A thought on Sonics future reputation.

[Dr. Watson]

One thing that makes my heart sing is that, despite how much of a joke or piece of garbage Sonic in his current state is considered by the video game world, there seems to still be a pretty big consensus that at least the Mega Drive games were masterpieces. Nevertheless though, the opinion that even those games were, if not bad, then at least terribly overrated and "not that big a deal" appears to pop up in gaming media more and more often these days.

And this gets me thinking about how Sonic will come of when people to young to have grown up with the the Mega Drive games starts to work in the professional gaming media. People to whom Sonic is probably not even be a nostalgic memory. I recon that to many of these youngsters, Sonic is merely the guy that (as they have learned from reading up on video game history) once tried to toss the gaming God Mario of his throne (a character who seems to be just as beloved by younger gamers as he is by the older crowd). And i think that a lack of nostalgia for the 2D games, combined with knowledge of Sonic's history as an intended Mario-killer, combined with having grown up in an era where Sonic is nothing but a running joke (get the pun there? eh, eh, do ya? eh?) to the video game community at large, have the potential to make for a generation of gaming journalists that would make the current IGN writers seem like Sega-fanboys .

Thoughts? Opinions? More hilarious puns?

[Segaholic2]

Gaming journalism is a joke.

[Senbei]

Our successive gamer generation is something I've pondered a bit, not so much in regards to Sonic but as a whole. The majority of kids playing today seem only interested in Gears, God of War, San Andreas, and Halo 3 (as the franchise is now known). Then there's the newfound "pink DS" market that we have piles and piles of Petz and Imagine and knock-off games dedicated towards. And of course there's WoW, the MySpace of games. It's an completely different environment to grow up in and I'm curious to see where it will take gaming in a decade or two.

Working at GameStop, I have noted about 1% of kids actually taking the time to visit older games and opening up to titles that don't involve mass murder or end with "z." 1% seems insignificant, but really the "core" gaming community is just about that small, I think. So it's entirely possible that future designers, journalists, and "hardcore" fans will be nearly as well-versed in classic gaming as they are today, which also applies to Sonic.

[Kogen]

This topic is overrated and not that big of a deal.

Buy my magazine.

[FlashTHD]

Buy my magazine.

?

[Kogen]

*sniff*

[Wombatwarlord777]

I was at my hometown Game Stop a couple of months ago, pondering whether or not to buy Sonic Chronicles. Then this five-year old kid points to the exact same game and says to his mom "I want this one! It's Sonic!"

And boy, did I feel embarassed!

This incident gives me vibes of hope and despair as far as the future of Sonic goes. Clearly, he still has the ability to appeal to little kids, the same kids who will eventually grow up to be game developers, critics, ect. However (and this is a big however) little kids will play anything. On the other hand, it's been years since I've heard anybody else in my age group say anything complimentary about Sonic. I fear that Sonic is becoming more and more stringently defined as children's fare, merely due to the fact that little kids usually cannot differentiate good games from awful games. This is really ironic, especially when you consider that Shadow and Sonic '06 attempted to force maturity onto the series, with disastrous results.

In all honesty, if Unleashed hadn't derailed Sonic's ride to Unredeemable Craptown, I wouldn't have expected him to be around in ten years, at least as a Sega property.

[Kogen]

People are still dumb enough to think SEGA would sell Sonic?

[Dr. BUGMAN]

This is really ironic, especially when you consider that Shadow and Sonic '06 attempted to force maturity onto the series, with disastrous results.

Define mature.

[Zeta]

Guns, death, and angst. Duh. What are you, a baby?

[Wombatwarlord777]

Define mature.

Well, from what we've been getting from Sonic Team, swearing, inner-species romantic flings, and overly complicated plots, in addition to what Zeta wrote.

I can see the irony in this...

[j-man]

Sonic is very much a product of the nineties. The difference between him and Mario is that Sonic simply does not have mass appeal, in that he is not a "blank slate" character. The Adventure-era revamp, and all subsequent attempts since, have fallen short because the change is so jarring. Mario (and other Nintendo stalwarts like Link and Samus) is a simple character, and aside from the Saturday morning cartoons he's never been shown to exhibit any particular personality, making it far easier to fit him into a wider variety of situations.

Sonic is supposed to be a badass; the problem being, our modern-day version of badass is, sadly, to run around shooting pregnant women and jacking alien spaceships, when 15 years ago all you had to do was wear a backwards cap and sunglasses. What is "cool" has changed, and so Sonic did too, and when people didn't like that they just watered him down with "love thy neighbour" platitudes and gave him sporting equipment.

[Crowbar]

Sega as a whole was a product of the nineties. Every single one of their most celebrated products just feels like distlled nineties-ness to me. Nights, Sonic R's music (almost all old Sega music, in fact), Space Channel 5 (yes it was technically 80s-themed, but 80s nostalgia was a 90s thing), Jet Set Radio...their newer stuff doesn't have nearly such a distinctive identity. It's no coincidence that the millenium was when they started really struggling (the Saturn may have been a financial bomb but it birthed some of their most loved properties).

