Sonic platformers have NEVER been good.

While your response overall is intelligent and well argued, the bolded statements are subjective. Whenever you make some sort of value judgment, you are making a subjective statement. The realm of objectivity only deals with cold hard facts.

Also, the last statement would need to substantiated through some kind of objective measurement. Otherwise, you're dealing with subjective perception.

That is not a subjective statement. This is where actual skill factors into the gameplay vs random button presses. Being able to tackle the challenges the levels puts in front of the player through rhythmic button presses, gracefully. Like I said, the levels in a Mario game are layed out very specifically to challange the player in various ways. Watching a novice play vs watching a seasoned player is completely different. Sonic strives for this as it is apparent in many areas of the game, but there's just a lot of random actions without giving the player any show of consequence.

It absolutely is. To say something is done thoughtfully, or a certain type of game design "works," or a game doesn't do something well, or that a genre is "about" a certain thing is all subjective because you're making a judgment. When one is looking at something in a completely objective manner, they observe and measure without making a judgment.

An objective statement: Sonic the Hedgehog 3 was developed by Sonic Team.

A subjective statement: Sonic the Hedgehog 3 doesn't do level design as well as Mario 3.

You'll notice that the objective statement simply reports a fact and doesn't go any further than that whereas the subjective statement makes a value judgment. Of course subjective judgments can use objective facts as support, but that doesn't make the judgments themselves objective. I think what many people don't understand is just how limited objectivity actually is. Again, the realm of objectivity is limited to provable facts.

But the musicality inherent in games is not subjective. When the fundamental gameplay formula being used breaks this path that is a fault in its design. That was being inferred. This is an area of games which gets glossed over by most players these days. It is the reason Street Fighter has worked for so long, and that Mega Man is revered as a classic. They lay the rules down and don't break them.

If this statement is not subjective, do you have a source that will confirm it to be a fact?

Yes the course through a platformer is a series of timed button presses. Time is not subjective. The platforms throughout "levels" are layed out in a fashion requiring rhythmic button presses to correctly navigate them. If the timing is off the player loses or is penalized.

Anyways, I'd rather not go back and fourth on this same thing but I'd be interested more in what you have to say outside of objective/subjective.

I'm not saying time is subjective. The subjectivity doesn't come into the picture until you start talking about what constitutes a fault.

Outside of this subjectivity/objectivity debate, I agree that Mario indeed has more thoughtful, varied, and consistent level design and while I don't think Sonic is slower than Mario, I do think the idea that Mario is "slow" is ridiculous. The rhythm of Mario's gameplay, as you've suggest, is indeed delightfully quick.

This is easily the dumbest... Well, anything related to video game that I've ever seen. I've been reading System Wars since 2008, with all the Gues, the Ispeaktruths, the Saolins, all the trolls and the legitimately dumb posters, as well as youtube comments, and that video wins the prize. Nothing I have ever read, watched or heard about video games is as profoundly idiotic as that video. It also proves that you can't reach the absolute bottom of stupidity if you are not annoyingly pretentious.

PS: For their sake, I sincerely hope those guys are a couple. Otherwise, I can't imagine any human being, female or male, voluntarily going anywhere near their special parts.

But I loved the original and Adventure DX .

I personally thought they were pretty good, sonic 2, 3 and sonic and knuckles have some pretty well designed levels. Worst thing about sonic is that sometimes the designers seem unaware whether they are trying to make a game about the thrill of going fast or about careful platforming.

Play for time/score; you will be forced to carefully and quickly platform. If you don't believe me, look up speedruns of the sonic games.

EDIT: I found you some videos

Note the time bonus amounts for score. Why do you think the game designers chose those amounts?

Nowhere did I claim collective desire/approval is the only possible definition. Of course it could mean on an individual level, or a collective level, but that's not the point. The point is that collective approval is an entirely valid criteria for determining what is "good", since it is consistent with the actual definition of the word. If you prefer individual approval as a criteria, then there's nothing wrong with that either.

That's a load of bullshit. It's one thing to say that you don't like, or even hate, Sonic (which i would completely understand) because of X reason. But saying such stuff as 'controlled like shit' or 'fucking garbage' is exaggeration beyond reason and easily in the realm of falsehood.

It would be interesting to read why you guys think Sonic (MD era) sucks so bad. Your posts are to vague, and i can't present any argument against.

But i will jump with one argument that will most likely be presumptuous.

Sonic (MD era) is far more unique in the genre because it plays completely different from Mario and the trillions of platformers that were inspired by Mario; few games (i personally can't think of any at the moment) ever copied Sonic's mechanics. There is no other 2D platformer that i can think of that fundamentally relies on momentum (Sonic) rather than jumping (as with Mario and everything els).

