Sonic games that you consider guilty pleasures

[Chaos Incarnate]

Are there any Sonic games that you enjoy, even if the gameplay quality is technically bad? I can't really call any Sonic game I've played a guilty pleasure, but what about everyone else?

[Crackerss]

3D Blast, Secret Rings, and SA2 to an extent...

[Emmett L. Brown]

Shadow the Hedgehog. Because it's brilliant satire of dark and edgy makeovers...provided you pretend it's not being played dead-serious by very confused developers. Also I stand firm on my opinion that Black Doom is the funniest comic relief character in the series.

[Tani Coyote]

Now that I've been playing SA2HD... I think SA2. Playing the whole span of levels and not just the select few I usually replay has kind of opened my eyes to some of its technical issues. It's not THAT bad, but I suppose I can agree the camera can be a bit ludicrous in some areas.

 

Hmm. I have no real guilty pleasures. I like Black Knight, but there's nothing "guilty" about it there.

[#AR]

Sonic R.

The game's short, way too easy, and the controls are weird/clunky as all hell, but I absolutely love it. No matter how much I play the game, I can never get mad at it, especially with the soundtrack going on.

[Tani Coyote]

Sonic R.

I can never get mad at it, especially with the soundtrack going on.

 

This does seem to be the biggest factor that fans still appreciate to this day. I think pretty much everyone knows Super Sonic Racing, or at least part of it, especially thanks to Generations.

 

The music of the series really is one area it's consistently shined. And I guess in many cases it is the background tune that helps us forgive the shortcomings of the title itself. Kind of impressive actually!

[Burnt Ash]

As of late, SA2. Yeah, I know it's not the best game out there, and it may not even be a good game when all is said and done, but I manage to love most of the levels, even the hunting and mech shooting levels. The story, while the execution isn't the best, is one I like conceptually, and to an extent, the execution.

 

Sonic 06, but only circumstantially. At times if I'm really bored, I'll load up Sonic 06 and play through some of Sonic's levels and generally have some fun with them. The gameplay mechanics are crap, the story is horrible and convoluted, the graphics are mediocre, the design of it is generally unimpressive, the hub worlds are lifeless, it's riddled up the wall with glitches, there are several shoehorned characters, some of the design choices don't make sense, and in general, I tend to dislike it. Yet for some reason I come back to play the levels every now and then. 

 

This is an old one, as I don't find the game to be fun at all anymore, but one day, Shadow the Hedgehog held this spot for guilty pleasures. Yeah, I downright hated the "maze" levels (35 Artificial Chaos, are you kidding me, I'm on 34 and I can't find the last one!). No seriously, I was confused by that level to the point where I was stuck on it for perhaps a whole hour. Say what you will about SA2's Hunting Stages or Heroes's stages, but at least they didn't keep me on boring levels for more than an hour. Really, Heroes's took me at most about 14 minutes, and SA2 maybe about 5-7 for the hunting stages. But anyway, for the stages that weren't like those, I liked them at the time. I don't even really remember why I even liked the game at this point, I just remember that I did. 

 

And every other Sonic game I either clearly like, dislike, or don't care about it at all. 

Edited March 15, 2013 by Burnt Ash

[\gunther]

Is "most of the Series" a valid enough answer? 

[Tani Coyote]

Is "most of the Series" a valid enough answer? 

 

Sadly this is actually somewhat agreeable. I see all the crap Sega's put out over these twenty years, and can't really be surprised Sonic's the butt of so many jokes. And despite all the crap, I've played the main ones if nothing else, and can proudly state I am a fan. In itself my fandom is a guilty pleasure, because it means I must acknowledge the bad as much as the good. Never mind the fact peer pressure is almost entirely in favor of FPSes and I just can't help but shrug.

[Urban Flow]

Shadow the Hedgehog. Because it's brilliant satire of dark and edgy makeovers...provided you pretend it's not being played dead-serious by very confused developers. Also I stand firm on my opinion that Black Doom is the funniest comic relief character in the series.

Same. I love that game so much. At least the music is sweet.

[Turbo the Punk]

I'm going to have to go with Heroes. I was never a fan of the wonky controls, poor dialouge, generic level design, and corny story; but there's something about it that makes my sit down and play it every now and then. For what it's worth, I enjoy the music tracks at least.

[Shane]

I'm going to have to say just about every single one.

[Speederino]

Black Knight. I hate the very fact that the sword gimmick was a thing, but I guess it could have been executed worse. I know a lot of people had trouble with the waggle controls, personally it was never much of an issue for me. And if nothing else, the game has a great presentation. It looks great, sounds great, I even like the watercolor-comic cutscenes.

