Sonic the Hedgehog - Mediocre Madness!!!
 

I've been a long time Sonic fan but some of this recent stuff it just...mediocre.

I was vastly disappointed with Shadow the Hedgehog and very bored with Sonic Riders.

It saddens me that so many Sonic fans just eat this stuff up, thereby making it so there isn't really a drive to pull the whole Sonic Franchise out of the gutter.

Sometimes it just seems as though Sonic can't really do well in 3D. I hate to say that but it's what I feel. Sonic Rush was a decent/good Sonic game but IMO there hasn't been anything else that's really good for the Sonic 3D world.

Sonic Team keeps experimenting with all of these different gameplay methods, which is good, but I hope they can get something good together soon.

I don't know if many Sonic fans will put up with it for much longer. I'm depending on Sonic Next Gen, but if it flops I guess I won't be such a big Sonic fan anymore.

Since the death of the Dreamcast, Sega's software developers have really lost their focus. Hence all these muddled, half-arsed attempts - it's not just Sonic, but most everything. If it wasn't for the Virtua Fighter series continuing to maintain a triple-A standard of quality, Sega would nearly be lost.

Sonic has been horribly mis-managed though. Sonic Team never could get a firm grasp on 3D game design, and after Sonic Adventure 2, sadly has shown that the staff working on console Sonic titles seriously needs to be shaken up. Sega badly needs to bring in some of their other development staff to re-evaluate their strategy.

Even Sonic Rush on the DS, while a better effort than in recent years, suffers from uncreative, lackluster design in many areas. And don't get me wrong - I own it, and it's a -good- game. But it's not flagship title status as Sonic used to be for Sega.

It's sad that the developers who've left Sega, such as Mizuguchi (Q Entertainment, Meteos, Lumines) have started producing better games than when they were with Sega. I'd say this strongly points to terrible management and producing policies.

i agree.. with sonic heroes coming out.. i sorta lost interest in the story. when shadow the hedgehog came out.. the story looked too obvious to spot even when you start playing the beginning of it. We can only thank Sega for working on the stuff in handhelds like Sonic Rush; although, that was a lil too easy and not as good as the advance games.

After Sonic and Knuckles came out, one of the few Sonic games I enjoyed was Sonic Advance 2, which has to be the FASTEST Sonic game ever. Go play that. It's a blast.

Sonic isn't the same now. The Sonic Advance games are okay, but I wouldn't buy them. Sonic Rush is great, but Shadow the Hedgehog, Sonic Heroes, and Sonic Riders just don't interest me anymore.

I loved the ridiculous Sonic Adventure 2 ending. 20 minutes long, and all of that. I don't think Sega can capture what Sonic was on the Genesis via the DS, but Sonic Rush was impressive, and had a great soundtrack. I'd like to see a sequel to Rush or Adventure 2, but it's unlikely. The level design in most 3D Sonic games are terrible, and you're moving so fast that collecting rings is difficult.

I still haven't played Sonic CD, that's the only one I missed. I'd pick up Mega Collection 2, but it has CD and 2 other mediocre games.

Sonic Advance 2 was a racing game not a platformer.

I swear you can finish most stages in that game by just pressing right and occasionally jump.

I can say the same. It seems like most of the press hailed it as Sonic's return to his glory days, but I can't say it necessarily matches the quality of the Mega Drive games (which I enjoyed). It suffers from some design flaws and just feels really "behind the times".

I loved what I played of Sonic Adventure Battle 2. The intro with the skateboard thing (what is that thing, a streetboard?) was cool. It also had some neat mainstreamish music.

It's strange that if Yuji Naka is considered a perfectionist that he would let such mediocre (poor) games come out of his development studio. I thought the end of the Dreamcast was meant to make Sega's games BETTER.

Actually, I think it was meant to be the door from the plane he lept from. A bajillion miles up in the sky. I dunno, I tried very hard to forget Sonic Adventure 2 and Sonic Heroes after I played them. Though every now and then the Knuckles Pumpkin Hill rap song will drift into my brain and I'll start bleeding from the ears and eyes. :(

2 months ago I tried and beat Sonic 3D Blast for the first time. Holy crap I didn't realize I liked it that much! A new fresh idea for sonic games! 8.75/10.

My favorite sonic all time is SONIC CD and that is even one of my favorite video game soundtracks to listen to.

