Why Darker Stories Work: The Early 2000's Sonic Era
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- Опубліковано 9 бер 2024
- #sonic #sonicthehedgehog #shadowthehedgehog #shadow #darksonic #sonicshadow #sonicxshadowgenerations #storyanalysis #discussion
Hey there, Creators! Justin here.
Welcome back to Sonic Creations, I hope you've enjoyed your stay so far. Please, stick around until the end.
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Today I wanted to discuss the early 2000's era of Sonic, how it came to be and what allowed for darker stories to be told in the series. Most importantly I want to get to the truth of why darker/more serious stories work with this franchise and how there is still room for improvment on how they are handled. Thanks so much for watching, Creators! I'll see you in the next one!
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I'm one of the few that prefer the darker edgier tone of the 2000s Sonic games over the current "Saturday-morning-cartoon-tone" ones.
You're not one of the few, you're one of the many. The few are the other side, they just tend to be much MUCH louder.
Don't worry bro your not the only one bro I much prefer the darker tone from the 2000s but i don't the saturday morning tone either so long as it's done right which colors sort of did it's just that some of the jokes came be s bit corny and unfunny but the gameplay is really fun same with lost world (which i feel like i'm the only one that really likes that game 😅)
@@raphaelbrown6314 Lost World is pretty good, I like it as well. If I were to rank the Meta Era games I'd go:
1. Gens
2. S4:EP2
3. Forces
4. Lost World
6. Colors
7. Mania
8. S4:EP1
I have Lost World quite high, it's a fine game!
@@KOTSOSMC2002 I'd put it on the following way:
1. Gens
2. Mania
3. Colors
4. S4:EP2
6. Lost World
7. Forces
8. S4:EP1
Either way Lost World isn't exactly a bad game. It just so happens it's too different from the regular Modern Sonic games of the time, it felt off because of it. Still, I don't really think the writing for that game was that good. The story is ok and the alliance with Eggman was interesting, but the dialogue and such weren't that good most of the time. At least for me personally.
I’m with you on this
The best kind of stories to me are the ones that are not one note. I always live for stories that establish a feeling of normalcy, then things hit rock bottom, then the story picks up the characters towards a state of ascendence whether through their character growth or literally through gaining power.
Definitely agree with you there☝️
My problem with the stories of the 2010s games is that they didn’t take themselves seriously when it felt necessary to do so. Colors, Lost World, and Forces did have darker undertones in them, such as the Wisps being drained of their energy and converted into dark, hollow shells of themselves. Or how the Deadly Six used the doctor’s energy machine to try and drain the Earth of its life force effectively killing everything on it. Or how we hear of Infinite wiping out squadrons of soldiers. There are times where those stories have serious moments. Yet they’re never taken seriously or even addressed more and thus lose their impact.
Games like SA1, SA2, and 06 have serious and dark moments and they treat them as such by giving the characters time to react and reflect on those events. Such as Shadow reflecting on the idea that Omega is the one who will seal him away in the future in 06. Or how at the end of SA2, we see the characters reflect on Shadow sacrificing himself to save the world. Or how the doctor reflected on his grandfather’s actions.
Not every Sonic story has to be dark or have dark undertones. But when they do, they need to be taken seriously in order to feel sincere and keep your attention. The IDW Comics have done that fairly well. And Frontiers was a step in the right direction for storytelling in the series. Hopefully they will continue that trend with Shadow Generations.
Yeah in the 2010 era you’re very right about that. It’s like the idea was there but handled with poor execution and bad writing every time. So glad that era is over. And I agree, i think darker stories should only happen when it makes sense and feels natural.
Yeah, in hecking LOST WORLD of all games, it's actually implied in the story that not just Eggman, but also Amy and Knuckles literally die (until the earth's life force is restored in the end for the latter two and Eggman's death is revealed to be a predictable fake-out) and yet the whole game takes itself so not-seriously outside of those moments that there's no real feeling conveyed there and it just feels weak and out of place, it has no impact and you're likely not even gonna truly realize that that's what's happening in that story. Why even put such a dark plot point there in the first place if you're gonna make a game with the kind of writing Lost World has?
I feel like Unleashed is the perfect mix of the Dark and Meta eras as a Sonic Game. It just needs more playable characters and anime esque human designs akin to Adventure 1.
We need dark stories in Sonic games. Frontiers story was definitely a step in the right direction. The previous games before that though like Forces, Colors, Lost World just for an example failing shows that. When you ask someone, what game in the series is your favorite? Most of the time you'll hear SA1 or SA2. A serious story like the games you listed are the reasons why I love this series, Sonic characters work really good in dark and serious stories. I hope that since Frontiers did so good, Sega will only move forward and give us more serious stories afterwards.