[MamboCat]

Sonic Heroes.

 

At the time I was super excited for it as I didn't have a Dreamcast or a Gamecube (I'd played SA2 on my stepdad's Gamecube, but he's a fussy sod and doesn't like people finishing games before him - even though he hardly ever touched SA2!) so to have a Sonic game on the XBox was all kinds of yaaaaaay for me.

 

I also don't think it's that bad a game, the team dynamic and what not. Although I got fed up with Team Chaotix's missions. Ugh.

 

Oh yeah and  the SA2 re-release. I like the Sonic and Shadow levels, but there's not enough of them IMO.

Edited March 15, 2013 by MamboCat

[iDEATH]

There's none I'd consider a guilty pleasure, i like pretty much every game in the series even if some of them have their issues. Flickies Island would probably be the closest though, I love that game.

[Jolt_TH]

Sonic shuffle.

This has ALWAYS been a guilty pleasure if mine, possibly because it was the first (and one of the only) game(s) that my sister and brother and me would all play together. It's a fairly good party game and has a better story than any Mario party game (that I have played). The music is pretty cool and I just enjoy playing it from time to time, it is undoubtedly better with friends though (and after unlocking the extra characters and all the mini games)

[Tani Coyote]

Black Knight. I hate the very fact that the sword gimmick was a thing, but I guess it could have been executed worse. I know a lot of people had trouble with the waggle controls, personally it was never much of an issue for me. And if nothing else, the game has a great presentation. It looks great, sounds great, I even like the watercolor-comic cutscenes.

 

Yeah, same here. I didn't see the control issues like most folks did. The only time I was never able to get the controls to really respond was when you get in close with a knight and clash swords. But I was probably just doing it wrong.

 

In retrospect the sword thing was pretty unnecessary, though overall I think the game's music and presentation were enjoyable enough to make up for a sometimes frustrating gameplay mechanic.

[Semi-colon e]

Adventure 1 is this on virtue of aging really fucking badly. You know, it's so bad it's good in some ways, like Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, while being actually good in others.

 

Shadow though, yeah, it's so embarrassing and I would never play it around anyone else unless they knew of what the game was like but it's funny as hell.

 

06 hovers between this and "oh god I've never hated something more ever".

 

Other than that I do enjoy most of the games non-ironically though.

Edited March 15, 2013 by Semi-colon e

[The Weeb with No Name]

Babysitting Cream.

[Dr. Crusher]

Shadow the Hedgehog. Because it's brilliant satire of dark and edgy makeovers...provided you pretend it's not being played dead-serious by very confused developers. Also I stand firm on my opinion that Black Doom is the funniest comic relief character in the series.

 

Pretty much this.

 

The only two games that are guilty pleasures for me - that could be considered guilty pleasures - are ShtH and 3D Blast. The former for how ridiculously stupid it is, the latter because it's fairly harmless despite not being that fast, and also a bit of nostalgia due to first playing the Genesis games on Mega Collection.

 

With the other games, I have a more clear-cut like, love, dislike, or indifference towards.

[Burtzman]

Shadow and Sonic 4.

 

Shadow is fun, provided you ignore all the missions and just play it like Sonic Adventure, and it's so campy when it tries to be dark that it's lovable.

 

My favorite game of all time is Sonic 3 and Knuckles. So by that logic I should hate Sonic 4 for failing at so much that the classic series excelled in, but I can't bring myself to dislike it. I genuinely like both episodes of it and hope there will be more. I just feel guilty for playing it when I know how many Sonic fans hate it.

[RedPandaPies]

Sonic Unleashed. 

I liked the day time levels a lot, as well as the night levels, although the controls for the night levels were a bit off for me. Other than that I enjoyed it... 

[SoniqUpdater]

for me its Sonic 06, i played the game after so long of hearing the bad things about it, when i got it i at least knew what to expect, but excluding a few bugs and a few bad level design choices, i was actually able to enjoy playing the game, didn't even feel the urge to throw my controller. really i had fun with it, and may go back to play it some time soon again.

[MamboCat]

Hmmm... sorry if this opens up old wounds but I don't see anything guilty in liking Unleashed. I think the day levels are quite enjoyable, I like the way the human characters are represented and the world Sonic is in is varied and interesting to look at (even at night!). I also like the little details in some of the character's comments, the items you can buy and give to Chip etc... The only problem with Unleashed as far as I can see is the Werehog. The character looks like something from AoSTH (which IMO is not necessarily a bad thing but it looks weird in the game) and the night gameplay is long and boring.

Edited March 15, 2013 by MamboCat

[Dr. Crusher]

Oh balls, I forgot about Sonic 4.