Analysis of Sonic Chronicles' Plot
Transcript
00:00Sonic Chronicles. The game starts with showing in comic format, the supposedly final defeat of Eggman, with Amy, Knuckles, and Sonic distracting him while Tails sabotages the Egg Carrier, causing him to fall to Eggman's base in Metropolis.
00:17Which in retrospect, I love that it's in Metropolis, because it's like Sonic the Comic.
00:22And it's good that it's in comic format, because at least it looks better than Sonic Rival's cutscene presentation.
00:30Sonic got a call from Tails while on his vacation, telling him that Knuckles had been kidnapped.
00:35So wait, if Tails didn't talk to him for a long time, how did Tails not talk to him for a long time if he could've called him whenever he wanted?
00:45Why did Sonic have his phone with him so that his friends could call him if he wanted to be alone for two years?
00:51Why didn't Tails call him a lot sooner?
00:54There's no reason you would think that his best friend wouldn't want him to call him.
00:59Wouldn't want to spend time with him.
01:02Don't they live together?
01:04Why would Sonic stop visiting Tails just because Eggman's not around?
01:08After going to Central City with Amy to meet up with Tails, they're brought by Rouge to the G.U.N. headquarters to meet up with the G.U.N. commander.
01:17He explains to them that they, along with Team Chaotix, have been spying on the Marauders for some time and have finally managed to locate their hideouts.
01:27But searching them for Knuckles proved futile.
01:30If they've been watching them for such a long time, how is it that only now have they located their hideouts?
01:38Tails figures out how to find and fix the broken communicators found at each hideout,
01:44which allows them to pinpoint the location of the Marauders' base to the Mystic Ruins.
01:50Okay, so if the Marauders have been living in the same general area as Tails' house the whole time, how the hell didn't he find them sooner?
01:59You'd think from all the times he's flown over the Mystic Ruins that he'd notice the Marauders there and eventually get suspicious, but no!
02:06The writers failed to take into account the fact that the Mystic Ruins is also where Tails lived, or at least used to live,
02:13since Sonic Battle pretends that he doesn't live there anymore, implying that the Flood from Chaos destroyed the workshop there,
02:21but that doesn't explain why he didn't rebuild the workshop in the same place away from the prying eyes of the paparazzi.
02:29Doesn't Sonic travel the world running around all the time? That's what he's been doing for the last two years, so how did he not find the Marauders?
02:38Everyone needed to travel by Tails' plane to avoid the soldiers guarding the Mystic Ruins.
02:44Tails' workshop is in the Mystic Ruins, so you'd think that he'd notice all those guards there,
02:49although I can understand Sonic and Tails not going to a place they've already explored.
02:55And second, which tornado is it? The original one got destroyed.
03:00Anyways, they meet up with Big, who helps them locate the base.
03:04So Knuckles got kidnapped, but the incompetent elf Big didn't.
03:09Knuckles would've been kidnapped only if he was attacked from behind or from the side, and that could've happened for Big just as easily.
03:18After all the time they spent trying to rescue Knuckles, they find him escaping some robots.
03:24I like the fact that he was badass enough to escape on his own, trying to make up for the fact that he was kidnapped.
03:31But still, it makes rescuing him feel pointless.
03:35It almost makes me wonder if things would've been much better if everyone let Knuckles stay kidnapped,
03:40because they assumed he would break free on his own.
03:43Because then maybe the events leading up to Eggman being able to take over the world would've never happened in the first place.
03:50I guess they assumed that he would be restrained to the point where he wouldn't be able to escape,
03:54because that's common sense on the part of marauders.
03:57How would he get himself untied from ropes or unhandcuffed?
04:01Leaving the base, Sonic and his friends find Angel Island gone.
04:05Tails invents an Eggman tracker to locate Eggman completely casually.
04:10So did he have Eggman's DNA on hand or what? Creepy.
04:14How did he get his DNA?
04:17I wish it was explained that Sonic or Tails grabbed Eggman's mustache while he was fighting him in person in the Eggmobile.
