Story and content vs. Gameplay

It’s been a long time since I really did anything again, but I decided to check up on the SA3 page recently and saw their latest post and comments that came along with it, and noticed many people going against what was posted:

They’ve posted a chart from this article about what influences decisions on buying video games, and it’s amazing to see that storytelling is the highest on there, with the closest factor being the price. What I noticed though, long before this post but this was happening in the comments towards this post, were a few people still claiming gameplay is more important, at least in Sonic’s case, and some even trying to disprove the point. In response to this, I’m gonna break this down into 3 subjects I want bring up.

1. Content(Which story is apart of), is more important to gameplay.

First off, the fact that people bash or praise Sonic games based on content alone pretty much proves how little gameplay matter no matter how much they scream it isn’t. Look at the fact that many people who hate on the stories for most of the adventure era and saying the story doesn’t matter, somehow always take a liking to the stories we’ve been getting since Sonic colors, or will defend it while keeping quite over the Adventure debates, despite the fact that the stories since Colors did get a lot worse for obvious reasons. Whether you think story is important in Sonic games or not, a good amount of people sure seem to have a case to make about them, whether positive or negative.

But aside from Sonic, look at the rest of gaming. Sure, Mario(at certain times) and Minecraft do well, but most of the top selling and popular console games are action and story oriented, while most games light on plot and content are hardly recognized or sell well, despite their gameplay quality. Again, you got Mario and Minecraft, but how many other less story and action driven games with light hearted content, like them, get their recognition? Does anyone reading this even know how good these games are?

I’m pretty sure someone could tell me…. if it weren’t for the fact that you guys just aren’t playing them, or seeking out other games like them aside from Mario and Minecraft(And I’m not even sure if MC is being played by a good amount of Nintendo fans anyway, since it’s mostly them making this claim, but mainly for Nintendo titles). I know the people who more action and story out of their games may not be playing them due to them either being pretty kiddie or not like the AAA titles, but at the same time, why aren’t the people who openly express that gameplay matters the most and not story playing them, or at least ignoring them and not showing any interest in them at all? I’m pretty sure if Mario was slapped onto any of these games(CN Punch time is basically a smash bros clone so it wouldn’t be any different), there would be a hell of a lot more interest shown. It’s that fact that leaves me to believe that you need more then gameplay to get you interested in these games, especially when we still have people talking about Sonic 06 when it’s gameplay is bad but still shown more interest in then the games shown above. There are these other games I would include on the list but they are based on more well known franchises, so I don’t know how interested people are in them, but if someone can, feel free to let me know. I do know Skylanders catch hell, though it’s only because it basically replaced the Spyro series, but I have one of these games myself and it’s not bad.

2. Having good stories does not sacrifice gameplay quality.

Not much I need to add to this, because the main thing is that people seem to hang on to this notion that gameplay needs to be sacrificed in order to have some focus on the story, except there are many games(even before this and last generation) that still play well with focus on story.

And you better believe there are more games I can call out. Though, another thing to is that people assume when one cares about story, especially Sonic’s case when talking to a gameplay gamer(totally made that up), they usually use very extreme examples, like Last of Us, or simply wanting to watch a movie rather then play a game. However, in Sonic’s case to, this isn’t what someone who wants more, or better, story out of their games, it just means they want to see more of what the plot is about, or maybe even a reason to be interested in a game outside of it’s gameplay, given that, as proven by the pie chart show in the link, that most gamers look for in a game. The games I posted here are clear examples of what someone who wants more story in their games are talking about, especially with Sonic.

3. The motive of those who push their opinion for gameplay.

Just a bit of detective work here. Now, notice this topic started with a post from the Sonic Adventure page here. As you know, they want better story and content in Sonic games, hence the topics and arguments on the page itself. Then you have the people against better story and content, and want to focus on gameplay, or think Sonic is only about gameplay. The thing we have here is that the Adventure fans actually stand to lose something if the games don’t have what they asked for, so of course, they have to keep making this case and ask for it in hopes of getting it. Here’s the thing, what do the gameplay gamers stand to lose? They want more focus on gameplay and think Sonic is just about gameplay. Ok, it’s another argument, but here’s the thing: No matter what happens, they will get gameplay. Even if Sega were to make some new Sonic adventure game, the gameplay is still going to be there, and on top of that, there will most likely be a handheld or mobile game they can play that will still give them the gameplay they crave. No matter what the situation is, they will get what they want regardless, the gameplay quality itself will only be effected by the developers doing, as you can see, Colors, Lost World, and Boom have more story in their games then Sonic Heroes, but still has just as much gameplay as well.

Look at the classic games, I want to refer back to this pic here: http://fav.me/d6l0uo1

Sonic 2 itself has about 8 zone with 2 acts each, that’s 16 stages altogether, plus the last 3, Sky Chase, Flying Fortress, and Death Egg, though it’s only 2 boss battles, but still gameplay, so 19 stages in all. Sonic 3 has 13 zones, 2 acts each, with Doomsday, so that’s 27 levels in all, unless you count the multiplayer levels. Sonic Heroes, had 7 zone and 2 acts each, following the final boss(though you have to beat the game 4 times to get to it), so it’s at 14 levels. Then Sonic Adventure, if my memory on everyone’s number of levels is right, there is, I think just over 30 levels, I can’t remember who between Amy and Big had 3 or 4 levels. Adventure 2, 30 level total, I remember because it was split even with 5 levels per character, only with Sonic having 6 and Shadow having 4. Shadow’s own game, 22 levels. I don’t care enough about the modern titles to count their levels but I’m guessing it’s not too far from the numbers I have here.

