The Great Hydrocity Debate
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- Опубліковано 29 чер 2022
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Hydrocity or Hydrocity?
You might already have your answer decided, but keep an open mind. There's a surprising amount to dive into with this ridiculous discussion.
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Some call it 'hydrocity', others call it 'hydro-city'. I call it 'the only water level in Sonic history I don't completely hate'.
Water Palace from Sonic Rush is also pretty good. It’s a little too hard in the original game, but it was pretty darn fun in Generations 3DS.
Aquarium Park from Colors (wii) was good!
Aquatic ruins allowed you to skip the water entirely if you're at least slightly competent at jumping
@@wanderlustwarrior I LOVE Aquarium Park.
@@howlingpig got a point there
"Mexicocity" killed me. Brilliant delivery, sir.
Same here homie.
Same 🤣
"Mexicocidad"
Breaking Badrocity
Mexico + velocity
Loved the conversation and the puns with every -city word 🤣 Gotta love the justifications on each side. That’s what makes debates like this so silly but fun
I almost rofl from all the "city" words and his avatar's expressions
I thought we were talking about -ocity words.
Great video, and as someone who's firmly on the "Hydro City" side of this debate and never heard anyone say it another way until around 2011, I think the most illuminating part for me was when you said it doesn't matter if it's "right," that name means something to people, it's everything you feel in this zone, and that's why people are so willing to fight for it.
Because that's exactly how the way I pronounce Hydrocity feels to ME. It brings me back to being absolutely enamored with this new game in 1994, to feeling that tension and worry when I got dropped into what was clearly a water level, and being absolutely blown away with how wonderful everything about it was. The name was some long word I didn't recognize, so I paused when the title card came up again and asked my dad what it said, and he told me: "Hydro City!" Then told me what the prefix "hydro" meant. I learned language off of this stage!
I remember I beat the boss for the first time by playing as Tails while my Mamaw dodged Robotnik as Sonic, and that memory is absolutely precious to me.
That's the kind of attachment and reverence and nostalgia that gets drummed up in my subconscious when I think of Hydrocity, and why it's so weird to hear it being said so "wrong"... but that's true for you too, and it just goes to show how important this silly video game level is to both of us.
Again, take a bow, Nick, you knocked this one out of the park!
Lifelong Sonic gamer since it first released on Genesis. I tend to steer well clear of the fandom so I had no idea this was debated. I'm no scholar so take everything I'm about to say with a grain of salt.
Modern English is dubbed a Romance language due to it descending from Rome's influence. The reason people read Hydrocity's name as a single word is because the name itself is a perfect representation of the source material, one which we can intuitively grok but also one we struggle to explain because it hinges on a valid yet uncommon linguistic branch.
To me, this is clearly not a compound word ala Icecap, but rather a constructed word with mixed greek & latin components.
Those components are not ℎ𝑦𝑑𝑟𝑜-𝑐𝑖𝑡𝑦, they are ℎ𝑦𝑑𝑟-𝑜𝑐𝑖𝑡𝑦; ℎ𝑦𝑑𝑟- being the obvious Greek root for water and -𝑜𝑐𝑖𝑡𝑦 being a Latin suffix meaning "the quality of". I think what creates the confusion is that the latter component (-𝑜𝑐𝑖𝑡𝑦) is rarely found in modern English words.
Consider, also. that Hydrocity level design has a vaguely "ancient Roman" look. The Romans built a massive sewer system called the Cloaca Maxima (literally, Greatest Sewer), which is both still partially used today AND has its own Wikipedia page. Now consider the languages Rome officially spoke while its empire was active: first latin, and then greek.
Finally, consider how Sonic arrived to the Zone: Knuckles literally dropped him, like one would drop refuse into the sewer.
Taking all of this together, from word etymology to architectural inspiration, I believe Hydrocity is properly read as a single word.
