Nostalgia Critic reviews AoStH and SatAM

http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/thatguywiththeglasses/nostalgia-critic/4762-adventures-of-sonic-the-hedgehog

Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog = A bit harsh but I agree none the less, any and all charm in this show is purely fan nostalgia. I absolutely loved this show as a kid but only realized how lame it was after revisiting it last year. It's just too random for its own good without being creative what so ever. Still, It's better than Sonic X.

SatAM = Now I remember why I read the Comics. They gave me the resolution that I so desperately sought after the show "ended". Like its predecessor, it suffers from a bit of age but unlike its predecessor, its still interesting.

I did like "Adventures" as a kid because unlike SatAM it actually did things based on the game. Tails was Sonic's sidekick and the only other character and included aspects like rings and Emeralds but yeah, it was clearly geared at the same younger audience who likes Spongebob and Yo Gabba Gabba (meaning stoners probably watch it too) but you gotta love the Tumble Dryer lesson which is funny. But the animation was lazy (though a lot shows have lazy animation these days, even in CG).

The chili dog thing was also in SatAM but more subtile, like in the episode where he was staying with Antoine and cooking for him. The chili dog thing in Sonic's cartoons was like the italian food thing in Mario's cartoons. At the time, Sonic had do whatever Mario did but be cooler.

Still for a kid's show,SatAM had good writing and likeable characters and Eggman was actually evil instead of just a bumbling villan, but let's face it, the show has barely any resemblece to the games. Tails has less screen time than Christopher Reed in the last Lord of the Rings movie and takes back seat to a bunch of characters that never existed in the games though at the time, all the series had was Sonic, Tails and Robotnick and needed some other pals to interact with.

And I still blame SatAM for putting the idea in Sega's head that Sonic could have deep and serious storylines. (it cracks me up the people who love SatAM but hate the idea of Sonic's games having deep story. A bit contradictory I would say.) Not that Sonic games couldn't tell a good story but Sega failed to do something smart like...say hire the comic or SatAM writers to write the story for the games as well as competent dialouge for the characters.

I'd like him to review the totally nonsensical Sonic Underground. Which has almost nothing to do with Sonic except that he's in it.

I still wish for a more happy medium in Sonic's shows. The writing and artwork of SatAm, along with being more like the games with Adventures. At first Sonic X looked to be that happy medium. Featuring characters from the games, being well drawn and having something to do with the games, however as we all know, it suffered from the horrid 4Kids dub work and of course that annoying cancer that spread and infected the show named Chris Thorndyke.

And let's get this straight right now. THERE WILL NEVER BE A SONIC GAME BASED ON SATAM OR THE COMICS SO STOP WRITING LETTERS ALREADY. The world of the Sonic comics is totally separate from the games, plus I found the comics got a bit weird after a while. Sonic went to space for a few years and came back. Sonic found his parents but his dad's a robot but his mom's not. Sonic and Tails had a falling out I guess. Sonic and Sally did date but broke up and there's this love triangle with him and Amy and Sally. Then there's another hedgehog named Scourge who's more evil than Shadow and has a robot double of himself and Sally's computer Nicole, I guess somehow came to life and is a person and now and OH CHRIST! I can't go on! This sh-- is bananas!

I agree Sonic Underground was terrible. I hated it. I watched like 2 epsiodes whereas the others I watched most. I liked the Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog as a kid I did think SATAM was good as well. It felt like it was a bit more for the older people with some serious plots and Robotnik was really evil in it but they cancelled it after the Doomsday Projext when there was a cliffhanger.

Sonic X felt good at first but became tiresome after a while. Chris was annoying and his parents were just weird too epscially Tails and Knuckles. The voices were all wrong and Chris was just so whinny.

I did like "Adventures" as a kid because unlike SatAM it actually did things based on the game. Tails was Sonic's sidekick and the only other character and included aspects like rings and Emeralds but yeah, it was clearly geared at the same younger audience who likes Spongebob and Yo Gabba Gabba (meaning stoners probably watch it too) but you gotta love the Tumble Dryer lesson which is funny. But the animation was lazy (though a lot shows have lazy animation these days, even in CG).

The chili dog thing was also in SatAM but more subtile, like in the episode where he was staying with Antoine and cooking for him. The chili dog thing in Sonic's cartoons was like the italian food thing in Mario's cartoons. At the time, Sonic had do whatever Mario did but be cooler.

Still for a kid's show,SatAM had good writing and likeable characters and Eggman was actually evil instead of just a bumbling villan, but let's face it, the show has barely any resemblece to the games. Tails has less screen time than Christopher Reed in the last Lord of the Rings movie and takes back seat to a bunch of characters that never existed in the games though at the time, all the series had was Sonic, Tails and Robotnick and needed some other pals to interact with.

And I still blame SatAM for putting the idea in Sega's head that Sonic could have deep and serious storylines. (it cracks me up the people who love SatAM but hate the idea of Sonic's games having deep story. A bit contradictory I would say.) Not that Sonic games couldn't tell a good story but Sega failed to do something smart like...say hire the comic or SatAM writers to write the story for the games as well as competent dialouge for the characters.

