FA+
Shop
A theory on some sonic games.
12 years ago
After reading a journal on DA, watching some videos by Egoraptor and Roger Van Der Weide, being in 
themadcatter 's stream when he was playing Sonic Lost World and various discussions on Skype I came up with a theory as to why some people may not be fans of Sonic Games.
First off, think of a franchise like Mario and Megaman when it comes to those series (mainly the platforming games) is that they tend to have smart game designs for their games. Basically they tend to give players time to plan their move and decide how they want to procede and this is true as there is no "true" order to beat Megaman 1-10 and Mario games have been beaten in 15 minutes. Any robot master or Bowser can be defeated but it's all based on how skilled the gamer is at dodging or timing his jumps, etc. But for Sonic, the main selling point is speed. Speed through the level in time in order to get to the end. Now the one issue I had with the classic genesis games is that even when I speed through and I try to run through each level I'd eventually get hit by a robot in which if I tried to preserve the rings to get all the emeralds then that would make things more frustrating for me. Plus games like Sonic 2 or CD aren't really meant for speed anyway because I played Knuckles in Sonic 2 and that game's stages are so big that I can spend a lot of time exploring through them as Knuckles even Sonic CD has explorable levels that I can't get past by just speeding. But even with some of these flaws the games are enjoyable because of the massive level designs that they have. Like I just figured out that in Chemical Plant Zone I can choose which direction I can go.
As for the recent games, as much as I love these games there are some things that I can understand that some fans who prefer the old genesis games don't like. For example, the speedy game play of Sonic Unleashed to Lost World is great and I honestly love Unleashed, Colors and Generations all the way through. But if I take a moment to stop and take a step back, I noticed that when speeding through these levels I can easily hit enemies by dashing. Not to mention a lot of the stages are rather linear as opposed to just being an explorable level that I can stop and admire for a bit. I mean Sonic 06 kind of had that idea where they had you go on little missions mid level...but I don't think I need to talk about 06 since that game is just lost potential.... Plus when it comes to chaos emeralds, Sonic games seem to do all the work for you. Even Dash, which is reminiscent to the older games, makes you get the chaos emeralds to get to the end which can be frustrating for some who are impatient. That's something I can call the gameplay in these recent games, "impatient". Unlike the megaman games which can teach children to be patient and time everything precisely.
As for story and the cutscenes...pfft what story? Sonic stories are all obsolete considering how scattered the continuity is. Not to mention there are like a bajillion universes. American, Japanese, Video Games, Anime, Manga, TV Shows, Archie, Fleetway....why the hell are there so many universes?! This is one of the many things that made Sonic X-treme fail was because they were trying to make the TV SATAM universe canon to the games. I mean as fun and awesome as it would be to see Sally or Bunnie in more recent games...it'd be confusing as hell. Considering side games that weren't supposed to be canon like Secret Rings were actually made canon in Generations and not to mention they fucked up Shadow (moreso than usual) in Heroes and Shadow the Hedgehog. First he's a clone..then he has magical powers like Michael Jackson by getting the blood of that forgettable Black Doom in his body. Why?! Not to mention Archie pulled a massive bullshit plot-twist where Sonic and Sally get married and have kids who are just clones of themselves and they become replacements for Sonic and Sally basically.....are these writers for real or what? Plus other characters like Knuckles have become more stupid over time as opposed to just gullible, Amy was written off as a psychotic obsessive stalker, Tails...I'm not too sure about him. But characters like Cream, Rouge and the chaotix tend to overshadow those characters that were once in Sonic the Fighters including Mighty. Sure they're in the Archie comics now but who reads them these days besides kids and Archie Sonic fans? That comic is recolor and mary-sue city. There's nothing wrong with having a wide-variety of character to be playable in one game (I had not issue with it) or having a large cast. I mean Mario's been around for over 25 years and look at how many characters we've been introduced to thanks to the many RPGs, platformers, etc. But when there's so many characters in one game, while it does make a game last longer, it may not work too well with platformers. I mean that tends to work better in RPGs as games like Dragon Quest, Mother 3 and Final Fantasy had you taking on the role of multiple characters but that served a purpose to the story. When it came to Rivals 1-2 and heroes and even 06... we didn't have any expansion on the story at all only clips being rehashed and reused.
I can see why a lot of fans can get so frustrated with the Sonic Lore. Also the last thing I can talk about is Sonic Adventure 1 and 2. As much as I love these games (2 over 1 mind you) I can be the first to say that these games have not aged well at all. I can already see that the camera was already an issue when Sonic shifted to 3D. LOL I mean people complained about the camera and controls in Heroes (which I also liked) but seemed to not notice any issues with these two. I guess it's because they tend to have interesting colors, level designs and the music (to many) are classics and not to mention these two formed the childhoods of many kids back then. But the fact that the stories made no sense (especially in 2 since there were still many questions to be answered and there was just a lot of things that they could have explained and not to mention there were also some translation errors which could also help) and the gameplay can have such jerky cameras in certain areas and the controls can be crazy at times. But other than that, I honestly loved these games.