PS: Mixed root words aren't unheard of. These are known as hybrid words or "internally macaronic" words. Some common-use examples that were invented relatively recently in history: Antacid, automobile, sociopath, television
PPS: call the level whatever you want because it's a game and all of this is for fun :D
I wrote something small
@@qriist1850 I've always been firmly on the Hydro City side of things but damn man, now you've made me really question things...
@@TheCrimsonEmo haha good to know my caterwauling wasn't in vain! ^_^
In the '90s, all of my friends called it Hydrocity so that's what I went with. Didn't realize this was even a debate until recently, but I think Hydro City is correct. However, I still call it Hydrocity for nostalgia's sake.
"What starts off as a joke eventually leads to warfare…"
Me as a die hard Sonic fanboy: "Cowbunga it is!"
This man out here fuckn cows.
You sure your not a tmnt fan?
Ahem! *Booyakasha!*
@@cliffturbo2146 ok
For some reason I thought his line was "It's time to split!" but then I remembered that's Cortez from TimeSplitters.
Nick is the only person who can make a 20 minute long video on something as stupid as hydrocity and keep you laughing throughout. And to top it off, he even validated both sides of the argument. Good stuff
Have you seen Splash Dash or Chaomix’s vids? They all cover stupid shit like this and I love them for it.
Also, I’ve always pronounced it Hydrocity simply because that’s how it’s written. And I fully agree with Nick in that I never saw it as a city. Maybe an underwater temple but not a city lol
You mean Hydro City
SO looking forward to the Mobius video 👀
What about cybershell tho
“Hydrocity”, as one word, feels like another word for “wetness”, in the same way “velocity” means “speed”. Hydro City feels more like a place.
what about terminal velocity
thats not a descriptor but its a valid zone name
Velocity doesn’t necessarily mean speed. They’re different
The place itself can be nameless as well
After all its hydrocity ZONE
Think of it like mystic cave... Not exactly the name of an actual cave but just a descriptor that in this zone theres is a cave thats mystic
yeah, same. in my head the word was always defined as "the measure of how hydrated something is," like how tenacity is "the measure of how tenacious something is," or how viscosity is "the measure of how viscous something is." it's a word that just makes sense to me, and just because it isn't a "real" word didn't stop people from understanding the made-up word "sandopolis"
and considering we've seen zone names like labyrinth, hill top, or carnival night, it feels like it fits the bill as a zone name being self-descriptive, while still not really telling much about the zone itself outside of the primary motif. hydrocity zone has a high level of hydrocity because there's water everywhere. it's just always made sense to me growing up.
It's because "city" comes from French and "-city" comes from Latin, and English is a fake language of morons who haven't invented a way to write "their" native language.
On account of not HAVING a native language, just a series of Klingon grunts attempting to sound enough like human speech to be legible when they ask doctors and lawyers to treat them. Doctors and lawyers being people who know quite a bit of Latin, which they use for fun things like remembering more than 2 bones, and setting up a lot of legalese to justify why 500 Million westerners get to take all the chocolate and bananas away from people who have real jobs, but no "democracy", like google adsense funneling food into their gobs.
4:24 - 4:32
Fun fact about the katakana used here: ハイドロシティ (Hydro City) is only one character away from ハイベロシティ (High Velocity). You just switch out the ド (do) for a べ (be).
I’m not sure if it’s intentional, but it looks like a bit of cheeky wordplay that got lost in translation since “Hydro” and “Velo-“ don’t sound all that alike in English. Japanese has a lot, and I do mean a lot, of puns that get lost when they’re translated into English since they’re so radically different as languages.
That might be why they called it Hydro City Zone, even though it's not really a city.
This is the canon now
That might also be why people like Hydrocity (Hai-drosity) over Hydro City since Hydrocity sounds a lot closer to Velocity. Honestly when you phrase it that way, I think Hydrocity is a much more fitting name than Hydro City. The latter is too...basic.
Inserting
thats good enough proof to me that its hydrocity!
