Free Form: Does Sonic really suck?

     Ok, I kinda chickened out a little bit. I don't have the confidence to do a full blown feature on the history of Sonic and whatnot. I do have thoughts that just need a way to get out however so I'm just going to write about it any way I want. Let's hope this doesn't suck as much as Sonic games are perceived to.

     I've been playing Sonic games for a very long time, ever since I've began my journey into gaming. If you ever asked me what my favorite game was as a child, I would have told you it was the Sonic game with the fox that followed you. Since that time we've had numerous sequels and spin-offs. You got your Sonic & Knuckles (it blew my mind to use knuckles in every other Sonic game), Sonic Schoolhouse (It really did help me with my math), Sonic Advance, Sonic 3D, Sonic Chaos, Tails' Adventures, Sonic Shuffle, Sonic Adventure, the list just grows. I also can't think of a sonic game I haven't played. Wait, I never played that one that was on the Sega Saturn that wasn't Sonic R but I can't remember the name of it. Doesn't matter. I've been with Sonic for a very long time and he's firmly planted throughout the timeline of my life with games. Let's talk about why Sonic was always so special to me.

     When it comes to games, there was a long-standing rivalry between Sega and Nintendo. It was always Sonic versus Mario. Back then, I guess you could say that Mario was mainstream and Sonic was more for the gaming underground. If you played games, it was impossible to not know about Sonic but people who didn't even play games knew who Mario was. My first game was even a Mario game. Sonic still stuck though. The gameplay was faster and the way Sonic controlled made me feel physically connected to him. It sucked me in with the speed, the loops, the way you could get HUGE air if you went off a ramp with enough speed. Pulling down into a ball to "spin-dash", whoever came up with that deserves a very large gold star. All Mario did was jump and occasionally toss some fireballs. I guess it was my start into favoring complexity over simplicity.

     Then, there's the music. Mario was gifted with a stellar soundtrack, don't get me wrong, it just never stuck to me like Sonic's could. Here's a few of my favorites from the old Sonic games:







     After that comes the visuals. Genesis does what Nintendon't. Mario's environments almost always required you to fill in the world with your imagination to be a part of the experience. In Sonic, all of the environments were detailed and lended themselves to the belief that there really was a whole world around you. I remember in Green Hill zone the background was made up off grassy cliffs and waterfalls that had their own animations. There was a whole world working in the background while you sped off to the end of the level. Being a lonely kid, I didn't necessarily like it when I had to work with my own imagination. It just highlighted the fact that I was still alone. With Sonic, it felt collaborative. Sega was inviting me to see what they imagined and then imagine for myself what was beyond that. I didn't feel so isolated.

     Fast forward and you got Sonic Adventure versus Mario 64. They were still rivals at that point and Sonic Adventure was one of the reasons the Dreamcast was such a beloved system and still is. Although you could argue that it's like comparing apples to oranges, the fact is that the old systems lived through an era of platformers. Sonic and Mario are the games at the front of that genre and they're bound to be compared anyway. There were innovations for both series when they hit the 3D. Having Mario wall-jump just doesn't beat running down a the side of a building for me.

     Sonic Adventure did a lot of things right for me. The music was awesome and Sonic had an attitude that was unbeatable. I'm not sure if we had even seen games run *pun intended* as fast as Sonic Adventure. Just how fast you were able to run was stunning the first time you touched it. Thinking back to the way it controlled felt responsive as well. You weren't disconnected from speed sections like you are in today's Sonic games. You had to be in control when you took a slight turn while you were goin' the speed of sound. One wrong twitch and you'd be dead. I just remember the characters, their personalities, the music, the levels, the feel of being the fastest thing on Earth, it was addicting. The level design was also pretty spot on most the time. Almost every level seemed to mix platforming with speed in an equal amount with only a couple to exploit the love of going fast. Take a look at this level, Speed Highway, one of my favorite levels in the game for how quick the platforming was and how the music seemed to enhance it.



    You could also play as Amy, E-102 Gamma, Tails, Knuckles, and Big the Cat. They all had a unique way of controlling and offered a way to further explore the storyline and discover new areas in already familiar environments. I remember the E-102 story making me cry at the end. Now that I think about it, that particular storyline was pretty dark. Without going into detail, Gamma feels the guilt of condemning his robotic relatives into exile, he witnesses his brother, Beta, being torn apart and being rebuilt in a tortuous way which is Gamma's fault as well for proving Beta as inferior compared to himself, Gamma then deletes his master registration to free the animals inside of his exiled brethren, has a final fight with Beta which happens to release a bird after his destruction that causes a flashback of a family within Gamma. Gamma self-destructs and bird inside rejoins with his family. That was a really rushed description but it was dark for a kid's game. Feel free to go here to read the whole story.

     That was Sonic for me after that. It had everything I wanted from the story, gameplay, graphics, and music.

