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This post is going to earn me a lot of angry comments and Jim Sterling himself might come to my house and rape me. But why are everybody so goddamn surprised that Sonic games have sucked the last years? In my opinion, Sonic has never really been all that good. People who loves Sonic games but at the same time thought Mirrors Edge had a lot of issues should probably rethink this a little bit. Let me explain. Sonic the hedgehog is all about speed. A person who claims that the Sonic games are about percision platforming was probably high when controlling our blue friend with an attitued and a voice of a 7-year old - sorry, that didn't happen until later, I wont mention this again in this post, promise. My point is - on the Megadrive (or "Genesis" in your country - the US of A) Sonic was programmed in a way that he started out real slow and the longer you were running, the more speed he gained - pretty basic, but vital to my point. This made him pretty clumsy when trying to jump from plattform to plattform furthermore proving my point that Sonic is all about speed. Going back to Mirrors Edge. That game recieved a lot of mixed feelings among gamers. Some applauded the games daring approach towards first person gaming, others thought the pace of the game was way too bumpy for it to be a great game. Most people though the parts of the game containing large, angry men hunting you with guns slowed the game down way too much. The last room of the game, containing about ten of these angry men, was -according to many- the most anticlimactic ending ever - since the rest of the game is all about speed. Back to Sonic. He's running. He's Running fast. DAMN he's fast! So fast, he runs straight into a fish jumping right into his face... death. What? This is the first time I'm playing this level... how was I supposed to know that? The area before was completely empty with enemies which led me to believe I was supposed to start running for an upcoming loop, jump or something like that. Instead it was a fucking trap. The Sonic games are full of these. If the Sonic games are about speed, why make obsticles so impossible to avoid when at full speed? Why make a game made about running, if it makes you slow down every five seconds? Here is where I see similarities between Sonic and Mirrors edge. The only difference is that the cute enemies from Sonic have been replace with angry men with guns. "But Sonic is about trial and error, the levels become really fun and smooth when you know them." I almost beat the XBL record on the first levels on Mirrors Edge on Time Trail. I have played through the game over ten times and know every level by heart - Mirrors Edge is about trial and error, the levels become really fun and smooth when you know them. WHOA! That was creepy... Seriously though. I digress too much. My point...no... my QUESTION is this: Is the fans love to Sonic a lot about nostalgia? When it came out I can understand why people loved it - it looked amazing, sounded amazing and Sonic himself was much cooler than Mario. But was the gameplay really that great? Didn't the progammers realize their game wasn't perfect? Why not zoom out a little but, put sonic further to the left so you could see the level in front of you when running? The game could still be made challenging, but maybe the challenges could be more speed-related? How? How the fuck should I know? You got any ideas? If you are a Sonic fan I would love if you could show me what I do not understand. Tell me what is so great with this blue hedgehog with the voice of a 7 yeFUCK!
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Living the dream since March 16, 2006
Living the dream since March 16, 2006
Are you saying that you don't understand why Sonic is enjoyed, proving that tha game is about speed, ignoring that people enjoy the platforming, and then questioning why there's uneven difficulty while speeding?
I'm not sure I follow...
I still remember my friend's OCD-effected little brother hyping me up for the 360 title "Sonic The Hedgehog": those are the people who keep buying Sonic games.
So, tl;dr response to your question- For me at least, my love of Sonic is slightly out of nostalgia, but also because the older titles are, both for me and many other gamers, still a lot of fun.
Now as for why people constantly lap up the new Sonic games even though they can pretty much guarantee they'll suck? That's a slight mystery in itself. Mostly it can be summed up to what Magnalon said, but there's also the people like me who grew up on good Sonic games hoping the next one to come out will finally be the grand come-back tour we've all been waiting for (Like Mr. Sterling and many others).
All this talk about Sonic makes me want to fire up my Dreamcast now. >_>
Not once did ever feel the gameplay was trial-and-error. If you bothered to collect any rings along the way (which are almost impossible to miss) that fish wouldn't have killed you... not to mention how easy it is to kill enemies, once it pops up, you have plenty of time to react and could have killed it by pressing down which would have rolled you into a ball or by jumping you would went right through it and kept your speed in tact. You example doesn't work for me.
Personally I've always enjoyed the 2D Sonic games more than the Mario games. Sonic is much cooler and has attitude. I don't know, it's one of those games where I really don't understand how you couldn't like it. Of course, I stopped playing 3D Sonics after Adventure 2 so I've never experienced a bad game, though I get sick just thinking about Sonic 3D Blast.
In case you need further proof of how awesome Sonic is.