Hydro City debate be looking a lot more like Hydro Atrocity debate right now
A-tro City
* runs out of goodwill rotfl *
or hydro atro-city
Ngl I never once heard anyone say Hydrocity (as one word) in my entire life till a few years ago. I think most people would say Hydro City going in blind.
Hell I didn’t. I always said it as one word
Hydro city probably makes more sense tho
I first heard it literally in the last week...
I don't doubt a lot of people did pronounce it as 1 word as a kid but I think a lot more people started to claim they did to be part of the in-joke.
I didn't
I also only heared it a few years ago, 2016 sonic hacking contest i think it was
You referenced Megamind and acknowledged the similarity between the Metrocity debate and the Hydrocity debate. A true man of culture.
"they call it mexicocity" I was 1 entire hour laughing of that, that actually sounds like a way of the gringos to see how much we (the whole people from Latin America) look like the stereotype of the Mexicans like "wait you have a high mexicocity" and the other person called pancho with a Mexican hat, a mustache, a poncho, and saying "NACHO TACO TAMALES CARNITAS" with music of the genere "musica banda" in the background, and that made me laugh another hour
as a gringo, fair enough
"I guess that's a point towards the sewer system" was the best line of the video
The funniest part to me is that growing up Canadian, we call our electricity "hydro" for whatever reason. Because of that, as a young kid I always expected the level to feature both water *and* electricity as obstacles.
Because much of it comes from hydroelectric dams (not "hydro electric")
💪🏿💪🏿 repping the mapple leaf
@@julien2983 It's still weird when you get your power from a Thorium plant like a good chunk of N.B. does.
don't you mean Electri City
I’ve never heard that as a Canadian
17:13
*Mexicocity Zone Act 1*
I love how nonchalantly it rolls off of Nick's tongue after him struggling to pronounce words that end in -city, just the icing on the cake man
Someone has probably already told you in the comments or somewhere, but to add to the conversation:
The Japanese katakana used to spell Hydrocity, ハイドロシチィ(ha-i-do-ro-shi-ti, the last two characters count as one sound, that's why it's smaller), uses the character ロ, which is pronounced "ro" (like "row" without the w). Japanese kana, which includes the alphabets if hiragana and katakana, is a very precise phonetic alphabet. Foreign words and names are usually written in katakana as is the case of Hydrocity. They also do not have the "see" sound so they use the character し(hiragana) or シ (katakana) as a stand in, which is pronounced "shi" or "she". From this we can say with certainty that it's pronounced Hydro City. There is also the case of the word hydrogen, which we pronounce Hydro Gen.
All that said, I fell into the same reasoning as you when I was a kid, Nick! I have read it as Hydrocity (like velocity) for years until I realized that must be wrong. I still love the way it sounds and the feeling it evokes is a much cooler sound than Hydro City. So like Knuckles said, "It's moot." It's your game and your experience, so it's pronounced whatever way you want!
Thanks again for another fun video, Nick!
Man, starting a new account is rough. Dealing with shadow blocking is weak. Hope you get to see this and it's helpful, Nick!
As a kid, I always called it Hydro City, but then I got older and for some reason started calling it Hydrocity, like it was one word. Now I can't go back to calling it Hydro City. Hydrocity is just ingrained in my memory now.
ua-cam.com/video/JUHVzJVZzlU/v-deo.html
hydrossity is not a word
I had no idea that there even was a debate going on, because as a German kid playing it I just accepted that none of the zone names made much sense to me. At least in the GC Megadrive Collection, they didn't bother to translate the names. I think I did recognise Hydro, but at the same time I just brushed over most names 'coz at that point I was used to parts of my games not being localised. Now I just think the velocity pronounciation sounds cooler so i think that's what I'll stick with
It is amazing how completely even the divide is. I always read "Hydrocity" as a youngin' and did not once consider "Hydro City" untill I dived into the world of the internet. It is crazy to me how this is a 50-50 divide with each person on either side being set in stone about how they pronounce it. Honestly, I'm not opposed to the idea of the cannon being that none of the characters really know (or care) how it is pernounced and it remaining a mystery till the end of time.
