see people talk about much, is how often you choose clips that work super well with your script. I think back to the moment in previous sonic video where you say something along the lines of “sonic fans freaking out about a hot take”, and the clip accompanying that is one of the deadly six members going nuts. Just little stuff like that makes these videos really entertaining to watch, and it’s used to great effect here in this video as well! On to the actual topic of your video and what you have said in it though, Brand Era is such a good term to define 2020s sonic. It’s like, we’re now getting this stream of sonic products these past few years but none of it ‘s really more than, decent. Sonic Superstars was honestly the biggest indicator of this to me, as a massive fan of 2D sonic I ended up being burned hard by that game, and I hate that it felt like it was just made as filler content, meant to serve the sonic content quota.
2:17:15 This shot here of Sonic using the no risk, high reward parry to completely circumvent the challenge of this minigame is so PERFECT with what you're saying lol Also I really enjoyed this video and couldn't agree more with your take on it (at least for the most part). Its a shame but I think Sonic Frontiers is an example of a bigger problem with fans. We are so used to having it so bad, that anything better than that we will latch onto wholeheartedly. I don't accept that Frontiers is the best Sonic can do. Its a franchise that is capable of so much more than this. If it wasn't, I wouldn't have ever become a fan in the first place. Thank you once again Jeb for setting the record straight and I look forward to hearing your thoughts on Rebirth in the future.
The more I look at ians writing the more I only see references and I'm like.... "People where gassinh him why? References show how incompetent you are as a writer unless its cheeky or indirect."
It was cute the first 5 times, then it became way too reoccurring for its own good. The IDW comics unironically have Eggman tell Sonic "we've got our own styles that we won't change" and Sonic replies "yeah but yours is filled with evil and mine is not!". Imagine a casual reader reading that and not thinking it's clunky and completely random.
@@yungmuney5903 There's a difference between acknowledging past events and how they're affecting the current story and inserting song lyrics and fandom memes in your dialogue, those two have nothing to do with continuity.
Sonic Frontiers is seemingly doing the impossible for me... It seems like it made me lose interest in Sonic. Or rather it made me lose hope that we are ever going to get an actual competent story and game. Not even games like Lost World made me feel this way. I just hate how they try to change the characters now, before one could say the characters were not written well because the writers just didn't know any better. But now that someone who has years of experience is writing and he still writes the characters in such a odd way... I don't know... I just no longer think anyone really knows or cares enough... The knowledge is there if you look at some of the Japanese media but it just seems stuck there. I really hope to be wrong, I still love Sonic in general but also after seeing Dream Team's story I am straight up afraid of seeing upcoming stories...
@@joeser6666 Dream Team also had the characters act "odd". I know it's a mobile spin off but it's still a new story written for Sonic so I can use it as a reference.
The Japanese version of frontiers was better...so I think the problem is letting these western writers WRITE for sonic. I don't know why sonic team...a Japanese focused team is letting western writers like flynn write for the games. I'm not tryna shit on western writers. Some are still good, but unfortunately MOST of them are diluted in wokeness and too much tell, not enough show writing philosophy.
Commenting this before I watch the video, but my biggest problem with Frontiers story on the whole is that it feels like nothing but buildup amounting to a massive "IOU" for more interesting things that never happen. Anything that does happen ends up being so unfulfilling that it may as well not even exist. Characters tell us they will be developed and do things instead of actually doing anything. (Tails, Knuckles, Amy) So much time is wasted on the "mystery" of the Ancients and never the entity which actually destroyed them. Much of the game in general is nothing but buildup until its over, and what you leave with just nothing worthwhile. The most telling instance I feel is with the whole "ZAP" symbol the game has. It was front and center in the reveal trailer, appears throughout the game --- and nothing is done with it. Nothing except one throwaway interaction in the update you have to go out of your way to find, which goes "This is the symbol of their God... Maybe it's still out there!!!" Again, notning but a massive IOU. I'm have a feeling much of the reason why the story ended up getting so mangled was that an entire 4th of the game was just completely removed. The original final 4th island, alongside stuff such as the Ancients Ark mentioned within the files in unused voicelines, were completed gutted and never put back in. Of course though, this can't and shouldn't be an excuse, especially for things such as the awkward character writing. It's just a hunch that I've had for how it could've possibly ended up like this.
I almost feel like I preferred the mid 2000’s dark age games because they at least took risk. What we have now is aimless and goalless. Sonic X for its sins nailed the character
UPDATE: Well, that ending didn't age well. I've changed my mind. "The Sonic Forces We Never Had" is available to read on Google Drive right now! My Patreon is also cancelled as I shift gears in life. Thank you very much.
drive.google.com/drive/folders/15WkUXQLKJcxffGFfZ4-P5cgDOwSY85fD?usp=sharing
You should probably pin this
I thought it was, lol. YouTuuuuube.
Well thank you for opening my eyes on almost the only thing that seemed half good to me in this atrocious game, now i can let it fully fly away in the horizon.
It's been 4-5 years now that i'm working on a story for a fangame, i only have some of the main points of the story for the moment but if it releases one day, i hope you'll enjoy it if hypothetically you play it.
I'll read your story to see what it is.
Beaver Bother was the greatest minigame of all time, change my mind
@@crimsonzone8984 Kinda yeah
To me, only one of the references worked:
“What is your end goal?”
“It varies, sometimes it’s a spinning sign, sometimes it’s a big ol’ ring.”
That was genuinely funny.
One of the few memorable joke references that is emblematic of the Sonic series.
Ironically, it's the one referencing a gameplay object
Yeah their ARE some good lines here and there but overall this game's story was bland and safe as hell. It felt like it was trying to give off the LOOK that it was trying to bring the series back but once again falls back flat on its back wondering where it all went wrong. The dialogue still has that self aware, Marvel esque cringe that I've despised since the 2010s. This isn't how these characters should be talking
those got me good
>That moment when a joke that knocks on the fourth wall sounds more natural than 95% of the jokes that don't
Jeb sounds like a disappointed teacher who has to deliver bad grade news to students, who thought they did well.
😭 “guys we aren’t having the pizza party”
Wow, that is so on point it's hilarious 😂
Well, he's also a bad teacher who gave a wrong grade.
@@AgentB7no, he clearly gave the right grade.
@KidAL0 "Good. You didn't earn it."
Dude, you could build a house with all the nails you’re hitting on the head.
no. all hes doing is hating
@@reggielacey2235He can be a little nitpicky for some people, but I think he really cares for Sonic. He is not hating.
@@MilesReset hater. or just a whiny dude who hate ever just be happy
@@reggielacey2235 very ironic if you ask me
@@reggielacey2235 Typical SEGA apologist response. If you don't want these games to ever improve, then by all means continue your ad hominem attacks.
I really loved the Amy appreciation and I very much agree that late 90s/2000s Amy was the best she’s ever been!
🦔💖🔨
Also Amy's story in SA1 is a metaphor for young girls standing up to creepers. Hence how her levels is mainly running away from Zero then later towards the end Amy grows the courage and bravery to take on Zero with her Piko Piko Hammer and you fight him as boss.
Creeper oh man
Except Zero is a robot, robots can't be creeps
@@Antonio-is2cn
Hence, it's a metaphor.
@@DreaguiVII wyd
@@joeser6666 shush, you'll figure it out soon or later.
1:02:40 Dude this part SERIOUSLY resonates with me, I swear, EVERY time a somewhat decent or barely decent Sonic game comes out, or like, the bare minimum of a game. The reviews and consensus is always “ITS A STEP IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION “ it’s never SOLID or actually just good, it’s always like, two steps forward (if that) and one step back, it’s like the team doesn’t know what they are doing at all, and they just spread themselves thin instead of having a strong idea. Like you said, no commitment.
Like almost every Mario title is very strong, but Sonic always has a ton of issues.
I still really like Unleashed though.
frontiers isnt a step and people need to stop saying that lol its such an overused thing to say too
@@kaobunn yeah thats what I said
Not really much of step in the right direction feels more like sonic didn't want to take the stairs so instead took the elevator
So basically Sonic really was never good lol
In some ways, Sonic and Mario traded places in terms of what they stood for in the 90’s to current. Now Mario is looking to break through his old safe space in new ways while Sonic is content in being a brand that guarantees an appeal for the sake of online entertainment. Gone of the days of the company wanting to push the IP past its limits in wanting to be something worth experiencing beyond a fundamental level. Now old fans seem only content of celebrating the past because that’s the only salvation they have that isn’t scrutinized by Sega’s corporate touch…yet. I want to love the current version of Sonic and his characters, but…it’s just not for me. And it’s not fair to talk down on others who enjoy them now because this is all they remember in current years. However, there’s something to be said when you neglect to take proper care of your creation for nearly 3 decades. Sonic is the embodiment of mismanaged potential that has no excuse to be; he was meant to be something greater from how he was created to be.
mario is trash, dont compare the best game franchise ever to that filth. go off yourself
As mean as it may appear to say this, I think it's worse for people to just accept that the series has changed and just because of those who grew up with it being something it SHOULDN'T be
@@knuxuki1013 Take that up with SegaSammy, they WANT it to be this “Brand” look for the sake of money.
@@reggielacey2235LMAOOOO
👏 👏 👏
The Dreams Of Na-Nabsolution was peak
And 1:22:19 😂
The animation in some of these cutscenes are KILLING me 😭
Like why does everyone move so linearly 🤖🤖`🤖🤖
What makes it even more ironic is that the people commenting below this are talking about how GOOD other sonic game's animation were 😂
Honestly the cutscene animation and voice work for SA2 has given the game its own special sort of cheesy charm. Things like characters interrupting each other, or themselves.
Sonic unleashed has one of THE BEST cutscene animations in the series
And that came out in 2008......
OVER 15 YEARS AGO!!!
Since Generations, Amy can't walk in any way that doesn't imply her to have a broom in the butt.
Reuse of assets
Look at Lost World cutscenes. Those are directly far better than the ones that came 9 years later. What a joke..
You calling it “The Brand Era” is incredibly on point, considering Sega-Sammy admitted they see Sonic as a mascot more than a video game franchise
I mean that’s always been the case as well
Sonic was always designed with being a mascot in mind since the very beginning, they wanted a mascot which rivals Mario
@@superduperbrain2001 You can find quotes of Yuji Naka saying the exact opposite. Sonic was going to exist whether Sega decided to make him their flagship character or not. The western marketing being super aggressively competitive with Nintendo has nothing to do with how Sonic Team actually envisioned the series.
@@SuperHamachiBrother1well his word dosent reallly matter anymore
no. hes just hating
Don’t worry you’re not crazy, most of us are just numb to this kind of thing at this point
The description for Amy's fast friends forever 2:01:29 hurt my soul
@@dances_with_incels yeah its atrocious
It's actually unfair how much your writing has improved.
omg i love youre videos, are you planning on making more? if not its fine, its just that they are so high quality (specially considering theyre from 6 years ago)
Both of you make the most sobering points about Sonic.
Pls return
I still go back to your vids every once in a while 🤗
If they made The End a bigger presence in the games story, with it being the personification of death, it could've helped dig into Sonics character so much more. Imagine a story where Sonic has to acknowledge that at one point he will have to stop running, that at one point the End is inevitable and him being told that his world will suffer the same fate as the Ancients. Suddenly a higher power is justified as Sonic has to push past his limits to fight a force of nature. Even a Black Knight reference could be made in a sombre moment where Sonic is like "so this is how Merlina felt". Each flashback could serve as a way to hammer the point home and shake Sonic's resolve more. Instead of Sonic being corrupted on the outside, we could see him be corrupted in his conviction, only for his friends to snap him out of it in the end with some genuine dialogue instead of a stupid hand holding ring. This is just one more idea. The thing I hate most about Sonic Frontiers story is that there is no overall message or point to the story being told.
There is a message, or more likely a theme
A respect from the past and the ones Who passed away and how future generations Will go forward on their lifes, thats how i see it
I like the use of the wording "this is how Merlina felt". Sonic in this hypothetical still thinks it was right to stop her but now he actually feels a similar sense of death close to him.
That's a cool idea, but I have to disagree. I don't think a storyline where Sonic have to accept death, is appropriate for his character. There are people who will/can explain my point better and longer than I'm going to do (and you can see that right now. I suggests Pariah695's 'What is it about Sonic?' And Characters In-Depth's 'The Signature Edge of Sonic the Hedgehog'. Both are on this very platform). Yet what I'm trying to say is that Sonic's strongest trait as a character is to due how static he is. He doesn't change and remains flat. Because he's the living embodiment of all that's good in the world, and he inspires those who he meet. And if the story of Frontiers were to explore this theme of death further. By, let's say, his friends knowing about The End, what they did to The Ancients, and that it might happen to their world. Sonic will be there to assure them that everything's fine, or that death isn't scary. Just like how he did with Merlina. Plus, if we were going to ignore his strongest trait; Sonic wouldn't be that bothered about it. I remember reading a comment section discussing what would it be if we had a third Storybook game based on H.P. Lovecraft's works; and one of them said Sonic will be the type of person who is told we are mere specks to entities bigger than us, than we ever imagined. Yet, he will respond afterwards with "so what?"
Yeah, I like the idea of The End symbolizing Sonic's worst fears and one of those fears being his mortality and death. It makes sense when you think about it and could have been a perfect character Arc in the game
Reposting this here so it gets slightly more exposure
I have come to an insane realisation. The End is just a wayyyy shittier version of Nyx from Persona 3.
Context:
Nyx in Persona 3 is described as the embodiment of death that has to be reformed/released by defeating 12 bosses. Once reformed, it enters an avatar before then revealing its true form, the moon. In Persona 3 guidebooks, it is revealed that Nyx is an alien entity similar to Galactus that was sealed once it reached Earth.
The End:
Described as the embodiment of death in 1:48:30
Released after defeating 4 bosses.
Enters an "avatar" (Supreme).
Only to have it's true form revealed as a moon.
An alien-Galactus like entity sealed once it reached Earth.
EVEN the cryptic voice lines from the End in the final boss fight parallel "the arcana is the means by which all is revealed".
SOMEONE ELSE MUST HAVE NOTICED THIS
The Silver version of the Sage montage LMAO
They were hoping we'd cry a river of tears, but they ended up making us piss ourselves with laughter.
The origin of the chaos emeralds make no sense in this game. How can the chaos emeralds exist without the Master emerald? They're literally the same thing, furthermore how can they be connected despite coming from two completely different sources of power and location? It just contradicts so much implied lore from the previous games
I know, it doesn’t not make any sense. The game tries to add things but it is making things more complicated.
oh hey a shattered glass transformer fan
i see that ultra magnus shattered glass
Oh my god WHO CARES
@@KotoCrash surely you cared enough to say that
@@joeser6666 Yes I care that hes using such a nothing complaint to tear the game down
I think something made the "SA1 arc retreadings" pretty bad is that in SA1 they actually took the initiative for themselves. Sonic acts on his own and it inspired his friends into reaching their conclusion. In Frontiers they all need Sonic as a mouthpiece to tell them "it's okay bro you haven't regressed as a character 🙃"
And yet, those rethreadings weren't worth crap, as the next game has them being the same as always.
