Analysis of Sonic Rivals 2's Plot Part 1
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AmusantTranscription
00:00So now I'm going to be talking about the story of this game.
00:03Tails tells Sonic that a bunch of Chao have vanished, and he assumes Eggman is behind it.
00:09How does he know about the Chao vanishing?
00:13Did he see it on the news? Was there a breaking news broadcast?
00:17I guess so.
00:19It's confusing because Tails isn't normally about
00:23monitoring the amount of Chao that are on every particular area.
00:27For all they know, it's just some random normal villains who are just taking the Chao to sell them.
00:33Which is not necessarily evil because they might go to loving owners.
00:38Since when is it like Eggman do something as petty sounding as taking Chao from their natural environment?
00:46If they knew about the fact that they could be used for their chaos energy,
00:51it would make sense. Or they were speculating that Eggman was going to use the Chao to experiment on them.
00:57Or use them as batteries. Well, then it makes sense that they would take it seriously.
01:03But they're just assuming Eggman's behind it, and he's on this island.
01:08How do they know that?
01:10Did he see him on the island? Did he see him on the island on the news?
01:15Or did he put a tracker on his Eggmobile?
01:19So are we gonna be told what this island is? Or is it just left lazily nameless?
01:26Well, as it turns out, we never do learn the name of this island.
01:30Sonic naturally wonders why Eggman would want a bunch of Chao. So then why is he assuming it's Eggman?
01:36But decides to follow him anyways because he can't be trusted.
01:40You know, when Chao were being taken in Sonic Heroes, people didn't instantly blame Eggman for it.
01:48Sonic sees Knuckles and Rouge and teases them about potentially being on a date.
01:53Knuckles just says,
01:54Knuckles says,
01:56Which is a lot less entertaining than I'm actually getting embarrassed.
02:00Knuckles asks Sonic if he's seen Eggman.
02:04You lost the Master Emerald again?
02:07What is this, the sixth time?
02:10Sonic naturally snarks about it.
02:13When he decides to go to Eggman and then talks to him later, Knuckles says angrily,
02:18Hey, come back here!
02:20That's right, folks. The problem with the plot of Rivals 1, where characters will compete with each other for no reason, still persists.
02:27Why can't Sonic and Knuckles just work together at this point? Aren't they supposed to be on the same side?
02:33Whatever happened to the real superpower of teamwork?
02:37Apparently Sonic thinks it's worthless now.
02:41So once again, Knuckles will take any excuse he can to try to beat up his own friend and potentially send him to the hospital
02:47or kill him. At least now he's asking for permission so that Sonic is less likely to think less of him.
02:54Sonic doesn't seem to mind at all.
02:56This makes sense,
02:57and Sonic would have a lot of pent-up anger towards him that he'd like to get out for all the time to try to fight
03:02with him.
03:03Tails cheerfully greets Rouge and asks what she's doing there.
03:07I guess he doesn't hate her and distrust her anymore like in Sonic Battle,
03:11even though nothing happened in between those games to change his opinion on her.
03:15Rouge explains that she's looking for treasure and asks where Eggman is, or the doctor as she calls him.
03:22When Tails mentions that him and Sonic were looking for him on the island,
03:26Rouge decides to tell the doctor that he's looking for him.
03:29Why would Rouge go back to working for Eggman?
03:32Tails naturally objects to this because if Eggman knows he's looking for him, he'll never find him.
03:38Sonic confronts Eggman.
03:40Sonic asks him what he's done with the Chao, and Eggman denies it.
03:45Why are you answering like that when it only makes you look suspicious?
03:49I feel like you would only be in character for him to answer like that if he was doing something with the Chao.
03:54But wouldn't it be even more in character for him to brag about his plan?
03:59Because he bragged about his plan and having nothing to gain from doing so in SA1.
04:04Knuckles shows up and says that he's got a bone to pick with them, too.
04:08And Eggman sends his newest creation after them.
04:11As for the other teams who could potentially see in Blue Coast?
04:15Well, Knuckles is looking for the Master Emerald.
04:18He asks if Rouge knows who took it instead of accusing her of taking it.
04:23Rouge explains that she wants to find the Chaos Emeralds and might benefit from his help.
04:29When Rouge tells him she can lead him to the doctor, he agrees because he doesn't have much of a choice.
04:35Anything to make it go faster. Knuckles points out that he sees Sonic and Tails after that.
04:40Vector talks to Espio in a call.
04:43I didn't know that the word Chao was supposed to be capitalized.
04:47It's so inconsistently capitalized, too.
04:50And why is he assuming that a hero from the future would do such a thing easily?
04:55Why would they think someone neutral would be stealing Chao?
04:59And for all they know, he's just collecting them as pets.
05:03Chao loved being around people.