     I'd say that starting with Sonic Heroes is when the franchise began taking a spill. The game was glitchy as hell to me and it didn't feel like a complete game. I guess it just felt empty, like there was no effort put into the game. I also hated the new mechanic of having a three-person party with every member having a job. Sonic games now had a flow to them, similar to Prince of Persia (2008). You no longer had the stop, go gameplay of the old Sonics. It was all about completing tasks while keeping a forward momentum. Heroes felt like a step back with convoluted controls and gameplay. Somehow, some people claim it went back to old roots and enjoyed it for that. I evolved with Sonic though. The mechanics had gone forward, I didn't feel like we should go back.

     Don't get me wrong, I love the old Sonic games. In fact, every time they're re-released I buy them. I play them all the time when I have nothing better to do. I don't think it's wrong to enjoy Sonic Adventure's style though and want it to progress forward instead of going straight back to the roots.

     Behold! The true sign of Sonic's demise! Sonic The Hedgehog 2006! Cower in fear as you witness the death of our hero!

     Is it really so terrible that it deserves a 45 metacritic score? I've played the game through it's entirety, I've S-ranked literally everything on both normal AND hard. If you've ever played the game, that's bragging rights right there. You really do have to master the game to be that good at it. In my opinion, it's not 45/100 terrible. It's close, but not quite. Is it rife with glitches? Yes. Does the camera suck? Yes. What about the controls? Well they suck too. Look, there certainly are terrible things about this game and they really shouldn't be excused. Why did I bother with the game? Because it's Sonic. There's nothing you can do to turn me away from a Sonic game. I'm going to buy it and I'm going to play it until my console dies on me. And when it comes to this game, it's really Sonic Adventure at heart. 

     All of the problems that Sonic '06 contains don't even occur when you play the game the way it's supposed to be played. I know, sounds like a stupid excuse but really, if the game was as broken and frustrating as everyone claimed, it wouldn't have been possible to 100% it. And believe it or not, it was a lot of fun to do. I used to be an achievement hunter and I've sat through some really tough times just to get a worthless achievement and I'd rather 100% Sonic '06 again before having to get another boring, time-consuming achievement that was made simply for the purpose of torture. I was actually sad when I had beat the whole thing because it meant I was done with it. That's right, I wanted Sonic '06 to last. To look at it with the eye of a critic, it sucked. If we were scoring with numbers, I'd give it a 5.5 - 6 score. As a gamer who values mechanics and the Sonic Adventure style, it was a step in the right direction and it really wasn't that bad at all. 

     In fact, I'd say anyone who complained about the problems in the game and gave that as a reason to never get past the first level wasn't trying hard enough and learning from mistakes. People love playing Trials. Trials is a motorcycle game about running through a course with the best time. Eventually the courses get super hard and you end up having to restart A LOT. You fail again and again and again until you get it right. It can get brutally hard, even in the beginning, but you keep trying and eventually you learn and succeed. However, if you talk to someone about playing this Sonic game they complain a lot about the glitches, cheap deaths, and horrid controls. Well you're going to die a lot your first time around, that's true. But after you go through the level a couple of times and you see the multiple paths you should take, you shouldn't die anymore and you shouldn't run into anymore glitches either. Basically the game is so ****ed up because Sega rushed the living **** out of it. Animations are incomplete, the overworlds are completely empty, and the controls are very hard to get used to since they're inconsistent and counter-intuitive. They're lucky they were able to fit an actual game into the mix. Fortunately, all you have to do is play long enough to understand what the game will accept and how to approach certain obstacles. After that, it's easy to beat any given level. I've accumulated 32 lives before ever dying so it's very possible to play the game without much trouble. The only other thing I can think of is complaining about the NPC's, story, and side missions. Once again, it's not like they're the entire game and they're easy enough to get through.

     The only thing you can do after that is going for an S-rank. S-ranks require a 50,000 -53,000 score on a given level  before you can be rewarded the grade. You get points from fast time, rings accumulated before being hit, enemies defeated in a stage, and bonus points for tricks and enemy exploits. If you basically play through a level flawlessly without being hit, you're golden. It's so hard to do that but it's a lot of fun too. Just like Trials, you gotta figure out how to do it, perfect your execution, and then complete it. Here's a legitimate S-run. At the end, they're not glitching the game, they're using the lightspeed-dash to collect rings and gain speed:

     I didn't see any game-breaking glitches, no deaths, even the camera was behaving. Everything went well because he/she put in the time to learn the game and nothing bad happens as a result. In fact, something very good happens seeing as how they get an extremely high score and are rewarded with the treasured S-rank. As you can see in the clip the level design has multiple paths and a nice flow reminiscent of Sonic Adventure. If you want to look JUST at the core gameplay, yes it's flawed but only before you understand how it's to be played. After that, you're looking at a more than decent Sonic game. 

     So why's the game so bad? Because as a whole, the game was rushed. The story flopped, the graphics suffered, the presentation was completely absent, the VA's blew, the animations were poorly done as well as collision detection, and thematically it didn't fit in with any age group; It's much too hard to play for kids and adults don't care for little kids dialogue and story. I say people think it sucks because they're not used to playing for old-school reasons. There was no story back in the day and visuals only served a minimal purpose. It was about beating the game and then fighting for the fastest times and highest scores after that. It was you versus the mechanics of the game. It's the same here. It's you versus the way the developers meant it to be played before it was ripped from their hands and shoved out the door. If you take a look at the game as a whole, there's a ****ton of content inside it. If it hadn't been rushed, it really would have been quite a game. You might even say it would have truly been the revival of Sonic games. Unfortunately, Sega didn't care to allow effort to be put forth into it.