04:24That's the only way he would get his DNA, because it's not like Eggman attacks them personally.
04:30With his own fists.
04:32And if any of them were capable of going to Eggman's house, why wouldn't they go to him with handcuffs?
04:39I really gotta stare in shock at the fact that he invents an Eggman tracker.
04:44Because he never does that in the comics.
04:46How would any game ever happen again?
04:49He wouldn't get the time to make everything he'd need to make a game happen.
04:54He wouldn't be able to make an Eggfleet ever again.
04:57Because people would find him.
04:59They would check on him every single day to make sure he's not up to anything.
05:04There's a reason they don't do that all the time.
05:07It's because his base is too hard to get to, or they don't know where it is.
05:11Because his base is too hard to get into, or he doesn't know which base he's in.
05:15But if Tails can invent this, he could easily invent something to blast his way through to Eggman, no matter how good the security in the base is.
05:23Sonic and his friends run into Shadow, who in a classic example of artificial conflict,
05:28acts suspicious and antagonistic avoiding questions and starting a fight when he's given accusations,
05:34instead of doing the sensible thing and telling Sonic what he's doing.
05:38This is like IDW Shadow.
05:42Sure, he doesn't need Sonic's help, but he's not doing something Sonic would disapprove of,
05:48so why would he make himself look bad?
05:51I mean, it makes sense that he would be jealous of the fact that he's the hero of the world,
05:56and the most beloved celebrity on Earth,
05:59and he'd look too friendly and goofy if he just asked for a friendly fight.
06:04You'd never assume from the ending of SE2 that he would end up like this.
06:09So Tails assembles a bunch of Eggman's devices that the group discovered to disable a force field
06:14that they end up locating in Green Hill Zone during their search.
06:18It just so casually tells us Eggman made a force field disabler,
06:23so much for any city or town being able to protect themselves from Eggman with a force field.
06:28Inside, they find Eggman, who claims to be reformed,
06:33explaining how he survived the crash of the Egg Carrier by uncharacteristically anticipating his own defeat
06:38and making a robot that would rescue him and nurse him back to health.
06:42So this robot was able to track him down after the Egg Carrier crashed.
06:47And that still doesn't explain how he didn't die from crashing an airship.
06:51He still should have died on impact.
06:54Now I have to assume that when it crashed, he was sitting on a chair with a seatbelt on,
06:59and it was programmed to have a force field around him that had an anti-gravity field turned on
07:04so that he was floating so that it didn't matter that the airship crashed,
07:07he didn't get sent forward so that he could smack into something.
07:11But the writers weren't thinking that far ahead.
07:14Since when does Eggman claim to be reformed when Sonic confronts him?
07:18It makes sense that he didn't do this because he didn't have a mecha to deal with him this time.
07:23Or any robots.
07:25And what pisses me off is that everyone ends up trusting him.
07:28Knuckles is the first to do so.
07:30Which sort of makes sense because Eggman is the first human he's ever met,
07:33so he'd naturally want to believe that the first human he ever met would end up reforming instead of being irredeemable.
07:38But Tails?
07:40Not only does he trust Eggman,
07:42but he'll end up idolizing him to the point of constantly praising him for his skills in engineering.
07:47I mean, that's awfully sweet of him.
07:50And the writers realize the unfortunate implication to this,
07:53because they'll give him the option to remind Tails that he's praising an evil mad scientist
07:57and he'll actually stop after that.
08:00Honestly, I don't think they actually trust him.
08:02I think they're just not talking like they don't trust him because they know it's pointless.
08:07Like, why be rude to him?
08:10It's gonna be weird to see him praising Eggman.
08:13But it's better than him being a condescending little brat to him
08:16who completely underestimates his engineering skills.
08:19Eggman informs the team that Angel Island is being pulled to Metropolis,
08:24the location of the Marauder's main base.
08:27Metropolis Zone was more like a factory level than an actual city with people actually living in it.
08:32There weren't any buildings in the background like in Scrap Brain Zone.
08:37If Eggman owned a city, no one would willingly live there.
08:42It has to be that Metropolis Zone Sonic 2 was named after the city.