Thus, being used to Mario and almost every single platformer ever made since, you will have a hard time playing Sonic now (like the old saying of running into spikes), but that doesn't mean it sucks.

It just means you suck and you need to get better at it to enjoy it. I'll throw you another example of unique gameplay that works, yet needs to be learned - GunValkyrie, which i can state is a brilliant game because of how much sense the controls make once you learn them.

Thing is even when he returned to 2D of late Sonic has not only fallen behind Mario but Donkey Kong,Kirby and Rayman. Sonic 4 was a big dissapointment.

A frankly clueless opinion.

Sonic 1 was revolutionary in its design. It had one of the best soundtracks of its day and some truly memorable stages. The platforming was tight and the difficulty was never because of bad control or physics. You look back at platformers like Decap Attack or even the Mickey games there could be an unfairness attached with badly controlled characters.

Take out the bonus stages and remove your modern perception of sonic and it's annoying furry fans and it's a quality platformer and one of the best around.

2 was more of the same, with stages I didn't warm to as much.

3 with knuckles is the best of all, it's one of the best of all time.

This strikes me as rewriting history based on a general dislike of sonic, which considering the current output I can understand. But it's reasonable to say those early 2D efforts on mega drive and master system were classicsand still hold up today for sheer playability and not every game after has been an outright disaster.

did sony playstation ever have a mascot?

I cant recall

Crash Bandicoot was for a period with the PSX. Before that there was this ultra lame attempt with "Polygon Man". Look it up youll laugh.

Crash, ironically, looks just like a Mario/Sonic love child. It is kind of disturbing.

Sonic 1,2 and 3 on Mega Drive were great games but they never quite reached the same level as Super Mario World imo. SMW was much more varied and diverse than the Sonic games.

@Heirren:

For a second I thought you were mistaken and meant Vector Man until I looked it up.

Damn I'm getting old.

Like I said, I think "sometimes" they don't seem to know what they are focusing on. For the most part though the games are well designed. People just expect to be good at them first time.

This. The users claiming the early Sonic games are "bad" haven't presented a single valid argument to justify their opinion, other than that it doesn't play like Mario (which it isn't supposed to in the first place). It's entirely understandable to call these games "overrated" (since they are frequently regarded as some of the greatest platformers of all time), but to call them "bad" is just downright ridiculous. The only time the word "bad" was ever used in reference to Sonic back in the 90's was by "cool" kids trying to describe him as "cool".

Another thing that makes Sonic unique from among the sea of Mario-style platformers is that the Sonic games aren't just platformers, but also a side-scrolling equivalent to racing games. Sonic isn't just a hedgehog platforming his way through levels, but is also like a motor vehicle speeding his way through a race track. Like those speedrun videos above show, Sonic is as much about physics (acceleration, deceleration, momentum, etc.) and trying to get the best lap times, as it is about jumping and platforming.

Sonic 4 had an inferior physics engine compared to the 16-bit games. This is what Sonic Generations got right that Sonic 4 didn't. Some of the levels in Sonic 4 were still pretty good though.

Forget sonic I want a Chao garden!

Sonic 2d all were classsics. Sonic 2d on gba were amazing. Sonic adventures shadow the hedgehog were great. Sonic the hedgehog 06 is my personal favorite. (06 was an awesome year in gaming). Even sonic on psp was fun. Sonic 4 was okay I would say I liked sonic on psp and gba more.

Played a little of the warewolf sonic and a little of sonic generations. Now they were kinda bad.

Overall sonic has came out with genuine video games. I would buy day one a sonic game for ps4 or vita

I hadn't played sonic until a few months ago. It was actually quite good. The game isn't really about speed, it's more about momentum.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYDsz1NFBJw

i think red letter media does a great job providing examples of why sonic has ALWAYS sucked.

nostalgia's one hell of a drug...

Oh boy, so after completing Sonic 3 & Knuckles the other day, I once again found myself pondering this: Will humanity be ever as so blessed enough to receive from the Heavens another game as magnificent as this one? *sniff* I do not know the answer to this, but I shall continue to pray for all of us...

Yeah, the old games are all about momentum, which feels very natural to me, and it's also the reason why I don't love the classic gameplay in Generations that much since it's absent . A lot of platformers feel stiff, but not old school Sonic.

Yep, that's exactly what I mean when I call Sonic an arcade style take on the genre: It's about precision, speed, and performance. You play them over and over again to get faster times and scores, like NiGHTS, and unlike in "Mario-esque" games where beating them is the only goal, especially in the newer ones. I so rarely replay Mario games because the magic is all in the first time playthrough. Sonic, on the other hand, I play through again and again to get that adrenaline rush and to seek improvement, be it in order to rank higher on the leaderboards or for just for my own pleasure.

This is the type of stuff I like doing in the modern games, for example: