I like Sonic, as a corporate, business and cultural icon, what it represents, and the base designs of its characters seem adorable (it depends on the artist) and how urban and natural can be presented at the same time.
Now, for me, Sonic is a metaphor, and it is from the moment that it combines nature and technology, speed and restriction, capitalism and humanity, passion and obligation.
-a rugged metaphor of progress (any kind) of our own reality:
The contradiction of seeking harmony with our environment but filling everything with unnecessary technological devices (propellants perhaps?) that offer easy and condescending solutions instead of trying to re-educate ourselves with new ways of approaching our relationships with that environment.
//If Shadow and Sonic's speed levels were planned in a totally new way, favoring speed streaks and momentum in a greener way (architecturally speaking) with width and fewer obstacles, thrusters would not be necessary nor most of the paraphernalia that plague the game. I understand that in purely diegetic reasons, everything makes a certain sense, but the design of these phases drags archaic values from the 90s into the new century with the excuse "Sonic was always like this". Consequence of our reality: tradition and hierarchical conventionalism weighs down
It's a metaphor for preadolescence. The need to act on your own, free. To get everywhere quickly and for everything to come fast (uhh) and with style... but then the world itself stops you dead (with spikes) hindering your progress and development, giving you some candy, some loop, so that you feel that there is a certain freedom, that something better will come. But no, it's a lie, the freedom to move in the world is a lie, and sooner or later you'll realize it.
Sonic may not be Cervantes' Tableau of Wonders, but just like that tale, shoots into our modern reality by accident.
Through some natural layer scenarios that we navigate with a speed that is inappropriate for the appropriate rhythms (that Rogue speed?) Plagued by technological devices that facilitate or dictate the path, but that trample on the harmony of the places, a diegetic picture is created. full of contradictions that are used as an excuse. Nature vs machines, but Sonic uses devices to move and fight.
It's a hedgehog, but anthropomorphic. Wear sneakers, gloves and drink cocktails on a lounger.
Is it a contradiction, or a consequence?
We live in a society that is constantly striving for progress, but we are still reluctant to change. We advance on a natural land full of devices that steal a certain meaning and coherence from our world, with speed and pleasure, also with suffering. even the protagonists seem to be crossed by some contradictions with a Sonic who is confident and sure of identity and his freedoms as usual, until he meets Shadow, someone who rivals those skills in a cruder way, more anti heroic and less romantic.
__
It would be easy to say that Sonic Adventure 2 doesn't work as it should, at least in a purely mechanical sense, and that's no lie. I've spent more than 25 hours divided into 3 versions (played on original hardware) and in all of them I've had absurd collision problems - Cannon's Core is one of the worst in the game, with that Eggman sequence, it's incredible that the cube itself that it's supposed to lifting you up can permanently cut off your booster, dropping you into the void with no chance of recovery, something that is otherwise common in a number of ways throughout the game.
and enemy positioning - I am against positioning obstacles in a clear and absolutely understandable way, but there is a fine line between randomness and disdain for the player to the poorest construction, and here a poor construction of the playing space is offered through of the enemies-
Question: Are the rings a form of real recovery, or a condescending way to relieve the frustration of the inevitable impacts?
Because I can accept losing 67 rings in a single impact -something that on the other hand is a design decision resulting from bad planning carried over from the first Sonic, you know, from when Sonic was going to be a rabbit that grabbed things, another conflict of conception- but I do not accept that there is not a precise calibration in the chains of enemies.
-Adventure comes out in the same year as Super Monkey Ball, which for me takes the concept of physical exploitation of inertia and collision to a level that Sonic never reached. A year later, from the hand of Oshima, Blinx arrives, which takes the concept of disintegrated and impossible platform spaces to another level, offering the possibility of controlling its elements through time management, and also in that same year Sly Cooper appears , which would later offer drama and furry adventurous action with constant shifts in its core playable in an elegant way, and with real combat tools.
It is not about an empty comparison, it is the "Sonic effect", something invisible that opened up possibilities on several fronts in a few decades where corporate mascots and furries saw themselves with different eyes, and who had, more or less clearly, what they wanted. they wanted to be, in concept and operability. Sonic seems clear on concept, but has a hard time finding an operational aesthetic that evolves or is even cohesive.
In any case, Adventure 2 has opened my eyes to many issues and, as I said before, it shoots reality in a very strange way for what it is, I admire that, even if it's coincidence.
Lets dive in Sonic Robo Blast 2.
Now, for me, Sonic is a metaphor, and it is from the moment that it combines nature and technology, speed and restriction, capitalism and humanity, passion and obligation.
