Zephyr wrote:Mark Menza, the man responsible for Dragon Ball GT's beloved American English dub replacement musical score, .
I genuinely can’t tell if this is sarcasm or not.
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Zephyr wrote:Mark Menza, the man responsible for Dragon Ball GT's beloved American English dub replacement musical score, .
I get brand loyalty; it's not like I've never fallen into the trap of paying for something bad or mediocre because I thought previous entries were good (cf. Chappie, Mass Effect Andromeda, GoT season 5 onward, Prometheus, every single ASOIAF book outside of the main series, and so on). What I don't get is still having brand loyalty for a franchise this old. As far as I know, Sonic's peak consists of a few good simple games in the 1990s. My main sticking point is how the hell that turned into a franchise that survives until today; a franchise that hasn't produced anything worthwhile for literal decades now.Zephyr wrote: Moreover, brand loyalty is a thing, and people will continue to purchase the games on the "merit" of everything besides the gameplay (which itself continues to drift farther and farther away from the core tenants that made the original games novel and innovative platformers in the first place), essentially rewarding the blind and thoughtless experimentation and backwards priorities held by the studios working on the IP (and incentivizing more of it), simply because, well, "it's the next entry!" The irony is that, despite the constant blind experimentation, Sonic Team has also been making explicit efforts to "return to the series' roots", regularly, since at least as far back as 2003, making the last decade and a half feel like a hilarious "worst of both worlds" scenario. Sonic Mania, the first actual successful attempt at returning to said roots (helmed largely by fans who'd been collectively reverse engineering the original games since as far back as Sonic Adventure's release in the late 90's), only just came out in 2017.
The Monkey King wrote:It was actually Beerus disguised as Zarbon #StayWokeRandomGuy96 wrote:He's probably referring to the Bardock special. Zarbon was the one who first recommended destroying Planet Vegeta because the saiyans were rapidly growing in strength.dbgtFO wrote: Please elaborate as I do not know what you mean by "pushing Vegeta's destruction"
Herms wrote:The fact that the ridiculous power inflation is presented so earnestly makes me just roll my eyes and snicker. Like with Freeza, where he starts off over 10 times stronger than all his henchmen except Ginyu (because...well, just because), then we find out he can transform and get even more powerful, and then he reveals he can transform two more times, before finally coming out with the fact that he hasn't even been using anywhere near 50% of his power. Oh, and he can survive in the vacuum of space. All this stuff is just presented as the way Freeza is, without even an attempt at rationalizing it, yet the tone dictates we're supposed to take all this silly grasping at straws as thrilling danger. So I guess I don't really take the power inflation in the Boo arc seriously, but I don't take the power inflation in earlier arcs seriously either, so there's no net loss of seriousness. I think a silly story presented as serious is harder to accept than a silly story presented as silly.
You did left out Sonic X.Zephyr wrote:Mark Menza, the man responsible for Dragon Ball GT's beloved American English dub replacement musical score, is the cousin of the father of Nick Menza. Nick Menza is notable as being the drummer of American Thrash Metal band Megadeth, from the years 1989 to 1998. His first recorded album with the band, 1990's Rust in Peace, featured Hangar 18 as its second track, a fan favorite song that describes a government conspiracy to hide the existence of aliens in Area 51. Son Goku, Dragon Ball's protagonist is also an alien. But the connections don't stop there!
Nick's first songwriting credits with the band come into the fold with 1992's Countdown to Extinction. One year later, Dragon Ball Z Side Story: Plan to Eradicate the Saiyans was released. Its plot is a riveting tale, wherein the Tsufruian scientist, Dr. Lychee, wants to eradicate the Saiyans, out of revenge for what their people did to his. Extinction. Eradication. It's like pottery: it rhymes! Now, this plot point would later be repurposed in Dragon Ball's own 1996 television anime sequel, Dragon Ball GT, where Baby, an artificial lifeform created by the Tsufruians, has the same bitter vengeance that Lychee did before him. And who composed the iconic soundtrack to Dragon Ball GT's American musical score? Mark Menza, of course!
