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Louis-the-Hedgehog — A viscous cycle
Published: 2013-09-22 01:10:06 +0000 UTC; Views: 1248; Favourites: 15; Downloads: 0
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As Joseph Campbell said "Kids stuff is the stuff dreams are made of."Related content
Comments: 27
Using the "Nostalgia" argument does not work for most cartoons or games made in the past 20 or so years because a lot of them still hold up very well in these years too, like Batman Beyond, TMNT, Vectorman, etc. In about 20-30 years or so, Sonic Colors, Sonic Boom, etc is going to look like how Fangface or Madballs: Gross Jokes looks today. Kids who did like this version of Sonic will have grown up and ultimately realized, "What the hell did I watch!?" But those kids will probably have been brainwashed into believing Sonic is just for kids, thus beginning another Sonic age ghetto and another dark age for Sonic. Which makes the matters worse.
Another problem is that it truly wants us to believe Sonic can ONLY be made just for kids! I'm an adult, 24 years old, and I still treasure Sonic Adventure, Shadow The Hedgehog, Sonic Battle, Sonic X, SaTaM, and the other actually good Sonic! Also relevant, is that as an adult, I can appreciate the effort put into cartoons such as Hey Arnold! or Steven Universe.
I bet if you show a kid an episode of Hey Arnold! today and compared to hyperactive shows like Sonic Boom, they might think it's too slow paced for their tastes. They typically don't understand the effort people put into making quality work, which I bet is how this terrible Sonic Crap like Boom and Colors is able to thrive. So that's why you have to show them real effort like the Actually Good Sonic from the Adventure Era and such.
All I can say is, never let go of your childhoods, and learn to see true quality and beauty; don't let your kids watch and play garbage like this! Grow up as people and be able to see past nostalgia and find the effort and quality put into shows and games that actually do have those traits!
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I don't understand why others feel that Sonic is too "kid like" I mean, if Sonic started acting like those really annoying Nick Jr shows, (at least some of them) being really obnoxious. then I can understand, but I see none of that. (mainly referring to the games) If anything.. Sonic has been aimed at all audiences for the most part. I think once Sonic Colors came out, the plots were simplified, and I think for a good reason.. I mean, when Sonic 06 and others were out, I believe people complained because it was "too serious" and now that they've brought it back to being simple, and not so serious, now it's "kiddy"
At least this is just something I've noticed myself. Sorry if my words came off harsh, it's not what I want to come off as.
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The reason why the more complex plots failed is because the "writers" can't write worth a crap. Blame the WRITERS for that, NOT Sonic.
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Perhaps so. I'm not gonna say some of those storyline are perfect, but what I'm more interested in knowing is how Sonic has become kiddy, I have not seen or gotten any such examples yet. All I'm seeing is people saying is "Yeah, Sonic is Kiddy" which makes me believe people are not really looking at the bigger picture.
lets face it, if people want a storyline of Sonic to be darker, there's gonna be lines that can't be crossed. I believe Shadow the hedgehog really crossed those lines, and came off as a "wannabe" or "inmature" because of it's "Edgy" nature that it tried to appeal to. Now I'm sure it's possible for Sonic to be more serious, with the right amount of balance. (For example, Sonic Adventure 2's story, ignoring some of the plotholes.)
Besides, as I've stated before in a note I sent you, things can be dark, or have a layer of dark themes, without taking away the lightheartedness.
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Same could be said about Star Wars (don't get it twisted; I LOVE Star Wars but before you make a comment, the good news is that there are some stuff that wasn't "kiddy" at least) along with other things. Note that Sonic was always "too kiddy". You know exactly what I'm talking about. Nowadays thanks to the insane part of the fanbase, it's likely he might not evolve at all. If you don't know what I mean, it's that the insane fans accuse classic fans (even the sane ones) of "never wanting change" yet when one thing they like is changed, EVEN FOR THE BETTER, they go crazy. Hypocrisy much?
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"Note that Sonic was always "too kiddy"."
Either you never played a Sonic game before or pushing the lighter tones of the series over the neutral balance it had, as well as some dark themes like the bad future stages, boss music, and game over music from Sonic CD.
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I have played CD.
I think I should've rephrased & said "Modern Sonic" instead of just "Sonic" in that sentence.
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If that's the case, then I would agree, as Sonic has been on this slippery slope since Unleashed. The reason I made my comment cause I've heard and seen a lot of Sonic fans trying to claim Sonic was always light hearted and kiddy. One wouldn't only have to realize how much cooler Sonic was then most games around during the time to realize why he became popular in the first place, and why many other games trying to copy him. I read this article recently and it linked to a TVTropes page showing that many of Sonic's copied failed was because they were the more "theme park" version of him, and now, modern Sonic himself, is just like that. tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php…
The article I got this from is here:
heatseekerzone.wordpress.com/2…
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I see.