The point I make is this, when does focusing on the story become a problem for gameplay? Would the classic games have less gameplay if you were to just add cutscenes, and would 3D games have more gamplay if they take out them out? Cause it seems both still deliver a good amount of gameplay, with or without the scenes. Not only with Sonic either, much like the last few games I mentioned when it came to good games that focused on story, again, are they going to be better somehow if they take out the cut scenes? Either way it goes, you’re going to get gameplay no matter what, and if you want less story in your games, simply go on Steam, find you some 2D games, and have it, or stick to fighting games. Either way, there’s no point in having the argument when what you want is heavily present in more games then they tend to lead on. Matter of fact, here’s a list of 2D Steam games: http://store.steampowered.com/search/?tags=3871&page=1#sort_by=_ASC&tags=3871&category1=998&page=1
Boom, all kinds of 2D games for you, 414 in total. This also goes for the people who actually complain about video game graphics to. I also wanna bring up to, we’ve had games in the glory days of games, that were a lot worse then your average game today. It wasn’t all Sonic, Mario, Megaman, Pac-Man, etc, and the majority of them had less focus on story to, as people make about Sonic and Mario, so there’s that to.

4. Sonic is not just about gameplay.

The mistake people make, or making it out that gameplay is the most important thing for games, despite that it’s not even what gets people interested in games enough to by them, it’s the fact that their interactive, have certain content that people want. Gameplay quality is only a problem when it actually is a problem, even then, Mortal Kombat was still popular and it’s gameplay was hardly as good as most other fighting games, but it’s content, mainly the graphics and fatalities, is what got people interested, whether that interest was positive or negative. Sonic himself though, was and is not just about gameplay, that’s a Nintendo way of looking at him. Sonic was about being cool and appealing to a wide range of demographics, not just kids, which actually repels them, especially if they’re already used to playing mature games, which we did have in the past, even if it were something like Contra or Castlevania or the majority of beat’em ups like Streets of Rage Final Fight. Even if Sonic was colorful, that doesn’t mean he was kiddy or fully light hearted, especially when in Sonic 1, most of the stages were not as light as Green Hill, maybe in color, but the tone was still darker, Marble zone is the first clue right there, while Springyard was balanced, which is what Sonic was good at, balance, but the content could still get dark, but never get light hearted to the point of Sonic Colors. Because of this, people should want Sonic to be taken more seriously, or be badass, he was suppose to be in the first place. If people are going to get worked up over taking sonic seriously, then why do they still defend when he’s not taken seriously? There’s still a story being told there. Too afraid of the games ending up like 06 and Shadow? Hell, they appeal to a lot more gamers, and kids for that matter, then Colors and Lost World. Even at that point, that’s not what most people are asking for in the first place. Plus, going into the comedy aspect, I’ve seen people say that the classics were about comedy to, which is straight up false, and just a means to try and push the light hearted comedy opinion for the modern games, or even trying ti justify it.

In the end, the biggest problem here is the amount of people confuse their own logic as truth, who go out and fight wars that don’t even need to be fought, especially when story is still being told through gameplay and other contents anyway, unless you want to remove all the graphics from your average Mario game, and replace everything with grey blocks, which I’m sure many people wont want because the content will no longer appeal to them. Proven by how popular the Mario Galaxy story is with people, who bash storytelling in Sonic games, or serious storytelling specifically. This is showing all too well how much Nintendo influence is in the Sonic fanbase, and making them worse for everyone who actually are fans of who and what Sonic truly is. If True fans don’t exist, there certainly are fake or stealth fans.

The Reason for all the Sonic Fanbase Negativity 2

Part 2 of the Sonic fanbase negativity. I would also like to recommend reading this article to: Yojiro Ogawa and Tetsuo Katano know Sonic the Hedgehog

-Character Bashing and mishandling-

Since probably Shadow and 06, fanboys got it in their head somehow that the other characters are to blame for the 3D games going bad(despite one easily looking at the handheld games and spin-offs to see that alone isn’t the reason). In this article by Heru Sankofa, he brings up the irrational hatred towards the other characters, and the real reasons why people were frustrated with them, so I’ll focus on some other aspects to this. Now, he brings up heroes in the end, and the funny thing is that it’s fixed in a fan game called Sonic World.

And this…

There’s also Sonic Advance 3 but you get the gist by now.

Of course, the main problem people complained about was having to switch to other characters, with other gameplay styles, or genre roulette as the trope goes. What confuses me is how this was such a problem when the gameplay quality, which these people focus on so much, weren’t really that bad, flawed, but most games are flawed in so way anyway, so it’s really about which flaws get overblown. The problem I find here is that most of the biggest complainers were Nintendo fans, and are constantly talking about how Mario is better(for no good reason aside from gameplay, which isn’t nothing special it itself), yet I don’t hear anybody talk bad about the Mario Party series or the Olympics games, both series that are nothing BUT genre roulette(Mario Party having those tired board games to go with it). Of course, this is why no one would say anything about them, but I find it hard to believe people can enjoy these games when many of the games you play in both of those series aren’t that great on their own. If anything, most mini games I can remember in the first 3 Mario Party games weren’t even that fun. Then we get to Sonic Adventure 2, which basically gave you mech gameplay(also playing as Eggman being a big perk), and treasure hunting. The mech gameplay gets flamed for being slow and people having a problem with Tails doing it(when all he did in SA1 was race Sonic). Even though Gamma was faster in SA1, being slower isn’t that much of a flaw(Especially controlling mechs that we should know can’t move on a dime anyway, based on the designs), especially when the stages are designed for slower movement anyway, it’s not like you were running then entire stretches of space and going against time. Then the Tails argument, that in itself is a nitpick given that Eggman had the same gameplay but as you can see, isn’t a problem on it’s own, so the same should go for Tails. The you have the hunting stages. Granted, SA2 had the broken radar, this still wasn’t that big of a deal unless you got stuck in certain stages. The thing about this is that this is EXACTLY the same thing you do in Mario 64, and many games they emulated it, in fact, IT WAS BETTER! In Mario 64, you didn’t even have a radar or anything if you got lost and had no idea what you had to do to complete the mission. Even if you did, you have to find a certain number of McGuffins or certain items. Remember the mission in the first Snow World where you had to some baby penguin and take it back to it’s mom? You literally had to pick it up and take it all the way down that big mountain(or up, I don’t remember), wheras SA1 and 2, you just had to find 3 crystals, and in the first stages, you could get it done in less then a minute. There’s also the gameplay, where you have Mario being just Mario, and Knuckles and Rouge could run fast, glide, climb walls, and dig for other items. Plus, they had better backgrounds and music to go with it. But I guess because that and the mech stages were part of a 3-way genre roulette, they have to be criticized beyond the actual problems, or overblown.

Then you get to Shadow, which people were just mad that the game was dark(no darker then SA2 mind you), people were just mad about the guns and vehicles, which had no negative impact on the game whatsoever. Then 06, which had more characters to use, but actually did away with genre roulette, and each character just had different abilities, and you only played as them in certain stages, while you still mainly used Sonic, Silver, and Shadow. The game even had a co-op mode for 2 players to only use one of the 3 hedgehogs they picked, doing away with character switching, and the Team Attack Amigo(I think that was the name) DLC that lets you play as Tails(who got fixed), Blaze, and Omega for 3 stages each, and you played all those stages in a row with no switching until they were done. I should also mention this game was original going to have online multiplayer, which would’ve worked even in this game’s state seeing how neither me or my friends had any problems with glitches during local co-op(Then again, we hardly had any of those during the main story). This makes the hatred of Shadow and 06 even more ironic because for the most part, they did away with a good number of problems complained about in SA1 and 2, and people still focused on what other problems they could blow up.

Before I move on from this subject, I did bring up Mario Party before, and there’s no reason to bring up shuffle since it’s mainly a clone, there was another party games that managed to outdo both games.

Why do I say this game outdoes Mario Party and Sonic Shuffle? For one, Crash Bash completely did away with the maps and lets you get straight to the games, and they’re battle based and actually fun to play. Plus, instead some of them being hard to play or don’t need a learning curve, these are easier and the AI only gets hard as you progress through the game, though it’s a problem if you play alone when all the AI are gunning for you, all the time. In any case, not only is genre roulette out of the picture, but you get to use any character you want, and at that, there’s a much better plot to.

Getting back to Sonic, regardless of the problems, the people who complain don’t make up the entire fanbase. There are people who were ok and even liked the other characters, they have fans of their own pretty much, giving more value to them then other give them credit for. Many of them were either cool yet we have to ditch them because SOME fans didn’t like them, like how Silver has his Telekinetic powers, but while he should’ve had a basic attack rather then needing to upgrade for his shock move, people got on him just because he was slow, which his abilities made up for in the first place. What I find jarring is that Amy is hardly called out on this when she was also nerfed compared to everyone else, I mean I had a better time playing as Big then Amy, I spent most of my time with him out in the fields rather then fishing. I even heard a friend of mine tell me that someone praised Amy in one of the advance games because she was hard to play with then the other characters, which made no sense whatsoever. I’m chalking that up to someone having hardcore gamer tendencies.

With us having all those complaints, we had lose many of those characters, at least in the main games, Black Knight being the best game they were in at the time, but now along with the series, they’re loosing some of their coolnes now and being mishandled, Sonic and Knuckles taking more damage in this department. One could easily look at the majority of the Sonic material up till 06 and then everything afterword to see the full direction of character mishandling the characters of this series has gone through. Don’t get me wrong, I know some of it started around the Adventure era, just not in the adventure games themselves(though Knuckles being tricked my Eggman again may have started this his huge decline in handling). Point is, Sonic and co were a lot cooler back in this time, but it’s like since Unleashed, there was this change going on where things were getting a lot less cool and epic, and even though the story book titles brought some of that Sonic coolness back, Colors just went …. not even downhill, it fell of a cliff at how when it came to it’s coolness, I.E., lacking it completely.