Sonic is about speed which a lot of games have been lacking in the serious department. :cow:

No comment on Riders, Shadow or Rush (no DS for me), but I loved Sonic Heroes and Sonic Advance 3 from a few years ago. Heroes is one of the few flawed 3D platformers I can tolerate, simply because it's actually fun to play in spite of the camera. And Advance 3 is just solid as well. I'm glad Sega's actually using Sonic, instead of prodding him as a corporate mascot with little to show for it (say hello, Mario).

How is Riders, BTW? Been thinking of giving it a look.

Wow, now I've got to get involved in this. Okay, I can't give you all a definite answer for Sonic Riders yet since I haven't played it enough, but so far I like it...with the Japanese voices. Ever since 4 kids took over the voicing department, I had to switch over to Japanese voices. I miss Ryan Drummond, Lani Manella and all the originals.

Seriously, Sonic's conversion to 3D was successful in the Adventure series. Sonic Heroes...while I didn't like the whole team play idea, the game and the music were pretty awesome. Story lacked a bit, I'll admit, but it was still good overall (I would've like to have seen Super Tails and Hyper Knuckles in the final battle too).

Sonic Advance was great, I think it almost recaptured the old Genesis games. I had a problem with Sonic Advance 2 where to get to the special stages, you had to collect 7 special rings in a specific location. I almost didn't beat the game because of that, but I read some FAQs and eventually got to the final story. Sonic Advance 3...well, I stopped playing it after a while because I couldn't figure out how to even get to the special stages.

Sonic Rush was pretty cool, though I was they would've used someone else other than Blaze...maybe Shadow, Knuckles or Tails...maybe Amy. However, the Special Stages weren't that difficult to find and the story overall was decent. Hopefully, that's the last we've seen of Blaze.

Shadow the Hedgehog...I see sites like Gamespot and IGN giving it low scores because you use guns and it's darker. News flash: SHADOW the Hedgehog is the title of the game, not Sonic. Of course it's going to be darker, and although the guns fit Shadow's character, I don't think it was a good idea...who needs guns when you have Chaos Control, Chaos Blast, and Chaos Spear? I'll agree, the story could've been better...and although the game is called Shadow the Hedgehog, I think Sonic could've been in the final battle with Shadow...and why not? That's what happened in Sonic Adventure 2. Oh, and after I savored all the damns and hells that Sonic and Shadow said in English, I went to the Japanese voices. Why? Because the 4Kids voices for Sonic X suck.

I'm looking forward to Sonic next-gen for PS2/XBox and the exclusive one for Revolution. I also look forward to changing the voices to Japanese again...unless Ryan Drummond and the others come back. They should stick with what they did in the Adventure series, because that was working quite well for me.

Here's what I think they should do...keep the special stages easy to find, let them be difficult once they're in the special stage. Go back to the original VAs and tell 4Kids to go **** themselves (though it was Yuji Naka's idea to have the Sonic X VAs be the video game VAs, he should've done it the other way around). The gameplay should be like it was in the Adventure series with one or two characters per stage, no more than that. The music does not need any work, it's kept me entertained to no end. Keep the fishing out and maybe 3rd person shooters unless you're playing as Dr. Eggman. Do all of that, put in a good story, and that should be a good Sonic game.

Edit to GoldfishX: Riders is insane...and not in a bad way. You may want to rent it first before you try to buy it because it's definitely not for everyone. I'm still trying to get used to the controls...and as far as the tricks go, my thanks go out to SSX Tricky for helping me prepare for that.

Sonic needs to go dark.

I mean, the next game should open with Robotnik getting killed off by a super villain. Some kind of badass like Metal Sonic 2.0, who goes on to kill Sonic when he's trying to defend his friends. In the later course of the game, his friends have to go on a journey to find a special chaos emerald in order to ressurect him. Then you have this gigantic ass fight with Super Sonic vs. Metal Sonic 2.0 in the Earth's atmosphere.

Hold up. Just got a call from Yuji Naka.

I agree. I enjoyed Sonic a lot back in the day but lately, I haven't been able to get into his 3D Adventures. The new characters, way of playing it haven't really been my cup of tea. I'm also not a huge fan of the Advance games. They're fun, but they're not amazingly fun.

The last notable Sonic Game I'ed played is Sonic Adventure 2, which is the best post S3&K game imo. It just has the classic Sonic fell to it and finally lets us play as Robotnik. It seems as the DC died so did the excellence of the Sonic games...