05:06Whatever happened to Vector being a great detective?
05:09Well, as it turns out, he's actually right.
05:11But still, the sheer fact that he jumps to conclusions so easily when this is a hero he's talking about.
05:17Espio says that he'll go undercover and see if he can follow Silver.
05:22Why doesn't he keep it simple and say he'll go invisible?
05:25So Silver shows up right away and talks to Espio.
05:28Would it be perceived as racist to just walk up to a chameleon and go,
05:32Hey, chameleon! Like that's the most important thing about him?
05:36Maybe Espio's just not that oversensitive.
05:40And it has to be that Silver's barely seen any chameleons before, but still is aware of what they're supposed to look like.
05:47When Silver confronts him on knowing where the Chao are,
05:50Espio goes from acting serious and dignified as usual to being nervous.
05:54It's actually pretty amusing seeing someone like Espio act like that.
05:58For once, he's being relatable instead of just serious all the time.
06:02Not much of a ninja, though.
06:04You'd think he'd try to be intimidating.
06:06Tell him, don't you dare kidnap any Chao.
06:09Silver calls him strange.
06:12That's hypocritical coming from the telekinetic hedgehog.
06:16His character portrait doesn't make it look like he's trying to insult Espio.
06:20Just stating a fact.
06:22That might be part of why I interpret Silver's rudeness in this game as being due to him having no social skills.
06:29It might be that he never had any friends growing up and was shunned at school for his powers.
06:34Since he naturally would have shown them off because that's what a little kid would do if he had powers.
06:40Espio tells him he's mistaken.
06:42Not only lacking self-awareness because he actually is pretty strange, but also forgetting that his mission is to follow him.
06:48And yet he runs away and Silver has to chase after him.
06:53Why would he tell him be gone?
06:55Why don't why not just say I have to go to the bathroom or something then he wouldn't follow you?
07:00Shadow reveals that he's working with Metal Sonic.
07:03There's no explanation beforehand.
07:07He doesn't even explain why he wants to send Metal Sonic after Espio.
07:11You have to play Shadow's storyline to find out the answer.
07:14In Shadow's storyline,
07:16he wonders who's there.
07:18Even though you don't see or hear anything before he says that.
07:22So for all you know, he said that for no reason.
07:26What did he hear rustling the bushes behind him?
07:29It makes sense that Eggman's such a control freak that he wants to make sure he won't say anything
07:32he doesn't want him to and he wants to be the one doing all the talking.
07:37And it's annoying to have Metal Sonic have nothing but generic villain dialogue.
07:41It's easy to want Metal Sonic to talk because of the potential that it could be an interesting character.
07:47But really the Sonic series isn't going to make him a deep character.
07:52It just makes me wonder why he's even here after he betrayed Eggman and it doesn't explain it.
07:58It's sweet that he calls him his metal friend.
08:01But it's also completely unlike him.
08:03When Shadow questions why I should help Eggman, the doctor gives him a good answer.
08:09And I guess he's only asking Shadow for help out of desperation.
08:14Instead of immediately explaining what he means and preventing Shadow from jumping to the conclusion that he's threatening to destroy the world himself,
08:22Eggman gets distracted.
08:24It's hard for him to remember Silver because he just met him.
08:28Why is there no time to explain?
08:30If Metal Sonic's running alongside him, then surely Eggman would be able to tell him during that time.
08:35As if he would be trying to talk to him if he was within earshot of him.
08:39So Silver tells Shadow the truth like it would be logical. No, that's not what happened.
08:44Instead, the writers want to give us a piss poor excuse for the rival system.
08:48I wish it just explained Silver's thought process here.
08:52Have him say that he would never believe him about what he's doing.
08:56They're both against Eggman. Why aren't they on the same side though?
09:01He just tells him not to get in his way.
09:04Why does he say that and expects Shadow to leave him alone?
09:07So Metal Sonic shows up and instead of saying anything, you just see a text box from him with programming code in it.
09:15That's even lamer than him not talking.
09:17This actually caused people to wonder if Eggman had severely cut down on Metal Sonic's intelligence after Sonic Heroes.
09:24Why would Eggman hamper the usefulness of his most intelligent robot?
09:29When that'd only make him less likely to beat Sonic.
09:32How is he feeling about having to team up with Shadow?
09:36Was he disappointed at the fact that he barely ever competed with Sonic in this game?
09:40It's not like Eggman's talking to him through loudspeakers and explicitly giving him the order.
09:45So why is it phrased like order and not plan or solution or something?
09:49You'd think Metal Sonic would be faster than Espio. So there'd be no point in trying to run away from him.
09:54Wouldn't Espio think that he has to deal with Metal Sonic because he's such a threat?