08:47I guess a factory in Metropolis was close to Metropolis City.
08:52After taking the Tornado once more to get there, they meet up with Shadow.
08:56And after Sonic fights him again, he finally joins their side in order to find Omega.
09:02You know, I understand him being antagonistic to Sonic.
09:05But Sonic's not the only one there.
09:08He doesn't hate all of Sonic's friends.
09:10You'd think he would open up the tales.
09:13Sonic and his friends get attacked in Metropolis by Shade and the rest of her Marauders.
09:19She does a smart thing and blocks the main pathway to Metropolis.
09:23Only for Eggman to find another route through a railway tunnel.
09:27Sonic and Knuckles go to Angel Island to get the Master Emerald before the Marauders do.
09:31If Rouge had stolen the Master Emerald in Knuckles' absence, like with being character,
09:36and had kept it in her room by this point, the rest of the plot would have never happened.
09:42Tails and Eggman use one of the weapons in Metropolis to shoot down the surrounding ships
09:46in order to clear the way for Sonic.
09:48Sonic and Knuckles confront the Nocturnus leader, Ix.
09:52He tells Sonic about his generic plan to take over Sonic's dimension.
09:56This revelation shocks Shade.
09:59Tails and Eggman show up to save them, using a teleporter under Metropolis to get to the island.
10:05They use their non-lethal weapon to transport several of the Nocturnus back to the Twilight Cage.
10:11Which means there'll be a problem later.
10:14The team fights Ix, but he escapes and steals the Master Emerald,
10:18which is inexplicably much smaller in this game, probably because of its fluctuation in size in SA2.
10:24Then again, it only did that with Knuckles, implying that only he could make it do that.
10:29So there isn't an excuse.
10:31Sonic and his friends see Ix creating a wormhole that transports the Nocturnus back to their room.
10:37Tails and Eggman come up with a plan to follow him,
10:39deciding to build a vehicle that could get them into the alternate dimension.
10:43The collision with Angel Island causes the city to have a blackout.
10:47Sonic and Shade team up to restore the power.
10:50Sonic and his friends all leave in the vehicle,
10:52while Eggman remains behind, saying he has to stay behind to make sure they can return.
10:57And they actually trust him to let them?
11:00Why wouldn't they have anyone else but Eggman remain behind?
11:05Why couldn't Tails program the machine to be able to return them home automatically,
11:09after a large amount of time has passed?
11:12Why couldn't Tails build a brainwashing device to make absolutely sure he would keep his word,
11:17as supposedly unethical as that would be?
11:19It would have prevented the world from getting taken over.
11:22Why couldn't a couple of them stay behind to make sure Eggman wouldn't try anything?
11:27Why did Shadow have to go with them?
11:29Why did Omega agree to come with them when he has such a grudge against Eggman?
11:33Speaking of Omega, when Tails appeared to him,
11:36he tried to kill him as soon as he saw Eggman with them.
11:39The cyclone crashes onto a rocky place.
11:42Sonic and his friends get confronted by the Kron,
11:45who accuse them of being Nocturnus spies, despite the fact that they look nothing like the Nocturnus.
11:51The Kron are expert weapons crafters.
11:54Also, shame on the game for using the Planet of Hats trope unironically.
11:59Like that's remotely believable.
12:01The warehouse used by the Kron to create these weapons is powered by a Chaos Emerald.
12:06And Sonic and his friends offer to free the Kron colony from Ixiz's control.
12:11I mean, Ixiz's control.
12:13They succeed in retrieving the Emerald, win the trust of the Kron, and continue traveling.
12:18Reading out to Sonic has warmed me up to the idea of doing something like this.
12:23At least they're fixing the problems of the people around them.
12:27That's what heroes are supposed to do.
12:29It just feels weird because they're aliens.
12:33So of course their designs aren't appealing.
12:36You need to have experienced at least most of RG, if not most of the franchise in general,
12:42to be okay with something that doesn't feel like the games.
12:46Why are Chaos Emeralds in the Twilight Cage all of a sudden?