I’ve always pronounced it Hydro City, but seeing how passionately you talked about how Hydrocity having meaning has given me a newfound appreciation of the pronunciation and I kinda hope that debate ends in the canoni city being that it’s pronounced both ways. Also I loved all the -city word jokes you made.
16:34 I agree. That water effect is awesome. I've admired it ever since I was a kid.
once more
@@cay7809 Yep. What's the score again? 7 to 1?
@@Sovic91 seems like it
Today I learned more about English language as a foreign. Thank you very much for this Opa city of video.
Heyy uhh....
Gonna be honest, I've never heard anyone call it anything besides Hydro City
Allow us to introduce ourselves
@@chaoscomets no please, I wish for my ears to remain pure
@@SXR123_YT hydros-ity
@@leonglitch my ears, they've been tainted.
@@SXR123_YT I was trying to find a middle ground between the 2 pronunciations
My favourite zone.
Doesn't matter how the name sounds, what matters is how that music sounds, act 2 especially.
Beautiful.
🎶
I always pronounced it "Hydro City" as a kid, but then I started to like the name "Hydrocity" because it rhymes with "atrocity" and is therefore much more appropriate for a water level in a Sonic game. By that logic, "Hydro Shitty" seems like an even better alternative.
Which is ironic, considering Hydrocity Zone is a shining example of a water level in a Sonic game done _right._
@@CoralCopperHead A level that contains the genesis-era drowning music is automatically awful, sorry, I don't make the rules.
@@Sylocat I must concede, it's literally the only good water level from the Genesis, so the instant "WATER = HATE" response is justified.
I always read it as Hydro-Atrocity, or Hydrocity as well. My logic was that this was the consequence of Robotnik's activities there.
Ahem atro-city
Always saw it as Hydro City ever since I first encountered the name, as a kid. But, at this point.
"IT DOESN'T MATTER, NOW WHAT HAPPENS!!!"
"WE WILL NEVER, GIVE UP THE FIGHT!!"
IT DOESN'T MATTER WHOOOOOO IS WRONG OR WHO IS RIGHT!
I'm still team hydrocity. I never once thought it was hydro city until this video. I always thought it had to do with it's watery-ness, it's hydroliciosness, it's hydrocity.
Fun fact: You call it a "crap-thedral" at 11:20. You'll be glad to know such a thing actually exists. The Crossness Sewage Pumping Station, in southeast London is exactly that; a cathedral for a sewage system. The TIm Traveler has a wonderful video on this, should you wish to learn more about this real life Hydrocity!
Ah yes, Hiderockity Zone. I can't believe we're getting a 20 minute video on a water level, and the string of -city words was top notch. Still, personally, I subscribe to Hydro City, but recognize that Hydrocity (as hydrossity) as a valid answer, even if my word correct just tried to correct it as Hydro City...
Is hiderockity a scott the woz reference
@@melo-7904 Yes, yes it is.
@@parnash nice
@@melo-7904 CUT!
Your line was "I understood that reference."
*Boasting about your memetics, Take 28: ACTION!*
Thanks Nick, now I can never unthink the fact that knuckles flushed Sonic and Tails down the tur-let 🚽
I literally just ask my dad and my sister to pronounce it and my dad calls it Hydro City, while my sister and I say Hydrocity. I personally prefer Hydrocity because it makes it sound like a water atrocity. Which kinda highlights Sonic's fear of water to me and not wanting to be in this city full of water. Overall this debate is fun
Excellent. This is an outstanding video. So well researched, killer comedy (surely due in part to the subject matter’s inherent comedic value), and *somehow,* this is the first time I’ve seen this issue taken seriously! Bravo, Nick, (it is Nick, right?) bravo. Take a bow.
