Analysis of Sonic Rivals 2's Plot Part 2
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AmusantTranscription
00:00Why is he refusing to tell him anything?
00:02If you really don't know, say I don't know.
00:06Why don't I just lie so that he won't pique his curiosity? Do you not know people act?
00:12Isn't Pail supposed to be a genius?
00:14So Espio decides to chase after him because of course he does.
00:18Silver greets Espio. A lot of the time his voice acting makes it clear that he's not trying to offend anyone.
00:24Because he sounds like he actually likes Espio.
00:27Silver says worlds instead of world even though he's from the same world as Espio.
00:32If it's not supposed to establish that he's from another dimension,
00:36then they shouldn't have him say this because this is not how someone from the future would talk.
00:42Eggmanega immediately shows up before Silver can explain anything and says it's no use.
00:49I wonder how long it took to write this game. The answer to that would explain whether they intended to use a meme or not.
00:56And then Sonic shows up right after that.
00:59Tails shows him the thing he dropped and asks what it's for.
01:03Why would you trust him to give him information when it's not like anybody is grabbing him and threatening him?
01:09And Silver says listen, he was clearly just about to explain why he's collecting the Chao.
01:15Well, maybe not clearly, but you'd think they would want to hear the rest of his sentence.
01:21And I guess Eggmanega took something out of Tails' hand.
01:25And you'd think Tails would prevent him from taking back that piece of paper. You'd think he would run away
01:32because he would see this coming.
01:34Eggmanega threatens them with something and the cutscene immediately ends after that.
01:40Sonic's story reveals what Tails actually picked up.
01:44It's a page from a book saying the all-powerful Ifrit.
01:48That's the shortest page ever. What, is it torn?
01:52Why would it be mostly a picture?
01:55And why would Eggmanega tear it out of the book and have someone be able to use it as a clue in the first place?
02:01Sonic wonders why Eggmanega is reading stuff like that.
02:05Not mentioning at all the fact that he's dealt with an Ifrit before. This has to be before Sonic and the Secret Rings.
02:12I hate the name Ifrit. I know what it means,
02:16but that doesn't change the fact that it sounds to me like they just took the name Iblis and changed it up a little.
02:22And Iblis is a far cooler sounding name.
02:25A different name doesn't change the fact that it's the same concept. It's not fooling anybody.
02:30But they had to call it Ifrit because if they called it Iblis, people would be thinking it's still the same
02:35Solaris that's split in half when they can't do that again.
02:39And then we see SPO wondering if he should report this. So why were we cheated out of hearing about it in SPO's story?
02:48Knuckles says that he and Rouge are going to use Eggman's emerald detector, even though Knuckles should have his own natural emerald detector.
02:56And Shadow decides to beat him to Eggmanega.
02:58Knuckles asks Shadow why he has to get the detector before him and refuses to tell him for no reason.
03:06Instead of telling him to make him stop interfering with him, he says he doesn't need to tell him anything.
03:12Why are you keeping this confidential?
03:14Knuckles and Shadow are supposed to be allies.
03:17And there's no reason given as to why he wouldn't trust and respect Knuckles.
03:22Because he doesn't know that Knuckles is constantly failing at guarding the Master Emerald. Nobody told him that on screen before.
03:31He doesn't have any reason to know that he's been constantly tricked by Eggman.
03:35Because it's not like he's close friends with Sonic and therefore will be told all about his mistakes.
03:42Shadow Metal could have tagged along with them to temporarily work together and then betrayed Knuckles and Rouge at the last minute by running off with the emeralds.
03:52Or he could have simply explained to him that he doesn't trust them not to lose the emeralds and that Eggmanega would never know that we have the emeralds.
04:00So just give them to me and I'll run over to my house and put them there.
04:06I take the real superpower of teamwork any day over constant rivalry for no reason.
04:11Shadow and Knuckles aren't even that different.
04:14They're both rivals to Sonic who are annoyed by him.
04:18Who used to be his enemies who made mistakes and are strong.
04:22And both of them are fast.
04:24Knuckles has done literally nothing against Shadow at this point. Why would he hate him?
04:30You'd think Shadow would warn Knuckles about Eggmanega at the quickest opportunity.
04:35I mean it makes sense that he would be too lazy to do so if he thinks he's so much better than him because he's the ultimate life form and he isn't.
04:44Instead Shadow just says, I'll knock you out.
04:47On paper it makes sense that they would fight over an emerald.
04:51But it's not like Knuckles can use the emeralds individually.
04:55What is it to him if he lets Shadow take an emerald?
04:59It's not like he doesn't trust Shadow.
05:02Tails decides that he better help Sonic because he's in trouble.
05:05How is Sonic in trouble?
05:07Why doesn't he have any faith in Sonic?
05:10Asriel says it's better that you two don't get involved.