Let me share my experience with Sonic Adventure 2, I tried to like it, I tried really hard to like it. I wanted to like it. It's Sonic! My favourite games as a kid were all Sonic games. My excitement didn't last long.

The game is horrible. An absolutely terrible abortion of awkward camera angles, horrible level design, twitchy unpolished controls, tons of glitches, and the pace is completely random. While the Sonic levels are passable, those Knuckles and Tails levels (sadly two thirds of the game) are HORRIBLE. The knuckles "FIND THE RANDOMLY PLACED EMERALDS" stages have to be the worst levels in any videogame i've ever played in my entire life, and some guy rapping about emeralds to a generic beat in the background doesn't help. Actually, I challenge someone to name a worse game. I'll play it, and list at least 5 reasons why it's better than the Knuckles levels in SA2.

I think the worst thing is how awesome a Sonic game could have been in 3D.

Note: I haven't played Sonic Adventure 1, is it any better than 2? Fundamentally the same but more bearable? Less bearable? I think it would better by default if it doesn't have stupid Knuckles and Tails levels. I'll try it one day, but I wont dare touch Sonic Heroes or Shadow. (well, maybe I will for comedy's sake)

Also, they need to drop all these pointless characters and the story shit, the attempt at a story in any Sonic game is always horrible, they shouldn't even bother, nobody cares.

I've only played the Sonic Advance games briefly, but they were ok, nothing special though. Sonic Rush is awesome, it still doesn't touch the old Mega Drive Sonics but it doesn't try to, it's different, it has even more of a focus on speed than platforming, it all just flows so well, and while I didn't like the music at first, it's grown on me and goes well with the game. More folks need to get Sonic Rush to ensure a sequel, i'd buy Sonic Rush 2 in a heartbeat.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v5...Box/ohohoh.jpg

Sonic Adventure 3: GONNA GET RAPED!

Sonic Adventure 2 let you play as robotnik, and it was on the Dreamcast, too.

Superman 64? Mortal Kombat Trilogies: Sub-Zero? Bebe's Kids? Name just ONE reason why these are better than the Knuckles levels, and I'll concede the point.

I haven't played it either, but I heard... lessee... it's pretty much got the same camera control as EVERY OTHER 3D SONIC GAME, got the shooting, and has the emerald-search stages... although I dunno if they were any more or less bearable than SA2's.

QFT. <3

I can't comment much on those, since I don't have a DS (although I did enter a contest to win a DS Lite from the Japan launch off of a blog site... >_> <_<), but the Advance games were forgettable, IMO. I didn't like 'em much at all.

The last great game at least for me was Sonic 3 and Knuckles on the Genesis. That alone is a classic for me, one of the greatest I'll never forget.

Hell, and I played Sonic 2 for 6 hours back then too and beat it a couple of times. Good fucking times.

Nowadays, all these 3D renditions are horrible. This is one franchise that should've stayed to its 2D roots. Seriously.

Knuckles' 'hunt for urinal cake' levels in SA are just as bad as SA2's. Big the Cat's fishing objectives also rival Tails' robot levels in SA2 for stupidity. Seriously, it's Tails. Why is it that when you fall down a hole he just screams "I'M FALLING". GET OUT OF THE STUPID ROBOT AND FLY TO SAFETY. ;__;

Sonic games have always been horribly mediocre. You can't seriously consider the hold right and jump occasionally mechanics of the Mega Drive games to be decent. Every level was trial and error because you moved so fast that you'd never learn where the enemy, spikes, cliff was until you suffered it's effects. These were piss poor games and your hazy 8 year old, have never played a video game before, memories cloud you're judgement.

You can't memorize where enemies are in Sonic games because you're running too fast? It wasn't consisted entirely of "hold right, jump" when you look at Sonic 3/Knuckles. Your objective was to, you know, find the oversized rings and complete the 3D sphere levels in order to get the chaos emeralds.

It's great to have you back.

Oh yes mandatory completion of horribly unplayable minigames greatly helps the game's depth.

And take another look at my post. I contradicted my statement that you could never learn the placement of obstacles when I added "till you suffer their effects." This means it's impossible to discover them first play through. It's not helped when Sonic will run off the side of the screen. WHo comes up with this shit?

http://img217.imageshack.us/img217/7...jinakap4ft.jpg

This guy.