@@ChiefMedicPururu You mean Sonic Dream Team?
@@theking8347 Yep.
@@ChiefMedicPururu I'm suprised he didn't bring up the conversation in Final Horizion where Tails explicitly says to Sonic "I know I can't fight like you or Knuckles"
Honestly this video is on point with all of my thoughts, criticisms and annoyances about this games story telling, characterization and what it signifies for this series future.
The story constantly talking at you, characters telling you wikipedia articles disguised as dialogue, as well as putting references of itself before proper world building, is a new kind of annoyance.
It’s not at all what I want from this series.
I’m worried about how they’ll handle Shadow in SonicXShadow Generations.
I expect it them to double down on making Shadow the versions the fans see him and not the real Shadow.
It worries me that they’ll try to retcon or insert the modern day portrayal of Shadow to how he was in SA2. They should be kept separate because it was interesting how he wasn’t suppose to come back until they decided to do so in Sonic Heroes. They have different interpretations.
@@denizenbydayI really hope they don't try to make SA2 Shadow again. I've started to realize what I liked about Shadow in the mid 2000's after SA2 was how he put the past behind him and kind of does whatever he feels he needs to. To me SA2 Shadow and Shadow afterwards are the same character in body but due to the amnesia and events from Shadow the Hedgehog (the Game) SA2 Shadow is dead in a way. I don't like aspects of Modern Shadow but reverting him back to his end of SA2 self is not a good decision that I hope they don't take.
I think they’ll shadow just fine in Sonic x shadow generations
@@castform7 I agree, I think I meant to say that. At the time they planned to have him as a one-time character, they should remember to how he was at the time because it fits with the tone and atmosphere that SA2 gave off. And then tie it to his character development after SA2 and anything before Sonic Colors. I meant to say that I hope they don’t try to force and insert meme humor throughout Shadows timelines just to tone down how dark some of his games and stories use to be, because he is a popular meme icon now…
@@RatchetClankFan112 I hope so and I want to be wrong.
“Aw yeah! I found a chaos emerald! This reminds me of Radient Emerald from Sonic R ™.
Unbelievably based
Based on what
@@zeanone9257My deteriorating mental state.
'Hey, Peter! Remember the time you were transported to the medieval period & fought King Arthur?'
'This is worse than that one time I had to use a flying carpet & turned purple.
"Holy crap, Lois! It's Dark Spine Sonic!"
@@NintendanGX “Petah, you gotta fight Erazor Djinn, the evil genie that wanted to take over the Arabian Nights with the Seven World Rings.”
I hate Frontiers’ “continuity” writing so fucking much.
I’m not sure if i’m the only one who notices this, but does anyone else feel like when Ian Flynn writes for a character they end up sounding like him? Like, i’ll read/hear something he wrote coming from a characters mouth and i’ll be like “this sounds like something he’d say himself on his podcast”. Prime example of this is Sonic describing his ideology to Surge in the IDW comics. It sounds like Flynn answering a question from a fan on his podcast. A lot of the writing in this game feels like that too and I think you summed up why/how pretty well with the whole “twitter writing” thing.
I’m honestly happy that everyone is finally understanding why I don’t like Flynn’s writing.
HAAHAHHAHAHA Ian Flem
@@Nathan-rb3qp yeah I feel like IDW and the story of frontiers feels more like a Sonic fan writing the story rather a writer who just happens to be a fan
Game apologist pointed this out as well in one of his videos
@@ashuraomega1000 Do you remember which video?
Brand era is pretty fitting of 2010s and 2020s Sonic tbh. Neither decade really stands for anything as a whole or has much interesting to add to the series beyond a few exceptions.
Sonic exists because people expect him to keep running forever. But nobody in charge really knows what they're doing or how to execute their ideas well. So the series is just left to stagnate and coast off the name recognition and community passion. Every once in a while we get something like Mania or the Knuckles prologue that shows us glimpses of a bright future. But it never lasts when everyone is too busy pushing out things with Sonic's name on it to slow down.
Frontiers is the prime example. It was promised to be a bold, new direction and ended up using a lot of the same tropes and ideas as most of the 3D games do. Feels less like a crazy experiment as much as a calculated risk to get the success of games like BOTW. Don't mean to be a doomer, but it's hard to not be cynical when it feels like Sonic is slowly being turned into a guinea pig for printing dollar signs and nothing more. And the same hostile community who swear they care about this series continue to encourage it.
I think it's time for Sonic Team to ask some themselves really hard hitting questions about how the series and figure out what that next best step is. What does Sonic as a vision represent? How has that vision been represented over 30 years? And in what ways should we represent that vision going forward? Because I don't think these are questions that have been asked in a long time. I'm willing to give Kishimoto one last chance in whatever his next project will be, if only because I appreciate his transparency on twitter when accepting feedback. But I'm not holding my breath for it to blow me away.
this out of all comments and videos this is the best take
You hit the absolute JACKPOT! 100 percent on point! That is EXACTLY what's wrong with the franchise
What
Kishimoto's twitter tags are what led to update 3 though
@@kilometersperminute4113 which says a lot
55:00 Oh... so THAT'S why my family stopped talking to me after my grandpa died
Sonic's writing will always feel different from its adventure days because its no longer written by Japanese writers. Whole different cultures will produce different vibes in their scripts.
What is it with you people glazing the Japanese for? These same dudes made ShtH.
@@yungmuney5903 I'm not saying their perfect, just that they tend to write differently.
@@yungmuney5903 And US people wrote Sonic Forces, your point?
@@yungmuney5903 What's wrong with STHG?
@@dragondelsur5156actually i think that was also written Japanese. Pontac and Graff translated and added questionable editions (Sonic being tortured). Better example is Lost World to me it’s right up there with Forces and ShTH as some of my least favorite Sonic stories.
The game *insists* upon itself.
sonic frontiers summarized in five words in a single sentence
Nothing to add, just correct in a personally cathartic sense.
If it insisted upon itself it wouldn't be so apologetic about what it is. Sonic 06 and SA2 insisted upon themselves. This game has nothing to insist upon, just a bunch of characters talking.
@@Nobody-ud6ou it just insists upon itself that it's a bold new direction
@@joeser6666 a bunch of recycled sonic forces and generations content sprinkled into a breath of the wild fan game is bold alright
Amy is inspired by the death of two ancient aliens to go to japan and teach English and mission for christianity
I'm confused by this comment; I don't get the joke. Is teaching English in Japan and Mission for Christianity's suppose to be a reference to something?
@@RightNowsReverie I have no idea, but ironically Amy is one of the few people in the series who says "oh my god." Combined ironically with the tarot cards they only NOW won't shut up about, it implies she's spiritual to some degree.
@@yuchun_ I find it strange they have been focusing on Amy's tarot cards, a lot recently. They're weren't suppose to be a main character trait, nor indicate her being spiritual. Fortune telling is a casual hobby for girls in Japan, and they decided it for Amy to show she's a normal girl.
@@RightNowsReverie It's not even just a casual thing IN JAPAN, it's just a thing a lot of girls do, yknow like, zodiacs and shit, they're a mostly girl conquered hobby.
Anyway the whole "god" thing was always just my own personal headcanon since I like silly details like that, like Vector in Chaotix being like a gospel culture archetype. Of course that got retconned alongside most info about the Chaotix in Heroes, but it was always kinda neat.
See this is how I know the tarot cards are not a complete asspull, I was always really interested in the manual-given lore as a kid. The whole problem is that they have the nerve to act like they didn't ignore it for so long, and are now giving it to Amy instead of an actual personality.
It's honestly really depressing how boring the dialogue is. A game like Riders showcases how genuinely fun the main cast can be.
@@RightNowsReverie What kind of normal girl goes on world ending adventures, wields a giant hammer and has the strength of a thousand bulls?
I think one easy way to tell of a story sucks, is to ask yourself if you would enjoy the characters and story, if the game was unknown and completely new.
Good point. I’ve been a fan since Secret Rings, and we have and could be getting better.
I think that way with myself, so it’s damning to see it with such a beloved character.
I disagree, I don't mind Amy being apart of the group since she has always been considered part of the team since Adventure, it was just less conventional. I mean she was always marketed as the player 4 with the trio, Advance games, Shuffle, Riders all did this. Even Sonic X, sure she wasn't like with Knuckles and Tails, but with Amy she got herself tangled up with them through her interaction with Sonic, she'd start out with her usual schtick, then end up entangled on the adventure with them. I also think it gives Amy more to do, I just wish she handn't lost her character in the transition from a non conventional, to conventional member. With Frontiers, I get what they wanted to do with Amy, especially since the Japanese script writes differently and much more in character, the main issue is the whole Multi media they are doing makes this inconsistent. It feels inconsistent because in IDW and TMOSTH, she feels like a mature outlook of her character, yet how's written in the games feels just like her Boom counterpart with less character, essentially just stripping her of any traits that aren't motherly, kind or generic action girl like in Dream Team, with her only defining characteristic in that game being she's girl Sonic. I can't really see Amy being her older version now, since its clear they have written the characters to be much older, but Amy doesn't feel like her own character is the problem, it never feels like her because subdued isn't how I would describe her. I also take issue with stripping away her temper because it implies a female character shouldn't be angry to be likable. But its okay for a male character to do so. I think going the TMOSTH or a nice balance of her SA1 with the idolization being less kiddish would work best. Since I find SA1 Amy to be well done, especially when you consider the context of her story beyond the independence, like ZERO chasing her being like running from and standing up to a creeper, or how older men kept hitting on her. Which is referenced in Heroes, speaking of, last thing I want to note regarding 2000s Amy is that she is overcriticized.
Sonic Heroes is the game I feel is the most overcriticized version of Amy because the cutscene for 'Team Sonic vs. Team Rose' has Amy say "Sonic! There's no way ought of marrying me!"... The other thirteen cutscenes involving Amy are pretty good. And that's not including the in-level dialogue that expresses even more of Amy's positive traits. But fuck all of that, because of this one poorly written cutscene, which exists purely to set up a stupid boss fight. People are deeming Heroes' entire portrayal of Amy as "the worst" because of a single bad cutscene that wasn't even written as intended, people read it with the perspective of "abuse" when it was just poor dubbing and not even the intent of the actual scene. It wasn't even supposed to be taken seriously because nobody takes it seriously, even Rose's true motives are corrected within the boss fight itself and its AMY who 's the one who is the most furious about their missing friends and questions Sonic and Co about it.
Every time I see a video analysis or video that talks about Amy, they always bring up Heroes like it "ruined her character" or that it started her decline, when I'm always asking myself is she really that bad? When the only thing people too is overreact to ONE scene and take it too literally when it's not the intent of the scene. Like I understanding from the outset that it looks as if Amy is wanting to "force" Sonic into marriage by fighting him, but that isn't even what the scene is saying, especially when it reads a bit differently in Japanese. Where she says "Today I'll get you to marry me" which implies that she wants to win his heart by proving her strength. That's not "assault" or force, even in English the scene is the same, if translated a bit poorly. Granted it does seem odd to transition into a boss fight, but like so did the Adventure games with a couple exceptions. As for Amy being more "extreme about it" like yeah, its more extreme, but I see it as her channeling her confidence compared to the Adventure games into her love for Sonic, Amy was a character who is shown to be extreme with her emotions, so it does make sense to channel her confidence into her love for Sonic, its just that her extreme emotions always pushed Sonic away, even when she tried to prove something. Even later in the story this is directly stated when she tells her team to go after Egg Albatross because "Sonic will be impressed by her". In reality though all the characters had bad reasons for boss fight transitions. Even Sonic and Dark's teams included. It's funny how a scene that's does not mention to be taken seriously has fans take it seriously to insert agendas clearly not even intended for the sake of inserting a particular "Women abusing men" narrative or that "Amy is crazy" when the point is Amy is being extreme with her emotions and just using it as an excuse to start a boss fight. If you ask me, I found Rouge to be more unlikable than Amy in her boss fights, because unlike Amy's which were just for a joke and nobody was taking it seriously, Rouge was absolutely serious when starting a fight with the Chaotix. Rouge was worse than Amy because her reason for starting a fight with Chaotix was more petty and out of character. Rather than just being a joke that was done out of poor context, Rouge is being serious in that she just sees three random guys minding their own business, assumes they are out for her "treasure" then has herself and her teammates JUMP them out of furious paranoia, which is worse because she's accusing people of something they didn't do then forces an unnecessary scuffle. It also doesn't help that afterwards she just assumes they are up to no good. But you never hear anyone call Rouge a paranoid psycho.
Sorry for long comments. Amy is my favorite Sonic character and I hate how the fandom places her in weird double standards and treat her character. lol
If you look hard enough you'll
encounter some people saying Amy in Sonic Heroes is actually underrated
@@Antonio-is2cn Yes, but I'm directly referring to everyone who brings it up in Amy videos as they constantly cite it ruining her character, then its just them taking a scene WAY too seriously from the intention. Or fans who do it in general.
I unfortunately was one of the people convinced that Amy was awful in Heroes. It actually took a video defending Heroes Amy for me to realize that she's actually awesome. Heroes feels like an extension of her arc in Adventure 1 kind of like Adventure 2 Tails. She leads a team featuring characters that aren't really that strong (yes I know Big is physically strong but the dude fishes and sleeps throughout the day) and keeps their spirits high always reminding them of the friends they want to save. The game shows off Amy's energy, passion, perseverance and want to help so well. The reason she went out on this adventure to find Sonic was admittedly to see him again but equally if not more to help Cream and Big find Froggy and Chocola since it appeared that Sonic took them. Once she realizes Eggman's the actual culprit, finding Froggy and Chocola is the main goal. I now think Heroes is probably peak Amy and can't believe one panned cutscene convinced me otherwise. I'll take that Amy any day over the stale bread we have now.
1:06:35 thank you for acknowledging a genuine problem I have with people being so defensive of Ian but attempting to dunk on the previous writers.
It just screams bias when both writers had restrictions
I hated Pontac and Graff for the longest time but I realize that they didn't hire themselves. SEGA did with full knowledge that both knew nothing about Sonic. Does that make me like their writing? No not at all but I'm not gonna fall into this double standard.
To be fair, Flynn has shown that he's at his best when he has no limits. The Archie comics have proved this
@@ashuraomega1000
No, he had limits even back then. Penders caused a huge shift that caused both Archie and Sega to start clamping down on writers. There was never a point in time where Flynn was simply free to do what he wanted, at the end of the day he's still writing for a company.
You want to know what Flynn's writing looks like completely unrestricted though? Read Drogune, an indie comic where he has full creative control over that nobody cares about because Ian's writing there is lifeless and dull. He needs Sonic WAY more than Sonic needs him.
@@felixdaniels37 No Penders did not.
22:10 I think you’d like the Japanese version of this scene a lot better
In that version, Amy reflects on her actions towards Sonic and how “just loving someone isn’t enough”; she says she wants to take a step back and figure herself out.
It’s essentially her saying she wants to stop thinking about the immediate future; she wants to consider what would actually happen if her and sonic did develop a relationship and how she would have to mature to be proper to him.
i really don't understand why they seem to insist on having the english and japanese scripts be entirely separate. the 2000s games weren't perfect with this kind of thing, but i feel like none of those games had it this bad...
