Resons for the Downfall of Sonic in recent years

I want to make this clear that I love Sonic the Hedgehog, but I've been woundering why the series seems to have taken a nose dive in recent decades. Here's my top 5 reasons, keep in mind these are just my opinons, so feel free to add your own.

1. There are no Sega Consoles this generation: The 7th Generation marks the first time there has not been a Sega console, and with the loss of Sega Hardware, Sonic has lost a lot of his nostalgia feel. Sure good sonic games are possible on the Wii, PS3 and 360, but they just don't have the same feeling that a Sonic game played on a Sega Console has.

2. Loss of Speed: Sonic is suppose to be fast, but in many new games like Sonic 06 and Secret Rings it takes forever to build Sonic up to full speed.

3. Bad Voice Acting: Many of the voice actors they have chosen for the newer Sonic games don't really fit with the characters they are cast to portray.

4. Failure of the First Sonic 3D game and the Sega Saturn: The fact that Sonic 3D Blast is usually seen as a horrible Sonic game, has given the series a bad reputation as more Sonic Games are transfered to 3D. This wasn't helped by the release of 3 sonic games that were little more then collections or puzzle games to the Sega Saturn, and the bad buisness decisions that killed it.

5. Repetive Storylines: Every Sonic Game has latley been the samething: Dr. Eggman/Robotnik trys to steal the Chaos Emeralds in a bid to take over the world. The shinning light of Sonic and the Secret of the Rings is that it offered a different story line and a new villian in the form of Erazer Djinn, and hopefully Rings' idea of new storylines carries over to the main series.

Other thoughts...

Terrible controls: This goes back to lack of a Sega console for Sonic and having to adjust to another consoles controls. Why Sega can't sit down and work out the controls to the point where when I push forward on the analog stick, Sonic should go forward, when I let go, Sonic should stop, not run for 10 more feet and slide off the edge. Also Sonic needs to grab ledges again like he did in SA2, that alone could stop a lot of cheap deaths. He controls smoothly in SSBB, get his programmer from that game to design him for other games.

Friends butting in: For the last time, if I want to play as Knuckles, make a sequel to Knuckles Chaotix, if you want me to play as Tails,make a sequel to Tails Adventure. Stop breaking up my fast gameplay to make me ride around in a mech or hunt tediously for Emerald pieces. At the least, take a cue from Heroes or the handhelds, let gamers choose which character they'd like to play as but don't force us to play through EVERY storyline just to get to the end. Imagine playing Super Mario Galaxy and having to go back and do levels over again as Yoshi, Luigi, Daisy and Waluigi except with lamer moves that barely work. Sure, you'll be able to play as friends in Bioware RPG, but in that kind of game, you need a party of friends and in that case it works.

Attempting to have a deep story: In order to distinguish itself from Mario, the Sonic series has tried to have an intersting story and I can't fault that, what I do fault is the fact that the Sonic series is and always has been very BADLY written and the terrible voice acting doesn't help. At least Unleashed is getting back to a more straightforward story of Eggman using Chaos Emeralds to destroy the world. No space aliens, no time travel and no human princesses sucking face with Sonic.

Finish the Game: The other major problem is that Sega shoves a game out before it's fully finished. You never hear of a game being delayed. One prime example was Sonic06 which Sega admitted was forced out in time for the PS3 launch and the holiday season and had inadequate staff to properly finish it. Honestly if Unleashed was delayed a few months, I think it would be a good thing.

Less games: Unlike Mario, who spends years putting out party and sports games, Sonic usually shoves a few platformers out a year and many agree that Sonic games need to be spread out more and given more time to be tweaked. It's a case of quality over quantity. How can we miss Sonic if he never goes away. I mean no sooner does info come out regarding Unleashed and they're already working on Sonic and the Black Knight.

I want to make this clear that I love Sonic the Hedgehog, but I've been woundering why the series seems to have taken a nose dive in recent decades. Here's my top 5 reasons, keep in mind these are just my opinons, so feel free to add your own.

1. There are no Sega Consoles this generation: The 7th Generation marks the first time there has not been a Sega console, and with the loss of Sega Hardware, Sonic has lost a lot of his nostalgia feel. Sure good sonic games are possible on the Wii, PS3 and 360, but they just don't have the same feeling that a Sonic game played on a Sega Console has.

2. Loss of Speed: Sonic is suppose to be fast, but in many new games like Sonic 06 and Secret Rings it takes forever to build Sonic up to full speed.

3. Bad Voice Acting: Many of the voice actors they have chosen for the newer Sonic games don't really fit with the characters they are cast to portray.

