Analysis of Sonic Lost World's Plot Part 1
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AmusantTranscription
00:00And now for Sonic Lost World.
00:02The first cutscene at first seems to be epic, dramatic, and exciting.
00:07You have Sonic and Tails chasing after Eggman in an unfortunately red plane trying to save an animal capsule.
00:14And Eggman drops it just to dick with them.
00:17In the heat of the moment, you'd expect Tails to exclaim,
00:21No.
00:22But instead, what comes out of him?
00:26That's so tame.
00:29That's like what a joking reviewer would say.
00:32That takes you out of the scene.
00:34The fact that Eggman puts animals into robots is part of what makes Sonic unique.
00:40So I do think it should be in a lot of games.
00:43But it's still strange having a story in a 3D Sonic game feature Eggman putting animals into badniks like it's a significant thing.
00:52Like it's not been there, done that.
00:56It feels less grand that way.
00:58Because they do this all the time.
01:01Although it's good that they address it in something other than a 2D game to let us know that he does do this.
01:06Even in the 3D games.
01:09It's just odd because in Heroes, he didn't do this.
01:13In Unleashed, he also had tons of robots that weren't badniks.
01:18If Eggpons worked out for him, what suddenly made him switch back to this?
01:24I think he's just using animals for power out of sadism at this point.
01:28Because you'd think he would've switched to the Eggpons specifically because their power source was more efficient.
01:36It's also weird seeing the Lost Heck since it's somehow a planet keeping itself together when none of its pieces are together.
01:43After the first level, you see the first cutscene with Knuckles and Amy communicating with Sonic through the Wii U gamepad.
01:50I mean, Miles Electric.
01:53Why don't they just talk to each other through cellphones?
01:57You could say they don't want to have to pay a cellphone bill.
02:01Uncharacteristically, Amy pushes aside Knuckles after he boasts to Sonic that he'll do a better job than him.
02:09Amy's at least portrayed accurately here in that she shows a lot of sympathy for the animals.
02:13Like in Sonic Adventure and pleads for Sonic to save the rest of them.
02:18At first for the games.
02:20But she's lost that sense.
02:22Well, she's physically sassy with Knuckles.
02:26But that's not charming.
02:28Why is Knuckles here?
02:30He's supposed to be guarding the Master Emerald.
02:32This would always be fine if it was always explained that a robot tails mate is guarding the Emerald for him.
02:39Or the Chaotix is being paid to do it.
02:42But even then, why is he here if he isn't going to do anything?
02:46And this is how Amy treats him.
02:48So she's not even really his friend.
02:52At least explain that Knuckles is looking for the other Badniks to destroy them.
02:57Then there's another cutscene where Eggman talks with a Zeti in its dark, lifeless base.
03:03It's good that he uses the word Badniks.
03:05But still, it's so half-assed that the base is so dark and empty for no reason.
03:12I say half-assed because it'd be a lot more effort to actually show us what the base looks like.
03:18Why won't Eggman turn on the lights?
03:21The cutscene is very forgettable and pointless.
03:25And why fades to black to continue the cutscene in the same area?
03:29Sonic calls Eggman the infamous insult for the first ever time.
03:34And Eggman doesn't react to it at all.
03:37So that was disappointing.
03:40It just makes Sonic look childish.
03:42Because the impression is Eggman's so used to childish insults that this doesn't even have him bat an eye.
03:50Zazz acts like he's meeting Sonic for the first time when Sonic just fought him in the previous level.
03:56If barely anything's gonna happen in a cutscene, and it's not even entertaining, it shouldn't be there.
04:03Tails insists to Sonic that he's built a TV out of paperclips and reprogrammed a supercomputer with dish detergent and shit.
04:11Saying smugly that fixing a propeller isn't difficult at all and does it within a cutscene.
04:18First of all, that's impossible.
04:20Second, it was the wing of the plane that was destroyed.
04:24Third, if Tails fixed the plane so quickly, I'm sure it would take longer than that.
04:30So he must have extremely advanced technology we're not seeing.
04:34Why the hell did Sonic and Tails not just fly straight to Eggman's life drainer rather than making us go through all of the levels?
04:43They don't know about the life drainer, but wouldn't they know where Eggman is?
04:47Why don't they just fly around until they find Eggman again?
04:53And fourth, even Sonic is annoyed and exasperated with him because he says I know with his eyes half closed.
05:01Building a TV out of paperclips would only potentially be possible if he broke down the paperclips into their base materials first.
05:11And how do you reprogram something with dish detergent when it's a liquid?
05:16I would expect detergent to destroy a computer.
05:21Why don't they just fly around until they find Eggman's base and then trash everything there?
05:26At least Sonic says he doesn't need to hear his whole life story.
05:30At least Sonic's rude to Tails here.
05:32It's out of character, but he had it coming.
05:36And he didn't tell him his whole life story.
05:39Is the base underground and there's no way to see the entrance from above?
05:44That's the only way it would make sense that they don't fly to it.
05:48Is it even explained why Sonic knows which direction to go?