It's also possible to run into an enemy accidentally or jump and diagonally kill yourself whilst landing on an enemy in Mario, too. I remember running into a few while running in Mario. It's not like you can't spindash in Sonic, that usually clears things up easily.

Rhetorical but oh well.

i only ever really liked sonic 1 and 2, and occasionally sonic and knuckles. sonic 3 had its moments, but a lot of it really sucked (and in the case of carnival night, really really fucking sucked).

i still think that a lot of the old franchises from sega and nintendo should be given another chance in 2d on current consoles. think of how great that could be! no limitations from the hardware and no space limits either! great effects, huge games, good music... well you get where this could go.

Fixed~

Rab fails at fun, I don't see how childhood memories have anything to do with enjoying the old sonics when I enjoy Sonic Mega Collection just as much now, 2D Mario games are boring in comparison. UNF owned
Well i'd have to go pretty far out of my way to play those games, so i'll just say they don't have some guy rapping about the chaos emerald in the background music, that's one. :D

I thought it was about fun and fast, addicting gameplay that rivals Mario games.

Yuji Naka already said in an interview that he sees pokemon as his main opponent and wants Sonic to defeat that in popularity. Hence the childish attitude, the crappy anime, etc.

Of course you do realize that what you said applies to every platformer at the time do you?

Yuji Naka might be considered a perfectionist, but he also likes having money. Shadow the Hedgehog pretty much demonstrates that he's more interested in what will get Sega money than actually putting out quality games these days. That game exhibits a Jim Davis level of conscious marketability in every aspect, the way they balance cute kid-friendly characters with adolescent-friendly angst and faux-"hardcore" attitude. Gameplay is an afterthought; all that matters is getting people to plunk down $40 for the box.

Unless there's a serious change in focus at Sega, I'm prepared to write them off entirely. They certainly wouldn't be the first great legacy of the past to fall into ruin. I'll always have my emulators, I suppose.

Well, it's frustrating and hard. I found very little fun out of it besides the fact that my beloved Sonic and co. were in it. That factor kept me from completely being bored with the game

It seemed like just another mediocre game that is dressed up with your favorite characters to get a sale. Like all of those Movie-Based games.

As for the music, if anyone cares, it was decent. I loved the main theme and was glad Crush 40 wasn't in it.


BTW, Anyone else getting tired of "Crush 40" in Sonic games? I think they are getting overused now and are starting to sound generic.

Like the Shadow the Hedgehog Theme, I am. It just sounded so generic to me and I guess I'm getting tired of Crush 40. Their music is starting to sound very "similar" and less unique. After "Open Your Heart" and "Live and Learn", I got less and less interested in them. Even though they have good songs.

I think I liked Sonic Rider's music a little more because Crush 40 wasn't in it >_>

Sonic...mediocre?!

Sorry, but as a self obsessed Sonic freak I feel I need to say something about this.

Sonic's recent 3D outings have been, well, pretty dire to be perfectly honest. But I remember playing Sonic Heroes (there were people who thought this game was fun and exciting - me being one of them) and getting the old feeling back. The old feeling I used to get when I played Sonic on the Genesis/Mega Drive.

To be fair, I AM NOT a Sonic expert. I have not played any of his Dreamcast outings, and I do see myself as a bit of an old school fanboy.

But despite that, I still feel that Sonic has a lot of life in him, and though he may be classed as irritating or ugly or whatever, I would never class him as mediocre.

SonicEchidna, I understand how you feel but these Sonic games are really declining.

I've loved Sonic the Hedgehog from the Genesis era but when I see him now, I usually want to vomit.

Sonic has the potential to be great but even as a big Sonic fan, I'd have to say these 3D games I've seen are pathetic.

I did love Sonic Heroes like you. It was a fun game and I still have fun playing it today (in small bursts) but at the end of the day, it doesn't appeal as a "good" game to non-sonic fans.

I usually get blinded by my Sonic love so I usually think a little better about Sonic and Sonic games but it's getting to the point where the recent games are so average...

I'd like to see a great and super fun Sonic game, not an average semi-fun one.

You may feel that Sonic has a lot of life left in him but I feel that the people Sonic is with at the moment are squeezing the life out of him.

Honestly though, people who didn't like Sonic DS probably just failed at the stunt mechanism, or hate platformers. The level design of that game is immaculate.

