Sonic Needs a Reboot

[Tornado]

You know what works, time and time again? Making shit that is good. You know what only ever really works once? Cynically rebooting (and drawing deliberate attention to it) something because you're too much of a hack to do the first thing and you hope to distract people from it.

 

And Sega already did that once, and chickened out a couple years ago when they went to try it again.

[___-_]

It's going to be a wasted effort as long as they keep these same writers they have now regardless (And the problems most likely stem way further than that too, like the apparent lack of communication and organization within Sonic Team in general).

I'd much rather them focus on restructuring the gameplay elements before anything else anyway. Doesn't matter if we had the best story in the world and if Sonic starts calling Tails "Miles" all of a sudden if the gameplay still sucks lol.

[Multikaris]

I think it should “de-boot”, and try to return to its former consistency. Go back and tie all the crap together into one unit. Bring back the world rather than make a new one. People don’t like some of the games? Didn’t stop Joh Yowza from getting more appearances.

[Whatever the WhoCares]

I've maintained that Sonic Adventure is due for a remake, and that could be the basis for a full-on reboot. My idea is this:

Super Sonic defeats Eggman over the Mystic Ruins, and then flies back to the Emerald Shrine and releases the Emeralds. Knuckles immediately picks them up and lightly chastises Sonic for using them longer than he needed to. "I'm the guardian of these Emeralds. I can't just let people use them for fun." Sonic asks Knuckles why he's the one guarding them, to which he's at a loss for words. So we're already establishing the characters and their roles and why the Emeralds are important for Sonic, and setting up the existential question that Tikal will answer. The rest of the story plays out in a more cohesive and understandable way, with Big being entirely optional this time. After defeating Perfect Chaos, Sonic unintentionally displays some entitled behavior and when giving them back to Knuckles says something along the lines of "I might as well just keep these things." Knuckles is suspicious, planting the seeds for a Sonic 3&Knuckles remake. When that game ends, we see Eggman fleeing the falling Death Egg and going towards an abandoned space station. This leads into an SA2 remake.

Obviously I didn't include anything about the gameplay, but I think the story alone has so many ways to be made better that they really ought to go for a reboot. 

[SpongicX]

I would want a reboot to feel more inspired by Adventure games and Sonic Unleashed. Have a good mix of serious moments, but still have some light moments that don't feel out of place. 

I'd want the characters to be reintroduced as fun and exciting characters.

I'd want Sonic to mostly stay as the way he is, except make him a little less egotistical, and stop having so many corny jokes and one liners. I like him as a character who likes to goof off when things don't seem too challenging, yet knows when to stop when he sees others are in danger. It comes off as very dickish when he's cracking jokes, despite knowing that his friends are hurt or in danger.

I'd want Tails to go back to being a loyal best friend of Sonic, who can actually fight for himself as well. I want to see Tails go back to assisting Sonic in battles, instead of constantly hiding behind rocks. 

Knuckles needs to be stubborn, yet wise and helpful when others are in trouble. I like seeing Knuckles as a character who acts like he doesn't always need help, yet truly shows signs of wanting to help when people need it. 

Amy is a tough one to describe. I kind of want to see a good mix of past versions of Amy. I want to see Amy go back to being sweet and cheerful, and always trying to look on the bright side. I still want her to love Sonic, but I want to see her be less open about it. I thought Sonic Boom did a good job with handling Amy's feelings for Sonic. She clearly loved Sonic, but it was more of a secret crush. I like the idea of Amy loving Sonic, yet having insecure moments where she feels like she doesn't stand a chance with him, yet she still pushes in hopes of getting Sonic to notice her.  Amy is a character who works best where she is really sweet, yet becomes dangerous when her or her friends are threatened.  I don't want people to take this the wrong way, but I kind of want to see more instances of Amy needing to be saved by Sonic. I'm not saying I want to see Amy be treated helpless all the time, but I kind of miss those moments where villains saw Amy as a weakness to Sonic, and would threaten her in order to get Sonic's attention. Now in days, the games try way too hard to make Amy look like she can handle everything, yet she never really does anything. At least when she was a damsel in distress, she was still doing something, like breaking free, or giving Sonic a reason to keep fighting. I like instances where Amy is kidnapped, not for the sake of making her look helpless, but for the sake of giving Sonic an obstacle to overcome, or to see Amy break out herself. I would especially like to see instances where Amy breaks free, and gets payback on those who took her hostage.

You have to admit that a lot of great events happened in the Sonic series, because of Sonic having to save Amy. Just look at most of Sonic CD. In Sonic Adventure, 3 of my favorite levels came from Sonic trying to save Amy, which included Twinkle Park, Speed High Way, and Red Mountain. Amy's hostage role in Sonic Adventure really added some emotional weight to Gamma's story. Amy was somehow able to make a heartless robot like Gamma have feelings, and start questioning why he's helping Eggman. In Sonic Adventure 2, we had Crazy Gadget, and that was not only a memorable level, but had one of the most memorable cutscenes to follow. Not only were those levels fun and memorable, but they had some weight to it, Sonic was racing through these levels to find Amy, and make sure she's safe. Eggman used to take such pride in messing with Sonic by threatening Amy, and I kind of miss that.  This doesn't mean that I want Amy to look helpless like Princess Peach in every single game, I still want to see Amy being able to fight for herself and others, but I still miss the charm of seeing Sonic chase after Amy, in hopes of saving her.  Look at Sonic Runners for instance, there was an anniversary story event where Sonic had to save Amy from Eggman, yet Amy managed to free herself, and blew up the Death Egg on her own. Despite the fact that it was just displayed with stationary text , I still was able to picture it in my head, and I thought it sounded awesome. Heck, I wouldn't mind seeing more moments where Amy has to rescue Sonic, like in Sonic Adventure 2, and Sonic 06. 

[RedFox99]

@SpongicX It's telling that the last game to have the other characters do stuff and be significant is Sonic '06. It makes me wonder if fans complained heavily about them along with other things leading to them being sidelined since then.