And Sonic 06 is my personal favorite Sonic game. That game needs a remaster.
I agree. Sonic '06 is my favorite sonic game because A: it was my first sonic game. And B: it takes itself seriously and has darker tones. Shadow has to battle someone who represents his dark past and how he would have ended up if he didn't change. Silver has to come to face failure to change the past and we see that affect his optimism. And sonic has to face he can't keep Elise safe. She keeps getting captured no matter how many times he saves her.
Also it seems like sega is keeping the more serious tone. It looks like we're getting that with shadows story in sonic x shadow generations
Even fairy tales use to be pretty disturbing.
Meta rex arc of sonic x proves why dark sonic stories work
I’ll definitely be making a part 2 for this video, a lot more to talk about and go into more detail. I’ll definitely talk about Sonic X.
That last bit is why I don't blame Frontiers for its tone. It was the tone that should have been in Forces, but it does make sense for them to be a little more serious by the time they get to the Starfall Islands.
Dude, 06 is by far my favorite sonic game of all time. The way you explained why you love sonic 06 is Exactly why I love 06 too. Realistically 06 had one of the best character interactions in the entire series and I really just love overall how everyone of Sonics friends in that entire game was working together and it reminds me of the Z fighterz from dragon ball Z. The path that frontiers is going seems like it’ll be a return to the dark age and I’m all in for it, despite that like what you said in one of your previous videos ( we really need a scary and more threatening eggman again ). I haven’t realized how much of a monster eggman truly is of the stuff he’s done in the past until watching this video.
Yeah combing through Eggmans history, he almost seemed worse in the classic era which was unexpected. It also really does seem like the dark age part 2, we’ll see how it goes and if they can stay consistent.
You really are one of my fav Sonictubers atm hahaha. The way you talk about your interests when it comes to the series, the fact that, HONESTLY it's not even the main course of your channel? It's fantastic. You really hit the nail on the head when it comes to mixing why the Satam/Archie stuff is so good and how well it lends itself to the "edgier" or darker tones the Sonic franchise hit so often back then
Thank you, I very much appreciate that!
iirc, the writer (or one of the writers, main writer?) took a lot of inspirations from JRPGs, his last project being black knight
I think even the Sonic ova has some subtle dark side undertones by the environment below on their planet where everyone lives in the sky yet the world below feels abandoned as you wonder what happened to the civilization from once before.
Damn, should’ve touched on that! It totally did, thats my favorite Sonic movie still to this day. So cool how it balanced both light and dark tones in the story so well.
I’ve been saying this since like 2012
Shadow was pretty dark back then: depressed, suicidal, with actual PTSD symptoms, mild selective mutism when extremely stressed. At the same time he used to be more 3dimensional and way more flexible, even funny and likeable when in good mood.
But actually I perceived Sonic as dark even in the '90s. Eggman harming innocent beasts (and you could see that in game, you destroyed the badniks and little animals ran away), wanting to actually kill Sonic. Also Sonic used to have lots of Shadow vibes, at least to me. So SA2 was about what I excepted. At the same time I could have easily seen light hearted moments. The aestetic was joyful.
Mera era sucks. Character are either flanderized (Shadow, Knuckles) or washed out (Sonic, Eggman) and enemies lack of charisma. Sonic forces seems trying hard to be dark and failing, the story is so boring I forgot it right after having watched the cutscenes. Sonic lost world, Sonic colours, Sonic Generations are the same, I have to force myself to remember something. The only story I enjoyed from meta era was Sonic Unleashed, I can recall the cutscenes without effort.
The characters in the 2000's had developed immensely, and with Colors and onward (excluding Frontiers) it felt like they had been reverted into stereotypes. They lost the nuances, and that was the most frustrating part, I think.
15:26 I love it, because it’s true. Give these characters growth and changes like humans do. We aren’t stagnant..why should they
Talking about SatAM while showing SU clips lol; also did you not read the original Shadow the Hedgehog game story in Japanese..? Frontiers is abysmal story-wise
Vídeo Nice job 👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍
I think there was passion behind the characters and stories regardless of the tone that made them feel real. However, during the 2010's it felt like stories were being made out of fear. Fear of being laughed at, a sort of embarrassment. It felt like the games were ashamed of who they were, and so did their best to distract you with surface level comedy and characterization. Something to keep you from remembering all those "Cringey" stories from the past. I don't know when things changed for sure, my best guess is the Sonic Movie, but things seem to be changing with a passion reignited. We've barely entered this new era, but I have a good feeling about this one.