I always assumed that it was Hydro City, since every sonic level follows a sort of "adjective+location" naming scheme. I will admit though, hydrocity sounds like a real word, and a pretty cool one.
Marble zone, Sandopolis zone
Palmtree Panic, Collision Chaos
@@techmark3665i mean sandopolis means sand city
HYDRO CITY just without a space but it could be Hydrocity the best name
I can't remember if you said this in the video or not, but you handled this topic with great Perspica City.
This man somehow made a 20 minute video on a word debate and was still highly entertaining
Can’t wait for your review on the IDW 50th issue. I love the Themes of Freedom and Beliefs on the Comic. It feel like this issue was what everything was building up Too.
Me neither. I particularly like Tails and Kit's interactions. They're going pretty much exactly how I'd hoped.
1:02 - 1:38 OK i already learnt that i should let anyone pronounce words in any way they want or else i would descend into madness...
also i love how each time you and pup are together leads to a hilarious situation
I love spending my time reading japanese Mang-uh (oops, Main-ga), researching interesting early Bet-uhs (I man Bay-tuhs), and playing Poke-e-mon (uhg, Poke-a-mon) using my main and person favorite Vap-or-e-on (Vay-por-e-on). I also enjoy some Sun-ik (I mean S-on-ik) from time to time.
@@greatergam2493 "S-On-Ik?" I would've written that as "Saw-Nikk," but hey.
I speak some Japanese! And have also spoken with a native Japanese friend of mine. It's Hydro-City in the sense that Hydrossity would be spelt completely different in Japanese katakana. ハイドロシティ (hai-doh-roh-shi-tii) has that "roh" in it that makes Hyrossity incorrect. Also it's literally just ハイドロ+シティ (Hydro + city). To make Hyrdrossity make sense, it would need to be spelt like ハイドラシティ (hai-do-RAH-shi-tii) (even then, it would be like saying "Hydra-City").
It's also a pun on "high velocity" ハイベロシティ as if you change the べ to a ド. It changes to ハイドロシティ or "hydro city." Funny language humor.
But all in all. I say it's Hydro City. At the end of the day, it's a water city that you go fast in.
Hence forth the "hydro city" and "high velocity" making "hydrocity" thing.
I love the idea that the developers who thought "Genocide City Zone" would be a good stage name knew enough English to make some weird pun.
Also, at 16:12 you wasted an opportunity to say "It doesn't matter who is wrong or who is right."
You mean "Genocidecity."
I don't care what you think! to me it'll always be Hydrocity, not Hydrocity
I'll be honest, I never thought of Hydrocity as in Velocity, and it has struck so deep I've changed my ways of the 'Hydro city' and I'm going to use both terms at random whenever I feel like it. Thank you for your amazing work as always. Can't wait for another episode of the Word Apologist.
Toot toot, Sonic warrior.
I've always said "Hydro City" ever since I was a kid. It made more sense to me that way, since these are the underground ruins of what was presumably a city with a lot of water. Regardless of how one says it, it doesn't change the fact that it's the best water level in all of Classic Sonic (and one of the best water levels period).
Same
That was a great video as always and the other stupid silly names you came up with was funny
I just don't understand why Hydrocity can't simply be two things at once. To me it's both a Hydro City AND wordplay on Velocity.
Growing up I never trusted the spacing of the letters and just went with hydro city. That O is be enough to have eaten the space.
I like the pun. And Sega has done at least one big pun before this. Tails real name. However I am sticking with hydro city
But 'miles per hour' actually mean something, unlike 'hydrocity'
@@TotalWannabe "Hydrocity" literally means "Water City" though?
@@lamenwatch1877 if you pronounce it as Hydro City - yes, it makes sense. But it's not a pun tho
@@TotalWannabe Oh, I think I misunderstood your comment.
The war for Hydrussy lives on! Also 9:47 had me wheezing lmao
This debate stirred tension between sonic fans for a LONG time. Personally I called it Hydrocity (like velocity...) To this day the name still stands and honestly I don't mind if others call it in a different way. Anywho, I'm really digging the humour in this video and also I like you discuss this matter in a mature but playful manner.