I'd like him to review the totally nonsensical Sonic Underground. Which has almost nothing to do with Sonic except that he's in it.

I still wish for a more happy medium in Sonic's shows. The writing and artwork of SatAm, along with being more like the games with Adventures. At first Sonic X looked to be that happy medium. Featuring characters from the games, being well drawn and having something to do with the games, however as we all know, it suffered from the horrid 4Kids dub work and of course that annoying cancer that spread and infected the show named Chris Thorndyke.

And let's get this straight right now. THERE WILL NEVER BE A SONIC GAME BASED ON SATAM OR THE COMICS SO STOP WRITING LETTERS ALREADY. The world of the Sonic comics is totally separate from the games, plus I found the comics got a bit weird after a while. Sonic went to space for a few years and came back. Sonic found his parents but his dad's a robot but his mom's not. Sonic and Tails had a falling out I guess. Sonic and Sally did date but broke up and there's this love triangle with him and Amy and Sally. Then there's another hedgehog named Scourge who's more evil than Shadow and has a robot double of himself and Sally's computer Nicole, I guess somehow came to life and is a person and now and OH CHRIST! I can't go on! This sh-- is bananas!

kbaily

The reason I love SatAM is because it was a different interpretation of the games. They took the then plotless games and gave their elements a logical background (why does Sonic collect rings, what's his vendetta against Robotnik, etc.) and the comics expanded that, adding in the special zones and even acknowledging the game series' existance (in the Comic continuity, Reality is split into an infinite amount of alternate Universes, including a nega-verse, Underground, Adventures, and even the games anchored to the prime universe (comics)). In my opinion the Comics are closer to what the franchise should be than the games are by virtue that they're drawn in a light hearted style and never get deeper than a really good Saturday Morning cartoon series.

And regarding the deep storyline bit, you can't really compare the 2 because the mediums are entirely different. The Comics are interesting because they build on the series lore in a unique way unseen in the games, it's very much a different universe. This comic has been around for over a decade now and because it's a comic, it has to develop like any standard comic book, using story arcs, rotating characters, bringing in new enemies, changing settings, etc. This may seem overly complex but as a comic book fan I assure you Sonic the Hedgehog is far from being a deep, mind bending read; it just develops differently from the games because it isn't a game series.

Finally the reason this type of development wouldn't work in the games is because as much as we want to believe that videogames are an artform on par with painting or literature, they are first and foremost supposed to be fun; GAMEPLAY ABOVE ALL ELSE. SatAM works as a Cartoon series and a Comic book, but in terms of gameplay, would you rather watch a 5 minute cutscene on the politics of a fictional world inhabited by anthropomorphic animals or run at 300 mile per hour at dizzying heights for a rush you may never feel in real life? Videogames are meant to be played not watched and that is why Nobody cares about the storylines in the games, because they aren't supposed to be an engaging part of the experience, thus anything in the vain of SatAM would, 8 chances out of 10, be a terrible game.

Also, I was actually hoping he would reference this disturbing tidbit

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CcrtkiLEGbE

And let's get this straight right now. THERE WILL NEVER BE A SONIC GAME BASED ON SATAM OR THE COMICS SO STOP WRITING LETTERS ALREADY. The world of the Sonic comics is totally separate from the games, plus I found the comics got a bit weird after a while. Sonic went to space for a few years and came back. Sonic found his parents but his dad's a robot but his mom's not. Sonic and Tails had a falling out I guess. Sonic and Sally did date but broke up and there's this love triangle with him and Amy and Sally. Then there's another hedgehog named Scourge who's more evil than Shadow and has a robot double of himself and Sally's computer Nicole, I guess somehow came to life and is a person and now and OH CHRIST! I can't go on! This sh-- is bananas!kbaily

If you try to sum all of that up concurrently in a single paragraph, it does sound absolutely ludicrous. But comic books in general can't seem to survive without tons of dialogue, and if there isn't a handful of twists and turns in the plot, it gets stale after a while. But unlike many of the recent games we've been seeing, there's still a fair amount of emphasis on Sonic despite his being surrounded by hundreds of other characters. I'll admit, the Archie comics are NOT easy to jump into. I've been reading them for three years now, and many gaps remain, but the overall situation is still clarified. If you only skim over one or two issues, I can understand why someone would think of them as "bananas". But if you can manage to stick with the comics for a while, they'll eventually suck you in and have you pumped for the next issue, and the next, and the next, and the next...

And you might recall that a SatAM game was in the works back in the day. The only chance that something similar would be revived is if Season 3 would be produced, and even then, viewer success stands in the way.

to say that it's contradictory for people to like satam and hate the idea of deep stories in the sonic games is not entirely accurate for one simple reason.

They're totally diifferent mediums of entertainment.

I've never once said I want the games to follow the cartoon/comics. I've never once cared that the cartoons/comics didn't follow the basic premise of the games (but I guess the general idea is there in both).

The point is, the games were fun for a reason. The gameplay was great. The cartoon was fun for a reason, the animation and story were great. Both can have a meaningful yet independent existence and still be based on the same IP. 

Yeah Adventures was just a little to random yes, but it is better than Sonic X yes. SATAM to me will always remain the best Sonic series ever.