Sonic Rush was decent. It was fun and showed people that 2D Sonic isn't completely dead.

The only thing I don't really like about it is the enemies. I miss the creative enemies in each level. Now there is only about one different enemy per level or one of those eggman shaped robots.

The current uncreative enemies are boring me. Ever since SA2, they just stopped trying to create unique level enemies.

As much as I hate to admit, this seems to becoming very true. Hopefully, the next generation of video game systems will see Sonic born again. At least I hope that's the case.

It would be a damn shame if Sega simply let Sonic drift away into oblivion after all the success. But the way things are going, that moment could be sooner rather than later.

If they focused more on Sonic doing what he does best (running damn fast and destroying robots), then chances are this thread wouldn't have been made. We need to be overwhelmed by glorious crazy fast action that the Sonic games use to have (at least if you were playng it right). Even DMC understands that better than the Sonic games do.

I really am doubting that the Next Gen Sonic will be anything more then average.

You are right Sega.co, if they focused more on that then it would be a sucess. But then again, we haven't had a true Sonic game since SA2 so I'm curious to see how they will handle it next gen.

I'd like them to pretty much kill of Shadow from the series. I got tired of him after playing Shadow the Hedgehog

I've heard that there are plans to make more Sonic Spinoffs, like sports games maybe...*sigh* Sonic's going the way of Mario, expect with lesser quality games....

True. I mean, I liked Knuckles. He was pink/red and he had a bad ass attitude in Sonic 3. Everybody wanted to know how you could unlock and play as Knuckles, but alas it wasn't possible until Sonic 3 & Knuckles came along. Knuckles Chaotix was just stupid with the "attached via a short distance to an ally" thing, and it went downhill since then.

Sonic 3D wasn't great. I won't comment on CD as I haven't played it, but since they introduced Amy, Big, Cream, E29 and all of those characters, it just wasn't the same.

I think Sonic Adventure was a good game, and Sonic Adventure 2 was a good game. But for every good game which Sega makes, they turn around and make something eighty five hundred times more idiotic.

See what I mean. Sonic CD comes out, then some shit like Knuckles Chaotix comes out. Sonic Adventure comes out, then Sonic Heroes comes out. Adventure 2 comes out, and Shadow the Hedgehog comes out. I don't know if they're deliberately doing this, but it's fucking annoying.

I liked the gem-finding levels in SA2. Dey were da bomb!

Ah yes, the Gem levels, they were the reason Sonic Adventure 1 and 2 weren't the best they could be. Many people expected running and intense action but then they got treasure hunting levels. This isn't Pirate Adventure, it's Soinc Adventure! Sonic Team trys to put so much gameplay into one of their games and usually doesn't execute it right.

A great example of this was Shadow the Hedgehog. They tired to put intense gameplay together but also tried to mix it with "find the bombs!" type missions. When the level design was so horrid that you couldn't even enjoy it. They didn't try to just make a running game. They tired to combine intense action, treasure hunting, mazes, and turrent shooting. But the level designs were so horrible you barely could enjoy any aspects of those different gameplay methods.

One flaw was that, to complete either the dark or hero side, you usually needed to find and kill ALL of the enemies from the side of your choice. This made the game very slow. The only time you got to actually run through a level is on the neutral path. Otherwise, the hero and dark missions usually bore me with the speed I had to go at to make sure I didn't miss one enemy.

Oh, just remembering the 11+ minutes it took me to find all of the Chaos creatures on the maze like level, "The Doom"...

Fukn hate u.
Seriously I played my fair share of Sonic back in the day, mostly on Master System but Mega Drive too and I bought Mega Collection and it's a a piece of shit. Flickies Island is the best game on that disc, not Sonic 3D but the one where you play as flicky. Best.

I think the fact that not only do Nintendo get away with individually repackaging and re-releasing old school Mario games at inflated prices, while seeing those games sell and score better with reviews, than Sonic Gems/Mega Collection ever did prooves taht 2D Mario kicked arse.

Hardly. 2D Sonic's emphasis was speed. Agree? Yes. It moved faster than any other platformer by far. Yet other patformers, with their slower pace allowed you to not only spot oncoming obstacles but react accordingly. I don't know anyone who managed to play Ren and Stimpy's Time Warp so quickly that they never noticed the oncoming enemy until they collided with it.

