pixelrushiguess

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Okay, so I know you found Shadow Gens’ story to be disappointing.

Now I know your opinion is yours and all, but personally speaking, I have to disagree. While I do agree it could’ve been done a bit better, I found Shadow Gens’ story to be a MASSIVE improvement over Frontiers’ (largely because Sonic Team and the lore team kept a tighter leash on Flynn this time around; guess they really wanted to make sure Shadow was presented with the respect he deserves)

I do somewhat agree that the plot point of Shadow wanting to save Gerald and Maria from their fate was underbaked, which I think is largely because they don’t have enough moments together/interaction (NPC dialogue notwithstanding). Personally, I would’ve made that Shadow meets Gerald and Maria at the beginning as opposed to the middle of the game. But I still enjoyed the moments we got regardless. And while I do think it could’ve benefited from a little more “oomph”, I still loved the ending. It actually made me a little emotional, unlike any of the “emotional” moments of Fronteirs 😂

All in all, Shadow Gens story could’ve been better, but I think what we got was still very good (keep in mind, this is coming from someone who initially had zero hope for it prior to its release). It’s clear this game was made to introduce Shadow and his backstory to newcomers, and I think on that note it succeeded.

I agree it was a huge step up from Frontiers, but only because I think Frontiers is such a miserable experience. I'm glad you got something out of it, I wish I could say the same. But I didn't hate it.

[pixelrushiguess]

Hey, since I see you here and on other social media spending a lot of time complaining about Sonic IDW, Frontiers, and Shadow Gens, I wanna ask: how would you have handled those things if you had wrote them?

You talk a lot of talk but can you back it up?

I'm not gonna go into a whole thing about it, but the gist is keep the characters in character and make sure the story actually has a point. I think those are the two biggest problems with Sonic stories.

Frontiers actually has something to say, but no one feels like themselves.

Shadow Gens has better characterisation, but poorly conveys it's message, making the story feel aimless.

And IDW fails at both.

I only complain because I love this series and it's characters, they're timeless and they're charming. So when a story sands down all their edges and sucks out all the life out of them, it's a shame. I genuinely believe that Sonic wouldn't have as big a following as it does now if the games were always written the way they are now.

In my humble little opinion.

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Art block is really kicking my ass, so here's an unsorted bunch of nothings to note progress.

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Rouge The Bat. Smash or Pass?

Well...

I mean...

You know...

Smash.

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Do you have a favorite Mario game?

I’m not crazy about a lot of Mario games to be honest. They’re obviously all very well made, but I can never really get into them. They always get 10/10 reviews from every news outlet or content creator. But in my opinion I don’t think any of them come close to a ten.

In terms of my favourites, I liked Sunshine, bits of Odyssey, 3D world and Wonder is sort of a close second. I like a lot of what Wonder was going for, but I wanted it to go bigger with it’s ideas and get even weirder than it already was.

That’s not to say any of the games are bad, I just vibe with them. I think they lack personality. I’m not saying they need to have super detailed stories or whatever, I’d just like the characters to be able to express themselves more. The Mario cast have so much potential to be fun and charming but they never really get the chance. It’s why I appreciate the Mario and Luigi games even if I haven’t played them.

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Does Amy find Shadow hot?

Do Silver's parents have powers like him?

What is Blaze saying?

Is Shadow looking forward to the holidays?

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Notice how after the Metal Virus, everybody just went back to the status quo, like it never even happened in the first place???

Urban Warfare was the worst example cuz it was stated that city was growing and consuming anything in its path, but we didn’t see any of that.

It was tell, but don’t show.

This is why I really hate how IDW writes Sonic. It tries so hard to deconstruct him and this dumb philosophy the writers made up, but they never actually say anything. Sonic being a pretentious hypocrite is such a huge focus of the story, but it's never explored. Every decision Sonic makes in IDW makes things worse and it never punishes him because we have to reset by the end of the arc. So we have an entire comic where the main character never acts like themselves, constantly makes stupid decisions and is never called out. Not that it would matter because if Sonic was written properly, no one would HAVE to call him out. It's such a shame.