We went from characters with a mission:

To self aware jokers:

Sonic is now telling jokes that goes on a lot longer then they need to(especially when they aren’t funny from the start), Tails just sits on the side lines doing jack, Knuckles was turned into the laughing stock of the series, and Eggman turned into a complete buffoon. They literally took the modern kids cartoon way of handling Sonic, which is a huge mistake. Thankfully, the archie comics and still going, but I’m concerned over that reboot because of how much it started resembling the games. While it’s only in narrative and the characters are still themselves, what’s stopping them from turning the comics into the games even more, to the point we loose the good writing to? Hell, Ian Flynn could get fire, seriously injured or worse, and a new writer would have to be brought in, who just may be another fan of the kiddy direction, or doesn’t know Sonic and thinks that direction is the more logical approach to Sonic?  See as though I brought the comics up, I should put this here for an example of how the writing goes when the story is focused on action and purpose rather then bad comic relief.

For all the beef these comics got with many Sonic fans, they do a much better job at character portrayal, rather then making them self aware jokers, which is another basis of negativity in this fanbase, watching our favorite characters being forced into bad writing for cheap attempts at writing, and that’s not what people want in their games. If there are any games with comedy that manage to pull it off, it’s because they still put effort into the story and characters. For example…

The Reason for all the Sonic Fanbase Negativity 1

Now, as I look at the many arguments over Sonic Boom, and hell, look back at all the bickering that on over Lost World, there’s always the constant reminder at how Sonic fans are so negative, an constant comparing them to Nintendo fans, making it our as if Sonic fans are the only rabid fans, despite every other fandom being just as bad and doing as much dirt, including Nintendo fans. In any case, what I’m gonna do is write a series of articles clarifying why all this negativity exists in the first place. Here’s the first of that series of articles.

-Sonic going from cool to kiddy-

If you don’t see this as a problem, you’re either one of those guys who specifically likes kiddy games, prefer them because you think Sonic sucked when trying to be cool and edgy, and/or don’t understand Sonic, his creation, and success. First and foremost, Sonic was made to be a cool character, and for as many people who argued against Sonic games being dark, those arguing against him being kiddy should and do have the same right. Sonic was made to be the anti Mario, not to be like every game that was trying to copy him, hell, this was the very reason we had all those anthro games characters in the first place, because of Sonic, and honestly, I think Ninja Turtles had something to do with it to, because Sonic resembled them in coolness, hell, Sonic was even cooler then them at the time of their 90’s cartoon. There’s also the fact that many people don’t like kiddy looking games, even kids don’t, which is why I would have to ask this question: why didn’t people look at content like Ninja Turtles, and other games and cartoons that emulated them and Sonic?

Trying to hard to be cool right?

Really if you think about it, there’s so much hype over Sonic and Mario being rivals and such, but style wise, Sonic fits more with the cast of Playstation All-Stars then he does in Super Smash Bros, especially with 2 of their popular characters, Sly and Ratchet, fit with Sonic’s style, and the games over style in itself. This goes to show the lack of taste or standards the people in this fanbase have if they think Sonic has to be kiddy because “he’s a cartoon Hedgehog” when there’s so much going against that lame notion.

If this isn’t trying to hard, I don’t know what is.

The funny part is that despite all the hate 3D titles got for trying to be epic, people seem to forget that Sonic was actually just as epic or even moreso then more maturer looking titles back in the day, at least when it came to final boss battles with Sonic 2 , and a lot more with the ending of Sonic 3 and Knuckles. Flying through space chasing down a giant robot is a lot more exciting and epic then fighting Shao Khan in Mortal Kombat, or Gargos in Killer Instinct 2(and a lot easier).

Flying in a special golden form in a level literally called Doomsday.

Same old fight you were in a number of times before, you’re just at the last guy.

Hell, being a cartoony game that did that type of stuff is what made Sonic edgy in the first place, and that’s what made him cool in the first place. To bash on Sonic “trying to be cool”, is the same as bashing Sonic and the series itself. Also, refer back to Sonic being colorful or cartoony doesn’t mean he’s exactly kiddy.

To put it shortly, we had something great with this series, and if it’s not bad enough that it was taken away from us, you have people who act like it was a bad thing to try and be cool(which again was the reason for Sonic’s success), and even worse when they act like being kiddy isn’t a problem, or even more that it’s preferable, when it hasn’t been for any party outside of the very people who think that.

Sonic being colorful or cartoony doesn’t mean he’s exactly kiddy

Ok, so a lot of times I’ve read people saying that Sonic being color contributes to one of the reasons he’s a kids game or should be kiddy.

Colorful? Like my hair?

That argument itself is flawed given the number of games that were very well balanced despite being colorful or being bright, which even then, you only have to get to Marble Zone, right after Green Hill, to see the difference, where the stage is mainly dark purple and the brightest color there is coming from the molten lava that could kill you. That’s why the purpose of this article is to combat that “opinion” with said games of Color or cartoony characters, but still remaining balanced.

Earthworm Jim

While colors and even cartoony, the game has a number of dark levels like what the heck and the final level, while the others are more balanced, not really too dark but not very light either(compared to Sonic). Jim comes close to Sonic’s coolness with the stage tone and great music, at least for the first game, and while it’s comical, the 2nd game kinda tone down Jim’s own edge that he showed with his face before the stages started and the more serious look he had in his stance. Now he’s more worried looking while jogging in place, while both game and music just got a lot more sillier.