"Haidoroshiti" is just "Hydro City" with a Japanese accent. Katakana is a writing system meant to portray foreign words in Japanese. Sentences in Japanese do not contain spaces unless the sentence is entirely in Katakana, and even then, spaces are usually portrayed with a dot between the words, not an actual space. Just like Hydro City, Green Hill or "グリーンヒル" (Gurinhiru) doesn't have a space in it in Japanese.
*Edit, another thing to note:* Even in the Japanese version of Sonic, the zone names are written in English. It's much more likely that Sega forgot the space just because they're unfamiliar with English, cause it's hard to write in a language you aren't fluent in, and the translators overlooked it since the zone names were already in English.
Tldr: They goofed and forgot to add the space, and they've rolled with it ever since.
That's exactly what I thought too.
Sorry to be pedantic here, but the kana ン isn't nu it's n. So グリーンヒル is just "Gurinhiru." Reminder that ン is the only kana without an inherent vowel sound. The sound "nu" would instead be ヌ.
Otherwise your points are valid.
16bit typo by non english speakers in an age before download patches and internet. seems rather obvious.
Looking at how the word “velocity” is rendered in katakana (べロシティ based on the cover to the racing game “Critical Velocity”) I think the “o” vowel would be preserved regardless of the intended English pronunciation, simply because of the smaller number of vowel sounds in Japanese.
I’m not saying Hydro City wasn’t the intended pronunciation, simply that using the katakana isn’t a definitive argument.
But if isn’t ハイドロシティ read as Hy-dross-ity? I keep reading it, and it seems just as vague as Hyrdocity. (EDIT: Ah, it’s because Hy-dross-ity would be pronounce different in an American accent)
I always liked to say IT as hydro City because its an old city full of water
Its not a city its a temple
@@BestAiden23 i Dont think its a tempel because it IS so massive and its full of water
@@nostalgiagamer9452 that doesn’t make any sense labriynth zone is basically the same thing but you would probably agree that its a temple
@@BestAiden23 i like to think its a labyrinth and that's why its so big
Yeah, "Hydro City" might be the more objective and canonically supported pronunciation, but when I first played it on my ds(actually 3ds but whatever) I read it as "Hydrocity" and that just... feels right to me even no so that's what I say. Saying it as "Hydro City" just rolls off the tongue wrong and doesn't feel right deep down. I really appreciate that you took the time to acknowledge the validity of learning by reading and how a technical mispronunciation can feel more correct then what it was actually supposed to be. And the making up a definition as you're expanding your vocabulary is such a mood. Personally, I thought hydrocity was the word for how fast condensation would occur when a material was made into a container for cold stuff.
Toilet Town. That’s such an amazing name for a Sonic Level. You gotta love it.
Hydrocity just makes the zone sound cooler.
Mystery solved...
It's pronounced Toilet Town!!!
Not the first, but easily the definitive and final video that ever needs to be made about this debate.
And while it may not be right now, I look forward to the day where "Hydrocity" is adopted into the English dictionary as a real word.
...And you better believe I look forward to your video about Mobius. It's been a long time coming!
So something interesting I realized while discussing this a few days ago with someone over on Reddit. Hydrocity isn't the only made up compound name for a stage in Sonic 3&K. There's also *Sandopolis.* Interesting that the two stages that are both made up compound words would both be the names of cities.
And don't forget Casinopolis from Sonic Adventure!
"Sand-O-Polis"
Oh my word, this is the punniest video I’ve ever seen, and I love it! Couldn’t stop laughing at the Patron read. Great video, I enjoyed seeing this a bit deeper, it was neat to learn the stuff. (Team Hydro City forever!)