-a rugged metaphor of progress (any kind) of our own reality:
The contradiction of seeking harmony with our environment but filling everything with unnecessary technological devices (propellants perhaps?) that offer easy and condescending solutions instead of trying to re-educate ourselves with new ways of approaching our relationships with that environment.
//If Shadow and Sonic's speed levels were planned in a totally new way, favoring speed streaks and momentum in a greener way (architecturally speaking) with width and fewer obstacles, thrusters would not be necessary nor most of the paraphernalia that plague the game. I understand that in purely diegetic reasons, everything makes a certain sense, but the design of these phases drags archaic values from the 90s into the new century with the excuse "Sonic was always like this". Consequence of our reality: tradition and hierarchical conventionalism weighs down
It's a metaphor for preadolescence. The need to act on your own, free. To get everywhere quickly and for everything to come fast (uhh) and with style... but then the world itself stops you dead (with spikes) hindering your progress and development, giving you some candy, some loop, so that you feel that there is a certain freedom, that something better will come. But no, it's a lie, the freedom to move in the world is a lie, and sooner or later you'll realize it.
Sonic may not be Cervantes' Tableau of Wonders, but just like that tale, shoots into our modern reality by accident.
Through some natural layer scenarios that we navigate with a speed that is inappropriate for the appropriate rhythms (that Rogue speed?) Plagued by technological devices that facilitate or dictate the path, but that trample on the harmony of the places, a diegetic picture is created. full of contradictions that are used as an excuse. Nature vs machines, but Sonic uses devices to move and fight.
It's a hedgehog, but anthropomorphic. Wear sneakers, gloves and drink cocktails on a lounger.
Is it a contradiction, or a consequence?
We live in a society that is constantly striving for progress, but we are still reluctant to change. We advance on a natural land full of devices that steal a certain meaning and coherence from our world, with speed and pleasure, also with suffering. even the protagonists seem to be crossed by some contradictions with a Sonic who is confident and sure of identity and his freedoms as usual, until he meets Shadow, someone who rivals those skills in a cruder way, more anti heroic and less romantic.
__
It would be easy to say that Sonic Adventure 2 doesn't work as it should, at least in a purely mechanical sense, and that's no lie. I've spent more than 25 hours divided into 3 versions (played on original hardware) and in all of them I've had absurd collision problems - Cannon's Core is one of the worst in the game, with that Eggman sequence, it's incredible that the cube itself that it's supposed to lifting you up can permanently cut off your booster, dropping you into the void with no chance of recovery, something that is otherwise common in a number of ways throughout the game.
and enemy positioning - I am against positioning obstacles in a clear and absolutely understandable way, but there is a fine line between randomness and disdain for the player to the poorest construction, and here a poor construction of the playing space is offered through of the enemies-
Question: Are the rings a form of real recovery, or a condescending way to relieve the frustration of the inevitable impacts?
Because I can accept losing 67 rings in a single impact -something that on the other hand is a design decision resulting from bad planning carried over from the first Sonic, you know, from when Sonic was going to be a rabbit that grabbed things, another conflict of conception- but I do not accept that there is not a precise calibration in the chains of enemies.
-Adventure comes out in the same year as Super Monkey Ball, which for me takes the concept of physical exploitation of inertia and collision to a level that Sonic never reached. A year later, from the hand of Oshima, Blinx arrives, which takes the concept of disintegrated and impossible platform spaces to another level, offering the possibility of controlling its elements through time management, and also in that same year Sly Cooper appears , which would later offer drama and furry adventurous action with constant shifts in its core playable in an elegant way, and with real combat tools.
It is not about an empty comparison, it is the "Sonic effect", something invisible that opened up possibilities on several fronts in a few decades where corporate mascots and furries saw themselves with different eyes, and who had, more or less clearly, what they wanted. they wanted to be, in concept and operability. Sonic seems clear on concept, but has a hard time finding an operational aesthetic that evolves or is even cohesive.
In any case, Adventure 2 has opened my eyes to many issues and, as I said before, it shoots reality in a very strange way for what it is, I admire that, even if it's coincidence.
Lets dive in Sonic Robo Blast 2.
MalditoMur
1 year ago
Offcourse I could say that same lack of operational static is what impulsed me to get so obsessed with it for a while because there is nothing else like it in the whole franchise. Sonic Heroes gets the eyegaze sections entirely on-rails with no skippable possibility which further poisoned the next games imo. Unleashed is the closest one, albeit in a much ordered aesthetic change, which will probably suit better if you dont care for some GADOF GÜOR extravaganza.