@@lolita_catmostly the fault of the Japanese writers since that was made second.
@@lolita_cat afaik kishimoto wrote a different script for the japanese version because he wanted this game to appeal to a japanese audience given the series' long history of not being too succesful in japan. from what ive seen tho the writing in the japanese script is actually worse so idk if they really achieved that
@@autumn_leaves1011 debatable since for some folks it does things better than the English script
@@autumn_leaves1011 It's speculated to be partially machine translated because the speech patterns of characters are different from past games. But could you blame him though, he needed to wrangle through the shitty American interpretations of the characters. ig you could say he's writing an entirely new script tbh
And I mean, Frontiers is the best selling Sonic game in Japan so yes Kishimoto definitely fluked it.
I feel like "We'll be better next time" should've just been this games marketing tagline cause the game, the fans and the developers alike really seem to want you to believe that despite hearing that same thing multiple times throughout the last decade. I feel like we've grown so used to this series trying to chase past glory at this point that literally getting back to the beginning is seen as an improvement which is kind of sad.
It leaves you wondering not only when the hell "next time" is but also if that next time will turn into a consistent quality for the series gameplay and story wise. How many times do I need to wait for us to move forward and not get "potential for the future".
@@castform7 Yeah, that's kind of where i've been at for a while now. Everyone always talks about potential for the future but why can't that be now? You don't wait 50 years for brand new Mario game just for it to be the equivalent of a unity tech demo, you get a game that you can feel Nintendo's heart and soul in with everything you do in them and they always have well developed mechanics and levels that are fully realized. I don't even like Mario that much but I envy that we don't get games with that kind of quality, I wouldn't mind waiting longer for Sonic games if we could get that but after this game and Forces I don't even think time matters.
@@megasoniczxx Time absolutely doesn't matter. The gap between Forces and Frontiers' releases is one month away from 5 years and Frontiers is just a step in the right direction. After 10 years of the only quality experience being a Classic Sonic game not made by Sonic Team, I'm kinda tired of them meandering around for years on end just to come out to "eh it's pretty good I guess can't wait for next time" I get wanting a foundation to build upon but in the state Sonic's in we can't just have foundation right now.
Honestly, I couldn't agree more with the issues of how Amy's written in this game and how Cindy was directed to act, because unlike Knuckles and Tails who had a decent number of moments I liked, there was nothing for Amy that even felt like her, and I was baffled, especially looking back, that there was no mention of her love for Sonic or even how events on Kronos affected how she felt about their current relationship, no discussion between the two about how they may have been immature about how they truly felt. Suffice to say, it wasn't a good first impression when it came to Sonic interacting with his friends, and it's rather telling that he's got more chemistry with Knuckles than who's the closest he has to an official love interest.
I appreciate that you've gotten all this off your chest, especially after the fallout of that one offhand tweet, though if I may, I'd probably suggest that this is the last video explicitly tackling a more negative opinion for a while, not because I think you shouldn't dislike anything, lord knows I'm not exactly hopeful about the future of Sonic myself, but because it seems to be all what the channel is known for beyond its fans, completely disregarding the times where you were flat out nice or hopeful, like in the F-Zero video, a lot of the Ratchet videos, or even the Rewriting Sonic video. I know the Forces JebCut video will more than likely be a fun time, but perhaps it's time to tackle Xenoblade and show how much the series means to you, maybe even get some new subscribers in with that. Not to mention, I and many others have been wanting to hear your thoughts about it in-depth ever since you made it clear how much you love Xenoblade.
One final note is that watching this video did get me to boot up Frontiers again, not for ragging on it or anything of the sort, but for fun, like trying to experiment with Homing Dashes on 4-3 Rumble Rave as that's one of the small handful of Cyber Space stages I jive with, but also just to dick about in certain areas of the Open Zones, like the submerged ruins in Rhea Island, as I kinda found it therapeutic using the Spin Dash and other moves to get myself on top of structures of all kinds to get some pretty nice views and screenshots, as if I was subconsciously reminding myself that what you say doesn't ever need to affect my opinion, and no doubt, I'll still like Frontiers after all is said and done, even if Final Horizon legitimately pissed me off. Then again, what else is new given that I consider KHIII an A tier game whereas you're the opposite. That's the beauty of having more independent opinions that don't hinge on whether or not your favourite TH-camr think the same thing.
With all that said, it's funny that this video dropped six days after bickuribox12 uploaded his Final Horizon video, and Somecallmejohnny is doing his first Round 2 video in lord knows how long on the Frontiers updates, as if February's spontaneously become the month of Frontiers videos, which I don't really mind as I've been looking forward to each of these projects and I'm fairly confident it's gonna be three for three. Besides, I got Ben 10 Omniverse to watch in the meanwhile, and that's been going great so far. See you whenever Jeb, and btw, the best part of the video was when you said "Frontiering all over the place", glad that meme's persisting.
sonic and Kncukles are on some zesty shit in this game lol
44:05 Eggman’s line here makes me think that they were trying to make Eggman and Sonic like Batman and the Joker, where they can’t live without the other thwarting their plans or creating chaos
Batman would be fine without the Joker, the Joker on the other hand would have no meaning without Batman.
@@platinum3690I was more thinking of the scene from Batman: The Killing Joke, where they actually sit down and have a conversation for once, and Batman refuses to beat the joker this time. Bruce even offers to rehabilitate the Joker, which of course he denies, and Batman laughs at his joke. It’s honestly one of my favorite Batman scenes
@@platinum3690 I was more thinking about the scene from Batman: The Killing Joke where Batman and the Joker actually sit down and have a conversation for once, and Bruce refuses to beat him down this time. Bruce even offers to rehabilitate him, which of course he denies. Batman even laughs at the Joker’s joke, it’s a heartwarming scene, one of my favorite Batman scenes
And it's to that I call bullshit, Sonic and Eggman would absolutely prefer to be without the other. No Sonic means Eggman is free to rule. No Eggman means Sonic will experience new places on his own.
@@mitch_universe4058 The plot of The Killing Joke was that the Joker and Batman's dynamic has escalated to the point that one is doomed to kill the other and Batman is trying to stop that so the Joker can finally get actual help. Alan Moore was commenting on how the two were and still are ridiculous characters who aren't relevant to the real world with the Joker as he wrote him ultimately not being Moriarty or a "badass" edgelord who's killing all the normies but a pathetic man who just used his traumas and suffering to become a supervillain. Batman not just murdering him shows the Joker isn't some wise sage who sees how society really is since in the end many in this world suffer yet hardly anyone became the Joker.
The thing with Amy many fail to mention
This is a freaking japanese series, she's the ultimate Genki Girl
That bold and energetic girl who ends up in the same situation as the guy she likes and takes the chance
I feel like I've come to learn that that's why I liked Amy and why I'm so sour on her now. It's also why Heroes is my favorite portrayal of her character. She was an energetic go getter with a fierce passion, wanting to help those in need while also having a crush on someone who ultimately inspired her to do better. This Amy is just.....kind and..... yeah I'm drawing a blank on other discernable characteristics.
The localization of the series has messed with a lot of people's perception of these characters. Sonic was also a lot of people's first exposure to Japanese tropes, so characters like Shadow and Amy were a lot more divisive back then.
@@castform7SHE-SHE LIKES TAROT CARDS
@@ZaiDrizzleDrop Oh don't even get me started. Where the hell did this tarot card resurgence come from. I know tarot cards have been stated to be her hobby since her first appearance but outside of one issue of IDW, we have not heard about it since Sonic CD. I'd be fine with a little nod here and there like Tails mint love in one of the Twitter takeovers but they ham fisted it back into relevance to where she uses them more than her hammer in Final Horizon y'know the thing she's actually been associated with (yeah yeah I know they try to explain it but it's still super weird). It's the most forced fanservice in this game cause it feels the most like the writers going "SEE?! WE KNOW SONIC! LOOK, IT'S AMY'S CARDS FROM A 1993 MANUAL! SEE SEE!?"
@@castform7 Seriously it’s like these people don’t actually know these characters at all. (They don’t, I actually don’t think the fans do either). It’s like a desperate attempt to give her character traits due to a lack of character.
Thisreminds me of when Naruto spent most of season 1 saying BELIEVE IT, but then in Shippuden he meets his dead mom, and starts saying “Ya know!” because that’s something his mom said. And THEN the story tries to tell you he’s ALWAYS said “Ya know” even though he NEVER HAS!!
There’s even a flashback when he’s a kid that has him saying Ya know as if it’s always been in the series. What’s even the point?!
It’s STUPID, and if anything it just shows that you’re forcefully trying to have a connection between Naruto and his parents that was never there because they are barely in the series.
It’s just showing your ass, and nobody would have cared until you forced it in.
I don’t like Naruto by the way.
You know, I almost feel emotional about this video. I really despise the way Sonic is nowdays, and for a period I thought I was the only one. It was like if I was invited to a special friend's house and the day I came there i was recieved by a bunch of strangers. Sonic is not Sonic anymore, is a void Shell with a huge arsenal of member berries.
For a huge time I thought I was just in a paralel reality, but when i encounter these types of video I realise that im not the only one thinking it.
The positive recivement of frontiers was not a natural thing, people are just coping to hard to continue the end less cycle of consumerism. They are no longer fans of sonic but of the Brand. They no longer care about Sonic but for the idea of sonic.
As a Sonic fan, its sad to see my favorite franchise, from which i'm a hardcore fan, geting blander and blander with the time. Sonic in this moment is a moving corpse, only surviving by pure determination and unconditional loyality to the brand.
Thanks for making this video, you give me the determination to make a video of my own talking about frontiers in the channel im starting. At first I doubt if starting with a rant would be a good idea, but now I really want to talk about this game and its impact in the franchise in my native languaje.
Thanks a lot, and sorry for the grammar mistakes, its because im not a english native speaker (and my phone is messing up the things I wrote) (its replacing the text with spanish terms).
Well spoken, I hear your story.
I look forward to your review on Sonic Frontiers!
disagree with almost all of this video but you present your points really well and the video is very well made
Why did you comment in the first place?
@@Nathan-rb3qp just giving my opinion on the video
@@Nathan-rb3qp opposing opinions can be posted too yknow
@@kaobunnNo they can't.
the Sonic main cast is like SEGA brand ambassadors or Safe Corporate V-Tubers, not allowed to show flaws, their ugly side, their unpopular opinions, their real emotions.
if you imagine SEGA standing behind the camera and filming these cutscenes, like yeah it sure looks like sonic doesnt wanna piss off the executives staring him down while he's recording a take.
What
It's funny because in the JP side of Sega, there's actually V-Tuber versions of Sonic, Tails, Knuckles and Amy and also interacting with Korone lol
@@TheSultan1470
Read it again
i dont think you played the game if youre saying theyre not allowed to show flaws or real emotions
@@kaobunn Well they do, its just not done in an interesting way, the presentation is just so awful and boring ,with characters just standing around and talking
I still find nonsensicval that the majority of Sonic Fanbase hates the line "Green Hill looks more like Sand Hill" in Forces, while at the same time is okay with the many references in Frontiers.
They hate it because it's a stupid line where Sonic takes the destruction of Green Hill very lightly. It was probably not even a REFERENCE to Sand Hill, I bet those motherfuckers just thought it was funny.
and the reason they're okay with the ones in frontiers is- oh wait, they're not, everyone made fun of them. Even the biggest bootlickers could only say "stop nitpicking" since they knew they were unnatural.
That line is just a meme whereas the references in Frontiers work because they acknowledged past events big or small
@@yuchun_ Clown comment
@@Antonio-is2cnReferences followed by a screenshot from a previous game with a sepia filter over it don’t count as good writing.
I think it’s best I finally say this now: This game only got as much praise as it did from critics and Sonic fans solely because the last mainline game before it was Forces, expectations were beyond low.
no? people just enjoyed it
Yeah, if this game out right after Generations instead of Lost World, people would be LIVID, way more than the backlash Lost World received.
@@felixdaniels37I don't think so, lost world was was far worse than this.
@@AYTM1200
Like hell it is. Say what you will about Lost World, but that game had actual level design and production value. Frontiers is a cobbled together mess that railroadsthe player into poorly thought out combat sections, boring minigames, or levels straight out of much better games.
An open world game that doesn't have confidence in its own premise is not a good game.
Just like Flynn is praised for his clumsy writing because he's no Pontac and Graff.
When sonic said it’s “frontiering time” it made me cry out of pure joy
you forgot to tell about what he does just after this: frontierin' all over those titans
You aren't funny
@@KgEclispe252 cope and seethe because you got frontiered like all the others
Such peak. Very fiction.
I agree, this just isn't funny anymore, not that it ever was@@KgEclispe252
Man it's draining that the supposed "foundation for the next decade of Sonic" is hellbent on reusing Generations assets and ideas. Riding off the coattails of games that actually got it, both in and out of the series... just like the last half a decade. The are even making a remaster of Generations as we speak (that we have to cross fingers that they don't manage to have it be glitchy for the third time). Yippie
And they’re bundling it with a side game that depending on how base Generations, that side game could likely OverSHADOW it!
It's a bad sign when I don't want them touching the base game that came out almost 13 years ago because I don't trust them to "improve" upon the awesome controls because of what we got afterwards.
Honesty the depressing thing is i honestly wish fountiers was a just a complete train wreck. At least then we chould move on to something potentially good. Instead we're stuck with an another decade of middle of the road games.
@@radiokunio3738 the depressing thing is listening to this lol
You really hit the nail on the head when it came to the English voice direction because it's something that absolutely bothered me upon playing on launch that I switched to Japanese mid playthrough, the character voices suddenly deepening because it's a more "serious" game sounds really unnatural. I felt like I was crazy when I saw people saying that this was the best they've ever sounded when I'd argue that it's only gotten worse, it sucks because like the Studiopolis actors are not bad like I can think of ten roles that I liked their performances in and none of them would be from Sonic, I gave them a chance I really did but Frontiers specifically has really shown that the direction for this cast will never improve. I would say to really solidify that this is a new era of Sonic I think it's time for another recast, but we really don't need the voices of these characters to become inconsistent AGAIN and get someone new. At the same time though, I don't see SEGA bringing back the VAs from the days of Adventure or Sonic X because they hate fun.
I've come to terms that we'll likely never get a good english dub from Sonic ever again but if it bothers me that much, I'll stick to Japanese from now on because Junichi Kanemaru never misses.
My exact thoughts. The previous two voice casts were better
Junichi been killing it since Sonic adventure no need to deepen his voice to make Sonic sound serious, I wish people would bring him up in va discussions because he's so great
@@hype5456 he's just sonic to me and even if he gets replaced i can feel confident knowing they'll get someone that sounds as close to him as possible the 2010s english cast at this point i can't stand except for tails he actually sounds fine to me
I'm one of those guys that can't fully enjoy something in a different language, so I'm really hoping they change Sonic's English VA at the very least. Jason and Ryan were so good as Sonic, but I'll also take someone new.
The subtitles not matching the JP script doesn't help either.
Eh, sonics english dub has always been hit or miss.