RandomGuy96 wrote:The DB fandom's inexplicable love for Sonic the Hedgehog is one of the most confusing pop culture phenomenons in the world to me, right up there with Sonic the Hedgehog being an extant franchise in the first place.Sonic has had cartoons and comic books since the early 90's. Starting with Sonic Adventure in 1998, the games started to put more emphasis on the story, with full cutscenes, voice acting, etc. The characters are largely all one dimensional, and the stories are lowest common denominator "Saturday Morning Cartoon"/"Shonen manga/anime" type junkfood, but a lot of people (particularly children) have next to no standards for this kind of stuff. Furry fandom, as well as people on the autism spectrum (neither of which are being invoked here disparagingly), also play an important role. As does general nostalgia, from those not already fitting any of the aforementioned descriptions.ABED wrote:For the life of me, I'll NEVER understand why the Sonic fandom is what it is. Why? it's a video game franchise, with only the most basic of storylines. While I don't condone the actions of toxic fans, I get why for instance Star Wars fans are so protective about it. Stories are inherently personal. Some take it too far, but I can understand the logic. I'm at a loss for what is about Sonic that engenders this kind of reaction.
Moreover, brand loyalty is a thing, and people will continue to purchase the games on the "merit" of everything besides the gameplay (which itself continues to drift farther and farther away from the core tenants that made the original games novel and innovative platformers in the first place), essentially rewarding the blind and thoughtless experimentation and backwards priorities held by the studios working on the IP (and incentivizing more of it), simply because, well, "it's the next entry!" The irony is that, despite the constant blind experimentation, Sonic Team has also been making explicit efforts to "return to the series' roots", regularly, since at least as far back as 2003, making the last decade and a half feel like a hilarious "worst of both worlds" scenario. Sonic Mania, the first actual successful attempt at returning to said roots (helmed largely by fans who'd been collectively reverse engineering the original games since as far back as Sonic Adventure's release in the late 90's), only just came out in 2017.
It's particularly amusing with the new live action Hollywood Sonic film that is coming out later this year. It's shaping up to be trash (shocker), and the Sonic fandom has been having a collective meltdown over it, worrying that this will be the thing that destroys the brand. Not only is that practically demonstrably impossible at this point, but it would be a well deserved comeuppance for those who have been unconditionally supporting a fucking corporate brand, even at its lowest. The chickens have come home to roost. The bed has been made, and it's time to sleep in it. Not that it'll actually happen; the film will come out, be panned, and the brand will resume its regularly scheduled program of "industry punching bag". There's no "reputation" left to tarnish. Mania, "the first good one since forever", is constantly described in every review and discussion as "...a thing made by the fans", so any and all goodwill it fosters is directed at the reputation of the specific team behind it, rather than the IP proper.
As far as being "protective", a lot of that comes from the fracturing that embodies the fandom. Due to Sonic Team's constant experimentation, they've made a bunch of different styles of games, and each one was somebody's first. A lot of peoples' first. So, people largely bicker about which approach is the best. In the gameplay department, the original games were pinball platformers that had some nice spectacle held together by a lot of substance; the 00's approach was largely a failure to approximate said platforming substance into the third dimension and punching up the spectacle as a crutch; the 10's approach has largely been a potentially solid racing game being held back by frequent, intrusive, bland and sloppy platforming. In the story department, the 90's had the approach of "hey, it's a video game, this shit belongs in the background and as a footnote"; the 00's largely had a lot of faux "deep and dark" pretensions; the 10's have largely actively made fun of the 00's approach (much to the chagrin of fans of said approach). Exceptions exist for all of these, but they're are the broad strokes. Disagreement about this stuff can get really hostile sometimes.
As far as being "protective" of the brand in general? I honestly don't see too much of that, outside of fans who take issue with the official Sonic social media accounts actively making fun of the brand's countless blunders. Between the piss takes, and the outrage over it, I'm not sure which makes me laugh more.
Brands are all about reputation, so I get sticking with something even through a rough patch, but if the reputation turns sour, then it's no longer loyalty, it's blind loyalty.RandomGuy96 wrote:I get brand loyalty; it's not like I've never fallen into the trap of paying for something bad or mediocre because I thought previous entries were good (cf. Chappie, Mass Effect Andromeda, GoT season 5 onward, Prometheus, every single ASOIAF book outside of the main series, and so on). What I don't get is still having brand loyalty for a franchise this old. As far as I know, Sonic's peak consists of a few good simple games in the 1990s. My main sticking point is how the hell that turned into a franchise that survives until today; a franchise that hasn't produced anything worthwhile for literal decades now.Zephyr wrote: Moreover, brand loyalty is a thing, and people will continue to purchase the games on the "merit" of everything besides the gameplay (which itself continues to drift farther and farther away from the core tenants that made the original games novel and innovative platformers in the first place), essentially rewarding the blind and thoughtless experimentation and backwards priorities held by the studios working on the IP (and incentivizing more of it), simply because, well, "it's the next entry!" The irony is that, despite the constant blind experimentation, Sonic Team has also been making explicit efforts to "return to the series' roots", regularly, since at least as far back as 2003, making the last decade and a half feel like a hilarious "worst of both worlds" scenario. Sonic Mania, the first actual successful attempt at returning to said roots (helmed largely by fans who'd been collectively reverse engineering the original games since as far back as Sonic Adventure's release in the late 90's), only just came out in 2017.