09:59Wouldn't he panic and want to put him down? Isn't he supposed to be a paranoid ninja?
10:03Knuckles and Rouge meet up with Eggman and accuse him of stealing Master Emerald.
10:08Sonic says that he'll defeat Eggman before they do.
10:12Again, I have no problem with Sonic acting this way because it's perfectly in character for him and he's not being an outright arrogant dick.
10:19He's just trying to have fun.
10:21And Espio freaks out from seeing Silver. Despite being known for being serious and cool-headed.
10:27It's not like it was a plot point in the previous game that Silver used it on Eggman in front of people and they freaked out.
10:33Why would he ever catch him? He's supposed to be invisible.
10:38How is Espio not a mere citizen?
10:41It only makes sense because he has powers when most of the people on this planet don't.
10:45He was only a hero one time.
10:48It's not really like him to have one active hero and go to his head.
10:53Silver accuses Eggman of being Eggman Nega and admits it immediately again.
10:59I guess he figures he doesn't need to hide from Espio because he's such a minor character.
11:04Still, how does Silver know that's Eggman Nega and not Eggman? We don't know how Silver found out this.
11:10Or how the two traveled back in time.
11:13Silver insists on fighting him instead of Shadow.
11:16And we get cheated out of their dialogue in the Silver story despite the fact that it's dialogue that is happening as an integral part
11:22of the cutscene in both stories.
11:25Of course Espio failed. He ran away from him.
11:28Silver says he doesn't need Espio anyways. I love that line.
11:32He's right though. He doesn't need his help. I like how nicely he talks to the Chao.
11:38So naturally Espio says he doesn't seem like a bad guy.
11:41But he still thinks he has a connection to the Chao incident.
11:45Tails points out to Sonic that Eggman dropped something. I sure would have liked to see what the thing Eggman dropped looked like.
11:52And I guess Sonic heard Silver talking to himself for no reason.
11:57I don't understand why they made Silver such a jerk to Sonic in the Rivals games.
12:02Why does he tell him to move aside?
12:04Why can't he just use his telekinetic powers to move him aside?
12:09Or at least fly over Sonic?
12:12Now I have to assume that the reason he never moved people aside with psychokinesis
12:16is that he thought he was too polite to do that to them. That he was raised to think that it was wrong
12:22and he should only do it as a last resort.
12:25Either he's been treated like a freak before for having psychokinesis and so he wants to avoid that
12:31or he was lauded for having them.
12:33But he felt like doing that would turn the tables on him.
12:37I like that Sonic stays in a good mood.
12:40At least Sonic competing with them makes sense.
12:43It's surprisingly nice of Shadow to ask Metal Sonic if he's okay.
12:48But it's also completely out of character though. Why would he genuinely care about Metal Sonic?
12:53It's pragmatic because he'd be a powerful ally.
12:57But it's not- but he shouldn't actually care about him.
13:01It's also weird of him to smile while saying I'll take that as a yes.
13:05This is probably the first time Metal Sonic's ever been asked if he's okay.
13:10And he doesn't get to say anything in response.
13:12It's pragmatic of Shadow to keep him around just in case he needs his help.
13:16I mean after all Metal Sonic can fly and he can't. But Shadow's so fast he could still achieve the effect of
13:24from an outsider's perspective being in two places at once.
13:28Eggman explains why I wasn't talking to him earlier. There's interference.
13:33Good, so they actually have an explanation for why he didn't explain everything right away.
13:38But why did the interference start suddenly happening? It's not like he moved.
13:43If you don't have time for games right now, then why the hell do you make Silver race you in the first place?
13:49So he's admitting that he did something stupid.
13:52And he just couldn't help himself.
13:55Sonic's talking like it was Silver's idea to have the game when it wasn't his idea.
14:00I hate it when Sonic lacks self-awareness.
14:04Resolve what?
14:06Silver mentions that this might work to his advantage to get more Chao.
14:11Good, he's learned from the previous fight with Sonic.
14:14He challenges them to see who can collect the most Chao.
14:18Sonic likes competition no matter how silly it is. So he agrees.
14:22Tails mentions that he has a feeling someone's following him.
14:26Espio comments that he's pretty observant,
14:28ignoring the fact that he's been following Tails for quite a while and only just now has Tails noticed it.
14:33Espio decides to just politely ask Tails for some information.
14:37The only reason he would figure out Espio was following him was if he made a noise.
14:42And he would have gone into the habit of being as quiet as possible when following him.
14:46It's not like he would have stepped on a stick because he would have seen the stick and avoided it.
14:52I guess he jumped over a bush to avoid rustling the bush, but landing on the ground made noise too.
14:59Because if you heard him, you'd think you'd have heard him earlier.
15:02Tails is surprised to see him and explains why him and Sonic are on the island.