05:53He could just head off in any random direction and end up heading in the wrong direction.
05:58This is why it's so important that he fights Eggman in the levels in the classic games.
06:04Because it tells the story that he's progressing through the levels because he's following him.
06:09So that's how he knows which direction to take.
06:14Eggman uses the conch to torture the zeddy for mildly bickering with him.
06:19Which is competent.
06:21Basically, Sonic says he doesn't care if he disappoints him and sarcastically calls him master.
06:27Making me wonder how stupid he really is considering that he knows Eggman has the conch with him.
06:33Does he?
06:35If he didn't know, I'd have to wonder why they were even working for him.
06:41Then Eggman tells him to get better animals.
06:44Because apparently, just any old animals won't do.
06:48Why don't they take it away?
06:50He gives them way too many opportunities to walk up and take it.
06:54What makes him think they won't betray him the second they're in a different room from him?
07:00If they attack him from behind, he'll still get attacked.
07:04And another way they could betray him is ditching him.
07:08And doesn't he already have an army of robots that can be trusted?
07:14I guess he assumes they're a lot tougher than his robots, so they're a lot more likely to kill Sonic.
07:20You'd think he'd find it a little underwhelming if they killed Sonic.
07:24Because they're not his robots.
07:27Eggman calls someone else fat.
07:30Lacking any self-awareness.
07:33I like how blunt Eggman is with his Eddie there.
07:36It used him as a villain well.
07:38Eggman throws a sub for Zomom to chase after.
07:42He didn't have to do that at all.
07:44And then he facepalms saying,
07:46Help me, after Zomom's jumping breaks the floor beneath him.
07:50I like how snarky Eggman is.
07:52But he's not as entertaining as he was in SA1.
07:56You could've just had Zomom simply show up in his boss fight without a cutscene.
08:01There's no point in having these villain scenes.
08:04If their only plan is, go fight Sonic.
08:07All you need to see is them fighting Sonic.
08:10You're not going to be impressed by their planning skills.
08:14You see life being drained from Sonic's world with intimidating trumpet music.
08:19It's pretty surprising that it happens this early in the game.
08:23Cubot drinks from the green liquid created by this.
08:27And says happily that he enjoys the taste.
08:30He's a robot, so he wouldn't need repairs after that.
08:34Eggman says that he just wants to borrow the planet's energy, not destroy it.
08:40Complaining that his machine is unstable and can't be used too much.
08:45While it's good that this cutscene is over with quickly,
08:48It feels so pointless.
08:50Why do these Eggman cutscenes exist?
08:54They're just a waste of money.
08:56I don't buy that he just wants to borrow a planet's energy.
09:00Why would he ever put the energy back?
09:04That would inconvenience him.
09:06If taking energy from a planet takes away a part of it, then he is destroying it.
09:14Even if he only planned to take some of the energy, that's still mostly destroying it.
09:20Zavok's like Eggman Nega, he's fine with destroying a planet.
09:25He's not even original there.
09:27You see a giant sub being eaten by Zomom as Sonic mocks a fat person for the way they look,
09:33Like an elementary school bully.
09:35There's a difference between Sonic having an attitude like he's supposed to,
09:40And sounding like a childish school bully.
09:43It's based on how he insults.
09:46He looks like an idiot when Zomom-involved people correct him.
09:50At least this game calmed down the food jokes and just reserved them for a background thing where one character is always eating.
09:57Saying that only reminds me that Chip was obsessed with food first, so he's not even original.
10:03Eggman's fat too, so this guy's got nothing.
10:06Especially since Big was stupid before him.
10:09Eggman's sandwich line is much more charming out of context.
10:14It's good that he's being written as a villain here.
10:17Wasting his time complaining at them.
10:20It gives us plenty of justification.
10:23Sonic kicks away the conch Eggman's holding impulsively as Tails is telling him off for it.
10:29All this does is make me hate the character.
10:32I have to assume the reason he thought this was a good idea is that he doesn't think the Zeti are evil unless they're being controlled by the conch.
10:43If he didn't think they were brainwashed, it would really make no sense.
10:47It would really be a matter of he's completely confident that he'll be able to take them.
10:53The Zeti are just as easy to deal with without being under Eggman's control.
10:58Sonic doesn't have to deal with any enemies that he didn't beforehand.
11:03Of course he'd instinctively want to break Eggman's hold over people.
11:07He loves freedom.
11:10But Tails had no reason to know that this would backfire.
11:14Unless he was given a copy of the script, he couldn't have known that the Zeti would be more ruthless than Eggman because of power over a machine that he doesn't even know about yet.
11:26His reaction would only make sense if he wasn't assuming that the conch was brainwashing them into being evil while Sonic was.
11:35And so of course he'd know that the Zeti wouldn't be grateful for his help.
11:39That's why him warning him not to made him come off like a creator's pet to me.
11:45He only knows to warn him not to because the script told him to.
11:50And this is how they tell you that he's a smart character.
11:54The one cool thing about the Zeti is their technomancy.
11:58Sending Eggman crying to Sonic and Tails for help as they arbitrarily still want to fight Sonic now that they're free.