That's the gist of what I was getting at. Sonic is nothing but a rough patch.ABED wrote:Brands are all about reputation, so I get sticking with something even through a rough patch, but if the reputation turns sour, then it's no longer loyalty, it's blind loyalty.RandomGuy96 wrote:I get brand loyalty; it's not like I've never fallen into the trap of paying for something bad or mediocre because I thought previous entries were good (cf. Chappie, Mass Effect Andromeda, GoT season 5 onward, Prometheus, every single ASOIAF book outside of the main series, and so on). What I don't get is still having brand loyalty for a franchise this old. As far as I know, Sonic's peak consists of a few good simple games in the 1990s. My main sticking point is how the hell that turned into a franchise that survives until today; a franchise that hasn't produced anything worthwhile for literal decades now.Zephyr wrote: Moreover, brand loyalty is a thing, and people will continue to purchase the games on the "merit" of everything besides the gameplay (which itself continues to drift farther and farther away from the core tenants that made the original games novel and innovative platformers in the first place), essentially rewarding the blind and thoughtless experimentation and backwards priorities held by the studios working on the IP (and incentivizing more of it), simply because, well, "it's the next entry!" The irony is that, despite the constant blind experimentation, Sonic Team has also been making explicit efforts to "return to the series' roots", regularly, since at least as far back as 2003, making the last decade and a half feel like a hilarious "worst of both worlds" scenario. Sonic Mania, the first actual successful attempt at returning to said roots (helmed largely by fans who'd been collectively reverse engineering the original games since as far back as Sonic Adventure's release in the late 90's), only just came out in 2017.
The Monkey King wrote:It was actually Beerus disguised as Zarbon #StayWokeRandomGuy96 wrote:He's probably referring to the Bardock special. Zarbon was the one who first recommended destroying Planet Vegeta because the saiyans were rapidly growing in strength.dbgtFO wrote: Please elaborate as I do not know what you mean by "pushing Vegeta's destruction"
Herms wrote:The fact that the ridiculous power inflation is presented so earnestly makes me just roll my eyes and snicker. Like with Freeza, where he starts off over 10 times stronger than all his henchmen except Ginyu (because...well, just because), then we find out he can transform and get even more powerful, and then he reveals he can transform two more times, before finally coming out with the fact that he hasn't even been using anywhere near 50% of his power. Oh, and he can survive in the vacuum of space. All this stuff is just presented as the way Freeza is, without even an attempt at rationalizing it, yet the tone dictates we're supposed to take all this silly grasping at straws as thrilling danger. So I guess I don't really take the power inflation in the Boo arc seriously, but I don't take the power inflation in earlier arcs seriously either, so there's no net loss of seriousness. I think a silly story presented as serious is harder to accept than a silly story presented as silly.
I don't know about that. Toei's strategy seems to have always been quantity over quality.MasenkoHA wrote:Brand loyalty is how you get Toei half assing their animation on shows like Dragon Ball Super and Sailor Moon Crystal.
Just saying.
It is.MasenkoHA wrote:I genuinely can’t tell if this is sarcasm or not.
May your search continue.NewKakarot wrote:Don't think I've ever found someone who actually likes Menza's score lol
The simple fact is that not everyone thought this stuff was worthless. Or, at least, not consistently worthless enough to discard entirely. While I presently believe that there was largely nothing of value done with the brand between 1994 and 2011, I certainly didn't think that was the case back then. I was a kid. I wasn't critically evaluating my interests to the extent that I do now. For a lot of people, it's familiar comfort food. For a lot of people, friendships are forged through a common interest in something, even if it's bad with the hindsight of adulthood and critical thinking. You don't generally up and choose what's psychologically and emotionally special to you. Hell, as someone who was genuinely hyped for Sonic 06, saved up to purchase an Xbox 360 so I could play it, and beat the game after I got my hands on it, I couldn't tell you at what point I started to think "holy crap this is terrible". It wasn't until I replayed the Genesis games and Sonic 4 was coming out that I really dove deep and explored what made the Genesis games so great in the first place (and thus everything that followed them so paltry in comparison).RandomGuy96 wrote:What I don't get is still having brand loyalty for a franchise this old. As far as I know, Sonic's peak consists of a few good simple games in the 1990s. My main sticking point is how the hell that turned into a franchise that survives until today; a franchise that hasn't produced anything worthwhile for literal decades now.