Oh and also I can add that the fanbase is a fanbase that many just can't stand, like many others. Also when it comes to marketing and trying to sell these games off to people, they tend have a selling point to try and make Sonic look all cool and edgy. This actually worked way back in the Genesis days as well as games like CD and even the Adventure games. That's because they at least tried to give something new to the fans. When it came to Shadow the Hedgehog, Sonic 2006 and even Riders (intro-wise) they were successful but then they ended up falling flat on their faces when fans realized that half of these games weren't all that good. Plus the people who buy these games are usually the Sonic fans who grew up back in the 90's or little kids. Non-Sonic fans who are into the games that most people play these games will look at these games and then pass by seeing how much bigger FPS shooters are today compared to Sonic amongst the other genres.
themadcatter 's stream when he was playing Sonic Lost World and various discussions on Skype I came up with a theory as to why some people may not be fans of Sonic Games.First off, think of a franchise like Mario and Megaman when it comes to those series (mainly the platforming games) is that they tend to have smart game designs for their games. Basically they tend to give players time to plan their move and decide how they want to procede and this is true as there is no "true" order to beat Megaman 1-10 and Mario games have been beaten in 15 minutes. Any robot master or Bowser can be defeated but it's all based on how skilled the gamer is at dodging or timing his jumps, etc. But for Sonic, the main selling point is speed. Speed through the level in time in order to get to the end. Now the one issue I had with the classic genesis games is that even when I speed through and I try to run through each level I'd eventually get hit by a robot in which if I tried to preserve the rings to get all the emeralds then that would make things more frustrating for me. Plus games like Sonic 2 or CD aren't really meant for speed anyway because I played Knuckles in Sonic 2 and that game's stages are so big that I can spend a lot of time exploring through them as Knuckles even Sonic CD has explorable levels that I can't get past by just speeding. But even with some of these flaws the games are enjoyable because of the massive level designs that they have. Like I just figured out that in Chemical Plant Zone I can choose which direction I can go.
As for the recent games, as much as I love these games there are some things that I can understand that some fans who prefer the old genesis games don't like. For example, the speedy game play of Sonic Unleashed to Lost World is great and I honestly love Unleashed, Colors and Generations all the way through. But if I take a moment to stop and take a step back, I noticed that when speeding through these levels I can easily hit enemies by dashing. Not to mention a lot of the stages are rather linear as opposed to just being an explorable level that I can stop and admire for a bit. I mean Sonic 06 kind of had that idea where they had you go on little missions mid level...but I don't think I need to talk about 06 since that game is just lost potential.... Plus when it comes to chaos emeralds, Sonic games seem to do all the work for you. Even Dash, which is reminiscent to the older games, makes you get the chaos emeralds to get to the end which can be frustrating for some who are impatient. That's something I can call the gameplay in these recent games, "impatient". Unlike the megaman games which can teach children to be patient and time everything precisely.
As for story and the cutscenes...pfft what story? Sonic stories are all obsolete considering how scattered the continuity is. Not to mention there are like a bajillion universes. American, Japanese, Video Games, Anime, Manga, TV Shows, Archie, Fleetway....why the hell are there so many universes?! This is one of the many things that made Sonic X-treme fail was because they were trying to make the TV SATAM universe canon to the games. I mean as fun and awesome as it would be to see Sally or Bunnie in more recent games...it'd be confusing as hell. Considering side games that weren't supposed to be canon like Secret Rings were actually made canon in Generations and not to mention they fucked up Shadow (moreso than usual) in Heroes and Shadow the Hedgehog. First he's a clone..then he has magical powers like Michael Jackson by getting the blood of that forgettable Black Doom in his body. Why?! Not to mention Archie pulled a massive bullshit plot-twist where Sonic and Sally get married and have kids who are just clones of themselves and they become replacements for Sonic and Sally basically.....are these writers for real or what? Plus other characters like Knuckles have become more stupid over time as opposed to just gullible, Amy was written off as a psychotic obsessive stalker, Tails...I'm not too sure about him. But characters like Cream, Rouge and the chaotix tend to overshadow those characters that were once in Sonic the Fighters including Mighty. Sure they're in the Archie comics now but who reads them these days besides kids and Archie Sonic fans? That comic is recolor and mary-sue city. There's nothing wrong with having a wide-variety of character to be playable in one game (I had not issue with it) or having a large cast. I mean Mario's been around for over 25 years and look at how many characters we've been introduced to thanks to the many RPGs, platformers, etc. But when there's so many characters in one game, while it does make a game last longer, it may not work too well with platformers. I mean that tends to work better in RPGs as games like Dragon Quest, Mother 3 and Final Fantasy had you taking on the role of multiple characters but that served a purpose to the story. When it came to Rivals 1-2 and heroes and even 06... we didn't have any expansion on the story at all only clips being rehashed and reused.
I can see why a lot of fans can get so frustrated with the Sonic Lore. Also the last thing I can talk about is Sonic Adventure 1 and 2. As much as I love these games (2 over 1 mind you) I can be the first to say that these games have not aged well at all. I can already see that the camera was already an issue when Sonic shifted to 3D. LOL I mean people complained about the camera and controls in Heroes (which I also liked) but seemed to not notice any issues with these two. I guess it's because they tend to have interesting colors, level designs and the music (to many) are classics and not to mention these two formed the childhoods of many kids back then. But the fact that the stories made no sense (especially in 2 since there were still many questions to be answered and there was just a lot of things that they could have explained and not to mention there were also some translation errors which could also help) and the gameplay can have such jerky cameras in certain areas and the controls can be crazy at times. But other than that, I honestly loved these games.
Oh and also I can add that the fanbase is a fanbase that many just can't stand, like many others. Also when it comes to marketing and trying to sell these games off to people, they tend have a selling point to try and make Sonic look all cool and edgy. This actually worked way back in the Genesis days as well as games like CD and even the Adventure games. That's because they at least tried to give something new to the fans. When it came to Shadow the Hedgehog, Sonic 2006 and even Riders (intro-wise) they were successful but then they ended up falling flat on their faces when fans realized that half of these games weren't all that good. Plus the people who buy these games are usually the Sonic fans who grew up back in the 90's or little kids. Non-Sonic fans who are into the games that most people play these games will look at these games and then pass by seeing how much bigger FPS shooters are today compared to Sonic amongst the other genres.