The movie success may have saved the franchise entirely, hard to say for sure, but at the very least it helped. I think whats funny is that only people who disliked the franchise already or who didn’t care to understand were the ones bashing it and making fun of it. Who cares what they think anyway, they shouldn’t let anyone steer them away from whats important and can make the franchise better. Hopefully they see that now.
Nuh, the 06 hate in this comments section is nonsensical and legit painful, glad it's become a dying breed to be an 06 hater and more and more lovers surface. Better times are ahead of us lads.
The game is objectively broken and full of bugs and issues no one should deny that
BUT
06 also has great levels designs and the goat mephlis.
And Shadow story is peak
music great
@@sethisevilone02 Um, yes, I am. I am going to deny that.
Have played it twice casually on PS3, once casually on XBOX 360. One time 100% on PS3, one time 100% on XBOX 360. Also played the DLC on the XBOX. Have watched 3 of my friends play the game to completion on their own Sonic journeys.
Never crashed. Never soft locked. No bug ever occured that costed us lives. Casually, maybe 1-2 glitches per hour. When 100%ing on PS3 I did go out of my way to find many of them, either as speedrun strats I learned online or just for fun. Key words, "went out of my way". 06 is PERFECTLY FINE casually and PERFECTLY FINE hardcore-ly unless you seek out the glitches which literally requires insight most of the time. Worst offender's of 06's lack of polish are Town Mission loading screens (yes, only these, not the main story ones), Rouge and Knuckles' god awful wall climbing and the PS3's frequent slowdowns. Heroes and Colors Ultimate are prime examples of broken even on casual blind playthroughs, 06 isn't.
Objectively.
@KOTSOSMC2002 well subjective for your case of course but you do have to keep in mind that 06 destroy the series reputation and there still tons of issues and glitches in game your lucky you didn't encourage them or just doing it just for cheap laughs or finding a way to break the game on purpose and the game still bad the playing it casually or hardcore and also heroes has a fews bugs but still fun to play it's just that the control could be a bit wonky sometimes and as for colors ultimate it's just a crappy port but still functions like how is on the nintendo wii and they did fix some of the issues after release and you can like sonic 06 as much as you want but you still can not keep denying that is ruin it ruin sonic's reputation and became a huge's punching bag around that era 😗
@@raphaelbrown6314 Mm, again, nope, I can and will deny all of that. My previous reply comment is all the reason why.
For me, "Sincerity", for lack of a better term, is the most important element in storytelling. You can be silly, sure, but I HAVE to have a sense that the things going on in a story MATTER, that there is a sense of CONSEQUENCE and EFFECT to what is happening. When I tell people this, they immediately interpret/accuse me of wanting only the most extreme counter-examples of incredibly overwrought melodrama, but that's not at all what I'm talking about.
It's not just about feeling really sad or angry. What gets me are tales of Heroism, and you need Real Stakes to make that work. Even if some of the characters in the work are comic relief, the overall tone needs to make me feel like I'm genuinely invested in the outcome. Having a Dark Tone is an easier way to mainline that feeling, but it's hardly necessary to achieve that sense of Sincerity. However, combining a Dark Tone with the otherwise poppy colorful vibes of a Cartoony World like Sonic, without overstepping into weird parody, is a tightrope walk, but when it works, it really works.
I feel like for a hot minute here, modern pop culture of the past decade has been obsessed with everything needing to be a joke. If an audience isn't laughing, then they are thinking, and thinking equals depression, so we can't let people have a moment to FEEL something, we need to keep them laughing. Ergo, you get stuff like the MCU, where at some point, it seemed like every serious moment was just the set up to a punchline, the punchline being to undercut the serious moment with something silly or non-sequitor.
Now, this may have been a pendulum swing from the early 00s being so edgy in tone, and hey, that happens. But personally, I think that tendency to undermine the "sincerity" of a work works against it. Granted, then you get into how various forms of comedy work, and that's its own beast, and that's fine, but the best comedies tend to have a serious thread in the narrative running through them to anchor the humor.
I'm sure there's a lot more exceptions than I'm aware of, but that seems to be the order of the day for current pop culture.
Yeah it is in the culture right now for movies to do that, especially superhero films. The Dark Knight trilogy, Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy and the X-Men films are the only superhero films that come to mind with a serious, sincere tone but still allowing for funny moments when they find a natural opportunity. But it seems we may be slowly transitioning out of this phase but I don’t know how long it’ll take.
