Kotaku
A Sonic role-playing game may seem like a real head scratcher at first, but with BioWare behind Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood it has to be good. Anything less than a stellar RPG adventure would violate some universal law, we're sure of it. The only problem? Sonic's shitty friends, the hangers-on who get way too involved, taking valuable screen time away from Sega's mascot.
MTV Multiplayer's Stephen Totilo asked BioWare founders Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk about the challenge of making, say, Rouge the Bat or Big the Cat tolerable to play.
"I think maybe the challenge there, if people are not as excited about having the friends, is making them worthwhile, making them a good part of the game," Zeschuk says. "They're not going to be gimmicky. They're not going to be side things. It is actually a core part of the gameplay mechanic. It's actually, we think, going to revitalize the love of the Sonic friends, especially Big the Cat."
We'll give it a fighting chance and promise to go in with an open mind. We might even learn to... like Shadow the Hedgehog in some tiny way. But you've got your work cut out for you BioWare.
BioWare: New RPG Will 'Revitalize The Love Of The Sonic Friends' [MTV Multiplayer]
Comments
gl with that
Nothing can make me like sonics shitty friends...Iv hated them ever since tailskept losing all the fuckign rings in the bonus stages of sonic2.
Big the Cat was such a pain in the ass to play in Sonic Adventure. Nobody likes fishing games. NOBODY!
I am seriously torn by this. I love Bioware game but I hate Sonic and every supporting character that's ever graced his games.
I like knuckles and tails. What gives!?
Big's been useless all along!
Well at this point I should just be excited for the hell of it. Seeing as anything will be better than the sonic games past Adventure 2. Who knows maybe this is just what sonic needs. I'm hoping this will be as amazing as Mario RPG.
+ Watch video
@Guild_Navigator: How can somebody hate Sonic the Hedgehog. :-(
furry porn with touching using stylus confirmed? JAY KAY!
I hated Mallow and Geno too, but that didn't stop Super Mario LoTSS from being a FANTASTIC RPG. If BioWare works hard enough on this, it could be fantastic.
What's the point of Sonic bashing?
Seriously you don't see me going "hey that guy from Bioshock is a total ass because he walks" do you?
I love all those guys. Without them my slash fiction would be pretty boring.
i think this looks awesome... all i can think of looking at that is taht this is somehow the spiritual successor to the super mario rpg... which was a truly awesome game.
mind you. sonic is about as 1 dimensional a character as possible.
regardless this is going to be cool.
The only thing to do with Big is euthanasia. That goes for any character in the Sonic franchise after Sonic and Knuckles and any character created in the comics or TV show.
This is my favorite Kotaku article headline ever. XD
The only 2 I can tolerate at all are Knuckles and Tails, because they were in the old Sonic games when I was a kid. Everyone that came in after the Sonic & Knuckles game on the Genesis can just die. Including Shadow.
I actually like Big the Cat -_- I dunno about any of the characters that showed up post Sonic Adventure 1 though. I think it's mostly Big's design that I like though, kind of a sucker for lumbering goofy characters.
Let me play as a Chao please, way better than most of the retarded Sonic's Animal Pals Funtime characters.
I doubt it, nothing can make me love sonics shitty friends
Wow, serious hate-on here! I like Sonic ... he has a few too many "friends," but the core one's are cool -- especially those up to Sonic Adventure. So, I'm fine with Tails, Knuckles, Amy, Big, etc ... and, I'll definitely be picking this up. Should be fun!
@WaterMedia: the title made me laugh. Good one, McWhertor.
Oy, Knuckles was the shit!
...wait, remove "the".
No matter if it's BioWare behind this, the game will suck. It has to. It's a Sonic... RPG. How does that mix? Right, it doesn't.
It's like making a Halo RTS.
Oh shi-
@AnthraxJunkie: I hate you. I love Knuckles.
He's just so badass.
Amy's been around longer than Knuckles, you know.
Doesn't make her any less insufferable though.
@Candlejack: I'm sure that's what people first said about peanut butter and jelly. Ok maybe not but prolly the same thing about mario and rpg? But guess who's getting a DS for this? It's me! Oh man I really hope there is some hardcore knuckles action.
Tails and Amy I could live without.
Knuckles and Shadow are cool though.
And I wanna fuck Rouge.
hmm I reckon BioWare has the right idea, making us like Sonics friends. I can picture it out:
"Touching Amy" mingame where you have to use the stylus to lift her skirt and "hammer" her home.
"Sonar Shout Rouge" minigame -scream into the mic to confuse rouge so you can rip off her wings with the stylus.
"Big, BIG Cat" tapping the L/R button and blow into the mic to pump up Big the cat till he explodes, later on you run into a clone of Big. You have to force him to eat froggy then drown him.
Yes I think I'm going to like Sonics Shitty friends :)
@Dopeski: Because he's everything I hate about modern heroes rolled into one character. His Arrogance and XXXXXtreem tude ruin him. To make a Simpsons reference, he's the Poochie of videogames.
@Dopeski: H...HE?! *burns stuck together picturebook, stained doll*
*cries*
Knuckles is a badass, so there.
When are game developers going to realize that the franchise died over a decade ago?
@Guild_Navigator: ironic!
Nothing wrong with Tails or Knuckles. As for the others. . .well, Amy's alright. And Shadow could be alright if they stopped trying to shove the "He's an emo badass" down our throats. Everyone else is worthless, though, so I'm curious how Bioware's going to make us like them.