Unless I’m mistaken, you missed a metropolitan joke there…
You’ve peaked… and this is your greatest video. I love it
In Brazil everyone refers to it as "hidrociti". When going back to English, it just makes sense to call it "hydroCIty" instead of "hyDROcity"
I always like this guy's videos. He never steers it into one direction blindly he always tries to see all the sides involved, great work as always.
My inevitable collab with Game Apologist grows closer by the day.
Also, I’m sorry for being the only objectively correct Sonic fan, Nick. I know that intimidates you. 🗿
🗿
Next debate. Is it Ry-star, Ree-star or Ris-star
I've always seen it as Ry-star/Rai-star
8:05 I'm pretty sure this came from an IT forum where a humiliated user said he went to his first job interview calling SQL "Squall" like the Final Fantasy character instead of "Sequel" and most of the entire thread was patting him on the back, learning from books shows real dedication.
You know, I never heard this debate, i'm not fully invested into the lore of all of this, been a fan of sonic when i was young (i'm 30 now). Clicking the title it had me curious, then it instantly came to my head what it was about. I initially thought to myself, it has to be "hydro city"? right? It's a city underground. But after some introspective on the matter (you laid out a lot of good points that jogged my memory up to speed) "hydrocity" (velocity) sounds a lot better in the long run and it overall does make sense and I think it plays into the entire theme better objectively and I think you make great points that allude to that idea.
I asked a few people who never played Sonic 3 and the most common answer I got was “Hydro City”
It’s like how megamind pronounces metro city as “metrossity”
“There’s only person I know who pronounces it ‘Metrossity’.”
@@_mango_ you’ll stay out of hytrossity
bruh watch the video all the way through first before commenting
Yeah I like that
THIS
Wow. Diggin real deep there with that “tenacity” joke at 1:03
I've always pronounced it "Hydrocity" as one words because I had assumed it's the name of the location rather than a description of it.
I always thought it was a intentional neat double meaning, like it’s literally Hydro City but it was spelt like you could pronounce it like ‘hydrossity’ as a pun for it being the fastest water stage.
But I guess there’s no room for subtlety in the Sonic fan base so people take up the pronunciations as if they were freaking political positions.
the hydro city side are super defensive about it for no fucking reason
@@yurifairy2969 "No fucking reason," also known as "Being a person."
...I'm sorry if I sounded like a jerk, I'm agreeing with you.
While I do think it's "Hydro City" as this stage is a city of water ways (or sewerage systems) but, yeah just make both cannon. Hell just add to the joke make this place's pronunciation lost to time and, have some in cannon fight over how it's said. (And have everybody else question their sanity over it)
there is a fight between tails and sonic in the comics actually
@@raphaelhenker8771 I know it's literally in this video (unless you're talking about a different time they fought about this place's name).
16:34
I would totally watch an entire video breaking down how it was done or at the very least just watching the background go up and down like that without stuff in the foreground blocking it
You really will never run out of things to talk about with Sonic 3&K, but I'm here for it
Yuji Naka tweeted that it's indeed Hydro-City, so, case closed!
Still, I like the idea of "Hydrocity" as a compound word, but never thought to call it that until the first time I head someone say it on UA-cam.
To be fair, the internet doesn't call a certain image format "jiffs" despite the creator himself stating it's the correct pronunciation. So this is unlikely to make much of a difference to the Internet's opinion.
Nah it's hydrocity.
@@PowerStar004 Yeah no, I understand people have already made up their minds on the matter, despite whatever new information will come our way. I just pointed it out as an interesting thing that definitely weighs in on the argument, but shouldn't force people to accept that as their preferred pronounciation.
If it was meant to be a long O sound, it should have a space or hyphen or something.
I've always seen it as meaning that the level has a lot of water in it. That is, it has a high _hydrocity_ to it. It doesn't look like a city to me at all either.
But if Hydro City was the intention, then maybe they just accidentally made the O too big. That O does look quite large in that name...
Mania doesn’t have the space either
20 years. Strange, this year is the first I've heard of it.