[pixelrushiguess]

Saw the recent anon asks and wanted to chip in with my thoughts as a huge fan of your work! I think your read of Amy's character is incredibly on point, but the biggest point of friction seems to be your assertion that it's equally consistent across all of the games when it just... isn't, unfortunately. The way you describe her fits in perfectly for SA1, SA2, and Shadow the Hedgehog. In the Adventure games Amy makes a specific point that she misses the adventures with Sonic. she still has her crush on him, of course, but more than anything Amy really just wants to do good and be apart of team- hell in SA2 she even makes it a point about how much she hates everyone running off without her! While she has a smaller role in Shadow it's much of the same, she's there to help out and be apart of the big adventure against the Black Arms! The problem is that characterization doesn't persist for very long, as because of media like Sonic X Amy's crush quickly became a bigger and bigger focus of her character- and it negatively impacted her AND Sonic. Moments of Sonic and Amy having a mutual kind of flirty dynamic (like the scene of her helping Sonic on Prison Island) instead turned into Sonic being repulsed by her for comedic effect, and that stuck for a while. That became Amy's loudest character trait and punchline, which does her so much disservice when we've seen her be an actual character. I think certain people (like the previous two anons) are exaggerating it, as Amy still has great moments in just about every game she's in, but they're just that: moments. We haven't had a really good cohesive Amy for a long while, and given Ian's current direction of her character (or lack there of) we're kind of stuck for the moment, and it's so wild because Adventure 1 and 2 balanced it so damn wonderfully... and yet, it seems like most writers didn't learn anything from it. :<

I get that, but I also respectfully disagree. Yes a lot of her personality was played for laughs, but I don't think that's a bad thing. Especially when stuff like Sonic X still managed to showcase her other qualities and strengths. Amy always had her own agency and I personally don't think that was ever lost even in places where her character is exaggerated for comedic purposes.

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Sally Claus?

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Don't want to sound like a chode here, but: "Amy was never blindly obsessive" Have you played Sonic Heroes?? Or Sonic Battle?? Or Sonic Riders?? Or even Black Knight where she beats the shit out of him after the credits?? The only games she's not obsessive or sidelined in are the Adventure Games and *Sonic Shuffle*. I don't like what Ian is doing either, but come on man, be for real. :L

In Heroes she was helping Cream and Big. Yeah she wanted to find Sonic, but she put Cream and Big first. That scene with Team Sonic is always misinterpreted because it’s a call back to SA2 and she’s obviously just teasing him. She wants to prove herself to Sonic.

In Battle she’s certainly trying to impress Sonic by taking care of Emerl, but it’s also established that she’s got other things going on like teaching a class in self defence to young women. And even then she’s still protecting Emerl with her life.

In Sonic riders she joins the Grand Prix to get close to Sonic, which isn’t out of character. But she’s also the only one who directly tries to catch Eggman when he finds Babylon Garden. Like she’s not even really kidnapped by Eggman, she willingly chases after him.

And In Black Knight she gets stood up on a date by Sonic, boy had it coming.

Amy’s motivation is usually focused on Sonic, but reducing her solely to being obsessive is a disservice to her strength as a character. Amy is no different than Tails, she chases Sonic around because she admires him and strives to be like him, it’s just portrayed in a more traditionally feminine way. If Amy’s obsessive, then Tails has gotta be too. It’s a double standard.

And it’s fine to not like how Amy was or to prefer how she is now, but for me it feels like most of the flack Amy gets is misinformed and inaccurate.

[pixelrushiguess]

“Everything Amy has been criticised for is based off of bad faith arguments or willfull ignorance. She was never blindly obsessed or a crazy fangirl, she always had her own thing going on and she was the heart of the group.”

Tell me you’re blinded by nostalgia without telling me you’re being blinded by nostalgia.

I’m not. Play the games.

[pixelrushiguess]

So I'm probably gonna be all hands on deck for this year's Christmas video. So in the meantime, how about we do some more #AskTheSonicGang stuff? #SonicTheHedghog #sallyacorn #bunnierabbot

[pixelrushiguess]

Do you think that they're going in the right overall direction with Amy's character now? Of course there has been a MASSIVE overcorrection but I personally I HATED 2010's blindly obsessive Amy much more than modern Amy. What do you think would be a good balance?

It might be interesting to see if they take her character in an entirely different direction too, but we'll just have to see.

You must be new here.

I'm not gonna go into a big discussion, but in short I absolutely hate what they've done to Amy as she's one of my favourite characters. Everything Amy has been criticised for is based off of bad faith arguments or willfull ignorance. She was never blindly obsessed or a crazy fangirl, she always had her own thing going on and she was the heart of the group.

But anyway like I said, I'm not gonna get into it.

[pixelrushiguess]

So, I saw that you made a video about your thoughts on Shadow Generations’ story…

Have you ever thought about making one for Sonic Frontiers’ story?

Yes, but it would probably be very long and I don't have a lot of nice things to say about it.

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THE PAINFULLY AVERAGE STORY OF SHADOW GENERATIONS

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When Sonic met Samus

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Amy gives you a pep talk.