Battletoads

The Toads are about int eh same boat as Earthworm Jim, just less colorful. They’ve gotten 3 other games, and while not much different aside from graphics, the arcade game took it up a notch…

Blood, gore, decapitations, seeing you enemies on the toilet, vomit, crotch grabbing and abusing, and being able to see the Dark Queens nipples in the background of the boss battle for level 3. These are very cartoony characters, even being based on TMNT, but they were still able to do all this stuff without getting too much static over it from fans. The levels were overall darker to.

Gunstar Heroes

While having bright coloring in the first stage, the game mainly puts on a more serious face, though some of the characters can have different expressions and still come off as cartoony sometimes, it doesn’t go too much into that direction to make the tone seem kiddy. Pay attention to the music to, instead of sounding more like Mushroom Kingdom or Green Hill to fit the stage, the music fits more with the tone of the game and the constant action. This also got some sort of a sequel on the gameboy Advance, but while it seems more like a remake, it’s got a few extra things here and there and more dialogue, which touches more on the story as you play on harder levels.

Sparkster

Pretty much a lot like Gunstar heroes but less colors and actually a bit more cartoony sometimes.

Guardian Heroes

This game actually looks more cartoony then Gunstar Heroes, but the action is just as chaotic and fierce, and the narrative of the game also pushes it in a more serious direction, and that in itself depends on what paths you take. It’s also worth noting that both this also got a remake on the gameboy advance, and it’s pretty much as I described the original here.

Now, if you think Sonic is a kids game, then you really would need to see these titles and see the big difference in both music and art style:

Now those are kids games right there, and before I forget, here’s a game from my childhood that actually was based on a cartoon, yet, look how realistic it looks compared to the last 3 games:
Tailspin:

With all that, we have to look back at Sonic.

TOTALLY!

The main thing about Sonic was how much cooler and edgier he could be. The fing…

Let me explain that before jump all over me. The finger wagging, the waiting animations, his look alone, contributed to him being more edgy because they’re weren’t too many games like that back at the time, nor characters that did what he did. Even Earthworm Jim and Sparkster were inspired by him, and while the Toads were suppose to be copies of the Ninja Turtles, the Turtles themselves were originally edgy and even more serious in their first conception, Sonic himself ended being the TMNT of videos games if you will, both spawning meany copies after their coolness. What also contributed to Sonic being edgy, was that he had the potential to have more balanced and even darker tones once you get past Green Hill Zone, I mean, right up there around both the Battletoads arcade game(minus gore) and Earthworm Jim, and how epic Gunstar Heroes and even Sparkster could be around the end. In short, being edgy doesn’t just me being gory and having more mature content, but being unconventional and pushing boundaries, and even then, you could see the darkness that could be found in Sonic from both SATAM and the comics, and not just them being dark, but them taking their narrative seriously(while still having humor of course) and the trials it took to overcome all the challenges despite how bleak things could get.

On another note, if you still think being more colorful means a game has to be childish, you can refer back to my article on Wildstar. Oh, and you would also have a hard time believing that this is an M rated game.

The explosion of color never has been so kiddy. XD

Some TVTropes and effects on Sonic

After talking with a few other folks tome time ago, some pages from TVTropes were brought to my attention. It seems that there always seems to be a problem with animation that takes itself seriously and a combination of moral guardians and executives who either get the shows flipped up or outright cancelled, which bothers me that shows like Family Guy and American Dad are able to exist, though, we still have some good adult cartoons, most of them are just on adult swim and more about satire then action, not that it’s a bad thing of course(Boondocks, Black Dynamite, Venture Bros.), but worth noting. The thing about this is how it’s effecting the Sonic franchise, in a very negative way, but it’s not even parents, but other gamers, mainly Nintendo fanboys, at this point they’re the main group of gamers who don’t like dark or serious content but claim gameplay is most important, meaning that content is still important in how the judge games they may now have played, as shown here….

There’s more to this here: http://psyco-the-frog.deviantart.com/art/Gameplay-vs-Mature-460815727

I mean come on, the Ratchet and Clank fanbase actually demanded a more serious Ratchet game and they got it with Into the Nexus. It was short but sweet, and half the price of most AAA titles. In any case, the Nintendo fanboys/drones/corporate slaves, not the whole fanbase, just many that claim to be sonic fans, with Sonic games, replace the moral guardians in Sonic’s situation when it comes to people not being able to handle him being dark or serious, much like adults who don’t like this in animation. However, executive meddling still comes into play here, at least if you count Izuka’s decision making since SA2, and how much control Sega of Japan may have over the series, like the constant worshiping of Mario.

Getting back on other shows, it seems that for a long time, we’ve been having people decide our content for us when it comes to TV(Which is probably why Video Games probably come under fire so much since they have almost total freedom to do whatever and are easily accessible), while the fans of the shows in question have no say in the matter. The tropes I’m posting here are some of the more glaring examples of the negatives, Sonic SATAM even getting in on the action. There’s a lot here, and I didn’t want this article being too long, I just wanted this to be brought to peoples attention and show how it’s effecting Sonic, but it also goes to show why we don’t have many good cartoons on these days. Consider my article over from this point on, the rest are just the tropes. I may elaborate more on this at some point.