@silentbobfan: The saturday morning show from the mid-90s was... okay. Sonic was occasionally insufferable, but when you want serial cartoons and haven't heard of anime yet, you'll take what you can get.
@Guild_Navigator: I grew up playing Sonic the Hedgehog on the Genesis and watching his old television shows. Those were great. I've never liked any new game or show made with Sonic since Sonic Adventure 2.
If Bioware can make me love the other Sonic characters other than Tails and Knuckles, I will gracefull get down on my knees and blow anyone and everyone working on this project.
Never liked any of them other than Knuckles and ED-109. You know what's surprisingly fun though? Sonic Heroes for the Gamecube. Closest thing to a great Sonic game that we've seen in awhile (or since).
Please help us Bioware - you're our only hope!
I hope Tails doll makes an appearance.
"Froggy?! Where are you??"
Call me a furry, I don't care, I think Rouge is hot and would play a game with only her. >.>
God, I am such a loser . . .
I don't understand the Shadow hate. He was so hot in SA2 Battle :(
lol, how's Shadow emo? Besides the fact that he's black
Am I the only person in the universe that hates all the BioWare games? KOTAR and Mass Effect are pretty boring to me.
I can see it working, it is Bioware after all.
But, Sonic is all about speed. Think about the first stage of the first game; you were supposed to race through that. RPGs and speed just don't sit next to each other comfortably.
And on the subject of characters everyone hates - the dog from Duck Hunt should get a game.
Don't get me started on Jade Empire BTW
Am I the only one with an overwhelming urge to just refer to it as Sonicles? Sonic Chronicles is just too long and it works perfectly!
Did anybody else see Chrono Trigger in that screen for about 2 seconds? It doesn't look quite as good as that (though the sprites are decent) upon further examination, but yeah.
I got a small chill.
I could care less about the Sonic story, like Mario its incidental to the fact that there have been some awesome games with the character. I try to avoid the ones that look bad, like many of the recent games, but I still love the 2D Sonic stuff, and this reminds me of it, a little Mario RPG...I'm just saying this might be good, and I don't care who is in it. They can't be any stupider than Geno from Mario RPG, IMO =P
The only thing that bugs me about Sonic's friends is their voices. Well, except Marine. She's terrible no matter what.
BIG THE CAT was fun to play in Sonic Adventure! I LIKE FISHING GAMES! I really hope this game has fishing! (Hitta!)
Nothing can make me like any 3D Sonic characters that came out after Adventure 2.
Past Tails and Knuckles, I've never really been fond of the Sonic pals. I'll give older ones, like Amy, a pass. But then I've never played a game with her in it, so she might be completely insufferable. Outside a few play sessions, I stopped playing Sonic post-Genesis. So for people like me, BioWare will have all the nostalgia to build on and none of the baggage of bad characterization.
You've already got a head start, boys. Don't blow it. I'm serious...if you're game ends up sucking, I'll be crushed.
(sorry for double post)
I notice that the title of the article is "BioWare: New RPG Will 'Revitalize The Love Of The Sonic Friends'"
Doesn't that imply that there was love of these characters in the first place? I think they're reading the wrong forums.
I'll only accept Tails and Knuckles, if it weren't for them then backwards compatibility with the Sonic & Knuckles cartridges on the Sega Genesis would have been meaningless!
Hey, Blaze is pretty damn awesome and you all know it. Even Shadow isn't so emo anymore, his personality in Sonic '06 was more along the lines of "devil may care badass" than "waaahhh why do I exist." Which is detestable in its own right, but yeah.
All I can say is, BioWare has a very certain example of taking a franchise thought to be going down the videogame tubes and giving it such a big jolt that games with that name are respected again. I'm hoping lightning will strike twice for them.
Isn't 50% of the enjoyment from an RPG derived from the compelling plot and interesting characters? I mean, there's a reason why it's called a ROLE PLAYING GAME. So seeing as we're dealing with Sonic here, that's already 50% of the fun gone. Bioshock isn't an RPG, so you're not expecting as much enjoyment out of the plot as you would with an RPG. I'd say it's only less than 10% in an FPS. No one played Halo for it's amazing plot (I'm looking at you Halo 3...)
Sure, Mario RPG didn't have the deepest of a plot, or amazingly interesting characters but the game didn't take itself seriously like Sonic games do. All other Mario RPGs don't either, which makes them get the 50% plot enjoyment part.
There's no way they can expect us to take colorful, fuzzy animals seriously. Well, unless you're a furry... Not to mention that people like Geno and Mallow were original characters made for the game. Sonic's chums have already built up a history of loathing within the hearts of everyone. The only way Bioware will make my like any of those crappy add-ons is if they all die.
Playing this game will be the equivalent of playing Knights of the Old Republic except the Star Wars plot elements are swapped for the plot elements of Bubsy.
How can they "revitalize" the love for the Sonic friends? Was there ever really there in the first place? Give me Sonic, and make him run really fast. End of story.
Knuckles is awesome, i like him more than sonic. Even though he can be a prick.
The horse is dead, leave it alone.
just had to share this
Hmm.. Seems everyone hates Sonic's friends. Personally I think tails is the worst, he always just dies and loses rings in sonic 2, cries out for Sonic when he dies in adventure, and seems to get more and more high pitched with every new release.
I'll take Knuckles or Shadow over Tails anyday on those facts alone, that doesn't include the fact that they are badass.