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Popular and unpopular Sonic opinions you agree and disagree with!


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On 11/17/2021 at 9:29 PM, Cosmos Rogue said:

Well, I'm bored tonight, so...

Redesigning Sonic for Sonic Adventure was a mistake. It was a solution to a nonexistent problem, and robbed the character of much of his appeal.

 

 

It wasn't a problem here, but Sonic wasn't all that popular in Japan and Project Sonic was an initiative to fix that. It seems silly to risk fucking up a consistent bag for something like that now, but I'd bet it was a bit of a bummer to Sonic Team that what they were making wasn't making a splash where they lived.

I guess I'll springboard off of this into my own hot take. I like the Adventure design more than the classic one on a purely artistic level but I still wonder sometimes if it was the right choice. I don't think Sonic Adventures's design alone was different enough to put a significant dent in the character's reach, but I do think moving Sonic away from the ball shape he was known for engendered some laxity on Sonic Team's end. Traces of his origins are still in SA1 and 2, but by Heroes Sonic wasn't a character based around ball physics anymore. He had a build more like a superhero or an athlete and the games changed to match. Sonic's athletic feats became more of a focus in the mechanics than his once defining trait. What we ultimately are left with is something a lot less unique since there are plenty of games about fast moving, athletic characters.

It might be a huge assumption to think this all started with the design change. I might have it backwards. Sonic Team confessed to being burned out on traditional Sonic games before the 90s were even over so they might have decided to take the series in a more action oriented direction first and changed Sonic to solidify it. Either way I'm not sure if it was the right choice though. I'm getting older and more and more of the series is starting to sink into 'I'll never touch this again' territory with only the truly unique titles surviving the flood.

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I mentioned this in a status update way back when, but sometimes I wonder if Sonic should have just never left the 90's at all. Everything that defined the foundation of the series was there, and after they left most of that behind in the turn of the millennium, Sonic's never really hit the same level of mass appeal again. We're at a point when most gamers only know Sonic as that mediocre franchise that people love to mock for clout, but has a very obsessive fanbase that refuses to let him go. Like yea, Sonic would have just been a fad that faded with the times, but at least he would have been respected among the group that grew up with him and his legacy somewhat intact. 

 

I dunno, I just personally think living a fulfilling life and then dying young just fits the youthful image that Sonic was meant to represent. The longer the franchise goes on for, the more it starts reminding me of those adults who are still trying to relive their glory days after peaking in their early years. It's sad to watch as someone who grew up with this series since near the beginning even if it does still sell among its target demographic of children. 

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17 hours ago, Kuzu said:

I mentioned this in a status update way back when, but sometimes I wonder if Sonic should have just never left the 90's at all. Everything that defined the foundation of the series was there, and after they left most of that behind in the turn of the millennium, Sonic's never really hit the same level of mass appeal again. We're at a point when most gamers only know Sonic as that mediocre franchise that people love to mock for clout, but has a very obsessive fanbase that refuses to let him go. Like yea, Sonic would have just been a fad that faded with the times, but at least he would have been respected among the group that grew up with him and his legacy somewhat intact. 

 

I dunno, I just personally think living a fulfilling life and then dying young just fits the youthful image that Sonic was meant to represent. The longer the franchise goes on for, the more it starts reminding me of those adults who are still trying to relive their glory days after peaking in their early years. It's sad to watch as someone who grew up with this series since near the beginning even if it does still sell among its target demographic of children. 

I mean, the Sonic IP still brings in tons of revenue so I don't get what you mean by this. They've definetly made some mistakes but he's still been wildly popular this entire time. How much is "Legacy" worth in comparison? What's clout among a shrinking group of 30 year olds vs what they brought in with the Sonic movie alone?

The only thing I question is the path they chose to get here.

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18 hours ago, Wraith said:

It wasn't a problem here, but Sonic wasn't all that popular in Japan and Project Sonic was an initiative to fix that. It seems silly to risk fucking up a consistent bag for something like that now, but I'd bet it was a bit of a bummer to Sonic Team that what they were making wasn't making a splash where they lived.

Is this why the design was changed? I knew Project Sonic was intended to boost Sonic's popularity in Japan, but this is the first I've heard linking the redesign to that project. The story I've heard regarding the redesign is that Sonic Team felt Sonic was no longer seen as "cool", but cute instead, so they redesigned the character to reemphasize the cool factor.