The little "How'd they do that?" at 16:40 is golden
All this does is make me think of how Megamind pronounces Metro City as "Metrocity." Its the same thing.
(Oh... you actually brought that up in the video)
I used to think it was “Hydrocity” too, and the idea of it being a pun on hydro and velocity is admittedly cool. But it’s definitely meant to be Hydro City regardless. I just find it really funny that even Sega has acknowledged this whole debate. Seeing Sonic and Tails discuss it and have Knuckles shut them both down is definitely hilarious!
It makes a lot more sense to reference than Sanic…
I can never stop watching this for the sheer amusement of what the debate means.
....or the delivery of all these wordplay jokes. XD
At 16:25 I saw another water slide with a yellow ring in the dark area for just a few frames, and thought it was a giant Metal Sonic.
I do have to say the idea of the velocity type pronunciation being an Echidna language word feels correct
right? Hydrocity can just be the echidna word for "toilet town" :P
I think megamind calls metro city like that because of the word "Atrocity" think about it for a moment
Edit: oh i'm sorry, Atro city
still don't know how's possible to make a video so funny about toilet town, amazing job with the jokes there!
Awesome video, loved the -city word jokes! Interesting points you brought to the table in this video, though I'm surprised you didn't mention "Sandopolis" zone, which is a portmanteau of "sand" and "metropolis". Though, this actually gives even more credit to how every Sonic zone is named after a place, making a "hydro + velocity" portmanteau less credible.
"metro-polis"
How the hell do you make a 20 min long video from this topic. It's Hydro City, end of debate. Fight Me
Time and place?
Hydrocity
Ever since I've first been introduced to this zone in sonic 3, I always thought it was Hydrocity because I was young and left it at that without facts. Now I'm just using both of them lol
I recently discovered the musical song called "I’ve heard it both ways" and after watching this video, I now have perfect association.
Atrocity: Putting Sonic underwater.
Hydrocity: Putting Sonic underwater then chasing him with crushing death wall.
Oh sorry game apologist I noticed you made a mistake on your title. It’s probably just a typo but it should be titled, “The great Hydro City debate.” Hope this helps!
Edit: no joke though this video is mad entertaining and funny
Really interesting take. Always was Metro city to me. But funny enough, I used to mispronounce a ton of things when I was young. Like Phoenix as Fo-nicks.
Fo-nicks downs anyone?
I love the pup cameos.
The day this video went up, someone asked Yuji Naka how it's pronounced on twitter. According to his reply (archived and accessible on the Sonic wiki), he pronounces it "Hydro City".
I always said Hydro City...just because it seemed to make sense.
An underwater city where you reach high velocity. Hydrocity. A play on words.
imo hydrocity has too many factors supporting it within the level itself. The slides, the gear things that stop you then send you of at top speed, the spinning pillars, the water ways that force you down a tunnel with currents, the pillars with the swinging balls in them. Theres a lot.
This whole issue reminds me of the part in Pirates of the Caribbean 2, where the two pirates are arguing over the pronunciation of the kraken. One argues the term originated from Scandinavian or something and that they pronounced it Cracken, the other said the spelling implied it's pronounced Krayken, after arguing for over a minute the second declares it's a mythological sea monster, I'll call it whatever I want.
i asked my friend what Hydrocity looked like and he said Hydro City LOL
Fun fact: they DID have answered how it's pronounced
On several Sonic Episode streams they have said Hydro City is the right way to say it
On a Mania themed stream the official Sonic The Hedgehog UA-cam channel said in the chat "Hydro City is the canon one"
We have manuals, we have the name in several soundtracks, i think even Aaron Webber at some point also said Hydro City is the right way to pronounce it
There's literally proof of the word is meant to be read meanwhile "Hydrocity" (as velocity) is only supported by the actual word itself
I've been flipping back and fourth on this since a child. After this video, I'll never be able to read words that have city in it the same. Thanks for that. XD
The moving cubes at 16:11 and other parts of the video remind me of the lament configuration from Hellraiser.