FINALLY SOMEONE MENTIONS THE BULLSHIT AMY CHARACTER ATTACK OVER THE YEARS!
Amy’s dynamic with sonic has *always* been cute, simple, but cute. People tried to make it deeper than what it really was and somehow tried to interpret her as a creep.
It’s a side effect of the grass-touching deprivation.
I hated how people looked at her character in the 2000s and called her annoying, but in the 2010s even no she's so incredibly boring and people thinks that they fixed the character in all the 2010s and IDW even though there were glimpses, but she lost a lot of what made her special.
I never had a problem with Amy's character until now that people treat her like annoying girl character even though what JebZone said is literally how I feel about her. Even her voice acting doesn't do the character's justice.
Amy's personality doesn't need to be bottlenecked. The writing could have made her deeper still without taking away who she is. There *can* be both.
@@Stew91 What would be your idea on having both?
@@nerodoesart5886 Have Amy instead, say, "One day I want to share that love with you Sonic". This would show that Amy's love for Sonic is growing beyond just a cute crush. But it's something that's becoming gradual, because people change over time.
That's total fucking cope, Amy went downhill after SA2
Yeah, honestly I am not sold on Eggman and Sage's chemistry. And no, the Egg Memos don't help me with this problem, it really hit me with a massive amount of whiplash.
Me and my buddy Ben couldn’t disagree more.
Eggman having a chance to be more than “Muhahahaha **mustache twirling**” the character and actually having a chance to see and hear Mike Polluck emote is insane.
Is this game perfect? No. Is it peak Eggman? No. Is it still amazing in the Robotnik category? Hell yes.
@@PirateKingBoros He was more than a mustache twirly evil villain long before this. Not that it'd be a bad thing, the straightforward route isn't inherently wrong. But anyway Sage is just another creation for him to banter with like Orbot, Cubot and others in various media (if she even comes back after this). Just i suppose most folks' issue with her that do have one are that the more emotional aspect is thrown in very akwardly. I mean we saw that Egg montage lol. I'd be bothered by it more too but keep forgetting she exists to begin with and am not 100% we'll always have her around going forward, if at all.
You gotta keep in mind that the vast majority of fans who were hyping up Ian Flynn being the writer for Sonic Frontiers, have never even picked up a Sonic comic in their life. I know this because the sales for the Sonic comics are abysmal and are essentially on life support. So why the hype? Well, the most likely reason is a little known thing called Social Contagion. Since seemingly everyone is of the belief that Ian Flynn is some amazing writer who can do no wrong, then word spreads leading other people to echo the same sentiment. Because if everyone says something is true, then it must be true, right? This is how misinformation begins to spread and is a common occurrence throughout the internet.
But, there's still one lingering question. Why does everyone think Sonic Frontiers' story is actually good? Well, this is something that is largely a problem with the Sonic fanbase itself. Sonic fans have a problem with deluding each other into thinking this mediocre thing is good, actually. Why? Because all they want is for Sonic to be great again and are sick of game journalist dunking on the franchise every opportunity they get. So, whenever Sonic fans get served a bowel of shit, they'll tell each other it's actually chocolate and eat it all up. And if you dare say otherwise, then you must hate Sonic or you're nostalgia blind! This is preventing the franchise from actually moving forward, because Sega is of the belief that they are doing just fine the way they are and the fans are happy anyways, so there's no point in trying harder. If we just stop blindly praising everything they put out, then maybe things will change. Hell, remember how everyone clowned on Sonic '06 for being an absolute bug fest of a videogame? That caused them to actually lock in and try to deliver something that was truly made with passion and love for the franchise, that being Sonic Unleashed that was to hopefully win the fans and critics back over. But, by that point the damage was already done and at the time, critics and fans alike slammed it, because of the Werehog. That's when Sonic Team just stopped trying and is now the franchise is a shell of it's former self.
*LOL* idw on life support
The entire comic book industry is on life support, don't make it solely about IDW when you and I both know that this is completely detached from reality. Flynn is a garbage writer, but he's not to blame for numbers, he's not the sole writer of this book, hell, not even the lead writer (that's Evan Stanley). There is interest for IDW (and more interest than Archie has ever gotten from Sega), does it have issues? Obviously, the most blatant being the multiple attempts to "Archiefy" the book, but I don't like being a drone for Jeb's opinions when I don't agree with everything he says.
Flynn is only popular for "saving" the already decaying corpse that was Archie Sonic, but in reality, the only thing he did was to clean up the mess left by Penders and make the books more game accurate on the worst possible ways (i.e: Giving Charmy brain damage to make him sync with his game counterpart, eliminating the Knuckles OC pantheon, immediately validate the garbage claims the fandom made about Amy, blah blah blah).
Yeah idk, I just liked the game
58:55 When I saw this scene I found it so corny and hoped that no one would walk in on me while I was watching it
i would rather let my parents watch me have shrex than watch me watch that scene
When sonic picked up the sword and says to knight "ah yes my swordsmans technics...I haven't use these since the round table era" it was truly the reference of all time
Colors has maybe one or two instances of Sonic turning to the camera and breaking the fourth wall.
Generations is an anniversary game, so meta references are to be expected. Generations is often criticized for not doing ENOUGH with the premise.
There's no fourth wall breaking at all in Lost World.
Yet this game is somehow "not meta", even though by definition, it fits the bill more than the entire "meta era" combined.
My comment will be long, so I apologize, I have a lot to say in regards to Amy and I agree with you 100% she was much better back then than now. (I'll also post a shorter part 2) Here is my overall main issue with the Modern Amy vs 2000s Amy Fan debates, the basis I see a lot of people use is the fact that she is no longer stereotypical or the fact she has motivation in her modern form. When in reality they didn't make her "less stereotypical" they just made her stereotypical in a different way that people are fine with because she fits THEIR image of what they like about her (which feels rather sexist), especially since prior to her change nobody ever offered solutions to improve her character, they just complained about her existence while using a lot of hyperbole in their arguments. Even though I myself didn't hate her character, speaking from the perspective of a detractor, if I wanted to say she's better, the only reason I have is just because I prefer this one over the older one, which by then isn't even an argument, what exactly makes her more progressive or better beyond she doesn't crush on Sonic? Because all they have done in modern media is make her a female stereotype, she's the main girl of the group, she's a voice of reason, has a motherly disposition, and is overall defined by kindness. But yet this is exactly the type of characteristics that solely defined female characters back in the 50s, 60, 70s, 80s and even early 90s media. This was even the designated role for female characters in sitcoms. This was typical in tradition of female housewife characters (or the girl the protagonist had to save), in which those traits solely defined them, which were often criticized for subjecting female characters to dull and sexist roles, but is somehow progressive for Amy?
I've always found it so weird how the fanbase always puts Amy in a weird double standard, while ranting how she invokes double standards in certain instances, when tbh I find this has evolved into people just inserting any type of rant they can find based on systemic issues. Yes, it is important to note it's just as important to take male harassment seriously as it is female, but not every situation written with the perspective of "female gives unwanted advances" is them doing that. I think people take it too seriously or insert things that aren't even that intent. Not to mention the purpose of Amy initially was supposed to be more extreme with her emotions compared to everyone, she won't just be excited, she would exclude energy in her excitement. I mean really, she was also an immature pre-teen girl, so it's not exact farfetched to say that yeah, she's going to be annoying, but like that could be said for literally anybody at their younger age in a dose of self-reflection as you get older. Pre-teens and teens do stupid and immature things! Amy's crush reflects that (when not being flanderized anyway)
It's like the whole "mature vs immature" thing the fanbase uses toward her. Firstly, being immature doesn't inheritably make a character bad. Secondly, when you mature you don't strip away everything about yourself to where outside of one attribute, your entire persona doesn't just fade away, you can change things about yourself or have a more mature outlook and even outgrow things, but Modern Amy feels like diet version of Boom Amy and had all her traits outside of kindness removed, that's not how mature works, she didn't redefine any of her characteristics in a different way, she just isn't showing them period, Amy losing all her traits wouldn't be "mature" its just subdued, which is not what she was. Even with how Boom Amy displays her crush on Sonic, moments where its referenced showcase some creepy factor too. Only Boom Amy was doing it in secret. And tbh, the whole "two characters secretly like each other, but don't admit it" trope is even more tropey than the unrecruited crush.
This isn't me shaming Boom Amy btw, she's obviously supposed to be a different character, but I'm just annoyed how the fanbase uses her as an excuse to bash Retro Amy, while also making Modern Amy less distinct as a character due to similar traits she displays with Boom Amy, just having every one of her flaws stripped, while only taking the motherly, female and subdued attributes of Boom Amy. Speaking of Boom Amy, the only reason Boom Amy gets a pass is because she's "mature" yet beyond this reasoning, I NEVER see anyone analyze why her flaws her okay in Boom and not in the games pre-Lost World, despite displaying the same flaws outright. Since both Amy's displayed the same level of meanness with their tone when it came to their temper, hell Boom Amy would often death glare at someone for questioning her ethics, like that scene in the episode where they try to help Tails ask out Zooey where she yells at Tails about being a "refined woman" only to go back to a composed disposition the same moment, this is exactly what 2000's Amy would do, as evident of things like Heroes or even X. Or how in other scenes in the show she is shown to be bossy and mean toward her friends.
Boom Amy was much more bossy and self-righteous, often bossing her friends around and scolding them whenever she believes they have done something wrong. On: Sonic Boom a comic book written by Ian Flynn that predates the cartoon, introduces Amy as bossy and with temper problems, having problems with Knuckles and being passive aggressive with him in particular. And as the cartoon went on she became Increasingly pushy and egocentric, again these are similar traits people unanimously hated Amy for but are fine for Boom Amy because she's "mature" when these flaws are just as apparent here. And both of them were used for comedy. When it came to Sonic X, I find a lot of her actions exaggerated there too. Like the cruise ship episode or the date one. I never understood why people hated Amy in that episode, while Sonic doesn't like water and its fine for him to feel that way (and admittedly everyone could've tried to be more understanding) it was wrong for him to attempt to gaslight Amy and Tails as an excuse to get off the ship. He intentionally used Amy's feelings for him to make her swing her hammer around so people think she's unhinged so they can leave the ship, she ONLY decides to react the way she does because she catches onto his plan and uses that against him. He asked her to swing her hammer. Well, she does that. She also calls him out. Keep in mind, he did this with TAILS as well!
As a side note, I don't understand how everyone criticizes Sonic X Amy for being a stalker, when like how is she a stalker when she's literally with the group at all times, is part of the friend group, is chilling out in the Thorndyke Mansion, and actively gets herself in mishaps with the group? She's even often invited by Tails on missions because any time he appears with the Tornado Amy's often with him, being a stalker would imply she's some random girl who stumps upon the group and follows their every move and action, how can someone be a stalker if they are apart of the same group and live in the same residence? LOL when in Sonic X Again this feels like a tacked on negative connotation because it was easy for people to do that.
Amy having flaws didn't make her a bad character. Quite the opposite. Characters who have room for personal growth and development are infinitely more interesting than characters who are perfect angels with nothing to learn. Amy was the former, but has become the latter outside of TMOSTH, which is the ONLY Modern version of her I like outside of IDW. And even so, the latter has done her inconsistently at times.
What do you think of Amy in Dream Team or how she plays in newer games?
Yeah Frontiers botched Amy so hard and that bio about "not chasing Sonic anymore, wants to spread love to everyone (whatever that means) doesnt give me any hope for her future
This was such a cathartic video to watch. I remember beating the game last year after taking a 6 month break and thinking "...did I miss something? I have no idea what's going on. Who is The End? Did we build up to this? Did I forget stuff over the past 6 months or was I just not paying attention?"
"What even happens in this game?"
That's the thing about this game. You're spot on when you say that this game merely entertains the idea of a story. *This game literally has no plot.* Nothing _happens._ While a "story" has to do with themes and messaging and characters and whatnot, plot is strictly the events that transpire _in_ a story; there is technically a difference.
I bring up that difference to point out that while I still retained the gist of the "story" the game attempts to tell, I could not ascertain what the _plot_ was. After watching this video, the plot is literally just "Sonic fights all of the titans and then he climbs the towers to free his friends. But he also frees The End, who he then defeats."
You may say "that's not really fair, you can sum up any good story like that if you just focus on the main events", but a story and plot goes hand in hand. If your story doesn't have a plot, then it's just... an amorphous blob of floating ideals, which is exactly what this game's story is. Compare the plot (the literal events that happen) in this game to the plot of games like SA1 and 2, Black Knight, and even Unleashed. It's the type of drawback that I've only really seen in non-linear games like this, which is obviously the point of them, which may again call attention to the "unfairness" of me comparing Frontiers' open-ended plot to that of its more linear predecessors, but...
Where Frontiers fails in places that Breath of the Wild succeeds, is that part of BotW's story comes from the unique experience you as the player have as you play the game. The things you discover, the trials you overcome, the Divine Beasts you tame, the wild you breathe; all of that contributes to the player-specific "story" you experience in the game. That's an example of a game with "no plot" like Frontiers that uses that TO IT'S ADVANTAGE. But Frontiers does not.
The issue of ludonarrative dissonance that BotW manages to precisely eradicate by virtue of its core gameplay philosophy is everpresent in Frontiers. All they did was patch it with verbal references and name dropping here and there and hope we wouldn't notice. In BotW, everything is carefully thought out to maximize immersion. Almost everything you do in the game fits in line with what someone would think Link would do if you gave them a somewhat vague description of the premise, setting and main objective of the game.
But if I did the same with Frontiers' premise and setting, I highly doubt they would think of Sonic traversing floating platforms and disembodied rails that pop in as he gets close to them, which that aren't even explained at all until a throwaway conversation in a DLC campaign that came out a year after the game released. Whatever sense of immersion you have with any given story beat is forcefully wrought from you the moment you reenter gameplay, where as in BotW, it's enhanced.
And I'm one of the apparent few who both understands BotW's true vision AND enjoyed basking in it when I played the game, so it's extra noticeable to me just how much Frontiers misses the point on every single aspect of BotW it tried to copy.
"Kishimoments"
I clapped
omgggg telekinesticman hiiii i love your videos, your bayonetta 3 one is pretty good! and also the sonic action adventure game concept one, thats a pipe dream of mine!
I’m sorry to ask but what does Kishimoments mean?
@@nicoexists Morio Kishimoto is the director of Colours, Lost World, Forces and Frontiers, which all have very similar blocky level design. A "Kishimoment" in this situation would be referring to all the 2D block platforming thrown around this big "open zone".
There's so much I want to say, but to condense it down, a lot of the problems like "explain-writing" comes from Flynn. I'm being honest. A lot of the explain writing, the tropey depictions of the characters, and talking *at* each other comes from Flynn's part. This isn't to say that the story in Frontiers is perfect as it still has many holes, but the reason why the english script suffers from these issues is because of him. Mischaracterization is riddled in his Archie Sonic comic run and especially his IDW. The primary reason why Flynn was praised is because at the time of dealing with abysmal writing like Lost World and Colors, or straight up floundered opportunities like Forces, Flynn seem to be a "better" writer compared to Graff and Pontac. But what wasn't considered is that anyone could've done better than Pontac and Graff (although I believe it was said recently by Pontac that they barely had a say-so in the script for Sonic).
This isn't me just bashing either. Look at Flynn's personal podcast. He consistently over-explains himself over the tiniest questions. IDW is filled to the brim of long wordy dialogue boxes to explain almost every action in the story. Same with exaggerating character traits by telling them to the reader instead of showing us. Despite Flynn being in the series for years, something fans didn't consider is that he spent most of his time writing completely different iterations of the characters in his Archie run, the run he has said to miss repeatedly. The Archie versions of the Sonic characters are vastly different from their game counterparts. Then when the series got discontinued and IDW came onto the scene, Flynn clearly didn't adapt to having to write the game versions of the characters in comic form, which showed very early on in the run. He was never expected to properly learn and write the game counterparts in his Archie run because the Archie line was a different continuity entirely. But again, this was after Forces heavily disappointed fans and fans hooked onto what seemed to be the next best thing (Flynn).
The other major problem is, because the quality of Sonic stories have declined when we were getting presented with the 2010s games (Colors, Gens, Lost World, Forces), any hint of "improvement" is seen as a massive step forward. Forces was seen this way with its first trailer as well. This is why even when the presentation for Frontiers is clearly a downgrade from previous Sonic games (animations, frame delays, pop ins, etc) like Unleashed and Gens, because we haven't gotten a game like Unleashed and Gens for a full decade and some change, it's praised as the best thing. It's because Frontiers has no real recent competition in the Sonic 3D area. Games like Forces and Lost World really don't do too much better than Frontiers. Frontiers' competition is a bunch of mediocre games that the fanbase has already ripped into and want nothing to do with. So of course because it *appears* to be better than those games, then it's the greatest thing ever. If Unleashed and Gens were released in 2013 and 2017 respectively, the level of grace given to Frontiers would be revoked immediately. They would KNOW that Frontiers is a downgrade because they have recent examples to compare it to in the Sonic series.
It's the same with Pontac/Graff. Pontac/Graff were the most recent examples of Sonic writers in the series. A writer like Shiro Maekawa who wrote for SA2, Heroes, Black Knight and '06 wasn't compared as heavily to Flynn because Maekawa's work has been gone since 2009. This is yet another case of being able to "outshine" (Flynn) already mediocre competition (Pontac/Graff). Again, any "step" in the "right" direction is paraded in the streets of Sonic Twitter as the greatest thing the series has ever done when we already had better quality of writing in the past. Not perfect but still much better than now. Combine that with the longer gaps between 3D Sonic games now being on 4 to 5 years on average, and you have fans that are so ready and raring to treat the newest Sonic game as something fiction has never seen. Because it "improved" since last time.
Why can’t we just get Shiro Maekawa back?
@@Nathan-rb3qp Shiro is working for Marvelous atm. If they somehow really want to get Shiro back to write they need to collab with Marvelous just like how they collabed with Arzest to make Superstars.
@@kilometersperminute4113 I didn’t know that. I wonder if he’s working on the Switch remaster of Monster Hunter Stories considering he was credited on the original versions.
What the fuck are the 'game versions/counterparts' like that you keep pearl clutching over? That shit has been all over the place since post SA2.
Interesting comment
This game alone has made people back pedal on their stance on Ian Flynn; saying he shouldn’t write for the games lol
Just shows you how bad the story is despite the good character moments
I never liked flynn so seeing people turn on him makes me happy
@@shardsoftime0952the only people turning on him is twitter sonic fans which are the worst kind of sonic fans
@@shardsoftime0952 I thought you said you liked a lot of his Archie storylines?
(Last comment I’m making)
Or people who have common sense.@@Banana807
@@RaiginAnimator that is non canon i'm talking specificaly about his canon work
My problem with sonic as a whole is that i don't know who sonic is anymore. Everyone has their own interpretation on who sonic was that, in all the chaos from each era, im left wondering if sonic is today. Is sonic an calm introvert? idk. Is he a snarky guy? who can say. Is he a heroic shounen protagonist? I can't tell you anymore. Sonic has been changed so much over the years and people constantly tell you who sonic is supposed to be that im left wondering who sonic is anymore. He needs his own shadow the hedgehog game to fully understand who sonic is anymore.
*Answer: Sonic can be everything*
Sonic has done what other characters in entertainment wished they could do -
Sonic can be snarky, stylish, likeable and epic at the same time while still remaining a popular video game icon even if his games are bad good or ridiculous, the fans will continue to buy Sonic games for years to come.
@@Antonio-is2cn Personally speaking I don't like Sonic being everything. Mario can be anything because his personality is non existent so he can be whatever the series needs him to be. The problem with Sonic is that they gave him a well defined character that people become attached to and then shifted his personality into something different leaving the old personality behind. In my personal opinion they're trying to make Sonic into a character that can appeal to everyone but ironically leads him to feel like he has no stand out personality. What I love about Sonic is that he was a well defined character with his own personality and with shifting it around multiple times it leads Sonic into feeling like he lost his identity.
I mean, I don’t think any of those things you mentioned are mutually exclusive. But maybe because I consumed so many different types of sonic media coming up, I feel like there aren’t a lot of games where I felt Sonic is extremely OOC. Maybe because at their core a lot of them are relatively similar imo or I could imagine Sonic acting like that, even if some are better than others. I felt the same way about Eggman, but this was actually the first piece of Sonic media ever where I felt Eggman was really OOC.
That has been the case since forever.
@@realer2748 i feel the same way mostly
It really feels like Ian's entire goal minute 1 after being hired as lead writer for the game was to write it with under the basis of a question he asked himself: "If I am *never* allowed to write for another Sonic game again, how can I use this one-time opportunity to course-correct the future of the franchise in such a way that future writers cannot go without acknowledging the impact of Sonic Frontiers in the context of the entire series?" If he really did this, then in a sense, I find it admirable to try and acknowledge the past in order to develop a more consistent future instead of just sweeping it under the rug in another typical self-contained Sonic story. I truly believe this is the entire reason there was an astronomical emphasis on the callbacks to previous games and stories, rather than just raw "nostalgia bait" like everyone claims it to be. Sometimes it's a little *too* on-the-nose, but considering how Sonic fans will take the teeniest tiniest details and run with them until they can't anymore in pointless arguments, I really can't blame Ian for doing it.
I don't want to speak *for* Ian or anything. But I also think this isn't something Ian can likely speak about since he is still employed by SEGA. Hopefully now it's not something he has to worry about moving forward. Going from writing for a comic to a full-fledged game is not going to be a perfect transition because the process of developing a story and balancing it with gameplay elements is not something comics have to worry about. Either he or SEGA handicapped themselves by making 99% of the story about characters just standing around talking to each other because it was the safest thing to do without blowing through a ton of budget and resources (something we know Frontiers had very minimal of) to make the gameplay more bombastic because of its comic-level narrative. A lot of the issues the series has had revolves around the fan discourse concerning the inconsistencies of character writing. In SEGA's minds, it likely made more sense to "canonize everything" for the sake of producing consistencies while also not trying to pretend the inconsistencies don't exist (like they tried to do for the better half of the 2010s post-Generations).
Yeah, it felt very much like getting everyone back to their established characteristics since they had been portrayed a certain way for a decade. Getting characters back to where they were wasn’t going to be the most efficient use of time, but most younger fans don’t have immediate access to those older games (outside of steam), so a lot of that context is missing unless they look it up. I do at least hope that have other writers work on other games like they did in the past (Shiro Maekawa and Kiyoko Yoshimura if they are able) since it helps to give the series that much needed flavor that it’s known for. Ian Flynn is cool, but even the comics change writers every few issues/arcs, so there’s no reason the games can do the same.
Completely agreed. If anything, what he did here was what he did when he first got onto Archie: establish immediate status quo for characters, refine and recontextualize past continuity so it fits together, and set up stuff for the future
He's said before on his podcast that part of the reason for the side characters' personal arcs was him planting seeds for him or other writers to use in future installments so you're not that far off. He had no control of the actual plot of the game but he did have control of the dialogue so he could shape the direction their conversations went.
I said this some time ago in the Sonic subreddit: in a lot of ways, Sonic Frontiers feel like a game that should have been released between Heroes and '06, because a lot of the "story" (in the english script only) tries to reestablish the position these characters had after the events of SA2.
Of course, because Ian Flynn doesn't fully understands these characters, their "arcs" in Frontiers are butchered versions of their arcs in SA1: Amy wants her own adventure, Knuckles wants to understand his tribe's past, and Tails learns to be confident in his abilities.
@@bluestar5812 I see where you'r egetting at with the SA1 rehashing, but I saw it more as establishing that either they're really gonna COMMIT to doing these things (Amy), refocus on becoming their own person capable in their own right instead of saying they'll become independent and then not being that ever again (Tails), or actually trying to find their own purpose (Knuckles)
The JP side purposely mistranslating the original EN script indeed shows they don't highly prioritize the storytelling or its convergence across different regions, regardless of which version anyone thinks is better or canon. They effectively believe that the dialogue doesn't matter as long as it doesn't breach the character bibles. It's embarrassing to see game localization regress like this, especially after EN SA1's effort to be more faithful to the Japanese canon over two decades ago.
Idk, I like how the JP version is trying to avoid unnecessary call backs.
How is it that the Sonic movies from Paramount are better at storytelling than the Sonic games from the 2010s to now? Even despite those films' flaws. Especially when Sonic Unleashed proved to us that Sonic is capable of Cinematic storytelling, through that game's opening cutscene.
ah yes the generic sonic movie 1 is great storytelling
@@kaobunn now you just sound unpleasable
Those are movies, these are videogames, not a good comparison
@@Antonio-is2cndid they not just cite sonic unleashed as proof that it has worked in the past?
I agree with everything you said in this video. Another point I'd like to bring up though is that I think people were always going to heap praise on Frontiers just because it wasn't goofy in tone. Unfortunately I think this fanbase has developed to the point where the primary motivator for any feedback given is fear. Sonic Frontiers (half-heartedly) brings back, darker stories with themes, 3D movement, multiple playable characters and other things people have been begging for, and the fanbase is terrified of losing that. The hyperbolic praise surrounding this game is what I perceive to be a desperate attempt by the fanbase to get them to keep this direction this time, so the franchise doesn't turn into a joke again. Ironically enough, as you pointed out in your video, this game is no less Meta than any of the other games made in the last decade. It's doing the exact same things, in the exact same way, only with 80% less energy to fool you into believing it's mature and deep. All this done in the hopes that "Next time will be the real one" but let's be honest, these games aren't going to get better. Frontiers represents the very best they can do especially with the focus on maintaining a consistent brand. The fans will get more of this current direction sure, but the ennui is bound to settle in.
To be honest, i feel like this video is a bit over dramatic and....i don't know, weird? I think that's the word. (And looking at your other videos, i feel like you tend to see things in a "glass is empty" sort of way.)
It is over dramatic you are not crazy I got the same vibe and feeling from this video it looks like it's one of those depressed old fans never be pleased with anything if you ask me.
They really are like that, they don't like anything just because it's "not from the 2000s."@@JakeThehedgehog-m1x
@@احمدمحسن-ل1ذ Oh yeah sure just make it into another fucking era war, you tribalist. Congrats for ignoring the entire point of the video, which actually complains about retreading the story arcs of past games, complains about shallow fanservice from the 2000s games, and simply wants something new. Oh no, how dare these Sonic fans want their games to be produced under the same dignity as other series of it's ranks? We should all just be satisfied with bare minimum slop, otherwise we're just "2000s fanboys." or some other stupid shit.
@@JakeThehedgehog-m1x Not liking a game ≠ depressed old fan. We can all agree this game is a step up from forces but it definitely has some major flaws.
This video is pretty much how I feel about Frontiers' story.
A bunch of references and clunky dialogue in a painful attempt at overcorrecting on criticisms of the series.
Like you said, im sure Ian Flynn is a cool guy and all, and I appreciate his earnestness when it comes to the series.
BUT, Frontiers has given me a very bad impression of his writing. It almost makes me feel like he's too much of a sonic fan for his own good, inlcuding superfluous details because they would make a fan coom rather than because they make sense.
I like his work on the comics (even if i do feel like IDW plays it far too safe, though im sure he has less control over that aspect), and I'd even like to see him try his hand at writing spinoffs (whenever the series stops trying to play it safe and actually does spin offs again), but I cant say i feel at all confident in him writing for the mainline series from now on.
If you read the comics you can how much he references stuff even when it's not needed or ruins scenes.
A good example would be Surge telling Metal Sonic "and your not even good enough to be my fake" which makes genuinely no sense.
I liked it better when he was a writer that happens to be a fan of Sonic then a Sonic fan writing it
Actually, Ian has gone on record stating that he has a good deal of creative freedom with the comics;
_"I can kvetch all I want about, y'know, the mandates... and the conflicts of creativity here and there, but really... getting down to it, I feel like I have enjoyed a great deal of creative freedom both Pre and Post (Archie) as well as IDW. Most of the hangups are over very minor things, which in some cases, have been for the better."_
And it will surprise you to know that Ian didn't even think that the Metal Virus Arc would get approved AT ALL. He presented it as something he wanted to do, but had another story as a backup in case it got turned down. And he said that SEGA was "incredibly generous with about 99% of it."
In one episode of his podcast, he's even said he's grown tired of "mandates" being used as a buzzword.
@@E-102GammaMKII That's... unfortunately more depressing than I'd hoped.
I've also heard stories about how Ian was planning on making the Archie comics more in-line with the games before it got canceled, and if the IDW plot is his realization of that, then I suppose there never really was any hope.
@@gavinislightning Yeah, that's been Ian's plan since long ago. Even called the Archie Sonic Reboot the "fast-forward button" in that regard.
But you know what I think? I don't think Ian is a game purist, either. I've seen him call Jet the Hawk a "fantasy bird-man from a mediocre video game series."
I ultimately think Ian is just in it for himself. To line his pockets. He intends to cling to Sonic for as long as he can and profit from it, as he's called Sonic a "spiky blue money-maker."
And his "KnowingSmile" hashtag is such an irritation.
@@E-102GammaMKII
So basically Ian has devolved into being Penders 2: Electric Boogaloo. And it's depressing because unlike Penders, Ian has gaslighted and cultivated a hardcore fanbase who'll defend ANYTHING he does just because he lazily panders to them 24/7.
Sonic's "deep/serious" voice somehow brought the game down alot for me, i don't know how that was even possible...
Man....
This game is where Roger Craig Smith's Sonic voice has become a parody of itself.
(I think Roger's a good VA, but he was grossly miscast as Sonic.)
@megaturtleman1218 the only times he sounded great to me as sonic was boom where he felt like he could stand on his own
@@megaturtleman1218 the English dub really has course corrected into parody, given how desperately it wants to be taken seriously, after the past decade. But lower one's voice to sound older and not come across as "cartoony" a serious story does not make.
Seriously, going from the Japanese dub to English gives some major whiplash, given that the characters, in the Japanese dub, sound like they should do, and have done for the past 25 years. The English dub however, much like I said earlier, comes across more like a child trying to act like what they believe is a mature adult. For when its trying to do these heartfelt moment, it all comes across as very insincere and fake.
@@nyhtfall1969How is sounding like a depressed middle aged man who sometimes make baby noises "standing on his own" ?
@yrooxrksvi7142 what I mean by standing on his own is I'm refering to how boom is it's own and cause sonic acts very differently there it feels better tailored to Roger it felt made for him it doesn't save boom from being nothing to me tho
I think the problem with SEGA writing Amy's "new" character stems them wanting to forget the old character, rather than embracing it. Both Sonic & Amy's arc has to come down to maturity, cause her goals were to impress Sonic. She was a fan of him in CD. She started chasing him down in the Dreamcast Era, but Sonic doesn't like the idea of settling down. Turning them into rivals in a comedic sense. Now we're at the point of Sonic & Amy lives where they can stop and think how much value thay have in their friendship. (Or more if needed) Amy could now realize it takes time to build up something so long term. So that gives her time to improve on herself, and show that's she's just as a strong/stand out character as the main trio. Most importantly, she's learning not only to embrace her past feelings, but move on from them. Giving her the perfect chance to actually take the time to KNOW Sonic. Rather than continue playing his game of chasing him around, and get rejected. This is the best scenario we can get from the two.... *Problem is, we don't get that.*
It's because of the fact SEGA/Writers keep trying to scrub her old character way, this new "I'm so mature now" Amy comes across as forced. Yet at the same time they keep going "HEY HEY Look at this cute and intimate moment between Sonic & Amy, nudge nudge." It doesn't feel genuine. I do like the idea of her trying to find herself, without needing/wanting Sonic. At the same time she shouldn't shy away from the fact that she was obsessively inlove with him. Instead, she should be learning from it, and take approaches to casually join Sonic in his adventures. Or see how they can better their dynamic, now they're at a time where they're passed the chasing game.
Basically, let Amy grow into maturity instead of forcing her to be mature.
This whole game reeks of "we didn't really have that many ideas and this is what our team of all junior devs who are just learning unreal engine could cobble together before we had to get something out the door"
Made all the more rage-inducing by the pre-launch gaslighting in interviews, and the game's constant "We're so much better now!" patronization.
This publisher and dev team need to be shut down if they're gonna keep pulling scams this blatant.
@@theholygamer969yeah what was up with that? I remember sonic team being like “we’re done rushing games and we’re gonna learn from our mistakes”. They just lied.
@jimmybob5541 It's marketing drivel. They don't have to be sincere. They have to manipulate you into giving them your money. The problem is, they don't offer anything worth buying anymore.
They know exactly what to say to keep this starved cult of a fandom interested.
Jeb, thank you so much for seeing me as worthy to have my name on Patreon be a special shoutout! You have no idea how happy it made me when I was watching the final portions of the video!
Not a matter of worthiness, just the nature of support. Thank you very much!
@@JebZone You are right, dude. But I'm happy to help you. You and I see eye-to-eye on a lot on Sonic.
I honestly think that Amy's original nickname "Rosie the rascal" encapsulates what her character was always meant to be so well that it's all you need to hear to get the gist of her energy and charm. Like, frontiers Amy is so devoid of the energy and personality that was so rare to see in female video game characters in the 90s and it makes me so sad. People didn't like her because she was the only sonic female, they liked her because she was genuinely likable.
I think sonic writers need to take more out of the OVA character dynamics, because it's so legitimately amazing how perfectly the character interactions are written. They just really understood those characters. The handling of tails especially is just perfect in the ova. He keeps up with sonic and is shown to be just as competent and capable while still having that younger brother type vibe. This is really emphasized in the fight with robo-robotnik.
It's funny because "Rosie the rascal" is her own character in the comics
Imo Sonic X nailed Sonic and Amy's dynamic. Even Season 1, which is usually regarded as a slog, has some of the funniest scenes with them as the focus (specifically the part where sonic faints, idk why I've just always liked that one).
Keep in mind that I specifically mean the original Japanese dub, the 4kids script removes basically all the silly fourth wall humor and that's a real shame. It also adds dialogue to a moment Sonic Team specifically asked to keep completely silent by the end of season 2, which to me takes away a rather nuanced decision. The french dub ironically did the same but in the exact opposite way. If you know you know.
just thought I'd throw it out there. Sonic X isn't even that good but a lot of the character writing was it's saving grace.
@@yuchun_ ...
Sonic X is Good.
(REPOSTED BECAUSE OF ERROR)
It's funny you should bring up the "kids' stuff" bit regarding Ian Flynn.
Following issue #50 of the IDW comics, people started getting more openly upset towards how its version of Sonic was portrayed. The short version is that the central theme of the comic (intentionally or no) is about Sonic's heroic philosophy of compassion and mercy coming into conflict with both villains who refuse to change and the impact they leave on Sonic's friends and other innocent people.
Fundamental misunderstanding of Sonic's core character aside (Sonic doesn't have a philosophy, he's a nice guy who just does what he wants for the sake of it), the comic never has Sonic outright confront his ideals, and instead has him go on wordy and pretentious platitudes about how he's a superhero and he wants everyone to be free and blah blah blah you suck for not agreeing with him.
The comic can't be totally in favor of Sonic's ideals because it indeed shows the negative consequences of them, it can't be totally against Sonic's ideals because it puts him on a pedestal both in-universe and from a storytelling perspective, and it can't be a case of "the true answer is somewhere in between" because it never reaches any sort of resolution or answer. Kids reading the book will likely either think Sonic's self-righteous attitude is something that should be emulated (a bad takeaway), or they'll hate Sonic for being a pushover and think the lesson is to always punish evil and never look for the good in people (also a bad takeaway).
Crap on the Sonic movies all you want, but at least they have narrative stakes and themes. Sonic learns he can't run from his problems, Tails learns to become more confident, Knuckles learns that heroism is about helping others rather than just the glory of handling yourself. Kids have something meaningful to take away when they leave the theater.
Now, after seeing all the discourse surrounding it, how did Mr. Ian Flynn, the so-called "best Sonic writer" who "understands the characters" and "is pretty much a god for Sonic", respond? Did Flynn acknowledge criticism from people (some of his own fans included), and vow to do better in the future? Nah, but Daniel Barnes did that for his own work, so good on that guy. Did Flynn try to explain why he chose to write Sonic a certain way, thus showing his mindset as a writer and allowing readers to judge it more fairly? Nah, that requires valuing personal introspection and personal responsibility, and nobody has time for that.
If neither of those were the case, then what did Mr. Flynn do? Well, after stating that issue #50 was about Sonic conveying the "SEGA standard" for his character to the audience, he followed up with this:
"[Sonic's] point of view is very simple and idealized, but it's also a children's fantasy. You know, we're not going to be able to answer these high-level moral questions that humanity has been grappling with since we had an understanding of morality to begin with in a Sonic book, this is introductory level. And if you're in your twenties or thirties or forties and you don't find this surface-level approach fully satisfying… go read adult material. Go read stuff that does delve into that, and does try to tackle it, and does something smarter. This- this is not something smarter."
Need I say more?
:(
Ok thats dumb, he aknowledges the criticisms and even his Friends Evan does.
Many times people had criticized his work and he Will improve with enough time, heck the Next Game he wrote being dream team doesn't even have any references apart from lets do It to it
So much this. I hate how he writes Sonic like he is Superman or something with constant lectures and speeches on morality, forgiveness, ect. Sonic isn’t Superman or the heroic dub version of Goku. He doesn’t constantly talk. Instead he lets his actions speak for themselves, and nothing in the games or prior media ever fixated on Sonic having some weird fascination with forgiveness and redemption. Sure, he went with Shadow being a good guy but he didn’t lecture Shadow or even register it beyond “You’re one of us now? Cool!”
@@powblockmaster he does a good classic Sonic, many people liked that one
@@joaquindiaz3621 Flynn wrote PART of Dream Team and I can tell when some aspects of his writing show up ("Kidnapping a child is low even for you, Doctor"; "I've heard of falling asleep, but this is ridiculous"; "giant enemy crab"), but the other half of the story was done by Don Rosatti, and I feel like Rosatti did a lot more of the work when it comes to the game's overall story and characterization.
I especially don't think Flynn was responsible for the game's basic premise and story, considering how he's been known to say less-than-flattering things about Amy, Cream and Rouge's game portrayals. To quote, Amy is "all over the place", Cream is a little girl who "isn't supposed to get involved", and Rouge has "that odd sex appeal for a cartoon bat", indicating that they aren't as interesting because they aren't solely defined as being "kick-butt females" like Blaze or Tangle.
And funny thing, too; just like how Flynn tries to prop up Frontiers' story by knocking down or leaning on the stories of previous games, so too did he try to prop up Tangle through directly knocking down other female Sonic mainstays:
www.gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2018/02/15/writer-ian-flynn-discusses-giving-the-sonic-comic-series-a-fresh-start.aspx
Part of what made adventure-era Amy so cool was that her arc was about becoming more independent and improving herself so that she could be worthy of Sonic's love- leading to really interesting scenarios like her repeatedly sneaking into and breaking people out of jail, and giving her more believable justification in thrusting herself into dangerous adventures
Heroes and Riders and those games that portrayed Amy in a more manic and stalker-y way wasn't disappointing because it was creepy or whatever, it's because it kind of flanderized her into a character with less dimension
And that portrayal of her just being a wild hammer-swinging maniac who wants to hunt down Sonic is what laid the groundwork for her now just being a generic Strong Female Character whose only character traits are being nice and using a hammer(and also tarot cards now, because she is also a wizard now I guess)
I just passed the first chapter of this video, and I already have to thank you for not skimping on critiquing the presentation and smaller details. It makes me happy knowing that you're not giving this "next gen Sonic experience" a pass. It's the lens I've viewed the games with Unleashed, as that game actively made me feel like I was playing a Sonic game on a next generation console.
Animation quality, cutscene direction, opening, ending, fucking lip flaps, all of it speaks volumes about the production values. it's everything BUT nitpicking, so I thank you for not skipping over that stuff. it's these things that have been in my mind ever since the game dropped, but it felt like I was in another universe... thinking that the game was supposed to encite me from the first few minutes.. pfff silly me.
After all is said and done, what is Frontiers without the references? Without the goal of "fixing" what came before?
What is Frontiers without the 2010's?
a open beta, seriously without the sonic brand in the game frontiers would have been torn to shreds by the gaming community, more since is in theory a "AAA" game.
@@mechakirby9576Nigga it’s a sonic Game who the fuck cares if this wasn’t a sonic Game
This video would not exist if this wasn’t a sonic game
@@rando6677 Imagine missing the point this hard...also I know for a fact you're white.
@@yuchun_Assuming my race is crazy
This ain’t the slavery days where they were openly racist
If I said the word clearly I’m black bro
I want to mention that, from a franchise point of view, the ending of Frontiers holds no weight. You have this sunsetting visage of the characters telling each other they are going to go it alone for a while in the immediate future, parting separate ways to each grow independently. However, IMMEDIATELY after this, they have...a birthday party on a train? Ok that's fine, they're friends after all. Oh, actually, now they're all together again in Cream's dreams fighting Eggman. So the ending of Frontiers is less-so a real indicator of any of Tails, Amy, or Knuckles' potential growth and moreso a "hypothetical growing" that is happening "off-screen" lol.
Ian can explain-text this problem away though in the 'next game' im sure with more riveting dialogue!
That game isn't canon and its april 1st game.
So it doesn't count.
@@cristianovogt5586 it literally is canon
@@OfficialFatherBeat does it take place _after_ Frontiers is what you're saying?
there's no way this true... right?
are you trying to imply murder of sonic is canon lmao
@@kaobunnI mean, nothing really contradicts it's canonicity. There is even a reference to Frontiers near the end. I guess a point against it is the team behind it saying "believe in the power of headcanon" but this series in particular and headcanons go together like chili and hotdogs.
Some won't say it, some think it'd be lazy and bad but I don't and I don't care, what Tails was in Sonic Forces was so horribly bad that it should've been, in fact, been retconned out of existence, that horrible idea doesn't DESERVE to be acknowledged as part of the series' past and I absolutely DESPISE the idea of it NEEDING to be acknowledged because I found it THAT disgusting of a thing.
What I didn't like about the Ancients-Chao connection is that Chao are creatures that can ONLY live in pure and clean waters, far from pollution. What angered Chaos was the destruction of their home. There was an environmental theme about the impact of pollution due to selfish interests (shown by Pachacamac/Eggman) and divine punishment for not taking care of the environment resulting in natural disasters (Chaos). This theme falls apart now because they are aliens that had no connection with the planet. Oh, and fun fact: The Chaos Emeralds are named after Chaos after the disaster, they didn't have a name before... So, another thing they didn't take into account when writing Frontiers because in Frontiers the Ancients started calling them like that.
Hold up, the Emeralds are named after Chaos? I genuinely never knew that, can you please give me a source?
@@Couch_Banana Sonic Adventure Navigation Guide Book
@@HeavilyArmedCute
Thank you. I searched it up and seeing that it's japan-only is slightly disappointing, but it's honestly really cool that the Emeralds are canonically name after Chaos. It makes him feel even more like a god.
@@Couch_Banana Japan only doesn't make it less valid...In fact, it's the original developers intention.
@@HeavilyArmedCute
I know, I just wish I could read it in english, since I dunno japanese.
We need more beatboxing Jeb to introduce new segments in the future
29:44 To be fair, Sonic likely doesn’t know this is a Titan pilot, or that they even had pilots. All we see is an Ancient in something, not obviously a Titan, and Sonic might have just thought the memory was random chance.
Between the redundant lines, Family Guy-esque flashbacks, stilted cutscene animations and member-berry references bolted into all of the character interactions in Frontiers, I zoned out so often when watching this game’s story on TH-cam.
So glad I completely ignored Frontiers before and after release. Been massively let down with Lost World and Forces before and I wasn’t gonna be fooled a 3rd time.
I mean personally it’s not worse than adventure1 or 2’s Like seriously Between bad audio mixing, stilted cutscenes bogged down my mascot suit Motion capture Straight up bad or weird voice acting some of the Weidest background art I’ve ever seen. and Characters Like Amy having that asspull Thing with Shadow before I think they’re on the same level
@@RaiginAnimator Yes it is worse because Adventure 1 and 2's storylines actually committed to what it was doing and doesn't shy away for what it wants to do.
@@Skeleton20133 Does this game bc I never noticed that 🙃
@@RaiginAnimator No. Frontiers' story failed to commit. It is not sincere at what it wants to do.
@@Skeleton20133 In what sense?
You wouldn't belive how much I wanted to hear your opinion regarding this
Knuckles actually wasn't voiced by Travis in this game.
I think an interesting way to rewrite Sage's character would be to have her think of Eggman as her father, but instead Eggman just sees her as another servant, which would break her heart. In Archie, he had a "son and daughter", but he only mourned them for a few seconds. Once they were both dead, he just said "So much for family." Once they weren't useful, or just because one of them betrayed him, he immediately stopped caring about family.
Yea, but that would be an interesting character conflict and we can't have that in Sonic anymore.