17 hours ago, Kuzu said:

I mentioned this in a status update way back when, but sometimes I wonder if Sonic should have just never left the 90's at all. Everything that defined the foundation of the series was there, and after they left most of that behind in the turn of the millennium, Sonic's never really hit the same level of mass appeal again. We're at a point when most gamers only know Sonic as that mediocre franchise that people love to mock for clout, but has a very obsessive fanbase that refuses to let him go. Like yea, Sonic would have just been a fad that faded with the times, but at least he would have been respected among the group that grew up with him and his legacy somewhat intact. 

Since his downfall Sonic has entertained millions of people - young and old. Many Sonic games have in fact been good during this time! The Sonic series has more good games than most game series have games period. That's worth a lot more than an untarnished legacy celebrated by an ever dwindling number of people.

As an aside, Sega's repeated appeals to Sonic fan's nostalgia over the past decade is less of a Sonic specific problem and more of an issue with how pop culture IPs are managed in general these days. The Force Awakens is the movie it is because Disney were afraid of messing up their billion dollar investment. We have gotten multiple Ghostbusters reboots in the past decade and popular anime keep getting live action adaptions because those IPs already have large fanbases that will show up for almost anything done with those properties. It's safe money, or at least as safe as you can get when investing tens or hundreds of millions of dollars in a project.

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24 minutes ago, Cosmos Rogue said:

Is this why the design was changed? I knew Project Sonic was intended to boost Sonic's popularity in Japan, but this is the first I've heard linking the redesign to that project. The story I've heard regarding the redesign is that Sonic Team felt Sonic was no longer seen as "cool", but cute instead, so they redesigned the character to reemphasize the cool factor.

 

I was mistaken on this. Sonic Adventure was developed alongside the whole "project Sonic" push so I thought it's more shonen anime style redesigns were a part of the same push but they notably dropped the label the second it came out lol. Might have been a more general redesign for all audiences.

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19 hours ago, Wraith said:

I mean, the Sonic IP still brings in tons of revenue so I don't get what you mean by this. They've definetly made some mistakes but he's still been wildly popular this entire time. How much is "Legacy" worth in comparison? What's clout among a shrinking group of 30 year olds vs what they brought in with the Sonic movie alone?

The only thing I question is the path they chose to get here.

 

19 hours ago, Cosmos Rogue said:

Is this why the design was changed? I knew Project Sonic was intended to boost Sonic's popularity in Japan, but this is the first I've heard linking the redesign to that project. The story I've heard regarding the redesign is that Sonic Team felt Sonic was no longer seen as "cool", but cute instead, so they redesigned the character to reemphasize the cool factor.

Since his downfall Sonic has entertained millions of people - young and old. Many Sonic games have in fact been good during this time! The Sonic series has more good games than most game series have games period. That's worth a lot more than an untarnished legacy celebrated by an ever dwindling number of people.

As an aside, Sega's repeated appeals to Sonic fan's nostalgia over the past decade is less of a Sonic specific problem and more of an issue with how pop culture IPs are managed in general these days. The Force Awakens is the movie it is because Disney were afraid of messing up their billion dollar investment. We have gotten multiple Ghostbusters reboots in the past decade and popular anime keep getting live action adaptions because those IPs already have large fanbases that will show up for almost anything done with those properties. It's safe money, or at least as safe as you can get when investing tens or hundreds of millions of dollars in a project.

I suppose, I admit its mostly my personal feelings on the matter. Sonic is undoubtedly successful, I just wish it didn't have to be successful in the way that didn't make older fans feel insignificant. 

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 11/16/2021 at 5:15 AM, Austroid said:

I love Egg Pawns and classic badniks as much as the next guy, but I also kind of like the deception of Eggman's robots being a uniform dark/muted color; with only the egg himself standing out among his metallic minions. 

Given that its such an Eggman trait for him to always be the center of attention, it would make sense. Plus its a great visual contrast too! (Maybe depending on the game's tone going forward, his robots should reflect that?)

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I 100% agree. I especially miss their designs from 06.

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The ranking system should differ from 2D sonic games to 3D sonic games. SA2/Unleashed do a good job at visualizing what a 3D ranking system should look like, ranks that require you to get through the stage in a required amount of time while getting a good score along the way, or, in SA2's case, pulling off tricks while getting through the stage in a fixed amount of time

for 2D however, those games are a lot shorter than 3D ones, and they're designed a lot differently. They should instead be 100% about time, Sonic Advance 3 does this really well in my opinion, as it doesn't matter how many rings you get, how many enemies you kill or how many times you die, all that matters is that you make it to the goal in a fast enough without obstruction to get the gold rank.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Boost gameplay solved pretty much every problem previous 3D sonic games had.  You get this satisfying platform/racing game hybrid…in generations at least.

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