A 2001(?) interview has Naka confirm that 3K's Special Stages are based on Kaio's planet:Mag: Have you received comments from Akira Toriyama about Super Sonic? Why can he transform almost automatically?
Naka: Oh…(smile) we didn't receive comments from him. And if Sonic got this power, it's a question of mastery.
Silver's connection to Trunks was actually referenced in the Sonic '06 game script spreadsheet file:—Do you have any interesting stories about the Sonic sequels for the Megadrive?
Naka: The ball-shaped 3D special stage from Sonic 3/S&K was actually inspired by King Kai's little planet from Dragon Ball Z, which I am a fan of.
So why didn't Toriyama sued Naka early.MainJPW wrote:There's kind of a similar thread on Sonic Retro right now. These are about the only things we know for sure are inspired by Dragon Ball when it comes to the Sonic series:
A 2005 interview from a French magazine appears to have some indirect confirmation on the Super Sonic/Super Saiyan connection:
A 2001(?) interview has Naka confirm that 3K's Special Stages are based on Kaio's planet:Mag: Have you received comments from Akira Toriyama about Super Sonic? Why can he transform almost automatically?
Naka: Oh…(smile) we didn't receive comments from him. And if Sonic got this power, it's a question of mastery.
Silver's connection to Trunks was actually referenced in the Sonic '06 game script spreadsheet file:—Do you have any interesting stories about the Sonic sequels for the Megadrive?
Naka: The ball-shaped 3D special stage from Sonic 3/S&K was actually inspired by King Kai's little planet from Dragon Ball Z, which I am a fan of.
https://youtu.be/iX_kJhd_8QE?t=102
Anything else is pure conjecture.
Because thats kinda just taking inspiration and not ripping offYoung-Jah wrote:So why didn't Toriyama sued Naka early.MainJPW wrote:There's kind of a similar thread on Sonic Retro right now. These are about the only things we know for sure are inspired by Dragon Ball when it comes to the Sonic series:
A 2005 interview from a French magazine appears to have some indirect confirmation on the Super Sonic/Super Saiyan connection:
A 2001(?) interview has Naka confirm that 3K's Special Stages are based on Kaio's planet:Mag: Have you received comments from Akira Toriyama about Super Sonic? Why can he transform almost automatically?
Naka: Oh…(smile) we didn't receive comments from him. And if Sonic got this power, it's a question of mastery.
Silver's connection to Trunks was actually referenced in the Sonic '06 game script spreadsheet file:—Do you have any interesting stories about the Sonic sequels for the Megadrive?
Naka: The ball-shaped 3D special stage from Sonic 3/S&K was actually inspired by King Kai's little planet from Dragon Ball Z, which I am a fan of.
https://youtu.be/iX_kJhd_8QE?t=102
Anything else is pure conjecture.
Plus, in episode 2 of Sonic X, Sonic has the infrared scouter, which is based off of the power scouter.
OkThe Patrolman wrote: ↑Fri Mar 01, 2019 8:29 amBecause thats kinda just taking inspiration and not ripping offYoung-Jah wrote:So why didn't Toriyama sued Naka early.MainJPW wrote:There's kind of a similar thread on Sonic Retro right now. These are about the only things we know for sure are inspired by Dragon Ball when it comes to the Sonic series:
A 2005 interview from a French magazine appears to have some indirect confirmation on the Super Sonic/Super Saiyan connection:
A 2001(?) interview has Naka confirm that 3K's Special Stages are based on Kaio's planet:
Silver's connection to Trunks was actually referenced in the Sonic '06 game script spreadsheet file:
https://youtu.be/iX_kJhd_8QE?t=102
Anything else is pure conjecture.
Plus, in episode 2 of Sonic X, Sonic has the infrared scouter, which is based off of the power scouter.
But he also made walls, floors, and stuff be destructive in battle.
What