In the case of Sonic's demographic, even though the biggest fans were children, there were adults that did like the first game (& the sequels) when it came out. Same goes with Star Wars (I'm not comparing the two); if you remember, even though "Star Wars" had children as the biggest number of fans, adults loved it too, even to this day. Sometimes or most of the time, adults that liked things from their childhood keep said childhood things to their heart. Not all the time to the point where it consumes their lives. And not to a point where they just wanna relive it over & over.
For me, I'd like a balance of "surrealism (aka classic games & CD)" & "realism" (recent games up to "Colors") along with "cartoonish (aka "kiddy stuff") & "dark & gritty (aka adult stuff BUT to a certain point [not PG-13 or R-rating mind you])". The American cartoons came close (along with the Japanese OVA a bit) to creating a balance. In short: something that's silly when it needs to be & serious when it needs to be.
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That's why some of us call it balance, but many people here on these websites can't handle anything gritty and just come off like petty wusses who want everything to be silly all the time with no other substance, even then, the jokes coming out of the games aren't even good to begin with, so the silliness itself is not even entertaining. I'm not saying every Sonic game needs to be more like Shadow the Hedgehog, even though I enjoyed and don't view it as anymore dark then SA2 or your typical Sony game, but we really should be looking more into the American mediums on how to handle Sonic, not whatever the Japanese think up on a whim.
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I think writers need to put more effort into writing the jokes while the voice director has the voice actors put more effort into making the jokes funny. As a result of effort from both parties, the jokes can be funny.
But either way, they need to put effort into the series in order to achieve what we're aiming for.
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Well it'll never happen as long as the perception keeps up that Sonic is only suppose to be for kids. It leaves me wondering what the sudden change of heart came from with the rumor of the upcoming Sonic movie being dark and serious. I actually remember people trying to say the same for Lost World. In any case, they do need more effort, which pisses me off when you look around and see other games staring anthro characters still being taken serious, notably the Ratchet and Clank series, Sly Cooper, Dust: an Elysian Tail, and Dusty's Revenge. The idea of Sonic needing to be primarily for kids stems from the Japanese entirely(and Hardcore Nintendo and anime fans) since they can't take anthro characters seriously, as the U.S. has had history using animals in serious situations many times(Lion King, All Dogs go to Heaven, Watership Down, Coonskin). It may be with other counties to, there's an old German(and translated) animated film about cats called Felidae... it was fucked up be damn was it good. www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7v8F5…
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Agreed.
As for Star Wars, compare 'The Empire Strikes Back' to 'The Clone Wars' for a good example.
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Well as much as I know both have their pros & cons & I've enjoyed both for what they are, you do have a point. 
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Do they not grasp that kids grow up and expect their stuff to evolve?
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I'm torn on everything recently. Some of the worst stories have kind of not happened -Iron Dominion, Secret Freedom Fighters, Mecha Sally, and likely Geoffrey being a traitor as a means to "King Naugus", Rotor coming off like an old man, Antoine as the man without a face, Bunnie being a whiny moron- but at the same time it's at the expense of this pathetic reuse of the Genesis Wave and these godawful new designs.
I can get behind everything having to go back around to how it was for new generations or just keep it to a medium standard where we get nostalgia and the kids get something targeted to them.
But each continuity has to be wrapped up happily so we're content even if we don't stay. I'd rather the Prime Mobius be returned and this be nothing but a different universe: SEGA-Mobius. Then it's just a matter of getting rid of these bad stories in a less cop out manner than abusing the Genesis Wave gimmick.
And some of the above stories can be done but with a far greater intelligence than Flynn wrote them with. But some of it isn't helped by all the crap written by Bollers and Penders, namely the destruction of Old Mobotropolis and Sally's wedding to Antoine being secretly Patch thus losing Armand.
I guess I won't be satisfied until Sonic travels backwards through time and alters some key event and things don't go the way they did or Sonic wakes up in Mobotropolis with memories of a bad dream that was most of the events follow issue #75.
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The Sonic franchise could be tweaked to make it more suitable for teens
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If the Sonic franchise was aimed at teens, Shadow the Hedgehog would've been better
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I would think that Shadow the hedgehog was aimed at teens, or at least what SEGA thought they would like. Look at what they did..
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Apparently, SEGA got the idea to create it from a boy sending a letter in suggesting that Sonic should have a gun. Shadow was originally meant to be darker
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That's actually a scary thought.. lol
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Blood was made green and the word 'piss' (Sonic mentioned pissing someone off) was changed to 'tick'
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Interesting, I didn't know that. I should go look it up some more and see what else I can find out.
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