12:50Maybe it's because the Emeralds are attracted to the Master Emerald like magnets.
12:55But they're supposed to be attracted to each other, not the Master Emerald.
12:59I just wish they'd explain this instead of creating a plot hole.
13:02At least them needing to be on the same planet as the Master Emerald explains why they're always on Sonic's world
13:08instead of reappearing half a galaxy away where Eggman can't find them.
13:12Anyways, the Nurgle Queen meets the heroes and tells them that the long-time rivals of the race, the ZOA,
13:18have a powerful weapon, and they can't risk confronting them in a battle.
13:22She offers their Chaos Emeralds in return for their weapon.
13:25And Sonic and his friends don't exactly have a choice, they have to humor them.
13:29So it doesn't make them look bad.
13:32Sonic and his friends then head to the ZOA colony.
13:35According to ZOA law, whoever defeats the leader can have any one favor from them,
13:40even the service of the entire race.
13:43A random mugger in the street could beat up their leader or ambush him with a gun,
13:48and now he can get whatever he wants from him.
13:51There's no reason people would keep that system going.
13:55Sooner or later someone would be born who would dismantle it.
13:59Sonic challenges the leader to a battle and frees the ZOA from their slavery.
14:03The leader gives him a Chaos Emerald, which turns out to have been the supposed weapon.
14:08I was expecting a nuke.
14:10They must have been mistaken because why would they think a gem is a weapon?
14:15The Emerald can't do anything individually, most of the time.
14:20Ix must have found the Emeralds really quickly.
14:23Upon revealing to the leaders of the two races that Ix gave both ZOA and Nurgle Chaos Emeralds to keep them in check,
14:31they gain the trust of both the races.
14:34Tails finds two more Chaos Emeralds in the Voxide colonies.
14:39Wow, Tails is finding all the Emeralds and coming up with all of the plans.
14:43It fits well with the fact that he's the smartest of the heroes.
14:47It makes me wonder why he's never the leader in the comics.
14:51Because look at how well it works.
14:53Look at how casual it is about Sonic following Tails' advice at every opportunity.
14:59The Voxide are a peaceful race capable of complete mental domination.
15:04The team needs a citizen to escape the control of the Overmind somehow.
15:09He tells them the source of the Overmind's power, the Chaos Emeralds again.
15:14So this is a game about what realistically would happen when a whole bunch of civilizations discover the Chaos Emeralds and go nuts with them.
15:21It's an interesting concept.
15:23But it makes the plot a lot more predictable than I thought it was going to be,
15:26considering how unique for Sonic it is that the heroes are talking to aliens so much.
15:32He cares more about world building this place than Sonic's planet.
15:37So it's quite a contrast that the actual plot events have stopped being interesting.
15:41Now it's nothing but a lazy MacGuffin collecting plot.
15:45It was completely unpredictable before.
15:48The abyss leads them to a teleporter that takes them to a place that's guarded by a psychic field to prevent trespassers from getting inside.
15:55They confront the Overmind, who brainwashes everyone but Sonic, Big, Cream, and Omega,
16:01who are immune to brainwashing for no reason.
16:04You'd think an idiot and a naive girl would be even more susceptible to brainwashing.
16:09Sonic's just immune because of Mary Sue powers.
16:12After the Overmind is defeated,
16:15Phoebus becomes the new leader,
16:17because he's totally proven that he's capable of running the country,
16:21and gives them the two Chaos Emeralds given to them by Ix.
16:25You know, they could've explained that they ran out of brainwashing power,
16:28and that's the only reason only them weren't brainwashed.
16:32The Valksai discover weaknesses in the force field around the planet,
16:36while the Nurgles suck energy from it,
16:38and the Zohar send a missile created by the Kron that can penetrate it.
16:42Truly the perfect way for them to work together.
16:46Sonic and his friends go through an opening,
16:48and encounter the stupidly named Prefect Cherub and Prefect Sila,
16:55two gizoids with the elements of water and fire.
16:58Elemental powers are pretty easy to come up with,
17:01but at least it's doing something they haven't done before.
