sonicgarden/content/hottakes/lost-world.md

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2023-06-10 17:00:27 +02:00
# Fixing Lost World
The story of Sonic Lost World isn't bad in itself. The biggest three problem are for me it's pacing, the personnality of the D6 and Tails' Reaction. Contrary to a lot of them, I wouldn't change Eggman final twist, that was a good way of returning the classic twist of "Eggman is replaced by the monster of the week at the end".
- A bit more of a personallity around the Zeti, and maybe a bit of a lore ? We know that they are sorta-aliens, sorta-based on the Oni... Maybe shomething could be done with that ? And no "fat joke". Basically, give them a lore of gardian-turned-evil of the land, make their cruelty… And a big part could be that they were some kind of alien posing for gods/spirits (to play with the fact that they are based of a mythological type of creatures), and for them being feared is how people should act against them. For them, Sonic and, even worse for them, Eggman actions against them where complete humiliation, making their vengeance something totally petty but that is "normal" for them (as "lower life forms" shouldn't treat them like that). I wouldn't change their design though, in order to make them laughable… until they become really big threat.
- Maybe turn Tails reaction more a show about his anxiety ? I mean, he could over-react (that could be more interesting), but maybe make his over-reaction more natural, and about something more logicial than "you trust Eggman more than me". And maybe make it more passive, with Tails visibly having trouble with the situation, feeling useless, and maybe Sonic failing to see that. Something interesting would be that Sonic fail to see that because he want to repair his own mistake, Eggman don't care, but Orbot is especially usefull to talk with Tails (it would make him more usefull to the whole story, and see him accepting to listen how someone feel, and having no trouble to talk about feeling would make him a more likable character). And when Tails is captured, maybe make him do something reckless to help Sonic (something that would be useful, not making him do something completely stupid, but that would have been safer if Sonic did it) in order to feel worth it). And at that moment, Sonic only realise that Tails was feeling bad for the whole game, and feels more guilty.
- A bit better pacing. For instance, the whole part of the final act of the story, where everybody is gone and stuff, should have been a bit longer to let it have more time to affect the player. And about Tails mental control… I would make that it would be Tails capacity alone that would have solved that, but in two part : First him hacking the computer would be how he made it less effective, and secondly he would take time to overcome him from willpower (and if we want some drama, maybe just before shooting Sonic, while he is apologize to our dear fox xD)
TBH, except "removing some bad joke", and adding some "in-level" dialogue à la Forces to make them feel more alive, there is no much more to "fix" the story. It would solve the three biggest problem of the story, and make it a rather enjoyable story, while keeping the most important point (Sonic having to learn from his failure, drama between Sonic and Tails, etc) and making them more effective and more visible.
Because I think that Lost World biggest problem isn't the ideas of its story. It's that the writing make the point of the story buried under a lot of writing problem. Forces have - for me - the exact same problem.
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That's where I disagree xD Not by principle, but because it's what we have in most game (even Sonic) nowadays. So it would be more interesting now to have a seriously-taken story that isn't about the whole planet (or maybe like in Adventure/Battle where it is about the whole planet during the final act, but even that isn't necessary now in my mind).
I would like them to stop having to make the WHOLE PLANET in danger in nearly each game (even in some games like Lost World !). So I don't feel that as needed I really would like a game where Sonic save people, a city, something, and not the whole world is at stake, because it feels sometimes pretty artificial.
I feel that world-level stake shouldn't be there all the time in Sonic games, but should be there sometimes with other kind of threat the other times (a bit like during the Adventure era, when we got games where the whole planet wasn't always at stake… And even in game where it was at stake, it wasn't always the point and sometimes appeard only during the final act). I mean, one of the point of the character of Sonic is that he will stop just to save even one person.
It would be a more interesting use of the character imho, after more than a decade of "THE WHOLE WORLD IS IN DANGER"-type stakes.