12:05There are people that are naturally evil, but it gets harder to believe the more of them are involved.
12:12I love seeing Eggman struggle because of this.
12:15So it was worth it.
12:17But this should have happened a lot later in the plot though.
12:21Eggman's supposed to be the main villain of the series.
12:24And none of the Zeti are intimidating enough to be main villain of a game material.
12:29Normally forcing Eggman to Sonic's side would have a better point in the plot by giving an excuse to have him be playable.
12:36It doesn't lead to anything good here.
12:39It's way to see Sonic pick up and carry Tails away.
12:42But Tails never thanks him for this.
12:45He just takes it for granted.
12:47Orbot and Cubot were presumably spared from the control because they aren't combat robots and were seen as useless.
12:54They could still bring the Zeti things like coffee.
12:59I guess Zavok's logic is if he wants someone to serve on him or one of the other Zeti, he could just tell one of the Zeti to do it.
13:09Still, I don't like that I have to come up with my own excuse for why they didn't control Robots.
13:15I don't know why they tried to return the pirate speech after it was rendered ahead.
13:20Especially since it's such mood whiplash since it happens in the middle of a panicked action scene to dumb it down.
13:27With the way the Zeti look, they should have known that they wouldn't have needed to offset how scary the tone was.
13:36Because they're barely intimidating.
13:38What lighting is keeping the Deadly Six in the shadow in this scene?
13:43Tails being snarky here just gets me annoyed at him even more.
13:47Even if he is justified.
13:50But only a bit.
13:52You'd think Sonic's sidekick would approve of what he does because he'd understand why he did it.
13:59I mean, he'd know that he freed them because he loves freedom and hates Eggman.
14:04Shouldn't Tails have done the same thing?
14:06Because again, what difference does it make?
14:09Either way, they'd be fighting the same enemies.
14:12Even people who like colors have complained that the cutscenes in this game are characters just standing around and talking.
14:18It's so boring to look at.
14:20At least not visual novel style.
14:23But in cutscenes where nothing happens, it could be visual novel style and you wouldn't miss anything.
14:29Or Bart quotes Hamlet holding Cubot's head.
14:33Partly because Cubot complains that his voice chip is making him talk like a pirate now.
14:39Even though you'd have to intentionally program that into it.
14:43So I guess Eggman did that because he was bored and he thought it would entertain him someday.
14:48It would have to be that it was switched to a pirate setting because simply being damaged wouldn't cause that.
14:55Why would a robot know this quote?
14:59Pontiac and Graff don't care enough to think very hard about how illogical it would be for Eggman to program his robots to know pop culture references.
15:07If they're his servant robots, wouldn't they be spending most of their time cleaning?
15:13It seems like this game has pointless cutscenes every single act.
15:17Which is worse than colors.
15:20Tails is Miles Electric, can magically give him information he shouldn't be able to know.
15:25And this lets him find out that the Zeti find the conch very painful.
15:29Something Eggman should have just told them and it would have been less convoluted that way.
15:34It's so immature how Sonic says that they're a court and everyone thinks Eggman's a bonehead raise your hand.
15:41Even FDA didn't like that joke.
15:44It's good that Eggman snarks at it.
15:47As well as saying before he started to leave that he hopes the Zeti eat them alive.
15:52Because he's supposed to be the bad guy.
15:55Of course he didn't raise his hand though.
15:58It's sort of a lame line at the same time.
16:01It's not like Eggman doesn't deserve disrespect.
16:04But the problem in this game wasn't that he was a bonehead.
16:08He was a bonehead for thinking he could trust the Zeti in the first place.
16:12If he could only control them with something that was used in the same room as them.
16:16The second he went to sleep, they would kill him.
16:19Sonic uses a life draining machine in this cutscene.
16:23I hate how Zomom talks in this cutscene.
16:26The old man says Zomom wants to eat Eggman.
16:30A person.
16:32Like it's not like Eggman doesn't deserve this line.
16:35But he sounds like a gangster when he isn't.
16:39So it's just weird to hear him talk like that.
16:42We're not really told what the Zeti even are.
16:45And Japan has established that they're demons.
16:49They're Oni specifically.
16:51But they didn't translate that.
16:53So the entire time I'm wondering why they're the only Zeti.
16:57This game's story is so pointless.
16:59Because not much is really accomplished in each cutscene.
17:02Assuming each cutscene moves a plot along at all.
17:05And a lot of things aren't clarified.
17:07Like how Tails knows about the Lost Hacks.
17:09And what it even is.
17:11And where the conch was found.
17:13As for how Tails knows about the Lost Hacks.
17:15I assume it's the same reason everyone knows about where everything else is.
17:19It's just always been a part of the history of the planet.
17:24It's only confusing because it came out of nowhere.
17:27So we're expecting Tails to be just as surprised by it as us.
17:31The Lost Hacks world should have been Little Planet again.
17:34That would have resolved the cliffhanger in Sonic 4.
17:37And it would have developed on Little Planet more.
17:40Because we'd actually get to see people who lived there.