Yes the recent Sonic games have been pretty lame. I thought Sonic Heroes was bad, and Shadow the Hedgehog I just couldn't get into. Yeah, Shadow the Hedgehog featured Dr.Eggman's most rubbish machine to date! The one with the slot-machine on it! If you know what I'm talking about, you'll understand what I mean when I say it's rubbish. I mean, c'mon Dr.Eggman, what the hell you playing at??? Anyways...
From the footage I've seen, the new sonic game looks like it might be brilliant! We'll just have to hope. Well, I'll forgive Sonic Team for all their recent wrongs if Phantasy Star Universe turns out well : D

I might be interested if they did a Sonic DDR. As for anything

else, well the Mario ones are good...so why not give it a shot?

Sonic did okay in Virtua Striker...the only thing I'd be

concerned about is if they made another Sonic Shuffle.

If they did, they might wanna come up with a different

system instead of cards.

I swear, I didn't want to make that thing! SEGA held me at GUNPOINT! *I* would have made something involving giant swinging balls or perhaps a drill and a slow moving vehicle, but they just wouldn't let me!

Oh, wait, I've changed my username. I guess I can't really do that anymore. Feels... weird.

Not that I would know anyway... I mean, I've certainly never played that Shadow game, it looked so bad and all and... Oh, who am I kidding, I admit it, I rented it. Once. I don't know what came over me, I saw the bad box art, the guns and everything, yet I still had the remnant of that feeling I got when I first bought Sonic 3 for the Genesis that told me "Go ahead, you know you want to. Don't trust other people, it might be the best game ever! It's a sonic game, after all! Can't go wrong with those, right?".

Even my sister laughed at me. Never again.

^Eggman, RABicle, you never fail to make me roffle.

WHAT?! NO. YUJI YOU ARE FIRED. GIMME BACK MY BELOVED FRANCHISE.

You know what? I think partly the reason why Sonic has gotten weaker in games is because of the fans. Yeah, I said it. The younger crowd eats up everything, giving Sega the okay of letting their games suck (read: be mediocre like Shadow). The older crowd is at fault too, simply because most of them are angsty fanboys that argue amongst themselves on what they want on a Sonic game. Most of them want repeats of 3&K, some want some fucked up system that'd be hard to program for (Give him 100 unique moves! SERIOUSLY?!), and some say "screw the story!" Wow, thanks for giving us Sonic Heroes, you bastards.

Can't we have a GOOD story? GOOD gameplay? AWESOME villains? Use the old characters? Sega's either pandering to their fanbase when it shouldn't count or ignoring it when they should, if they just made things good and feel like Sonic, then we wouldn't have these problems.

Sonic himself shows no signs of dying, but if Sega doesn't get their act toggether we might not see anyone over the age of 13 playing anything more recent than Sonic Adventure 2. :(

Yeah, sadly it's true. Look at Sonic X. It has a generic "Robotnik launches robot attack on city, everyone panics, Sonic gets alerted, Sonic saves the day" routine to it. Plus, he has the greenest eyes I've ever seen.

Yuji compares Sonic to Pokemon, yet blatantly fails to notice that Sonic's only competition was Mario. On the plus side, if Sonic didn't exist, I'm sure Toejam and Earl would of been Genesis mascots.

Mario did it, but Sonic games are nearly as good. Sonic Team doesn't have everything together like Mario.

I'd rather if Sonic Team didn't start making endless spin-offs since I they haven't even make a GREAT sonic 3D game. If they can get their Franchise base right, then I'd be fine with them trying to venture off but now I currently think they aren't ready.

Double Post:
Wow, that is the most accurate statement that I have ever heard. It really is.

So many fans are fighting over what they want and how they want it that Sonic Team doesn't even know what to do.

It really surprises me when a game like Shadow the Hedgehog comes out and many kids say, "reviews were all wrong" and "this is the best Sonic game EVER!!!". It truly sickens me. The kids actually accept crap and actually don't want any better then a gun weilding angsty generic hedgehog.

My beloved franchise is going in the toilet. I'm truly scared to see what Sonic Team is going to attempt on Sonic Next Gen. I'm pretty sure they will try to do something to appeal to ALL fans and try to experiment some more. It's horrible, the fans actually don't let Sonic games be mediocre and then call them heaven-sent games. I just can't take it anymore.