I shudder at the thought of Sonic and the Secret Rings... that was the first Sonic game I ever truly hated, and I even found enjoyment out of Shadow the Hedgehog but Secret Rings was infinitely worse... imo... and speaking of understanding Sonic... that is one game I myself will never understand,
And besides, if you jumped when crossing a bridge, that fish wouldn't have killed you. ;]
Really? Never tried that one out. I guess I'll have to give that one a go. I just heard bad things about the control scheme that made me kinda go "Oh GAAAAWD".
Oh, and I wasn't very clear about this in my previous comment, but let me just go ahead and mention that, I wasn't attempting to attack you or whatever for your dislike of Sonic games. To each their own and all. Just figured, you had asked a question, I'd supply the answer. Though I will mention that, yeah, if you do try to play it again, grab a couple rings next time. If I remember correctly there's about six to eight rings before that bridge with the fish. xD
I agree. Secret Rings was the first step in a good direction for Sonic in a very long time, IMO. However, he somehow managed to take five steps back by making use of poor replay value (using stages over and over to get to the next of very few stages) and having extra mission that aren't hard or challenging, just too annoying to try and beat. Also, the age old mechanic of putting Sonic in "the real world." Stop doing that! Just put him on a tropical island and let the shenanigans come themselves!
Hmm...I'll have to give it a go then. Ironically, one of my little brothers has owned it for a while now, I just never wanted to play it. But I guess if I stomached the majority of Sonic Unleashed I might as well try Secret Rings. As flawed as it may be, it couldn't POSSIBLY be worse then that damn Werehog.
(Slight aside though- Sega, if you were to release JUST THE SPEED STAGES from Unleashed as, say, an XBLA title, I would actually purchase it. Jus' saying.)
I did not grow up with sonic... I didn't start to play the Sonic games until much later. MOSTE peaople who enjoy the Sonic games grew up with them. I have never met a person who recently played the early sonic titles for the first time and said "fuck, this is great!".
But if somebody would play super mario worl for the first time today, they would probably still love it.
Is it maybe because Sonic is and has always been directed to hardcore gamers? Is that why the later games suck, because they are not?
Thats not to say the games werent good; of course they were! Sonic 2 certainly had great level design for a platformer and was generally a lot of fun. I have great memories from my childhood when my parents would hire out a Mega Drive, and my brother and I would go nuts trying to get as far as possible (the Airship boss was the best we ever did, IIRC). Having played it more recently though, I will fully agree that the classic Sonic games didnt really fit the character Sonic was supposed to be. A 2D reboot using more modern tech (not necessarily graphics wise, but allowing for higher speeds and wider screens) that is aware of that fact could be quite interesting.
The thing for me is, the Sonic games seem to be designed, presented, and advertised based on the speed at which you can cannonball through a level (remember "blast processing"?). But in practice, that really doesn't work too well, because if you cruise through a level at top speed without being aware of its hazards, you die. So playing through a given zone of Sonic is essentially like Mario-based exploration and pacing, only the way the game is programmed you're always accelerating on your way to the next hazard/set of rings and then forced to grind to a halt again. It's like riding in the passenger seat with one of those terrible drivers who hits the gas too hard, and then slows down once they've passed the speed limit, and then just hits the gas again instead of driving at a constant speed like a normal person.
I still think they're solid games, and pretty exemplary as far as 2D platformers go, but not without issues. And Sonic's 'tude doesn't really do it for me. If it did, I probably would have played a lot more Bubsy 3D back in the day or something.
And thank you Sonic fans for not hating me.
Mario is a hero. Sonic is the anti-hero.
I think it had to do with anyone that saw sonic and then looked at a Mario game and just viewed Mario as the bland character...most teenagers are just trendy and sonic was the new style. It was also sort of an underdog type of situation too. Lots of people know about Mario and he's was around awhile before sonic, but sonic came out on a new console that had more power than NES. People took sides because when releasing art forms in a consumer market along with such political PR directed towards kids (sega do what nintendon't)...that what Sega wanted, make fanboys that will do the work for you and make things seem much more than they are.
NES had less power but NES had double the amount of good games Master System had because they we're building games around design instead of technology. Technology has always been a race, it's who is ahead of who. But design is art form that's about being unique and when it's done right then you don't have to compete with anyone because no one else has anything like you have...it's what has always made interesting and great.
It wasn't a matter of money or technology, it was a matter of talent that the teams had that made the games. I can tell you now, that's why Nintendo still has a console and Sega doesn't.
Sonic was great, but he is dead. And that's cool, because I'd much rather remember the good Sonic games than put a bunch of whiny bitch rage into hating a game that I don't even have to play.