@@sonic5993 Indeed. I liked Frontiers story at the time, and even after this video I still like it (to an extent), but I can't deny most of what Jeb said. I just hope Shadow Generations will be good. As for movie 3, I'm expecting it to be bad. But if I lower my expectations so much, I'll enjoy it more.
this is so emo i can't-
No
This is sort of what happens in the game, but only in the japanese version of the script. One of the many changes is that the father x daughter relationship is pretty much erased, with Sage referring to Eggman only as "the doctor", being loyal to him because this is the will that was programmed into her by him.
In japanese Eggman never sees Sage has his daughter, but only an incredible machine, proof of his great genius. In the old ending when he died at the explosion it is the first time she calls Eggman "father", which makes her death hits harder because the entire game Eggman never sees Sage as more than just a soulless machine. In the Final Horizon Eggman just compliments Sage and invites her for dinner.
Overall Frontiers' story has a lot of issues, and I'm not sure who came up with the idea of the whole Dad Eggman thing, but the final japanese script at least tries to erase this and much of the weird stuff Ian Flynn wrote.
Personally I loved Frontiers. Some may have turned on the game since launch, but I still find it very fun. While the story is admittedly as flawed as you mentioned (but i actually liked the character writing and don't quite agree with you), I think the fanbase are too forgiving towards Sonic Team.
The way they react to new releases show me that Sonic will not improve enough when there's not enough "harshness" from the fanbase. Fans always say some stuff like "They'll learn from their mistakes and will have a bigger budget NEXT TIME". That's such an immature and unreasonable answer!
OK first of all, this is Sega we are talking about here. Just because they said to some investors they plan on increasing labor power doesn't mean they'll commit to their words. They didn't earn themselves a very trustworthy status.
Secondly, who's to say Sonic Team even learned the right lessons from your feedback? Maybe Sonic Team are such amatuars at game design that all of the fans' criticisms was misunderstood by them. Who knows... maybe the next game WILL include all the stuff fans asked for, but Sonic Team will implement these features in the most questionable manners possible, resulting an EVEN WORSE game!
Frontiers took 5 years to be made (6 if you count the updates) and, while I (and I repeat, "I") loved it, a handful of people didn't. Sonic Team were given more than enough time to make a steller game and they STILL disappointed plenty of people.
Some argue that it's the result of a lack of budget (and because Frontiers sold well than NEXT TIME they'll have enough money to make the game and ONLY THAN get it right), but I GREATLY disagree. Budget doesn't mean anything when the dev team has no idea how to design a game. I don't know how to program or draw. 300 people like me wouldn't be able to make the next Half-Life 2, even if we had a budget of 500M$.
Indie games have far smaller budgets and can still craft excellent games. Other AA (yes I said AA, not AAA) games are greatly loved by the general public without any major asterisks. If Sonic Team were great developers, they would've utilized the (admittedly small) budget they DO have and made a game that's AT THE VERY LEAST acceptable BY EVERYONE. Sadly, that has been proven not to be the case.
I feel like people should finally realize that maybe the problem isn't strictly sega's faults (although they do definately have their issues), and perhaps realize the real issue lies at the roots of the tree. I don't encourage this move in the media industry, but productivity matters above all so it has to happen this time. Sonic Team... HAS TO GO! They were given way too many chances and wasted them. And before you scream at me for being a heartless bastard I want to remind you 2 things:
A. I REALLY love Frontiers! It's tied with SA2 as my favorite Sonic game. I just really love the gameplay. If it was up to me, I would've kept Kishimoto and Sonic Team in charge. I'm saying what I'm saying because of the general public's reception.
B. Try to envision the devs of Mario or Insomnac making a Sonic game. Even with a small budget like Sonic Team's, do you think the product they would've made had turned out better or worse than Sonic Team's? I think it would've been a lot better, and I won't be surprised if plenty others think the same way.
C. Sega makes the Yakuza games. If my point isn't clear now, nothing will make it clear.
I honestly feel bad for Kishimoto, because he clearly wants his games to be the best they can be. However, Mike Wasaoski wanted to be a scarer, did everything he could to be one, but was simply not cut out for that. There's supposed to be a point in which you realize you aren't fitting for a certain job because, regardless of your good intentions, you still mess things up. If Kishimoto REALLY likes Sonic, maybe he should take responsibility for his failures and step down from the IP.
Until a major MAJOR change happens behind the scenes, mistakes and pitfalls will be repeated. Don't expect the next game to suddenly be THE ONE!
I wish there was more frontiers fans like you. Loving the game while also being comfortable with criticizing and seeing others criticize it. I really hate how nowadays criticism of any kind turn into us vs them arguments. I won’t say i agree with booting everyone though perhaps that will do them some justice. I like frontiers and i think it’s a fine enough foundation but I really hope the next game doesn’t also have us saying “WELL NEXT TIME it’ll be good” over the year’s we’ve had too many of those.
Ah...yes you're one of those people blindly say that Sega should sell sonic or sonic team must die or get blacklisted and everything will automatically get fixed look you need to realize that nothing and no one is perfect we all make mistakes but I need you to understand if you say sonic team has to go which team is going take an accountability to make sonic games? Do we even know if they're gonna do a better job or not? Absolutely not! There's no certainty here..
And if you say Sega should sell sonic to another company but who's worthy enough to even be the holder of the sonic IP?
Nintendo? Please these guys will cease the fandom out of existence and copy strike people left and right
Sony? Would be the same case for Nintendo but do we even know if they are gonna have any respect for Sonic they would just build this franchise from the group up which completely destroys what we even loved about this franchise in the first place.
Microsoft? ABSOLUTELY NOT! these mfs won't do any justice for sonic either it's a bad idea look what did they do to banjo Kazooie or rare!
EA(electronic arts)? Please these guys are worse than Sega!
Etc you see what I mean here none of these companies and options are a 100% guarantee option to ensure sonic would be in a better place.
Besides when you say sonic team are a bunch of amateur game designers (ok before you call me a sonic team defender no I'm not Infact I Think what happened with sonic forces was their fault mostly not Sega) I need to remind you that most of the sonic games we enjoy are usually sonic colors, generations, unleashed and frontiers and specially sonic adventure 1,2 etc.. these two games are too beloved actually but let me ask you this where did all these games come from? All of these games came from Sonic team I'm not saying they're perfect by any means though and they made mistakes before but saying sonic team as A WHOLE are amateur game designers and they must go it sounds oblivious...and saying sonic team has to go and should lose their job because of some amount of people in general thinks this way doesn't mean they must stop and give up now no the hell they won't there's no going back now I just think people are blinded with hate at some point and it's kind of justified but saying they should lose their job etc..is just so immature and I need to remind you that the sonic community is so divisive and you can't please everyone in general and that's just reality and the same thing can be said for sonic frontiers' aswell..
If anything I said here doesn't make sense then start to hate me it's always your choice.
@@JakeThehedgehog-m1x 1. Insomniac are good devs. I don't think their owner Sony will DMCA Sonic fan games.
2. I only suggested it as an idea. I didn't mean that I think getting rid of Sonic Team is the only right choice.
Just starting the video, and I'm glad someone thinks the story is bad. I've been thinking the same since launch, I didn't agree that Tails' and Amy's arc were any good (Knuckles gets a pass), I like Sage but lacks good execution (that crying scene with the lyrics makes EVERYONE LAUGH AND THAT IS NOT A GOOD THING), the Final Horizons DLC didn't do anything groundbreaking to fix the ending lol, and the constant references to the past are so annoying I feel someone wrote all that just to appease sonictwt
I'm honestly surprised you understand Amy a lot better than the majority of this fandom (which all they do is throw shit terms to a wall and see if they stick as liquid shit).
Or you're just a crazed sonamy fan.
@@yungmuney5903 I don't like shipping, you primate.
@@dragondelsur5156 Yes you are, that's why everytime I see you chimp rampage, its about how Amy doesn't expresses her crush to Sonic as much anymore. Most classic sonamy behavior.
And did you really use primate as an insult? Like okay, I am a primate, that's what humans generally fall under. 😂
@@yungmuney5903 I can just as easily encapsulate all Sonic fans under a toilet full of shit, just as you're doing with Sonamy fans (which I'm not a part of). I am an Amy fan first and foremost, and yes, I take issue with how she's an emotionless brick wall nowadays with none of the love she used to express.
Exactly, all drippy, like their diapers
I don't really think I have an overall summation of the criticisms on display. Just disjointed comments. So I'll just keep it all in one post.
We can make Breath of the Wild comparisons all day, but I have little doubt Frontiers was supposed to be a 30th anniversary game, regardless of the localization quirks. But like BotW, they needed more development and couldn't reach the deadline for the anniversary. Which, I think looking at these side by side, Frontiers just doesn't hold up whatsoever. From a marketing standpoint, BotW was able to showcase so much from just 1 plateau. The sheer density of what BotW has in the game is so painstakingly crafted. And Frontier's story is just inferior. That's not me praising Nintendo like they can do no wrong. I thoroughly think Tears of the Kingdom's story is trash. BotW's story problem lies in its oversimplicity, but the devs at least believe in its simple story. Frontiers has scripts with multiple versions depending on region and DLC apparently.
So much of this feels like a heavy-handed response to fans, that even when listening to the english voice acting it feels like the director went "Hey look, they keep complaining about the comedy, so we're gonna make this sound like a CBS court drama that gets canceled after 1 season." And maybe they're not actually that bitter, but the delivery was sure sounding like they only had 2 options. Either you either get maximum comedy to the point of shitposting, or you get so serious its unenthusiastic. This logic only applies if they're ignoring every other story out there. I'm not saying it cant be difficult to keep a good tonal balance when it comes to writing superpowered anthropomorphic animals, but come on. No one saw Amy The damn Hedgehog sounding like this and thought this sounds bad?
Btw, I hope you don't get too much flak for mentioning the voice direction. From what I recall years back, another youtuber made a tame tweet saying "I don't criticize the voice actors themselves, I criticize the voice direction" and the voice of Eggman completely bombarded him on twitter. That made me look at things in a different perspective. It wasn't even like the youtuber @'d him. Eggman pushed him off the platform for a time. And people celebrated because the youtuber criticized Pokemon. Random, I know. Years later, this event just ages worse, even if I never believed the youtuber wasn't acting in good faith when it came to Pokemon critisism. It had nothing to do with his irrelevant sonic opinion. He was doing no harm until Eggman chimed in.
I don't even know what to say about the references in the sense that the company intentionally did this for the western audience. I mean, Sonic was MADE for the western audience appeal, so its not shocking. But at the same time, that puts even less faith in Sonic Team's storytelling that there's no conviction in trying to maintain consistent writing and pacing across all languages. One could argue it could've at least worked if it came out on the actual 30th anniversary. I'd argue that it would be weird that the game is trying to imply this is the greatest threat Sonic has faced, but instead of it taking place where where Sonic resides for nostalgic callbacks, it takes place in a cyberspace away from where they all live, and all you get is dialogue in its place.
The Sage stuff is so undercooked and is literally banking on viewers ignoring that in favor of "cuteness". Its not like SEGA as a whole is incapable of taking the time to properly develop kids or even robots. Hell Persona alone has been proving that. This is just...Sonic Team not wanting to bother. And even that could've been compensated if Sage or Eggman did some new cool things as a result of their haphazard bond, but most of Frontiers is just them standing around.
And that credits song. That credits song "Dear Father" is.....I cringe when I find out people request youtube reactors to hear that after the rest of the Frontiers OST. At best, its a poor man's "Still Alive", "Want You Gone", or "Your Reality". At worst, this is the devs literally appealing to the cuteness one last time to distract you from how unfulfilling that boss was. A 60 cent song in a $60 game.
To imply at this point, that all sonic fans have to do is potentially wait another 5 years for character progression is outright insulting. The question remains, is it more insulting than the Japanese version that promised nothing but Sage? Legitimately, what is she supposed to provide to future games beyond a unique design? What does she bring to the table that couldn't have happened without her? But I guess you have to wait half a decade for that answer. I mean this across the industry, game devs do know we're not immortal, right? People are less inclined to care about character arcs if these games come out 7 years at a time.
Sega announced some initiative to release a ton of games from a lot of franchises that are coming out in the next few years. Kinda seems like some test footage from that idea leaked months back and that's when we saw P3 Reload, Jet Set Radio, and a graphically better looking Sonic Frontiers. But who knows what that truly was for. I won't criticize that effort until we see more stuff. But I do get the feeling Sonic Adventure is finally going to be addressed. But with more and more games like Sonic, people get more critical when stuff like Frontiers happens. Hell, we're days away from a Pokemon Direct that will either announce a brand new region, or a remake. And people just...don't think either is preferable. Especially if its a Unova remake as they feel Game Freak can only ruin it at this point. that's almost the same energy Sonic is facing currently. I could not tell you how to fix it. But perhaps with fanbases getting more and more critical, something in that can bring the change needed to get back on track.
Above all else, I appreciate you mentioning that event on Twitter, for I remember it very, very well. I'm glad that at least someone else here remembers what truly happened that day. (The side of the story that isn't "DR. EGGMAN OWNS TOXIC TH-camR!!!") Thank you.
@JebZone Are you guys talking about T**p, or was it a different person that got bombarded? I do remember Eggman getting on his case about the criticisms of the voices.
I am indeed.
@straightupgaming985 Oh, yeah I'm sorry. I didn't know whether you meant him or not so I thought nothing of mentioning his name.
I can edit that out!
What a loser
What’s crazy is the Silver and Amy montage wouldn’t have been that bad since those minor ass characters had more on screen development and reasons to be bonded than Sage and Eggman lmao
Your video is sobering as ever. I feel just like when you released the sonic goodbye video from 2019. Where you put to words all the feelings I've had deep within me. Feels so amazing to see those thoughts expressed in your video. The sign of a true literary master. Ian definitely needs a fire lit under his ass, as much as I like him. He definitely understands the Sonic cast and their history but I feel like he is not ballsy enough to write them in the kind of wacky zaney situations that the characters thrive in ala SA2, 06, riders etc. I think he feels the weight of his role and is almost overly conservative with the characters, He treats them like adult colleagues with lofty titles that need to be dealt with respectfully under the purview of an HR supervisor. Not like a bunch of teens getting into hijinx together.
The Riders games have the best cutscenes man. Same for heroes in game cutscenes but they're very short.
Might as well comment on this again since Frontiers' writing is the gift that keeps on giving.
I don't like "Eggdad" or "Dadbotnik" or whatever you call it, either. Not just because it highlights how Sage's character starts and ends with being Eggman's morality pet, but because it involves Eggman being completely derailed as a character- he's not nice and cordial, he just ACTS nice and cordial to stroke his ego and "gentleman genius" persona.
However, there is ONE way I could imagine a concept like that would work, and even then I'm not 100% confident that it'd be satisfying: have it be a complete inversion of the Bowser Jr. dynamic.
The way I see it, Bowser Jr. is meant to emphasize that Bowser isn't just a scary fairy tale monster. Bowser kidnaps princesses, torments Mario and friends, and has a chip on his shoulder the size of Brooklyn, but multiple games show that he does ultimately care about his minions even if he doesn't always show it. He's the kind of villain who ACTUALLY has a soft side despite how he loves to prop himself up as the biggest and baddest guy around, and he cares about Junior and even tries to spend quality time with him. You can understand from that alone why Junior admires him, and why his minions are so loyal to him of their own free will.