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What Do You Mean Its Not For Kids: Western Animation:

According to Todd McFarlane, when he first started pitching an animated version of Spawn, the networks he talked to wanted to make a Saturday morning version. Right down to talking animal sidekick, though at that point he may have been being sarcastic in his recollections. It seemed none of the big-wigs realized that a character whose name was short for “Hellspawn” and who was horribly burnt head to toe and fought against multiple angels and devils across Earth, heaven and hell itself wasn’t a good fit alongside the light-hearted fair common to those slots. Then again, when he finally got the nod from HBO, airing past-prime-time with numerous warnings of its content, people still complained that this ‘kiddie cartoon’ was so graphically violent and sexual, leaving him feeling like he never should have bothered in the first place.

 Young Justice. You’re telling me the concept of a covert team of vigilante child soldiers fighting a super villain Illuminati while slowly but surely crossing whatever lines they have to (up to and including faking the death of one of their own by another member so she might be planted as a deep cover agent in said organization) slowly being torn apart on a psychological level by all their secrets is supposed to be an innocent adventure in the DC universe? Also, the whole show had pacing that was much more deliberative than most children would be used to. Given its time slot, god only knows who it actually was for.

    The complex story and good pacing had nothing to do with the target audience. It was indeed made for a young audience, just older children (8-14 year olds). This is more of a case of What Do You Mean It’s For Kids? It just had a lot of Parental Bonus that older viewers enjoyed.

Animation Age Ghetto

SWAT Kats jumps to mind. Running from 1993 to 1995, It was among the earlier western attempts at breaking the ghetto, and, in spite of the many problems that popped up because of that, the series went on to become a hit and garnered high ratings.
(From their main page)
Unfortunately, SWAT Kats’ attempts to break out of the Animation Age Ghetto came too soon for many people, and the series took criticism for its violent content. Even before that, the show underwent extensive Executive Meddling during its first season, forcing the creators to insert several inherently silly and “kid-ified” stuff aimed at younger audiences (which clashed horribly with the show’s dark premise). This changed in the second season, since the first season’s good ratings enabled the series to get an Animation Bump (and a slight makeover) that resulted in a Darker and Edgier style which proved to be a better fit for the show.

The show was cancelled after its second season, passed over in favor of Turner’s “What A Cartoon!” project (which gave birth to future Cartoon Cartoons such as Dexter’s Laboratory, The Powerpuff Girls, and Johnny Bravo). At the time of its cancellation, SWAT Kats was one of Hanna-Barbera’s highest rated syndicated shows, and there were three unfinished episodes in production (as well as established outlines for up to seven more episodes), which all got left hanging. While Turner is often quoted as saying that Hanna-Barbera had plenty of other cartoons which didn’t “encourage kids to shoot people”, it’s a leap to deduce that he cancelled SWAT Kats, as he was actually referring to Beavis And Butthead. note  Christian Tremblay, co-creator of SWAT Kats, denies Turner had anything to do with the cancellation: “We have respect for Ted Turner, because of him, we got the show financed back in 1993, and I like the guy. The decision to stop the show was not his but more executives way below him.”

A similar occurrence took place to a much greater extent, especially in the later seasons, of Static Shock. The Milestone Comic on which it is based can be best described as an Amazing Spider-Man with a black hero, twice as much angst, and 10 times more contemporary content (sex, gay-bashing and visual gang warfare were but a few of the series’s recurring focal points). While the beginning of the animated series is close enough to its source material, it became more and more child-oriented as time went on. Family-Friendly Firearms was in full effect by the middle of the series even though real guns were seen and used in the series’ premiere. There is another example of a non-laser gun when a bullied kid steals his father’s gun with the intention to kill his tormentor; he ends up being knocked to the ground by some students with the gun going off and hitting his friend Richie in the leg. Richie doesn’t bleed, but you can tell he is in serious pain. Later on, we find out he could’ve died if the bullet struck any higher.

Exact same time period, the Saturday morning version of Sonic the Hedgehog (known by fans as SatAM to differentiate it from the syndicated The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog) similarly subverted the ghetto. Unfortunately, it fell victim to the decline of Saturday Morning Cartoons in general; many markets pre-empted it from the start in favor of Saturday morning local news. A third season was in the works, but would never see the light of day.

Executive Meddling: Western Animation:
(With all the Moral Guardians and people who want to milk money from franchises, Western Animation is rife with Executive Meddling. )
^I had to throw that in…. now to get to the stuff:

Disney during the last decade of Michael Eisner’s reign was this trope in motion. It came to a head in 1999, when Peter Schneider left his job as chairman of Disney Feature Animation. Eisner told Sharon Morrill (head of Disney’s direct-to-video department) and newly installed Feature Animation head Thomas Schumacher that he no longer wanted to be beholden to filmmakers – from that point on, executives would be making all of the creative decisions. What resulted were seven years of the company spiraling out of control, burning bridges with nearly everyone in Hollywood (including their most valuable partner Pixar), infuriating their stockholders (who revolted after Walt Disney’s nephew Roy resigned from the company in protest), and ultimately costing Eisner his job and Disney its reputation. Thankfully It Got Better, but those last few years are probably the reason that his successor Bob Iger has been the most hands-off CEO that Disney has ever had.

Word of God says that the Earthworm Jim cartoon was made to boost video game sales and that Doug TenNapel wants nothing to do with the show (despite that it’s considered one of the best cartoons of the 1990s).