[Baba O'Riley]

Sonic is supposed to be a badass; the problem being, our modern-day version of badass is, sadly, to run around shooting pregnant women and jacking alien spaceships, when 15 years ago all you had to do was wear a backwards cap and sunglasses. What is "cool" has changed, and so Sonic did too, and when people didn't like that they just watered him down with "love thy neighbour" platitudes and gave him sporting equipment.

Well, give your character a template and they will generally change with the times. I mean, if Sonic had remained the same, he would probably seem dated.

It's a no win scenario, really.

[RocketPunch]

Sonic's a product of the nineties because that's the last time he made consistently good games. Sure, his character and personality were practically designed to be a flash-in-the-pan trend for a specific era, but that wouldn't matter if there wasn't such an apparent drop in quality from the "classics" to now. And the fact that Sega refuses to return to the old style of gameplay without tacking on some cheesy gimmick doesn't help matters. Before we, as Sonic fans, can argue that Halo 3 is only popular because it features guns, Sega needs to make a Sonic game that's as technically competent as Halo 3.

Sonic's future reputation depends on Sega not being so deluded as to think we want every game to have treasure-hunting/team gameplay/guns/swords/werehogs/etc. Once Sega figures out who its fan base is, what it wants, and delivers, Sonic will be redeemed.

[Senbei]

Actually, I think that Sonic as a character could have remained as relevant as Mario or other Nintendo characters had he kept his mouth shut. He was marketed as the dude with a 'tude, but the Genesis games never strictly defined his personality -- he really was as much a "blank slate" as any other 16-bit protagonist. This changed with Sonic Adventure, but if he'd remained a silent protagonist as Mario and Link have, as has been suggested in this forum before, he might've retained appeal as more than a character aimed at children.

But yeah, what RocketPunch said. It's not Sonic himself who has become infamous, but his games.

[Ngangbius]

Sonic's future reputation depends on Sega not being so deluded as to think we want every game to have treasure-hunting/team gameplay/guns/swords/werehogs/etc. Once Sega figures out who its fan base is, what it wants, and delivers, Sonic will be redeemed.

Sega are already convinced that the fanbase(or the demographic who is most likely to purchase the games) consists of people who haven't reached puberty yet, possibly for the same reasons Wombatwarlord stated. It probably explains why Sega refuses to hand out free review copies of games from this franchise to major gaming sites such as IGN, Gamespot, 1up, etc. anymore. I think they know adults who've lost interest in Sonic wouldn't be thrilled with the latest gimmicky-fare.

[Kogen]

Giving IGN review copies is a good idea?

They wrote an article saying Sonic should be like Mirror's Edge.

[Ngangbius]

That actually would be better than what we have now...minus the pointless gun/fighting bits and if it was in 2D.

[Kogen]

...

That would be worse than Unleashed.

[Shadow Hog]

I dunno. In concept, the whole free-running thing is basically what I've been wanting from a Sonic game for a good while. Just you and this huge world, where your only objective is to get from here to there. Obviously there'd be some artificial limitations on where you can go, so you can make actual levels, but hell, that's what Mirror's Edge did too. Still, the idea is that if you see it, and it's between you and your goal, you can use your speed to somehow get to it.

[Wombatwarlord777]

I think what Shadow Hog suggested is what contributed to the value of Sonics 1, 2, and CD. In those games, you only had Sonic's limited moveset at your disposal, but you could go anywhere in any level if you knew what you were doing. It's that sense of exploration and discovery that's been missing from the 3D games (though, at the risk of overstating my admiration for Unleashed, I do think that game does a better job). The "multiple characters, multiple routes" approach worked wonders for Sonic 3+K and Sonic Adventure, but I'd really like to see Sonic Team's modern attempt at a Sonic-only game, without copping out with Werehog-esque shit.

At the risk of moving off-topic, I'd also like to see future games expliot Sonic's speed and his environment. Imagine Sonic running up and down a half-pipe, gradually gaining momentum and height until he can reach a platform overhead. The developers kinda had this element in Sonic Adventure, but since have really shyed away from it.

[Crowbar]

At the risk of moving off-topic, I'd also like to see future games expliot Sonic's speed and his environment. Imagine Sonic running up and down a half-pipe, gradually gaining momentum and height until he can reach a platform overhead. The developers kinda had this element in Sonic Adventure, but since have really shyed away from it.

That sort of stuff was pretty common in the early games. Especially Sonic 1 since you didn't have spin-dash. Okay it wasn't engineered to be necessary to just get through the levels, but exploration would often find you doing it.

[FlashTHD]

I dunno. In concept, the whole free-running thing is basically what I've been wanting from a Sonic game for a good while. Just you and this huge world, where your only objective is to get from here to there. Obviously there'd be some artificial limitations on where you can go, so you can make actual levels, but hell, that's what Mirror's Edge did too. Still, the idea is that if you see it, and it's between you and your goal, you can use your speed to somehow get to it.

Maybe it's a byproduct of being wiped out from a day that got started at 5 AM but, I swear, didn't we band this idea about not that long ago? Without much approval?

Sonic's future reputation depends on Sega not being so deluded as to think we want every game to have treasure-hunting/team gameplay/guns/swords/werehogs/etc. Once Sega figures out who its fan base is

Oh yeah? Which one?

[Zeta]

I can't believe people still have hope that SEGA sees Sonic as anything else besides shovelware.