11:43, it's not a mistranslation they have effetely spilt their audiences from Japanese(east) to USA(West) every since colors
Yeah, I figured that could also be the reason.
I disagree although I understand. I think it shouldn't dark toned but rather be balanced. Sonic has been both fun loving and serious but the problem with today's interpretation of him is that he doesn't show these sides of him when needed. In 06 he was way too serious, in Colors way too jokey. His perfect interpretation was definitely on Unleashed, he was serious and down to earth with Chip but could joke with him, he felt sad when Amy feared him and happy when he met Tails. He acted, you know, normal to the situation
@univingIshiro i strongly disagree and agree with you their if i'm being honest sonic being super serious can work if it's done right 06 was just a really bad example cuz shitty the story was like the potential is there but was wasted cuz what's been happening behind the scenes on the game frontiers did it better and as for unleashed i totally agree with you that there should be a balance between both which worked like with satam and the archie comics 😗
@raphaelbrown6314 bad story or not, Sonic was way too serious there and that can't be changed. I agree that Frontiers gave him a more humane aspect to him, showing care for Amy, a brother relation with Knuckles and a true friendship with Tails.
The story should just uses what is required to use to feel natural. Unleashed was forced ''balance'' and it shows. You see an obivious disparity between the intro/ending pre-rendered cutscenes and the rest of the game. This is why I highly suspect that Sonic Team started their ''tone overcorrection'' during the development of this game. My main issue with Unleashed is there's no real stakes and no sense of emergency, which is a problem because the intro is setting a totally different tone and has a lot of energy. As soon as we start the game it becomes slow and childish. Sonic's dark transformation into a werewolf has litterally no effect on him psychologically which should be the actual point of this trope. The world is shattered but you feel like you're just doing mundane tourism everywere you go; Your whole environment is just being numb. It's like they delibarately censored dark elements when it SHOULD have been used. Also, not using important characters attached to the lore such as Knuckles and Shadow feels off. This is litterally a world crisis and you don't see GUN or the Master Emerald anywhere. Unleashed was already trying to distance itself from the rest of the series. There's too many red flags in that game to be used as a reference. Actually a better example of natural balance would be the storybook games (because the context allowed it) but honestly, I was never shocked by any dark elements in a Sonic game ever. This is phase 1 Marvel movie material at worst which is pretty normal stuff. I still fail to see what about the other games in the 2000s ''crossed the line'' in that regard.
Dark era games were during the 4kids era
The Darker Tone itself wasn't even the problem, it's just how it was handled.
The Reason why I think Sonic Adventure's 1 and 2 work (alongside the Storybook Games, Unleashed, and Frontiers) was that they felt more natural with the world and characters. I can't say the same for Shadow the Hedgehog and Sonic 06.
Shadow because it was trying WAY too hard to appeal to the darker tone to the point where EVERYTHING lacked in execution. The mission structure is awful and it makes the story into a mess. It's clear that nobody at Sonic Team thought this shit through. The constant use of minor swear words honestly makes it laughable. It is the EPITOME of an edgy Middle Schooler. Hell, the console before it was Heroes, which is one of the cheesiest Sonic Games ever made (Talk about whiplash). But even that I can give a little leeway since it is "Shadow's Game" and it is fair to experiment (even if the execution is bad).
Sonic '06... DON'T EVEN GET ME FUCKING STARTED! 06 completely misses the mark at almost everything from cohesion, characterization, tone.
- Sonic is boring as fuck
- Tails is just there for exposition
- Knuckles is just there to complete Team Sonic
- Shadow is the only character that was done right, but why doesn't he just subdue and arrest Eggman after Radical Train?
- Rouge has never looked and sounded so "dead" in any game before or after
- Omega lacks the sass and behaves more like a generic robot
- Silver is an idiot and annoying as hell
- Blaze has more missed potential than Infinite in Forces and is a cardboard cutout (How they handled Blaze is only HALF of the reason why I hate 06's Piece of shit story so damn much)
- Amy is selfish
- Eggman's plan goes in circles and is hideous
- Mephiles is anything BUT intelligent (even for the kind of villain he's supposed to be)
- Elise is just Princess Peach 2.0. and has no reason to exist
Sonic's Story just goes in circles to the point where story beats repeat themselves. Knuckles and Tails are often side bench in favor of this Self-Insert Princess nobody cared about. It's even more cringe when they put her in a relationship with Sonic, further emphasizing the Self-Insert Human OC vibes from her. The cherry on top of the sundae is that THIS WAS MEANT TO REBOOT THE SERIES AT FIRST!!! For this "Reboot" they intend to have Sonic do the very thing Sega made fun of Mario for (Rescuing a princess) and have Sonic do it 5 TIMES! There's 0 defense for this. Sonic's Story ALONE is the worst to many for what it is. The 2010's at least HAD a story to tell.