4. Failure of the First Sonic 3D game and the Sega Saturn: The fact that Sonic 3D Blast is usually seen as a horrible Sonic game, has given the series a bad reputation as more Sonic Games are transfered to 3D. This wasn't helped by the release of 3 sonic games that were little more then collections or puzzle games to the Sega Saturn, and the bad buisness decisions that killed it.

5. Repetive Storylines: Every Sonic Game has latley been the samething: Dr. Eggman/Robotnik trys to steal the Chaos Emeralds in a bid to take over the world. The shinning light of Sonic and the Secret of the Rings is that it offered a different story line and a new villian in the form of Erazer Djinn, and hopefully Rings' idea of new storylines carries over to the main series.

snakes3425

1 and 3 are your best points. I actually disagree with 5 though. I think that the storyline issue is actually getting too far away from what it should be.

Since when did Sonic games have bad stories?

The only ones with problems are 06 and Riders, which didn't need a story to begin with.

What was wrong with any other game?

Since when did Sonic games have bad stories?

The only ones with problems are 06 and Riders, which didn't need a story to begin with.

What was wrong with any other game?

Shadow_of_Kirby

[QUOTE="Shadow_of_Kirby"]

Since when did Sonic games have bad stories?

The only ones with problems are 06 and Riders, which didn't need a story to begin with.

What was wrong with any other game?

sonicphc

[QUOTE="sonicphc"][QUOTE="Shadow_of_Kirby"]

Since when did Sonic games have bad stories?

The only ones with problems are 06 and Riders, which didn't need a story to begin with.

What was wrong with any other game?

chocolate1325

It's all really cheesy, and not the secretly enjoyable kind, like ABBA. The kind that has fuzz on it.

It also seems that they overuse other characters.

I kinda glad that Sonic is the only playable character (that plays a part in the story mode) in Sonic Unleashed.

Just about all the stories in Sonic games are quiet poor but hopefully SEGA is focusing more on the gameplay than the actual story with Sonic Unleashed.

One thing that annoys me about games, ever since they made the leap from cartridges to discs, is cutscenes. I like a good story but I hate when a game is so in love with it's storyline, that it barely lets you play. People fawn over the CG cutscenes in games like MSG4 and pretty much any Square Enix game and yet it seems like you spend more time watching, long, drawn out cutscenes than actually playing the game. I understand there's a good story in there, but if I wanted to watch a bunch of non-interactive scenes, I'll go watch a movie.

Also cutscenes are often used to cover up medicore gameplay. Remove the fancy CG from a recent FF game and you get a repetitive, turn based RPG (well #12 is an exception with a new gameplay setup).

This is what I like about the Mario series, it doesn't bog us down with a ton of cutscenes. Imagine, if at the beginning of Galaxy if we were force fed some drawn out scene with Mario and Rosalina talk for 10 minutes and Mario goes on about how much he loves Peach blah blah blah....

At times, a game with an uneeded amount of cutscenes and story often comes off being pretentious.

[QUOTE="Shadow_of_Kirby"]

Since when did Sonic games have bad stories?

The only ones with problems are 06 and Riders, which didn't need a story to begin with.

What was wrong with any other game?

sonicphc

Erm, yeah, besides those.

Hehe, oops.

I understand there's a good story in there, but if I wanted to watch a bunch of non-interactive scenes, I'll go watch a movie.

kbaily

As long as it's a GOOD movie, I could care less.

I have this, by the way:

Glitches unfixed. They rushe their games, Sega does, and that results in unfixed glitches, poor camera, and the voice acting is horrendous because in 2004, original Dr. Eggman voice actor Deem Bristow died, they changed the voice actors to the 4Kids anime cast, and now they always sound choppy, like the video games are supposed to be made into subpar anime.

Why do people hate the new VA cast?

I think Knuckles' and Rouge's voices changed for the better, actually.

I can see areas like Vector's and Charmy'svoice, but that's it.

Why do people hate the new VA cast?

I think Knuckles' and Rouge's voices changed for the better, actually.

I can see areas like Vector's and Charmy'svoice, but that's it.

Shadow_of_Kirby

Personally I never cared for the voice acting either way mainly because all the dialouge comes off so stiff and forced, (it's like watching "The Hills" but with deeper characters) but it's amazing to go on to youtube enter the words "Sonic, Jason Griffith and Ryan Drummond" and you'll find a slew of videos made by fans who obviously have waaaay too much time on their hands who sit there and do either anti-Jason flaming videos or comparison videos.

Also there's this whole thing about the person who voices Rouge now is a transexual or something. I don't know. I think it's just a rumor.

I don't even know the names of any of the people who do voice acting for Sonic games. As far as I'm concerned, they should all be canned. Sonic games don't need voiceovers.