”Gargoyles suffered this during its final season, The Goliath Chronicles. Executives wanted more lessons crammed in, resulting in a Full House moment at the end of every episode. Unsurprisingly, both the fans and the creator don’t consider the third season as part of canon, save for the first episode.

This is the EXACT reason Sym-Bionic Titan was cancelled, apparently because the higher ups at Cartoon Network wanted toy companies to make toys for the series, but failed to get licensers for it.

    Now it seems that there actually were several toy manufacturers who wanted to take on the show but Cartoon Network never contacted any of them and the show was murdered because of a personal falling out between executives at CN and Genndy Tartakovsky, the former of which wanted the show to go in a more Ben 10 direction.

 In October 2012, DC Nation was set to air the third new episodes of Young Justice and Green Lantern: The Animated Series since they came back from hiatus… only for them to be hiatused again ten hours before airtime and told they’d be back in January. Many rumors came about, including the lack of shorts and the fact that the episode of Young Justice to be aired has Stephanie Brown, the poster child of DC’s Executive Meddling in the New52 era. Current theory is that there were licencing problems involved with YJ using Milestone-based characters like Icon, Rocket and Static— which still doesn’t explain why Green Lantern: The Animated Series and the shorts were pulled, too. Whether it’s Executive Meddling or Screwed by the Network is still unclear.

    Shortly after the shows came back, Cartoon Network dropped the revelation that both would not be renewed for more seasons. The two series had been quietly cancelled back before the hiatus, although the creative teams were not allowed to state it until the network made it official. The apparent reasoning for the schedule change and cancellation was that network higher-ups felt that the shows did not perform well enough, due to their lack of toylines. According to Jerome K Moore (character designer for Young Justice), WB Animation was willing to go through with a season 3, but the network’s lack of renewal put a halt to the idea.
    Recently, an interview with Paul Dini by Kevin Smith laid out a big bombshell: that Cartoon Network is in the mindset that not only do cartoons just sell toys, but also that cartoons are only for boys. Many of the cartoons were being enjoyed by girls and, as such, Cartoon Network has deemed them “failures”.

 Sonic Sat AM The series was cancelled because of meddling, not from Sega, but from ABC – a new president came in and declared that he was sweeping out the old and bringing in new stuff. That, coupled with the fact that the show’s ratings suffered as a result of its competition with Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers, resulted in its cancellation.

    Some of the second season’s alterations were a result of Executive Meddling too. The creative team were asked to balance out the gender ratio with another female character, resulting in the creation of spotlight stealer Dulcy the Dragon. Similarly, executives also asked for more comedic material, the infamous Antoine-centered half-hour episodes being part of that request. 

Cool game showcase

What I wanna do here is show a few games that have the balance that most E rated games of today are missing, as well as elements on how Sonic can be handled when done right. At the very least, it will show that an E rated games doesn’t need to be just for kids or made the same way Nintendo likes to do them, or at least showing a good balance.

Now, looking at all those games, you’ve got elements there that make the games more interesting. All of them have an engaging storyline and action to make you get into and care about the game, as well as good music, Sly Cooper has good balanced dialogue, Bastion and Tansistor have great artstyle and presentation, Bomberman showcases it’s cool looking enemies, which look like robots with DBZ scanners, and Buck Bumble has it’s cool premise of an armed cybernetic bee going against an army of mutated bugs, and it’s not played merely for kicks. In their own way, all of these games have something cool and interesting about them that people of all ages can get into, without primarily being made to target to kids, unlike this:

Whether or not Lost Mind looks fun, the game is no where near appealing to the average gamer nor is it presented well enough to make people care beyond that fact that it’s a Sonic game and that it’s colorful, proven by the experience noted in this article. Of course, you have Sonic Boom which looks better in comparison, but that dialogue is gonna piss off a good amount of people, if it already hasn’t.

Does a game have to “Be fun” to have fun playing?

First off, I wanna go on record that I feel that this, very well done video, is aimed at Nintendo fanboys, though it may not be the authors intent, I don’t know too many other kinds of gamers who would need to be told this:

I can’t comment on everything the guy says since it’s been a while since I watched it, but it really needs to be pointed out that too many gamers generalize games for the smallest things. Yes, someone could try to say, for instance, Sonic Boom, that people criticize without playing it, but many of us actually look at the content which is shown in the game because that’s what matters most, not just the gameplay, and many of us feel that the content sucks. It’s different from the average hardcore gamer, either Nintendo, Sony, or Microsoft , where you get those(Nintendo boys) that talk about gameplay over content(and ESRB rating) but will only acknowledge Nintendo games when they do it, and when it comes to M rated games, most of the time, they claim them to not be fun or “not mature”, because for some reason, they think rated M is suppose to mean handling things rationally, when it reality, there isn’t too many games I can think of that do that, at all, being that the majority of them are based conflict to begin with, and your characters isn’t always your standard hero type. I have to say though, I doubt this will be a convincing argument when scenes like this come out of these “non-mature” games:

Then, you got a lot of these other cats who fill any E rated game or any with a good amount of, color, in it, are kiddy. Now, for the most part, I partially agree, since many E rated games these days aren’t even half as good or appealing as many in the past or most other games these days in general, especially back in the 16-bit era, where we had games like Toejam and Earl, Battletoads, and Earthworm Jim, however, if one were to actually pay attention to Xbox Live, Playstation Network, and Steam, you can find a good amount of E looking games without near kiddy content. The thing is with this bunch, we run into a problem when games that aren’t even kiddy at all are still criticized for some reason(I read about this happening to a specific game but I can’t find the TVTrope page I read this about).

