Does "seriousness" belong in a series like Sonic?

Absolutely. Sonic is for autists and autists eat that shit up. The cringier, the better.

Is he fine with taking candy from a baby or is he fine with it being easy?

We need a game where shadow goes around massacring all the tranny hedgehogs. Now THAT would be kino

>edgy character going around killing edgy characters
it would be Yas Forums the video game.

Sonic as a character works the best when he pushes back against a stronger force. You really need seriousness to pull it off

Manhunt exists

Yes, but the problem is a group of Sonic fans want it to go into full on ridiculous melodrama. When even SA2's story wasn't that serious or focused. Certain fans have just hyped it up as some really complex and detailed plot that you need to play in Japanese to truly appreciate. No it just has some serious ideas, treated with respect but is more focused on the simple and even comedic adventures of two teams. Sonic stories work best in broad ideas, usually with Sonic not being the focal point of the actual story but a force within it.

>I don't see what's so different with Shadow.
The problem is Shadow fans, not the character himself. Though at this point he does feel somewhat needlessly inserted. Sonic Team keeps chasing what they think Shadow fans want, which either leads to him becoming more bland or really dump.

It has to be cartoon animals to be edgy enough to qualify as Yas Forums the video game.

Only up to a certain degree. SA1 and Unleashed is the most serious I'd go. Shadow and 06 and even SA2 at moments were just cringe.

Naught Bear

>NOOO YOU CAN'T HAVE SERIOUS MOMENTS IN MY CHILDRENS MEDIA!!!!!!!

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The "seriousness" Sonic needs is not necessarily a serious story, but a serious attempt at making a story. Pontac and Graff's mind-numbing schlock has worn out its welcome, there's no substance to anything they write, just mindless quips. The 3D Sonic games would certainly benefit from having competent writers trying to make something a little more cohesive.

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>Children's

Autists, user. Sonic is for autists, not children. Normal children like good things.

Idiot wojak poster can't read of course. SA1 and Unleashed executed it well, the whole game wasn't serious but you had serious moments sprinkled in when it was fitting. Shadow and 06 and Last Story in SA2 were just melodrama bullshit.

It can be there but you also have to realize you're setting it in a world of talking cartoon animals. You have to set some kind of grounding, tonally or featwise otherwise it just feels stupid from the juxtaposition. Heroes was the only game in Adventure era that got this right.

SA2 was when Shadow was at his best. Just being a goofy antihero that said shit like "I'm the coolest!"

I would argue that Sonic Adventure sort of had a similar thing going on that Unleashed and SA1. The overall tone was a lot more serious, so it wasn't that jarring for something like Shadow to be in it.

06 really shows that Sonic does not work as the lead protagonist in a story, unless you do what the movie did and basically regress his character to a younger self. But normal confident Sonic doesn't work, not in a traditional way. Having some FF princess talking about her life, wants and other boring stuff then this cereal mascot rocks up going "YO PRINCESS I FORGET THE NAME OF DON'T WORRY FRIENDSHIP IS ALRIGHT!" Which makes her bond with him and want to fuck. Maybe it would have worked if she was a more interesting character and bounced off Sonic rather than trying to make both protagonist.

Heroes did it well too but all the cheesy lines kinda ruin it. I can do without Sonic constantly saying WE'RE SONIC HEROES.

Team Dark ending was pure kino though. I wish Shadow the Hedgehog didn't ruin its potential.

Trips have spoken. It is kino.

I wouldn't call Shadow trying to crash the Ark into Earth "goofy", but he does have his moments

>sonic character
>developed

>You have to set some kind of grounding, tonally or featwise
> Heroes was the only game in Adventure era that got this right.
Heroes? The game where between levels you are just transported to random fantastical locations without justification. Where 90% of the story is team arrives at locastion and goes "wow what is this place better find the eggman's robots" and "hello other team contrived reason we must fight!" There is no grounding and it is tonally all over the place. Cartoon animals don't mean the world has to be completely fantastical, it just means you need to make everywhere look like it could have their types live there. No one could live in the world Heroes presents.

How the fuck is pic related serious?
Do you have brain problems?

Series like Ratchet, Sly, Jak and Rayman have all done it before and it was great.
I don't see why Sonic should be the exception.

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Yes
Reminder that retarded lines like this can be blamed on the Treehouse-tier localization team, as most of them were not in the japanese version

>06 really shows that Sonic does not work as the lead protagonist in a story
I thought he was fine in Black Knight

That's a stupid question. The Adventure games, Heroes, Shadow, and 06 are all "serious", yet they still have completely different tones. """serious"""" doesn't mean jack shit. But let's discuss where it does and doesn't work, anyway.
The Adventure games are serious, but also very unintentionally campy. They feel like bad action flicks which actually works amazingly in Sonic's favor since it plays so well with his "cool" shtick. It helps a lot that the anthropomorphic characters aren't seen onscreen alongside realistic humans very often, so dichotomy between the two isn't so jarring. Even when they are onscreen together, though, the very "anime" aesthetic of the more grounded human characters makes them feel slightly less foreign than in later games.
Heroes is just the Adventure tone but with genesis design elements slapped in lazily, no humans aside from Eggman as far as I can remember, and a way dumber plot, not worth discussing.
Shadow is closer to Adventure's tone, but the overly edgy nature of the dialogue and somewhat silly story beats makes it so that you're laughing at the game more often than you should be. Also the CYOA nature of the narrative really hurts cohesion if you're switching from route to route.
06' is a perfect example of how not to handle serious elements in a Sonic game. The story is a complete train-wreck, it takes itself far too seriously despite nothing having emotional weight to it, Sonic interacting with what are basically realistic humans is uncanny at best. Nothing here works.