Sin Ansem, you hit the nail right on the head. Let's do brunch sometime...

"You can't seriously consider the hold right and jump occasionally mechanics of the Mega Drive games to be decent."

Umm, ALL of the games back then were basically like that. Look at mario for example. You basically just ran right, jumped every once in a while and maybe flew and you'd hit the end of the level. Hell, that was basically the same as megaman, the only real differance was megaman had his mega buster, and couldn't jump on peoples head to damage then.

I understand what RABicle is trying to say. I've felt that way a lot when I'm playing Sonic games.

If you don't really remember, what enemy is where and what cliff is where, then you'll most likely lose a lot.

But I won't call the game mediocre because of that, I call it a different type of gameplay. It's makes for a speedy type of, "on your toes" gameplay. It's something that doesn't happen in typical platformers. I don't call it mediocre gameplay, I call it a different kind of gameplay.

Quoted for fucking truth. It's bascially a summary of what I said.

Dear fans of Sonic Team:

SHUT THE FUCK UP AND LET THEM DECIDE ON SOMETHING GOOD THANK YOU AND GOODNIGHT.


I'm glad we see eye to eye. :)

Is that so? I'm glad that we see eye to...nah, I know it's a typo. I hear what you're saying. All that needs to be looked at are Sonic R and Sonic Shuffle. They were ok at best, but they just didn't measure up to the Mario ones. That's probably why there weren't any sequels. Seriously, I bet I'd love Sonic Riders if I played it more and figured out the controls (damn you school).

As far as Sonic X goes, I hate the English version but I LOVE the Japanese version. It may seem kiddy and cute at times, but that's alright with me. I'm glad they made it...I was a bit disappointed with the Sonic OVA.

As to what Sin Ansem said...I somewhat agree. Growing up, I liked Sonic the way he was one the American cartoons and the Genesis games. Today, I liked him back in Adventure 2 and Heroes...until they did fired the voice cast without notice and hired those damn 4 Kids assholes. After watching the first season of Sonic X (subbed), I wanted to see a Sonic game that was more for teenagers and grown-ups...like cursing and stuff. Then I played Shadow the Hedgehog...I got what I wanted, the cussing. However, putting a gun in a hedgehog's hand and giving mission objectives that slow you down was a bad idea. The ratings that game got, were a bit harsh though. I felt they should have been higher...maybe 6/10.

Until I have a better understanding of what the next-gen Sonic game will be about, I think it looks cool. All I've seen so far in it is Sonic and...Super Sonic. I guess since they're still working on it, that's all we can see until E3.

The constant cussing Shadow did in Shadow the Hedgehog just got annoying.

The way they had that in an actual Sonic game made me lose faith in Sonic Team. I just can't believe they caved in like that and put swear words in there. It's not just the fact that they actually cussed, it's more of the fact that Shadow did it so much. But I guess the extreeeeeme teens loved it or something.

They should just cut their losses and put all their effort in the next gen Sonic game. OR even better, they could make a re-cut version of Sonic 2 with the original vision Yuji Naka had, Hidden Palace Zone and more.

i personally don't think they're doing that poorly of a job. it's quite hard to choose the sort of people you're not going to listen to when designing a game. there are TONS of voices that want their own image, and as the designers start hearing the echoes, they lose focus. I thought sonic adventure was pretty good. sonic adventure 2, while lacking adventure, was quite long in itself. i almost collected all of the emblems in adventure, while adventure 2 i'm somewhere over 3/4. this length in time that its taking me is something i appreciate. the same reason that i liked s&k+sonic3. when locked on, it took quite some time to finish the game and get all the emeralds/master emeralds. this depth just seems to have been missing lately... i didn't have much of a problem with the sonic advance series either. the first one was pretty decent. the twist of a couple new features was ok by me. in SAdventure 2, they corrected the "hold right and jump" problem a little by adding more pits and those SP rings required to enter the bizzare bonus stage , which required some stage scavenging to find (this difficulty took some getting used to, but i thought was pretty decent). Sonic Advance 3 seemed to be a bit faster (speed) than the previous 2, but less linear. with the addition of even more places to fall to one's death, i couldn't hope to clear gaps that were too large to begin with. finding the chao/key in the stages to get to the bonus stage seemed less tedious than the SP rings, but less difficult. i played a little bit of shadow the hedgehog, and i have to say that it was made pretty well for the type of game it was trying to be. it didn't give the appearance of a full on adventure to last. if i had liked to run around shooting/beating up enemies in my path to get to a goal, it would have been more enjoyable... but i just had no motive to continue playing. the "go fast for 5 seconds, then stop completely to clear the enemy-congested path" thing just didn't work for me as well as the "hold right and jump to avoid enemies" gameplay. The older games relied a bit on "knowing when you were wasting time" killing every enemy in the stage just to get through smoothly. rather than engaging in a risk of losing all of my rings, i liked being able to avoid enemies rather than having to have to stop to make room. i dont mind this digression from "mainstream sonic", but having another release of a mainstream sonic title would be nice.

