One Way Sonic 06 is Better Than Sonic Frontiers

Photo by Pixabay from Pexels

I'm not one to easily give Sonic The Hedgehog (2006) praise but one way Sonic Frontiers is worse than Sonic '06 of all games is in the... Let's call it the "Sonic dies but the power of friendship brings him back" bit.

For context, in Sonic Frontiers around the 75% mark, Sonic succumbs to Cyber Corruption and his friends have to find a way to bring him back. They trap themselves in Cyber Space again to stave off the corruption. The issue is more with the pacing of the game than any flaw with the scenario, since Sonic remains out of commission for all of two minutes before his friends bring him back again.

Something similar actually happens in Sonic '06 where Sonic is mortally wounded by Mephiles and his friends need to go find the 7 chaos emeralds in order to bring him back. Rather than it just being a cutscene, there's a mission where all the characters go search for chaos emeralds and it's the culmination of the games various mechanics. Rather than Sonic dying and immediately being brought back, the player has to earn that moment and Sonic's friends have to all band together and find the chaos emeralds inside the broken remains of the world.

The actual nuts and bolts of the gameplay in Sonic '06 is still poorly constructed, but the narrative pacing is better in this one moment. There's a ludic element to the events happening on screen and there's a tension that lingers and is hard fought to be resolved.

I just think that's better. I would have liked a couple levels where Tails, Amy and Knuckles had to go into Cyberspace and fight the Cyber Corruption rather than just a cutscene that immediately brings Sonic back.

That said, Frontiers is in its construction still a far more solid game, and while it has issues, it manages to rise above its flaws where as Sonic '06 drowns in them.

That said, a broken clock is still correct twice a day. Good for you, Sonic '06. There's a lot to learn about your failures, but there is at least on triumph to your name.

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The Thing That Bothers Me The Most About Batman

Source: Black Metal Gun by Somchai Kongkamsri

Something that bugs me about Batman is less of like, a character thing and merely that they keep making him bulletproof.

I think a lot of tension gets taken out of Batman stories when he shrugs off 9mm slugs like nerf darts, instead of the incredible gut punches they would be. 

Every Batsuit in the modern era has basically been made into a high-tech suit of armor so advanced that gunfire isn't an issue. It's a writing conceit meant to deal with the fact that Batman routinely goes up against armies of armed thugs and without it he'd be turned into Swiss Cheese.

And while I'm sympathetic towards the idea of not having to deal with it... I also kind of think that it goes against the principal of the matter? The heart of Batman stories is that Bruce Wayne is a very human superhero. One guy using his money and privilege to change his city for the better. He isn't faster than a speeding bullet, he can't shoot laser beams from his eyes, he hasn't inherited the thunderbolts of Zeus, aliens didn't give him a super advanced light construct ring...

Batman is just a guy.

A guy that writers keep trying to turn into Tony freaking Stark.

The Tony Starkification of Batman has always been a sore point for me, Batman's superpower isn't money or super advanced tech. It's his deductive reasoning, it's his ability to get into the mind of criminals, it's and it's his humanity. 

Batman is Halloween Sherlock Holmes. We don't need a second Iron Man.

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