By contrast, have Eggman openly show off to the entire world that he's a "loving father", so that HAS to mean that he has a good heart deep down, right? It can't just be that it's all a performance to make himself look better and that Sage is just a prop. Rather than having Sage be a window into the hidden heart of gold Eggman has deep down (since it, y'know, doesn't exist), have her presence emphasize how shallow and vain Eggman really is. Eggman doesn't actually care about her as a person, he sees her as a means of stroking his ego and hopefully making people a little more comfortable with his ambitions of conquest. And when Sage can't do that for him anymore, he gets rid of her without a shred of regret.
~~And I mean, come on, politicians and corporations do this kinda shit all the time, "I can't be homophobic or ableist my son is those things"~~
Crap that was meant to be a strikethrough
That's the dumbest comment I've read today.
You're not even capable of editing comments
Fair, I personally don't mind the idea of extending the main villain cast and I think giving the doctor a "daughter" can work, but I agree that it's only in the same way that having a "son" in Metal Sonic works: they are HIS creations meant to do HIS bidding. No matter how much he may act like he loves them, it's only as long as they're useful in fulfilling HIS plans and ambition.
I don't think the creators at Sonic Team have any vision for what to do with this franchise or characters. They seemly just copy what they think is popular without fully understanding why and have any side characters present just cheerlead. This whole game was the definition of boring, bland, and tedious
Do you want to know what's funny?
Sonic Team actually do understand Sonic Stories and Characters, but... Their only in Japanese. Jebtube does mentions the Japanese doesn't have most of the issues that are stated in the English, in terms of voice acting, characters, and what not even the references since Sonic team removed most of Ian's writing from the JP script even the animation isn't mixed well and the writting isn't all that great, but if you want the 2000s Sonic characters again... The Japanese still have them, but the English lost them since 2009.
In the English Localization... They show they don't understand it or they do, but are willing to write it their own way to make it worst like Ian Flynn.
thats a lie. see you for the next game hater
@@reggielacey2235 ???
@@nerodoesart5886 bro is just an hater lol
they literally said that the open zone is what theyre set on, they have a vision now obviously
the biggest problem with this game is that its staking so much of its promises it made in the story, on the next game being EVEN BETTER. which realistically seems impossible for SEGA and Sonic Team to do. and if Sonic Frontiers 2 doesnt improve on all your criticisms, it will just be another Sonic Forces development cycle of wasted potential and time wasted. people will then look back on Sonic Frontiers 1 as a game that lied to us and spat in our faces for all the false promises it setup for the future of the franchise. i bet the next mainline sonic game will also look like a PS3 game remastered for the PS4, and will still have the outdated obselete Hedgehog Engine 2, and have all the same flaws just expressed in different ways. our only hope is for Fans to do it themselves.
Sonic frontiers 2 according to midori you know that leaker in the most community who has a good track record with their leaks said that sonic frontiers 2 is more like a sequel to the gameplay not a continuation of frontiers' story just let you know.
A lot of the stale story ideas comes from the initial ridiculous idea that there was *ever* something wrong with the adventure era depictions. There wasn’t.
Those games were successful for a reason.
Yeah, they were successful because of the gameplay. Those games aren't winning any awards because of their stories.
@@martinaguiluz4063yet those stories have the biggest moments people make fan art of, the moments merchandise depict on t-shirts and mugs, and what the next sonic movie is currently trying to emulate.
Lol.
On the contrary, the main issue is the near religious reverence to the Adventure era, to the point where it's created a warped idea of what those games actually are. Frontiers' story sucks because it keeps trying to call back to that idea, to regress the characters into the internet's idea of the Adventure mold, instead of simply moving on and trying something new.
@@felixdaniels37agreed.
@@felixdaniels37 This entire story warps the characters into how the fanbase see them as: Sonic the pretentious hero who talks too much, Tails the kid who got ruined in Colors, Lost World and Forces, Knuckles the previous resistance commander who somehow makes an official statement to abandon his responsibilities, and Amy the girl who used to be bad but now is good by expressing nothing.
You absolutely nailed what they did wrong with Eggman in this game. It’s not something I’ve been anyone really talk about regarding criticisms of the characters portrayals in frontiers. I find his portrayal in this game pretty much character assassination, and i don’t look forward to how he’s gonna be characterized in future games. But like seriously-how do you mess up eggman so bad?
i blame the sonic boom tv show for making him a doofersmith rip off
Ian Flynn's Eggman in general is bafflingly poorly written. Ian only ever thinks of him in two extremes, the "oh so sympathetic father figure that respects Sonic" and "hypercompetent embodiment of evil". And these two interpretations come to a head constantly, especially in IDW where he could commit war crimes and brutalize the OC characters with ease, while Sonic and co. treat him like his game counterpart.
Ian's handling of the character is schizophrenic at best, partly because he's trying to graft as much as he can from Archie comics into the game canon.
Flynn's been too fond of Eggman to write him properly since Archie, not exactly shocking.
We're just lucky that Eggman wasn't actually an active participant in this game's plot, otherwise we could've had the same hilariously schmaltzy father-daughter cutscenes with Sage, juxtaposed with Eggman warcriming the extended cast for cutscene after cutscene, as Flynn tends to write him in the comics.
Nothing sums up Flynn's Eggman quite like the Archie panel where he's singing E.G.G.M.A.N. and dancing... right next to the vivisected mechanical corpse that he turned Sally Acorn into for 18 months of comics. Ain't that funny, guys! It's Eggman being goofy and singing his theme song from that game you like! Just ignore the actual sympathetic character suffering constant mental (and probably physical) agony right next to him!
@@ToaArcan Um... ok? I don't see a problem with that
@@TheSultan1470 It's a problem since Flynn obviously would write Eggman as his SatAM/Archie version if he could but that's just not how SoJ sees the character. Flynn's overall view of the franchise is the lens of the DiC shows and Archie so he can't really write the main cast in line with their actual game established game characterizations. He's not alone on this either seeing the others at IDW's staff (to the point that the Resistance/Restoration/Neo Diamond are written as a wannabe Freedom Fighter faction with Lanolin a Sally stand-in without the romance or being a princess alongside having Tangle/Silver as a proxy for Sonic with Sonic himself written as more of a superhero).
W fucking VIDEO. Like always!
Ian’s writing style really hasn’t changed that much from his Archie days, where he would look at problems or bad stories from older days and bring them up to create something new.
In those it felt like he was cleaning up shop while telling an ACTUAL story, not just clearing the board and waiting years before telling a good story. Even stuff like the dialogue and references were handled with much more grace back then, and it kinda sucks how it started getting exaggerated around the reboot era of Archie, and reached its boiling point in IDW and Frontiers.
I love Ian as a writer and he’s a huge inspiration to me, but it sucks that I find a lot of his newer stuff so middling.
Good video.
I honestly never enjoyed Flynn’s writing.
No offense meant to you specifically, but Flynn feels like one of those writers praised for "fixing" things… except that he was more so the only one left who COULD fix things, given that Bollers and Penders jumped ship and he was the only one left as a candidate for Archie. It's the writing equivalent of two people taking a shit and the third one being praised for washing their hands.
I think that if almost any other writer came in, they would've done the exact same changes to the book that Flynn did, and possibly even better ones overall. I don't think there was anything special or decent about Flynn besides the very fact that he was the one who showed up.
He was Archie's last line of defense, absolutely, but he wasn't its trump card (I don't think anyone who worked on the book was).
@@blurrydawgo5403 I preferred Karl Bollers anyway.
@@Nathan-rb3qp Bollers is majorly underrated. He wrote one bad story (Issue 134), which was itself just a piece of a larger, incomplete arc and had its negative qualities vastly overblown by annoying people online taking it out of context so they could use it as proof that Sally was a bad character, and that's all the wider fandom remember him for.
The guy wrote some stories that were straight-up _bangers,_ and he barely ever gets credit for them. At best, they're part of the vague blob of pre-Flynn Archie that people don't care about because it's not Ian Flynn, at worst they label everything he did as Penders' work.
I'll even go to bat for 134 a little. I totally get why people are mad about it, but given all the shit Sally went through before that point, an ugly, explosive, and painful break where she finally cracks under the weight of world after eleven long years of shouldering more than any child should ever have had to (and she _is_ still a child at that point, she's like 17 by the reboot) just feels... expected. She had a metric fuckton of trauma, and basically none of it ever got treated. Maybe that's a little too real for a Sonic book, but hey. That's Archie for you.
Look for better inspiration, bud.
So basically, Frontiers is a patronizing, apathetic, lifeless fanfiction (with a bizarre daughter figure insert) that unenthusiastically jingles a few keys of acknowledgment in front of the terminally online brand-obsessed fanatics to get them to calm down for a few more years, while ironically regressing things even further through said acknowledgments.
This isn't anything new, honestly. Just another nothing burger to add to the pile. SEGA and the current Sonic Team are shit at their jobs, and the sky is blue.
Fuck video games, I'm going outside.
Nice!
I think the reason why Sonic Frontiers got so much praise was because it followed the most atrocious sonic thing of all
Compared to it, sonic frontiers is a godsend
I agree that the praise was amplified by Forces' existence. But now I'm wondering.... how will Frontiers hold up once once "the most atrocious sonic thing" becomes nothing more than a distant memory (Espcially for the newer generation that never experienced the long frustrations of Forces or even the Meta Era)?
@@adrianleonce455oh trust me those atrocious sonic thing will NEVER gonna be a distant memory like EVER. If sonic 06 is still mentioned till today, It won't happen to forces either.
If you think about it, weirdly japan is the only one that gave 5 awards to frontiers even when sonic was never popular there since adventure, makes you wonder if they judge the game as its own merit or from forces standard. 🤔
Then why wasn't Unleashed received positively since it came after the actual most atrocious thing in the series.
@@AYTM1200Because it didn’t come after the most atrocious thing in the series, it came after sonic and the secret rings which did come after sonic 06 and was well received on release
One of the things i admire about your youtube videos that I don’t see people talk about much, is how often you choose clips that work super well with your script. I think back to the moment in previous sonic video where you say something along the lines of “sonic fans freaking out about a hot take”, and the clip accompanying that is one of the deadly six members going nuts.
Just little stuff like that makes these videos really entertaining to watch, and it’s used to great effect here in this video as well!
On to the actual topic of your video and what you have said in it though, Brand Era is such a good term to define 2020s sonic. It’s like, we’re now getting this stream of sonic products these past few years but none of it ‘s really more than, decent. Sonic Superstars was honestly the biggest indicator of this to me, as a massive fan of 2D sonic I ended up being burned hard by that game, and I hate that it felt like it was just made as filler content, meant to serve the sonic content quota.
well, decent in your opinion
@@kaobunnWhy are you so adamant about trying to discard any criticism toward this game?
@@ambientNexusStockholm syndrome. That’s why.
2:17:15 This shot here of Sonic using the no risk, high reward parry to completely circumvent the challenge of this minigame is so PERFECT with what you're saying lol
Also I really enjoyed this video and couldn't agree more with your take on it (at least for the most part). Its a shame but I think Sonic Frontiers is an example of a bigger problem with fans. We are so used to having it so bad, that anything better than that we will latch onto wholeheartedly. I don't accept that Frontiers is the best Sonic can do. Its a franchise that is capable of so much more than this. If it wasn't, I wouldn't have ever become a fan in the first place. Thank you once again Jeb for setting the record straight and I look forward to hearing your thoughts on Rebirth in the future.
The more I look at ians writing the more I only see references and I'm like....
"People where gassinh him why? References show how incompetent you are as a writer unless its cheeky or indirect."
It was cute the first 5 times, then it became way too reoccurring for its own good. The IDW comics unironically have Eggman tell Sonic "we've got our own styles that we won't change" and Sonic replies "yeah but yours is filled with evil and mine is not!". Imagine a casual reader reading that and not thinking it's clunky and completely random.
Bro it was so bad how did that make it in@@MegaGlassguy
Im sorry when was refreneces considered illegal? Isn't the whole point of mainting continuity is refreneces?
@@yungmuney5903 There's a difference between acknowledging past events and how they're affecting the current story and inserting song lyrics and fandom memes in your dialogue, those two have nothing to do with continuity.
@@MegaGlassguy .......motherfucker how??? And im referring to the former btw.
Sonic Frontiers is seemingly doing the impossible for me... It seems like it made me lose interest in Sonic. Or rather it made me lose hope that we are ever going to get an actual competent story and game. Not even games like Lost World made me feel this way.
I just hate how they try to change the characters now, before one could say the characters were not written well because the writers just didn't know any better. But now that someone who has years of experience is writing and he still writes the characters in such a odd way... I don't know... I just no longer think anyone really knows or cares enough... The knowledge is there if you look at some of the Japanese media but it just seems stuck there.
I really hope to be wrong, I still love Sonic in general but also after seeing Dream Team's story I am straight up afraid of seeing upcoming stories...
i mean, dream team wasn't really focused on story, so what's the takeaway here?
@@joeser6666 Dream Team also had the characters act "odd". I know it's a mobile spin off but it's still a new story written for Sonic so I can use it as a reference.
Totally agree
The Japanese version of frontiers was better...so I think the problem is letting these western writers WRITE for sonic. I don't know why sonic team...a Japanese focused team is letting western writers like flynn write for the games. I'm not tryna shit on western writers. Some are still good, but unfortunately MOST of them are diluted in wokeness and too much tell, not enough show writing philosophy.
Commenting this before I watch the video, but my biggest problem with Frontiers story on the whole is that it feels like nothing but buildup amounting to a massive "IOU" for more interesting things that never happen. Anything that does happen ends up being so unfulfilling that it may as well not even exist.
Characters tell us they will be developed and do things instead of actually doing anything. (Tails, Knuckles, Amy) So much time is wasted on the "mystery" of the Ancients and never the entity which actually destroyed them. Much of the game in general is nothing but buildup until its over, and what you leave with just nothing worthwhile.
The most telling instance I feel is with the whole "ZAP" symbol the game has. It was front and center in the reveal trailer, appears throughout the game --- and nothing is done with it. Nothing except one throwaway interaction in the update you have to go out of your way to find, which goes "This is the symbol of their God... Maybe it's still out there!!!" Again, notning but a massive IOU.
I'm have a feeling much of the reason why the story ended up getting so mangled was that an entire 4th of the game was just completely removed. The original final 4th island, alongside stuff such as the Ancients Ark mentioned within the files in unused voicelines, were completed gutted and never put back in. Of course though, this can't and shouldn't be an excuse, especially for things such as the awkward character writing. It's just a hunch that I've had for how it could've possibly ended up like this.
Finally, and open zone Jeb video ❤
I almost feel like I preferred the mid 2000’s dark age games because they at least took risk. What we have now is aimless and goalless. Sonic X for its sins nailed the character
Sonic X - no sins
but that was 20 years ago
Who is Chris? Everything about the other characters they nailed for the most part especially Sonic swearing in Japanese lol@@TheSultan1470