05:13Why? Sonic and Tails are the main heroes of the world.
05:17He really expects Tails to listen to him since when is he overprotective of those two?
05:23It's not like they had near-death experiences in front of him before.
05:27Pass is a really weird response to Metal Sonic.
05:31You'd think she'd be afraid of a dangerous robot who's supposed to be faster than her.
05:35Wouldn't they recognize her as an enemy of Eggman's and be automatically compelled to try to kill her?
05:42So she decides to have him race her for fun like a playful person.
05:46I'm not sure how she thinks she could win a race against Metal Sonic when he moves at the speed of sound.
05:51You'd think he would instantly win.
05:54It should have had a comma after the tag and no capitalization afterwards.
05:58With Shadow's story, Eggman Nega shows up.
06:02And it's still weird to see Shadow call someone Egghead.
06:06That's something you'd expect out of Sonic, who talks more informally.
06:10I'm assuming he's even asking this in the first place because he doesn't trust Eggman.
06:15Why is he asking Metal Sonic directly? How is he supposed to know?
06:19And since he's not able to talk in this game, why would Shadow expect an answer?
06:23Eggman Nega says to Knuckles that he'll test out his patience with his newest invention.
06:28It doesn't seem like Shadow to say, come on.
06:31I get that he's a teenager too and it's hard for a teenager to always talk formally in a dignified manner.
06:37But he still seems too serious to say stuff like Egghead.
06:41And I think teenagers talk the way they do to fit in with other teenagers.
06:46And it's not like he's constantly surrounded by teenagers because he doesn't go to high school.
06:50He would want to contrast himself from Rouge.
06:53And he sounds annoyed, rather than taking the situation seriously like saying the line in that context would imply.
07:00Sometimes entirely the wrong emotion is emoted by the voice acting.
07:04Rouge confronts Eggman Nega into having an Apple locator.
07:08And he actually admits that it's true instead of being all sly and sneaky about it like you'd expect.
07:13Why? And she expects him to hand it over just like that.
07:17Why doesn't she just immediately attack him? She can fly.
07:20And then we get the rest of Knuckles' I'm losing my patience confrontation.
07:24And Shadow tells Metal Sonic to beat them to it.
07:27So again, there was dialogue cut out and put in a different storyline.
07:31In this game, all the dialogue is the same between storylines.
07:35So it's arbitrary that some of it gets cut out.
07:39Shadow immediately tries to get back in contact with Eggman now that he's out of the jungle.
07:44Shadow's almost able to tell him to tell him the truth.
07:46Shadow's almost able to tell him to tell him the truth.
07:49Only for Sonic to show up and ruin it by making him stop talking from his presence.
07:54Annoyingly delaying the reveal even further.
07:57I didn't know UCH was spelled with no Rs.
08:00It would've made more sense for Shadow to immediately explain what he knows to Sonic
08:04so that he doesn't jump to the conclusion that he's back to working for Eggman.
08:08Or that he was brainwashed.
08:11Why is everyone in the story such an idiot?
08:14Oh, I thought Sonic would try to stop him. Good.
08:17Eggman explains to Shadow that he's in trouble.
08:20We already knew this.
08:22Aside from the last part that nobody cares about.
08:25If anything, we should be cheering about it and getting shown it.
08:28He tells Shadow that he needs to destroy Badniks to regain control of his base.
08:34And that's all he tells him.
08:36Shadow doesn't ask for any further explanation.
08:39Even though there's got to be more to it than that.
08:40Like, what's Eggman Nega's ultimate plan?
08:43Well, I can't blame him for just assuming it's take over the world.
08:46But still.
08:48Why would he ever help him take back his base?
08:51He should at least bribe him.
08:53I could only understand him agreeing to help free him
08:58if he told him that he doesn't have a toilet where he's imprisoned.
09:02But even then, he should show up to Eggman with handcuffs in his hands.
09:06Sonic reveals that he was chasing after Shadow earlier.
09:10So it's merciful of the gang to spare us a race.
09:14So why weren't we racing him then?
09:17Shadow tells him that he's looking for Knuckles and Rouge.
09:19And that's it.
09:21Naturally, Sonic asks him why he's doing that and why he's with Metal Sonic.
09:25At least these people are supposed to be rivals.
09:28Although he got respect for him after SA2.
09:31But based on the context, he only got respect for him
09:35in the sense that he knew how to fight the Bio Lizard.
09:38Why did he keep him from being suspicious of him and bothering him again
09:42by just explaining things to him? Stupid!
09:45Instead of Shadow reacting like a person realistically would to the situation,
09:50he lies that he's got no time to explain it to him
09:53and plans on knocking him out.