Silver's Story is just as bad, if not WORSE than Sonic's, in my opinion. If Sonic's Story focused too much on character development, Silver focuses too much on plot. Pariah's 06 Story video goes over this in great detail, but to summarize...
- There's a distinct lack of interaction between Silver and Blaze, and when they do... it's JUST about business. Their goal is all they talk about until his final cutscene where they suddenly act like they're best friends, and it falls COMPLETELY flat.
- Silver's themes are never explored. He doesn't have that moment where he realizes that killing one to save more isn't the right thing to do, and he takes it as "Oh... I was tricked, guess I'm going home." Which was a detriment to Sonic because Silver doesn't think to piece more things together and be more wary of Mephiles (The guy who sent Silver to kill Sonic IN THE FIRST FUCKING PLACE!!!!!!!).
- Sealing Iblis in the future is also one of the worst cutscenes in the whole series. No matter how you interpret 06's Time Travel Logic, it would still make more sense to Seal Iblis in the present day so they won't have to live in the ruined timeline.
Amy's line "If I had to choose between the world and Sonic, I would choose Sonic" doesn't work because while it is technically in character for Amy's character at the time, it wasn't a "good" characterization of her. (But that's a whole different debate). The other reason though that it doesn't work in the context of the game's story. Silver's Act 3 from Flame Core, he chooses to save HIS Timeline over Sticking with Sonic (Which was the fate of the whole world). Silver basically left Sonic WIDE OPEN for Mephiles which led to the collapse of all of existence (Fuck Him). "I love you more than anything else" is a common theme among the story as a whole... and It only works in Shadow's Story.
Shadow is probably the best of the bunch, but it only shows how incompetent Sonic and Silver's stories were. It balances Story and Characters the best, has some of the only genuinely good moments, and Shadow alone is the best characterization of him. WHY COULDN'T THE OTHER TWO STORIES BE LIKE THIS!? The game isn't called "Shadow the Hedgehog", it's "SONIC THE HEDGEHOG". You know you fucked up bad when the game is titled after the main character in all caps, and SHADOW has the most polish.
Also, fuck Mephiles! People only like him for killing Sonic, but his plan was fucking stupid as shit. It only worked because everyone outside of Team Dark was an idiot.
I'm not against a more mature tone, but holy shit Sonic 06's Story PARTICULARY didn't work. It is the worst story in the whole series.
I suppose there’s something I really like about 06’s story that I can’t really put into words but it’s more so the potential it had if it was done right. I like what they were going for basically and it has inspired me as a storyteller but I do recognize a lot of the points you’re making here and no it is not a sonic story I would put forward and say this is really good. No. But it’s still 20 times better than sonic lost worlds story for example. At least 06 had ambition. It really seems like for sonic 06, they really wanted to tell a shadow story but they didn’t have the confidence to make another shadow game, but they probably should’ve because Mephiles was kind of the most interesting you wanted to see more of. Every time he was on screen, he had this presence. It was really interesting since he could time travel he could try to manipulate shadow by telling him what his future is. It had a lot of cool concepts in there that I thought we’re just really interesting.
@@soniccreations
Ambition means nothing. Ambition was 06’s downfall. Nobody seems to understand that these days.
@gameman5804 no it doesn’t mean nothing. Not everything is black and white. Thats what people don’t see these days. The game had rushed development, but in my opinion, I liked certain things about it. Why is it so hard for you to accept that? I’m not saying the gameplay or narrative was good, but there are certain aspects that were. Look at project 06 and play it for yourself. The game could have been better than what we got.
Also be honest with me, the only thing worth gassing up in 06’s story is Shadow. I don’t hear shit for Sonic or even Silver for that matter.
I understand that Sonic is supposed to be the base story just like in SA1 and 2, but Shadow JUST HAD his own game a year before it and Silver was a completely new character that needed time to develop.
I do not care if it was rushed, no amount of ambition and ideas can save this atrocity, and I feel like Shiro Maekawa should’ve been fired for writing this slop.
@@soniccreations
Every game has some sense of ambition. Even Lost World and Forces have it for what they tried to do. What’s 06’s excuse?
You say the 2000’s dark era stories work, you brought up 06, and I’m gonna counter that saying why 06’s story just doesn’t work.
Also I’m not bringing in a fan remaster as the story itself will be unlikely changed.