What Makes a Good Story

Reference: Sonic Adventure Outlined: Sonic

My opinion on Sonic Colors? It's great! The gameplay, while being derivative of Sonic Unleashed, actually emphasizes good pacing to make sure the player doesn't get drained too quickly. The writing takes the lighthearted, humorous flavor and makes it hilarious (while being very, very good). And what's more...

There's actually a story being told. Sorta.

I think I'll avoid spoilers on general principle, but the game doesn't leave it at "Eggman has a theme park and you must stop him," though that's how it starts. There are actually developments in the story, new beats that advance the scenario forward.* It doesn't just complicate the same beat over and over. It doesn't leave the story alone and just let the gameplay and funny cutscenes bridge the experience.** It actually reveals things and advances the story.

To get an idea of what I'm talking about, look at our outline of Sonic's story in Sonic Adventure:

Shortly after the first boss battle with Chaos, it is revealed to Sonic and Tails that they must collect the Chaos Emeralds before Eggman does. They proceed to do so for a while, even with a few complications (Eggman ambushing them, Knuckles picking a fight). But then Eggman reveals the Egg Carrier, his stronghold. Sonic and Tails chase after him in the Tornado, but get shot down.

When Sonic lands in Station Square, he notices that Tails is no longer with him. Now, his objective is no longer "find Chaos Emeralds before Eggman," but "find Tails and make sure he's okay." The story has advanced. It advances further when Amy shows up and throws another wrench into his plans by running away from ZERO. Now he has to make sure Amy's okay. He spends some time in Station Square looking around before he finds ZERO hauling her away to Mystic Ruins. Just as he's about to catch up, ZERO is lifted into the Egg Carrier.

Now, he must chase after the Egg Carrier again, with the help of Tails' new version of the Tornado. Now their objective ("save Amy") has brought them to Eggman's flying stronghold, and they must best the Sky Deck to advance. When they finally catch up, they secure Amy but lose the Chaos Emerald she was inadvertently guarding. After a fight with Gamma, Sonic's objective is now "stop Eggman," which no longer has anything to do with collecting Chaos Emeralds and gets to the heart of the matter. This brings him up against a powerful form of Chaos.

With the defeat of Chaos, the Egg Carrier falls and Sonic lands in the Mystic Ruins. He sees a light - the same light that has been guiding him in gameplay - and follows it into the previously inaccessible ruins. At the end, he receives a mysterious vision of the past. Left to wonder as to its meaning, he notices Eggman stumbling into his ground base, and decides to finish things once and for all with the doctor.


Got all that? Now compare that to the story of Sonic Unleashed:

Sonic gets a Werehog form and lands on the broken planet and meets the strange character Chip (boy that's a lot in the intro). They go through the levels in Apotos as both Sonic and the Werehog and meet up with Tails. They go to see a professor in Spagonia, only to find that Eggman captured him. So they follow the trail to Mazuri, where they rescue the professor and get the necessary information from him: there are temples that can be used to restore power to the Chaos Emeralds and bring the planet back together.

So they return to Mazuri, encounter Eggman, and activate the temple to restore that portion of the planet. From then on, they follow the pattern of going through levels, finding keys and gradually putting the planet together one piece at a time. They have a few encounters along the way - they bump into Amy, they find out that Chip is actually Light Gaia, etc. - but their objective and procedures pretty much stay the same. Eggmanland complicates things and refuses to merge with the rest of the planet, but their solution to that is to just repeat their process again. The very last complication is that Dark Gaia rises in its full form, but that's because Eggman's been collecting bits and pieces of him for a while now. Chip helps out by forming the Gaia Colossus, and together him and Sonic take down Dark Gaia.


As you can guess, this comparison highlights exactly what I was talking about. Sonic Adventure, a good story, keeps changing the nature of the story and the characters' objectives to build things up. Sonic Unleashed, a bad story, dumps all of its potential storytelling into the first section and then keeps it exactly the same for the rest of the experience, and its twists and turns only complicate the same beat over and over instead of advancing it.

A good story well told doesn't begin and end with its opening premise. It advances forward in logical but unexpected ways, bringing tension higher and increasing the importance of the later movements.

It's simple to point out, but it can be hard to do. It means leaving behind a scenario to the past; it means making the characters realize that their past objectives and methods weren't working and they must try something else. But this is truthful - almost always, our plans don't work the way we want them to. There are new complications that we cannot ignore, so we have to change our strategy.

The takeaway from this? Even if we come up with a good starting premise for our story, we can't just leave it there. The real work is in figuring out where to go from that starting point. Having just one starting premise will not support a whole story. That's what we've been previously looking for, and it has been our downfall. The real challenge is to start with one thing and ask, "Well, what could happen to make the character change their objective?"

That's the path of a good story.

* Okay, okay, there are really only two "developments" in Sonic Colors. But their rarity emphasizes their importance, since they still leave me with the feeling of, "Hey, this is actually a story!"

** Though that comprises most of Sonic Colors. Remember, baby steps.