If SEGA is insistent on putting it in there, use the cast of Sonic SatAM. Jaleel White is the only person who's ever give Sonic a voice I can stand to listen to. Robotnik's voice on that show was stellar as well. Makes me wanna go watch some of it actually.

The older cast of voice actors, while not always directed right, were better in my opinion. I don't sit around flaming 4Kids and telling fans to boycott SOnic because of the voice acting, but I will help any effort to at least get Ryan Drummond back, since he actually made Sonic sound young and cool instead of old and dorky. Plus, Ryan is capable of many different emotions with Sonic's voice without making it sound forced or fake.DocEggmanNega

I'm curious, does anyone think Sonic Chronicles was just another bad spin-off, was poorly executed, was a bad representation of Sonic, or anything along those lines? In other words, did this game worsen Sonic's rep, or make it better?

Before it's release, I know that a lot of us feared that this game could potentially dig Sonic a deeper grave. I know I was worried. After it's release though, it seems that it was accepted warmly all across the boards. Since it was recieved and executed so well, could this game finally be a turning point for Sonic's reputation? Or, since it's still a spin-off, does the quality of Chronicles not hold any weight for the status of Sonic's games as a whole? I don't like to think about this happening, but what if, in the near future, the Sonic Chronicles series becomes more popular than the platforming games?

I'm curious, does anyone think Sonic Chronicles was just another bad spin-off, was poorly executed, was a bad representation of Sonic, or anything along those lines? In other words, did this game worsen Sonic's rep, or make it better?

Before it's release, I know that a lot of us feared that this game could potentially dig Sonic a deeper grave. I know I was worried. After it's release though, it seems that it was accepted warmly all across the boards. Since it was recieved and executed so well, could this game finally be a turning point for Sonic's reputation? Or, since it's still a spin-off, does the quality of Chronicles not hold any weight for the status of Sonic's games as a whole? I don't like to think about this happening, but what if, in the near future, the Sonic Chronicles series becomes more popular than the platforming games?

Zoonotics

Chronicles is good. Not great, but good. I will say unlike Mario's RPGs which seem to have broader appeal with Chronicles, if you don't like JRPGs than this won't cause an epiphany. Also you get high scores with it from EGM (A) and the well known Sonic hateful of Game Informer (8.5) and yet IGN and Gamespot only dished out a meager 6.5.

However I think this was an admirable attempt given it's Sonic first foray into the RPG realm and you have to remember that this was Bioware's first attempt at a game on a platform other than a PC or Xbox system.

Still I think Chronicles has potential to be a good spinoff for the Sonic series as Paper Mario, SMRPG and the Mario and Luigi saga is for Mario. There's some tweaking that's need, that's for sure. Mostly adding more depth to sidequests, bringing in more popular characters like Silver and Blaze (nobody likes Big the Cat) and fine tuning the gameplay mostly. Better yet if Chronicles becomes a staple of the Sonic series, it gives the friends something to do in a game without feeling forced and maybe it would actually keep the friends out of the main platforming games. Though as Paper Mario and SMRPG don't interfere with the main games, I doubt this would interfere with Sonic's main games (though you never know with Sega).

whoozwha doesn't like RPGs or Halo, or GTA or Smash Bros....kbaily

I wouldn't go into System Wars with that piece of information, whoozwha.

You'll be publicly executed; probably stoned.

I'm curious, does anyone think Sonic Chronicles was just another bad spin-off, was poorly executed, was a bad representation of Sonic, or anything along those lines? In other words, did this game worsen Sonic's rep, or make it better?

Before it's release, I know that a lot of us feared that this game could potentially dig Sonic a deeper grave. I know I was worried. After it's release though, it seems that it was accepted warmly all across the boards. Since it was recieved and executed so well, could this game finally be a turning point for Sonic's reputation? Or, since it's still a spin-off, does the quality of Chronicles not hold any weight for the status of Sonic's games as a whole? I don't like to think about this happening, but what if, in the near future, the Sonic Chronicles series becomes more popular than the platforming games?Zoonotics

Chronicles was a decent game at best. Nothing too special, but nothing bad. The game didn't make Sonic's reputation any better, IMO. But if anything at all, it would probably soil it more since it lacked overall cosmetic quality and some true quality.

I don't think an RPG is the kind of game that could help fix Sonic's reputation since Sonic is a platformer. And I seriously doubt Chronicles will become more popular than the platforming Sonic games. Their differences are like night and day, and Sonic fans would mainly be the ones attracted to the platformer Sonic games, not so much the hardcore RPG fans.

(edit: LOL, bad typo)

[QUOTE="kbaily"]whoozwha doesn't like RPGs or Halo, or GTA or Smash Bros....Shadow_of_Kirby

I wouldn't go into System Wars with that piece of information, whoozwha.