17:05Prefect, really?
17:07It looks like I'm misspelling it perfect.
17:10The two groups get rid of the force field around Nocturne.
17:13Sonic's team kills Cherub, perfectly fine with that.
17:18Knuckles' team confronts Ix in the throne room.
17:21Sonic immediately assumes Knuckles is betraying them,
17:24and says he knew it.
17:26He's proven wrong when he watches them fight
17:28after Ix gives the generic, hypocritical villain speech.
17:32His motivation is the same as Dimitri.
17:36Knuckles wins the fight, followed by Sonic fighting Ix's,
17:39causing Ix to run away like a coward.
17:42Sonic's team gets a second chance to fight him,
17:44and also wins while Knuckles retrieves the Master Emerald.
17:48Ix uses the Nocturne to achieve a super transformation.
17:51How does he do that?
17:53You can only turn super using the Chaos or Soul Emeralds,
17:57or potentially from having billions of rings.
18:00What the hell does the Nocturne have to do with Chaos energy?
18:03Even back when I only knew the games,
18:05I still thought it was immediately believable that
18:08billions of rings would cause a super form.
18:12Sonic uses the Chaos Emerald to become Super Sonic and defeat him.
18:16The team escapes in a cyclone and heads back to Earth.
18:20All on their own.
18:22Sonic and his friends find Eggman waiting for them with a rebuilt Empire.
18:27Somehow, time moves much slower in the Twilight Cage because bullshit,
18:32and what seems to be only a short while has actually been several years on Earth.
18:37It could have been believable if they explained
18:40one dimension has a faster chronotron speed than the other.
18:44You would come off like Technobabble, but it's better than nothing.
18:48If you go to the Twilight Cage without Omega,
18:51the ending still happens,
18:53even though without Shadow and Rouge preventing Omega from doing what he wants,
18:57he would have killed Eggman long before he took over the world.
19:01And Cream's so competent on her own,
19:04because she can throw cheese at people
19:06and effortlessly destroy the bosses of the games,
19:10that she should have been able to stop Eggman as well.
19:13Despite the serious ending,
19:15the game ends with Sonic, Tails, and Omega rambling about the makers of the game
19:19instead of reacting realistically to the situation anymore.
19:23They don't even need to make a sequel,
19:24because it's obvious how the plot can be resolved anyways.
19:27Sonic and his friends go back in time to seconds after they went to the Twilight Cage
19:31so that Eggman can't take over the world anymore.
19:34Or if you don't want to be anticlimactic,
19:36all the heroes would have to do is go where Eggman is and beat him up.
19:41If they can't spin dash past doors to get through his base,
19:46all Tails would have to do is go to a workshop,
19:49make a ray gun that blasts through the doors,
19:52and just constantly press the button to get to Eggman and beat him up.
19:57I'd rate the story a 4 out of 10.
20:00Although after reading Archie,
20:01I'm actually a lot more impressed by the premise of the Twilight Cage than I am now.
20:06Because if you don't learn to get an appreciation for stories that are different from the games,
20:11you won't be able to make it even 10 issues into Archie.
20:15There's a lot of problems I have with the plot,
20:17like the horrible ending that relies on all the main characters being idiots,
20:21Sonic apparently abandoning his friends for two years,
20:26and then there's Knuckles.
20:28This game could have had game fans warm up to the idea of Knuckles not being the only Echidna,
20:33but they insist on having the Nocturnus Clan be the only other Echidnas,
20:37which demonizes the concept.
20:40It doesn't do Archie favors at all.
20:43Of course it's going to look like a bad thing that he's not the only Echidna anymore
20:46if the only other Echidnas around him are evil,
20:49and Shade.
20:51If Shade needs to wear a special belt to exist outside of the Twilight Cage,
20:56well, she can't always wear a belt.
20:58People need to take off their belts,
21:01multiple times a day in fact.
21:03It looks like a cool concept,
21:05but zero thought was put into it.
21:09Not unless she can manage to go to the washroom while still keeping her belt on.
21:14Without all these problems, the plot's just okay.