    After Sonic '06, Sonic had died to the gaming community. Well the gaming community was being ignorant because Sonic is far from dead. In fact, I enjoy knowing that I can still expect great Sonic games, I just know where to look for them. The trick is to stop caring about the console projects. Look to handhelds. Sonic Advance was a great, quality series with multiple characters to play with and even a chao garden! Then Sonic Rush came about, returning with Sonic's trademark attitude and combining his old school roots with his newfound flow of speed, continuing the evolution of speed with a speed burst button and the use of tricks to score bonus points and fill to boost bar. 

     It garnered a lot of attention from reviewers and ended up walking away with much praise and high scores to go along with it. I found it to be the next step in the evolution of the franchise. It captured the charm of the old-school titles, it held the style of the Sonic Adventure series, and it added mechanics that were anything but gimmicks and helped make the game feel fresh! Even the music was excellent, taking a sound akin to the beloved Jet Set Radio series. It didn't seem to affect gamers though. Thanks to Shadow the Hedgehog, Sonic Riders, Sonic '06, and other console titles, Sonic still sucks apparently. Luckily enough for those of us who actually pay attention to the series were rewarded with the even better Sonic Rush Adventure! Still no one but the hardcore fans knew of Sonic's renewal. 

     Then we have Sonic Unleashed, a perfectly good game despite the whining from the old-school purists. I've played the game to death and I've obtained every achievement the game had to offer. I've also read the reviews on the game and all I really see is just a bunch of whining once again, especially IGN's review, dear God stay away from that one. Hilary Goldstein is not looking out for your best interest. Anyway, there's plenty of good to experience in Sonic Unleashed. I'll definitely make a review about it so I won't go into it here but at this point, it's worth recommending since it costs so little now. Obviously Sega saw how great Sonic Rush was received and tried to copy it. I believe it was Dimps who developed Rush and Sonic Team are the guys rushin' out the console titles. Well they kinda made a mishmash of Sonic games with it's largest, apparent inspiration coming from Rush. The controls are still a bit wonky and towards the end it feels rushed with near broken game segments. The biggest complaint about Unleashed? Sonic turns into a werehog with stretchy arms.

     Couldn't get that to center for some reason. Anyway, reviewers and gamers complain about the idea of the werehog so much that it feels like it counts into their scores and opinions. Let's not forget what Sonic is: A children's game hero. No one should care that sonic turns into a werehog. He's a BLUE HEDGEHOG that RUNS AT THE SPEED OF SOUND that BATTLES A FAT SCIENTIST who POWERS ROBOTS WITH WOODLAND CRITTERS. Knuckles can climb walls and FLY! Echidna's can't do those things! So no one should give a flying **** about Sonic turning into a werehog that can stretch his arms. If you do, why aren't you complaining about the rest of these games beginning with the first game on the Genesis? Now that I've made fools of all of you, the platforming using the werehog is decent. I actually enjoyed it. I tend to like mindless beat-em-ups ala Final Fight and TMNT and that's all those segments are with platforming tossed in. 

     So yeah, Unleashed has it's problems but it's coming from Sonic Team, a studio that's notorious for ruining the series. Unleashed should be seen as a step in the right direction. They even delayed the game and, call me crazy, but you can actually see the spots where that extra time must've gone into. It still needed more time but Sega seems addicted to rushing the game out the door. Sonic Team shouldn't be lashed, they need to be encouraged. They begin doing things that the fans ask for step by step. Now we have 2D gameplay sections, more platforming, and less critters running around. The gameplay and level design is getting there. Still gamers hate on the game and demand a straight-up Sonic title.

     Well, we're getting Sonic 4 and its presence kinda pains me. It looks like Sonic Rush with mechanics lifted right from Sonic 2 with a touch of the homing attack added for good measure. It looks awkward, the music sounds odd and there's an extreme lack of speed. It looks slightly out of place. I'll hold my judgment till I play it, because I can and I will, but I feel like we should be getting an HD Sonic Rush instead of an old-school re-hash.

     So does Sonic suck? Is he really dead? I don't think so. No one else seems to know any better. It seems like everyone likes to piggyback onto the opinions of critics as an excuse to not try these games. And if they try it and fail on the first couple levels, well it must be the game's fault since it got such a low score anyway. Critics score on every aspect of a game. Gamers should only care about the gameplay. Console Sonic games are diamonds in the rough. The core experience is there if you look for it. As for handhelds, I'd think anyone playing those would be confused at such comments about Sonic being dead or sucking skittles. And if you'd like to try your hand at 'em, you can find both Sonic '06 and Unleashed for sub $10 now. 

     I say give it time. Eventually Sega will catch on and make the console games as good as the handhelds, they have to. It's hard to ignore the outcry for a better Sonic. I personally wish it wasn't for the straight-up old-school roots though...