without having an understanding of where "crappy" games lie, where's the line for good games going to be drawn?

Double Post:
-please excuse the ommitance of paragraphs...

Well, when I think of what makes a crappy game, I think of some questions....

1. Do I only care about this game because my favorite characters are in it?(That's what I was thinking about while playing Sonic Riders)

2. What does the game do well? Does it keep my interest and make me want to play it again? (That's what I was thinking about while playing Shadow the Hedgehog)

3. Does it seem like the developers tried with things like a good level design or tried to make a good story or have fun gameplay or did they put garbage out and just hope the "fans" would just buy it? (I was thinking this while playing Shadow and Riders)

I think they put more effort into Shadow than they did with Riders.

But ten bucks says they ignore their beta testers.

They're also succumbing to marketing AND making the games much harder (just look at Riders, Advance 3 and Rush's bosses, for example) which is why the Sonic franchise seems to be pandering out and not as keen to our tastes. Why exactly the fanbase is praising Sonic as the pros hate him more and more is still confusing to me. I saw the opposite happen with Heroes... but from Shadow onward I'm seeing "ZOMG BEST SONIC EVAR" from fanboys and "ZOMG TEH N00 SAW-NIK SUX" from pro reviewers.

i think that so called "fan base" didnt find sonic when it first came out, so they might not have really relized what we fell in love with, sure wasnt Sonics 2871689 friends and Chaos.

i was stressing the contrast between the crappy/not crappy games. all of the crappy games make me realize that my favorites are so much better, so it's not a complete waste to have games of a series that are worse than eachother. It might even be a marketing strategy to keep the fans buying intent on getting something good, "like back in the day" (;^_^).
Its also the different margin of audience they're selling the "obscure" sonic games to. im sure that out there somewhere are people that refused to play anything with sonic on it, but because sonic riders was a racing game, they gave it a shot. so these multi-flavored titles could possibly be a reach to the people that aren't familiar with sonic in hopes of reeling them in when there is a major release. these kids growing up weren't raised by megadrive/genesis like some of us, so they dont know much about all the 2d heritage behind sonic. speaking of which, sonic gems, and mega collection+ were quite nice. i'm quite glad that they felt like bringing back the classics at least. when was the last time mario had a collection????

I honestly can't comment on any Sonic game published after SA2, but I've heard stories...
So how does the current batch of Sonic games compare to the crap we were shovled in the Sonic Team's first great absence (Post S&K 1994- Pre SA1 1998)?

Terrible. Since Sonic Adventure, the only worthwhile Sonic game is Sonic Rush.

The GBA games are reasonable, but I wouldn't say that they feel anything like the Megadrive titles.

Sonic Team actually hasn't put effort in a lot of their titles. I remember way back on Sonic R, a mediocre game with horrible character balancing and a total of 5 tracks. To me, it seemed like they were relying more on the music in the game to get the game some points.

Shadow the Hedgehog didn't seemed like much effort was put in it either. The level designs and horible non-CGI cutscenes. I just didn't think they thought the game out.

I thought they actually did put more effort into Riders though because of all of the unlockables. Of course, I was comparing it to the depth of Sonic R so that's not really saying much.

But I do see what you mean about the reviews. Fans of a game are to easily influenced. People go around telling them to not listen to reveiws because "everyone else are haters" so they try to seperate their opinions from reviewers. It happens to a lot of people. That's how I was when I saw the reviews for Sonic Hereos, I thought people didn't know just exactly how good the game was so they graded it low....A few weeks later I was like this is boring.

People aren't going to say the game they have sucks when they paid 40 bucks for it. They can get blinded by a lot of things, like being fond of the characters.