Now, about games being fun, I think people tend to mix the context. For example, with Sonic games, I’ve seen many people say as an argument against taking Sonic seriously, that Sonic is about fun. Here’s the thing, video games in general are suppose to be fun in some way, shape, or form, and many of them can do it while having serious or even dark elements, and hell, I don’t see people complaining about Sonic CD being dark, yes it was more subtle, but the shiznit was there. In any case, I think people who say this are using the context that the game itself needs to be fun, I.E., like Sonic colors where the game tries it’s hardest to be funny, or just not being serious at all and putting on a smile through everything, or even basically being sugar-coated, the best way of summing this up is being light hearted. The problem is that this is kinda pushing the notion that the games need to be Fun/light hearted to actually be fun to play, or better yet, enjoyable, and that kinda sets you up to hating almost anything that doesn’t follow this notion, or outright ignoring many great titles even if they look “Fun”, and either way, shouldn’t be the only thing focused on all the time. People want more then just “fun” games, they want engaging games are at least one that appeals to them and accommodating features to make them enjoyable, which in itself, will make them fun to play, for example, GTA+Online=Fun. It’s funny though, as I played GTA3 a long time ago with a code book and made every pedestrian riot and gave them weapons. The streets were on fire, and it was funny as hell, and fun to play. Even then though, as I played Halo 4, the campaign itself was not “fun”, but the thing was, I played it for the engaging and epic storyline, which the experience in itself, is what made the game worth playing. However, it’s a different story online against other players, I can say it was fun, especially when I understood that it was better to find other weapons since most of them were better then your average loadout(not just the pistols, rifles and other energy weapons you unlocked as you played). Marvel Alliance 2, what makes it fun is getting all these cool super heroes together to serve beat downs, and it’s always fun playing as Deadpool, and both Luke Cage and Venom or also just as cool. Unreal Tournament(Get COD out my face), I can easily say this is actually fun to play, it’s fast paced and they have all these sci-fi weapons, but once notable match i got into was a team match in a small map with nothing but rocket launchers. Yeah, I got killed a lot, but everyone on the scoreboard walked away with over a hundred kills, and I came in late mind you, lol, so I still came out pretty good.

I think this is the real problem here, it’s not even focusing only on fun as I look at it now, because you can enjoy a game for different reasons, which makes it fun, but using “Fun” as a descriptive manner and placing strict guidelines to it, that is needing games to be their vision of fun, rather then being able to enjoy them for what the game itself offers. It’s dangerous within the Sonic fanbase since the term can easily be confused with the games themselves needing to be fun to play since Sonic suffered in gameplay(not to a degree that made the games bad, only in 06’s case since it wasn’t polished anyway), so it sorta puts them in the right to the average person unless you actually think about it, since many of us still had fun with the darker games. The other troubling part about this is when so many of these people will tell you, if you make the complaint, is that whether or not a game is too kiddy/light hearted shouldn’t matter, only that you enjoy the game, but outside of them placing strict guidelines on enjoying games, they will turn around and try to convince people that it’s wrong for Sonic to be dark and/or taken seriously. One would have to ask how is that so when being kiddy doesn’t matter, but it matters of it’s dark, unless of course they just don’t want to take Sonic seriously, period. First of all, it shows how much content actually matters, and it showed when Sega and Sonic took half the console market from Nintendo back in the day, and it shows when they try to convince you that Sonic Lost World is good when the gameplay sucks. One could say that since so many games are dark/M rated/not “fun”, that they are trying to hang onto what few “Fun” games they can find, but there’s 2 things to that:

1. Like I said before, if you pay attention to the digital market, or sometimes, the rest of the video game industry and not just focus on M rated games, you’ll find some good E rated games. It’s reinforced, as listed by TVTropes, ” in 2010 only 5% of video games released had an M rating. However, this small minority was the focus of more hype than the rest”.

2. Sonic was not made to be their vision of “fun”, I.E., light hearted. No matter how much they will try to use the classics to further their arguments, but most normal people can see that Sonic was a totally different beast from Mario, especially after Sonic FREAKIN’ 1, and AOSTH for that matter. Hell, taking notice to the fact that Sonic’s 2 fights with the final boss in 3&Knuckles was more epic then most non-cartoony games at the time(I’m talking Double Dragon, Streets of Rage, Mortal kombat, etc), or even most other cartoony games(almost all), will tell you Sonic was definitely made to be edgy(The main reason he was not only the most popular character at the time, but why so many characters mimicked him). The ironic part though? What Sega has been doing to Sonic since Colors and what the Xer’s advocate is exactly why the majority of Sonic copies failed in the first place.(I really need to write something just about this).

Anyway, the whole argument about games needing to be “fun”/light hearted to be enjoyable is flawed, the bit about gameplay being the most important part of a game is flawed, and appeal is what it all comes down to for even picking up games and spending your money on them in the first place, and it’s proven on all side on the daily. Anyone trying to say different, the next time someone offers you something, just say no, you had too much of it. Peace.