>Heroes
>serious

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Best post itt. Even a very comedic story would be fine if it had actual narrative cohesion, something Sonic stories have lacked for a long time.

Is it not? I'll admit I've not played it in ages, I generally don't go out of my way to play garbage.
I just remember it going for some dumb, overly complex anime plot about Metal Sonic trying to become the ultimate life form or something. Also it introduced Shadow's really stupid amnesia plot line, didn't it? Chaotix were pretty lighthearted, but every Sonic game has comedy relief in it, even 06'.

>I just remember it going for some dumb, overly complex anime plot about Metal Soni
Which you only get a hint of at the end of each story and then the last episode. Most of the story is dry to comedic filler dialogue to explain why you are heading forwards. Heroes barely even has a story really.

I think people keep getting something wrong. The problem with nu-Sonic isnt that it's not "serious" enough, it's that none of it feels genuine, if that makes sense.
Compare SA2 and Forces. Even if you think Last Story was too serious, you cant tell me that Forces doesn't feel like the most cynical and bland product ever made in comparison.

>Most of the story is dry to comedic filler dialogue to explain why you are heading forwards.
Wow, Sonic Heroes really was ahead of its time, basically a nuSonic era plot stuck in an Adventure era game.

They really need a new writing staff on Sonic, yeah. Part of me wonders if it's just a byproduct of our current cultural landscape, though. Sonic has always been designed around whatever was cool at the time. In the 90's that meant he was anti-authoritarian and radical, and in the 10's that means being heavily ironic and generally disingenuous.

If it's done and balanced right, yes. SA1 worked fine enough and SA2, albeit toned way the fuck up, was still fine too.

Characters had development back when the games were good

Shadow meant that the task being easy was fine by him since he expected it to be difficult, not that he would be fine with taking candy from a baby which would be a pointless endeavor in and of itself. How can people not understand such a simple scene?

>Sonic Heroes really was ahead of its time, basically a nuSonic era plot
Yep. It is why I always find the moderner Sonic stories ruined the series stuff silly. Sonic has had tonal and story problems for a long time. No matter who it gets handed to, they've never been able to hit the weird niche the Adventure games got right. With their most obvious attempts to capture it being 06 and Forces. Seems like these days everyone here complains about Hesse Sonic but at least it is tonally consistent and and allowed the staff to have fun with the possibilities.

No.

Do people complain about Hesse's work? That's odd, I honestly think his vision of Sonic is the most cohesive and fleshed out that we've seen in a long time, despite his works being limited to shorts. He's a lot of fun and I'm glad Sega seems to be interested in keeping him on long term, hopefully he'll continue contributing to the series.

Only jealous Adventurebabbies complain about Hesse.

>Do people complain about Hesse's work?
Yep, while a fair amount is shitposting there is certainly a group that hate it for being more comedic. Despite it handling it way better than other current Sonic properties. Lot of not muh Sonic, which is ironic as SA was the first case of older fans going not muh sonic. There was some video being spammed for a while on how modern Sonic needs to change, but Hesse didn't count and Sonic needed to be like SA2. Not that I'd mind seeing that tone again done properly.

I miss Gamma

It's a game about cartoon animals with giant heads, what do you think

Sonic and it's characters are inherently shallow, thus never had the foundation to have serious stories. And that's the reason Sonic being serious is laughable and only requested by autists.
>Ratchet
R&C started out as a character-driven and doing capitalist commentary. Its foundation inherently had serious aspects and yet it still knew how to balance itself since it was still a game franchise about a colorful alien cat and cute robot.
>Sly
Again, started and established itself as a character-driven mystery series that knew never to be too serious.
>Jak
It started out balanced with serious and lighthearted but it then tarnished it's reputation among the general populace once it got too serious.
>Rayman
Wait, are you calling Rayman serious just because it the plots have serious repercussions for the world? Because that's flimsy since the tone is still very lighthearted.

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I'm willing to bet this thread was made by a butthurt Adventurefag when it was pointed out that Eggman is the most liked Sonic character due to him being the character to be the most consistently lighthearted, goofy, and entertaining without needing lots of lore or drama.

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Conker's Bad Fur Day

You cant make a cartoon hedgehog serious.

What about that makes it impossible to have serious characters?

>NOOOOOOOO SONIC HAS TO BE LIKE MARIO!!!!

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Yas Forums will whine that cartoon animals can't have serious stories, then start soifacing over explorers of sky, and not even notice the irony.

be like Mario if he real

It has to be awkwardly edgy while trying to be serious, with cartoon animals.

Black Knight is so underrated. Sonic choosing to be the “villain” and telling Merlina her world needs to end was kino as fuck.
m.youtube.com/watch?v=L9I9qsKJL5s

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I HAVE AN ANNOUNCEMENT TO MAKE

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