Since Sonic Talk was created last year, we’ve interviewed Sonic writer Ian Flynn twice, yet we never did manage to talk to Tracy Yardley…until now, that is. Today Sonic Talk finally gets to have a sit down with Tracy, talking with him about the latest Sonic news and asking him questions written by both fans and us. We hope you enjoy listening to this as much as we did recording it!
You can see a high-res version of the above image, which was drawn for us by Mr. Yardley for use in the show, over at SEGAbits. If you are interested in having your own piece of Yardley art, as well as an assortment of other SEGA related goodies, check out the SEGAbits Summer of Art Contest.
That’s good look for sonic art drawings.
I can’t agree that going against the unnecessarily dark storytelling of Shadow the Hedgehog and Sonic06 by going the exact opposite extreme is a good idea. Sonic seems like a series that should stay in the middle. There’s nothing wrong with the series taking itself seriously enough without going overboard. SA1 and SA2 worked out well enough. Whether or not you think they should pull back a bit or not is negotiable and easily mendable. If don’t really see why they would though. I was a kid when I played SA2 and the story was interesting because events were happening and there was a situation that was being treated like a threat that I wanted to see the resolution to. Avatar the Last airbender was darker than that game and they ran that in the mornings and afternoons on Nickelodeon. Generations had nothing going for it in terms of story. Absolutely nothing happened in it. There’s nothing wrong with being simple. Heroes was simple (it’s script needed a touch more work of course) but there was still a noticable amount of things going on in it. And there were more than enough characters with their own motivations to help move things along.
At first I really did appreciate Colors’ story. But later I realized it was just the script I liked. That and the general premise of the story. The actual storytelling aspect of it was really bad. Tails was utterly useless in it and the fact that they gave him a line at the end to try and support that he wasn’t bothers me now. By the time Tails got his translator to work and got wind of the information that Sonic needed to destroy 5 generators, Sonic had already destroyed two of them and we went back to doing what we already were doing before. And since that’s the only info he provided it doesn’t help his case much at all.
It gets even worse when you realize that after the ferris wheel boss, Eggman’s plans were already ruined anyway. So even if Sonic had just decided to go home if for some reason he didn’t use the world map to destroy the other 3 generators like he was already doing he still would’ve won anyway because that boss’s robot part got lodged into the side of the mind control cannon. The instant he fired it, the thing would’ve exploded. Eggman loses instantly and without a single generator being destroyed.
Not asking for much. Just something where we go on an Adventure and where stuff happens and characters actually do things. With a tone that stays in the middle. That’s the tone I know plenty of kids grew up with and turned out just fine and not-scarred for life. I really don’t see why they feel the need to make it too dark-hearted or too light-hearted.