You'll be publicly executed; probably stoned.

I didn't have a problem with the first Halo but only on PC. All the others were so hyped I actually wanted them to fail. And KBaily is also correct in saying that I cannot stand RPGs, RTS, stealth, sandbox (gta), sports, simulations or...or...ewww...smash brothers. OOOH!!

"Does your head in"?sonicphc

Unfamilar phrase?

Never heard it before in my life, to be quite honestsonicphc

Maybe it's just British or something. It means it annoys you.

my opinion is that i dont like the idea of sonic turning to werewolves, weilding swords and fighting dark entities (chaos is sort of okay). im just not used to the fact that sonic is doing this kind of stuff. i just like games that all sonic has is his speed and the bad guy should be eggman and nothing more and for the love of god, NO MORE NEW SONIC CHARACTERS. There is enough of them already. One last thing, it worries me that mario might try to stoop up to Sonic's level like fighting gods that bowser summons to kill mario. This is my opinion so dont flame me for stupid reasons and take it maturely. Hope im not the only one who thinks of this.

my opinion is that i dont like the idea of sonic turning to werewolves, weilding swords and fighting dark entities (chaos is sort of okay). im just not used to the fact that sonic is doing this kind of stuff. i just like games that all sonic has is his speed and the bad guy should be eggman and nothing more and for the love of god, NO MORE NEW SONIC CHARACTERS....Hope im not the only one who thinks of this.

mariomario987

trust me. you're not alone 

my opinion is that i dont like the idea of sonic turning to werewolves, weilding swords and fighting dark entities (chaos is sort of okay). im just not used to the fact that sonic is doing this kind of stuff. i just like games that all sonic has is his speed and the bad guy should be eggman and nothing more and for the love of god, NO MORE NEW SONIC CHARACTERS. There is enough of them already. One last thing, it worries me that mario might try to stoop up to Sonic's level like fighting gods that bowser summons to kill mario. This is my opinion so dont flame me for stupid reasons and take it maturely. Hope im not the only one who thinks of this.

mariomario987

No, Nintendo knows that people like Mario's lightheartedness. Though Mario has fought his share of bigger baddies than Bowser mind you. Crackletta, Smithy, The Shadow Queen.... It's just Mario's games don't try to take themselves so seriously like some bad anime.

As many of us observed, at least with Sonic Unleashed, the series did return to a more lighthearted feel in terms of story and presentation.

Mario is mostly my favorite character other than sonic and i think you got the right idea. i dont think that nintendo wont really do such a thing. Sonic unleashed is almost a full step up on my part. If sega can make a sonic game that sonic uses speed and speed only, then sega will be able to bring back sonic to the fullest.

At least on paper mario when you are facing the shadow queen or groudus or someone like that, it feels like a mario game. Sonic on the other hand almost feels like a sonic game when you face someone like dark gaia. I just like the final boss of the sonic games to at least be a machine. (Like biolizard and metal overlord)

One thing that annoys me about games, ever since they made the leap from cartridges to discs, is cutscenes. I like a good story but I hate when a game is so in love with it's storyline, that it barely lets you play. People fawn over the CG cutscenes in games like MSG4 and pretty much any Square Enix game and yet it seems like you spend more time watching, long, drawn out cutscenes than actually playing the game. I understand there's a good story in there, but if I wanted to watch a bunch of non-interactive scenes, I'll go watch a movie.

Also cutscenes are often used to cover up medicore gameplay. Remove the fancy CG from a recent FF game and you get a repetitive, turn based RPG (well #12 is an exception with a new gameplay setup).

This is what I like about the Mario series, it doesn't bog us down with a ton of cutscenes. Imagine, if at the beginning of Galaxy if we were force fed some drawn out scene with Mario and Rosalina talk for 10 minutes and Mario goes on about how much he loves Peach blah blah blah....

At times, a game with an uneeded amount of cutscenes and story often comes off being pretentious.

kbaily

i miss the 5 seconds-2 minute cutscenes that games used to have.....

my opinion is that i dont like the idea of sonic turning to werewolves, weilding swords and fighting dark entities (chaos is sort of okay). im just not used to the fact that sonic is doing this kind of stuff. i just like games that all sonic has is his speed and the bad guy should be eggman and nothing more and for the love of god, NO MORE NEW SONIC CHARACTERS. There is enough of them already. One last thing, it worries me that mario might try to stoop up to Sonic's level like fighting gods that bowser summons to kill mario. This is my opinion so dont flame me for stupid reasons and take it maturely. Hope im not the only one who thinks of this.

mariomario987

i agree with you fighting gods got so dull and boring...