09:56Despite being given no reason to hate him
09:59and want to help his enemies by knocking him out,
10:03even though telling him the truth,
10:05even though telling him that Eggman was trapped in something by Eggmanega
10:09who's impersonating him,
10:11would've taken about as long as it takes to say exactly that.
10:14And much faster than the time he would've spent fighting him.
10:18He can explain to Sonic while he's running to his next destination.
10:23And then Eggman gives Metal Sonic an order.
10:26How's a kid supposed to know what he means by run interference for someone?
10:31But he's not interfering with Tails at all, just racing him.
10:34Eggman says he's learned who Eggmanega was secretly communicating with.
10:39Shadow, that response doesn't even make sense.
10:42Stop repeating what you just heard.
10:44And then Eggmanega comes in and stops Eggman from revealing it to Shadow with his presence
10:49even though there's no reason Eggman can't just continue explaining anyways while ignoring him.
10:54Again, artificial suspense.
10:57Do it too much and it just irritates the audience to the point where when they finally get the reveal,
11:01they're not basking in the reveal,
11:04they're just thinking, finally!
11:06It's better to have a whole bunch of reveals than just one that's constantly delayed.
11:11Eggmanega predictably sends another one of his deadly machines against these two.
11:16So with the third level done, here's the alternate scenes.
11:19Why is Eggmanega taking it with him?
11:22And that's all that a few pages say?
11:25And what the hell does it mean by binding a person's soul?
11:28We never do find out.
11:30It's just another one of those lines that is trying to sound poetic and intimidating
11:34and makes no sense if you actually think about what it means.
11:38Meanwhile, Rouge tells Knuckles good job.
11:41It's not like her to call him useless.
11:43That was too harsh even for her.
11:45What happened to Rouge's Emerald Raider in Sonic Adventure 2?
11:49Why are they relying on this thing?
11:51Did Eggman find it and break it?
11:53I guess she tripped and fell on it.
11:56Rouge points out that the Emerald Detector is finally beeping.
11:59This is something Shadow would have liked to hear.
12:02The Emerald Detector is going crazy over the Chao.
12:05Chao do have chaos energy in them.
12:07I never understood why Chao were found in places other than people's homes or the Chao world.
12:12Why even establish a Chao world in SE2 if it's not supposed to be canon?
12:18Neither that or the comic writers don't care enough to reference it again.
12:22But when you've got an entire species of creatures stupid enough to get lost in levels full of dangerous robots
12:28and wander outside of the Chao gardens where all sorts of predators live,
12:32it really makes you wonder how such defenseless creatures didn't drive themselves to extinction.
12:37I assume most of them are safe as pets, but the wild ones should have been eaten by this point.
12:42I guess Knuckles knows that Chao have chaos energy in them.
12:46Otherwise, he should be questioning why the Raider is going off because of them.
12:50He has a good characterization this game so far.
12:53He seemed like a dumb hothead in the previous game.
12:56Silver decides to take the Chao from Knuckles while Espio distracts Rouge.
13:01After Silver complains that he can't find Eggmanega,
13:05Espio asks something that he should have asked him a long time ago.
13:09Silver explains that to save the world, he has to hide the Chao in a safe place.
13:14It sounds silly, but considering the Chao have a massive amount of chaos energy in them,
13:19it makes sense because it could be used as a power source by something that is capable of extracting it from them.
13:25Espio doesn't believe him.
13:27I mean, he hasn't been on as many adventures as Sonic.
13:30And Silver doesn't have any social skills.
13:33Instead of Espio saying he's a liar like you'd expect after all the stupidity in this plot,
13:39trust him.
13:41That's pretty sweet.
13:43Why is he so confrontational with people?
13:45So Sonic has no problem with risking his little brother's life sending it to Eggman's most infamous robot,
13:51Tails, someone who can't run as fast as Metal Sonic can fly.
13:55Tails is supposed to be more wise than Eggman to contrast him with him.
13:59I'm not sure why Tails is able to beat Metal Sonic in a race.
14:03Knuckles talks to Silver, who doesn't explain why he needs those Chao.
14:08To be fair, Espio didn't believe him, so of course he'd think Knuckles wouldn't believe him.
14:14What's that?
14:16Knuckles actually agrees?
14:18Well that's nice.
14:20He says he needs some rings to fuel this ammo detector.
14:23So rings are proven to exist as a canon part of the story,
14:27and are proven as something that can produce energy.
14:30It's too bad IDW ignores these things because it officially has no excuse now.
14:35I like that Silver thanks him.
14:38Knuckles asks him something casually.
14:40And does Silver tell him the answer to avoid suspicion?
14:43Actually, yes.
14:45Maybe when he refers to two different worlds, he's really talking about the present and the future,
14:50and it's just a horrible translation of the word world,
14:53based on the fact that world has multiple definitions.
14:57There's really no logical reason for why the destruction of one world would cause the destruction of the other.