Sonjc Dreams Collection?

Forum devoted to Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic Universe and the entire Sonic line by Archie Comics.

Re: Sonjc Dreams Collection?

Postby Mordum » Thu Aug 20, 2015 3:06 am

I WANTED to like Eggman Origins, but no. I didn't like that one either (and, no, not horrifying).


Spoiler: show
So the McRib I have to pick with Dreams Collection is that up until My Roommate Sonic, it's probably one of my favorite Sonic Anythings just because I love the idea of doing a crazy, sexual Sonic horror game. And it IS a horror game, with all its surreal imagery and its intent to unsettle and all that jazz. It is very much a horror take on Sonic, and horror is my favorite genre and I love Sonic SOOOO.

Sonic Movie Maker is incredible. It's easily the highlight of the entire thing. It's weird and gross and completely hilarious. Pitch perfect in what it wants to do, with that Resident Evil style limited control scheme that makes it somewhat annoying to maneuver in, but appropriately tense. It's creepy and fetishistic. It doesn't really relent in what it's trying to do and I love it. It's an incredibly inspired concept that seems obvious now that someone's made it, but at the time I can't imagine occurred to many people. The way it just saves the videos you make, too, is a REALLY great idea because it just FEELS dirty. Everything about Sonic Movie Maker is pitch perfect and illicits the exact feeling it's meant to illicit. Superb.

My Roommate Sonic really kills the entire thing for me because it tries TOO HARD to be weird. I love avante garde, I love weirdness, this isn't anti-weird...but all that talk about how worldbuilding and setting not being so important in Sonic really bites me behind now, because the thing that kills the game for me IS the worldbuilding. So, okay, we're conditioned by the game to believe these're some leaked prototypes from Sega. I can dig that; that's a cool premise. So when it posits My Roommate Sonic as an ambiguously autobiographical Occulus Rift style relationship simulator, that's actually really interesting. I was curious where it would go and what that would suggest about the hypothetical character that designed the game. I know that sounds like "HUR HUR I WANNA PLAY THE SONIC SEX GAME", but I mean, really: all the places that could go are honestly really tense and horrific. It's a game forcing you to put yourself into this position where you have to empathize with or understand and logic around this sexual perversion while knowing the person who made it was drawing from their own life experience and modifying it to include Sonic just opens up ALL THIS POTENTIAL for character and intrigue and story and this real feeling of going down the rabbit hole and...

...and it's just some dumb freak out garbage. Just BIG EYEEEEE.

The moment Sonic's eyes combine are the second that game dies for me. What starts as a really intriguing premise becomes this incredibly shallow, hollow boring exercise in clickbait Let's Play memegarbage. I wasn't all convinced by the Eggman phone telling me THIS IS WHAT YOU WANTED because...I dunno? I'm not one of the weird Deviantart furries its making fun of? I was looking forward to a weird erotic thriller and playing out the fantasy of some lonely game designer in an attempt to discern and live his deepest desires. That's a fascinating gameplay premise. But NOPE. Can't do that, y'know. Because it's the internet, and any vaguely good horror idea, whether Slendervlogs or Don't Hug Me I'm Scared or whatever else, needs to be beaten into the ground by the desire to be as WEEEEEIIIIIRD as possible with no context for why weirdness should happen. The idea that this was some leaked prototype died right there, settling for some hollow creepypasta crap ending.

And Eggman Origins is just as lame. So you have to go through all the trouble to unlock it, it's an MMO, and it's just...feeding Eggman? With some ominous thing about Sonic ascending? Color me disappointed. I was really disappointed that it all amounted to being this overly convoluted, boring ARG where you have to solve labyrinthine mysteries. Maybe all the little puzzles amount to something, but by Eggman Origins I was beyond caring. I really dislike the haunted game, Ben Drowned style stuff. It's not scary, it's not horrific, it's just...lame. It's basically the Human Centipede: in that it's not ACTUALLY extreme, but it's the extreme content for people who don't do extreme content. Tom Six's performance art, much like this game, really only work on people who wouldn't be exposed to it in the first place.

But I am a Human Centipede fan too, more or less, so I guess it's all a matter of context. I never did like Tom Six's "HAHA I'M SO GROSS!" schtick, though.

The thing stretches its premise too hard. What it PROMISES (a collection of games revealing that Sega internal is just as depraved and sick as the stereotypical Sonic fan) is an incredibly interesting, gross, involving premise. But while Movie Maker is one of the best pieces of Sonic media just out of pure audacity and hilarity and how much it completely commits to itself, the rest of the game feels like it NEEDS to be the weird ARG just because...COMPLEX? When I feel like a simpler commitment to its premise would've done wonders. A My Roommate Sonic where you actually go through the whole night, or an Eggman Origins that actually feels like an MMO premise.

And really, what ARE we supposed to believe Origins is? Is it an entire MMO dedicated to feeding Eggman? I would figure "creepy Sonic MMO" would be playing animals willingly losing their humanity and being roboticized or something. THAT I would love to play. Like at some point Sonic Team was just working on an MMO about augmenting one's humanity into soulless robotics. I'm sure there're parallels to draw with Sonic OCs too, if they wanted to keep the sexual element and keep everything to theme. Instead of just...Let's Play bait for leap year white kids.

That being said? It IS very well made and is clearly a rousing success with its audience. I can't fault it for that. But, yes, I guess a lot of my problem comes down to the fact that it's not NEARLY as creepy as it wants people to think it is and, like most internet horror for millennials, it's just really tame and hugboxy. It's not really creepy as much as it's just jarringly obtuse.
User avatar
Posts: 1072
Joined: Mon Mar 30, 2015 9:58 am

Re: Sonjc Dreams Collection?

Postby BlazeHeatnix » Thu Aug 20, 2015 3:25 pm

Some things are not worth giving a critical review.

Sometimes you just gotta accept that it's a joke, laugh at it and move on.
User avatar
Posts: 483
Joined: Thu Jan 31, 2013 11:40 pm
Location: Tennessee

Re: Sonjc Dreams Collection?

Postby Mordum » Thu Aug 20, 2015 3:30 pm

You can be critical about something you like.

I think it's overall really well made and I like aspects of it a lot, Movie Maker especially is a masterpiece of fanwork, but it's still art. It's still a creative (non-commercial) product. There's nothing really wrong about discussing how it relates to other trends in its genre and context.

The idea that some things SHOULDN'T be analyzed is silly to me. I've seen great pieces of work dismissed just because of subject matter even though they were really well made, and really mediocre stuff praised as high art for doing nothing at all. Why can't someone's effort be honored with frustration that could only come from surprising competency?
User avatar
Posts: 1072
Joined: Mon Mar 30, 2015 9:58 am

Re: Sonjc Dreams Collection?

Postby WiNTER BELLS » Thu Aug 20, 2015 11:55 pm

I saw TBF play this... I feel sick...
User avatar
Posts: 60
Joined: Mon Mar 02, 2015 11:18 pm


Return to This Side of Mobius

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 4 guests