Are we in a new dark era?

[Plasme]

10 hours ago, Yeow said:

Eh, as much as I'm not exactly big on the Adventure titles (or to be more specific, okay with Adventure 1 but dislike Adventure 2), they actually got good reviews --great metascores even-- at the time of their original release. The Gamecube versions you're mentioning are re-releases, rather than the Dreamcast originals:

Adventure 1: 86% GR >>> Adventure DX: 57 MC / 64% GR

Adventure 2: 89 MC / 83% GR >>> Adventure 2 Battle: 73 MC / 72% GR

That's especially important to note in regards to Adventure DX, which (arguably) changed up quite a bit from the original DC release and was released four/five years afterwards. And while the reviews for the GC re-releases aren't great, they aren't terrible either--they're squarely mediocre.

I will say this, however--considering how Adventure 2: Battle was much closer to the original DC release compared to Adventure DX, and was released only a few months after the DC release, it does call into question (IMO) on why the original DC release was so highly-regarded in comparison...

That's my point though. By the time Heroes was getting previewed and covered by journalists, opinions on Adventure had already changed. People were already negative of the Adventure games. So in many ways the dark age of Sonic really began with the Gamecube re release of Adventure 2. I get the impression a lot online that people think the Adventure games were re-evaluated with the digital releases due to their age but were otherwise well received, but they were already criticised only a year or so after the death of the Dreamcast.

And I know what you mean, no one said the Adventure games were atrocious, but it still represents the perceived fall in quality of the franchise.

But sure, let's be fair and only talk about abysmal games. In the dark age you have Shadow, 06, Secret Rings, Black Knight, Free Riders. Arguably Unleashed too, since everyone detested the Werehog and a lot of memes about how dreadful the franchise has become are taken from and associated with that game. I'd say Sonic 4 counts too because every gamer I've met takes the piss out if it, but I accept that it had a more mixed reaction from critics.

The only game on that level in this 'dark age' is Boom. Lost World and Forces are more analogus to Adventure's Gamecube and Heroes' reception.

It just seems absurd to me to claim that this is as bad as the dark age. And to claim it's even worse is pants on fire insane.

[Wraith]

Positively comparing the Sonic franchise to Mario is always gonna come off as a little ridiculous to me even as s Sonic fan. Mario games are often called repetitive when the main series games never actually stuck to the same style more than twice in a row. They literally change it up once people would start asking for it. 

They navigate these mechanical changes withat such grace that it seems effortless, but the mission statement from the start is usually ambitious and they stick the landing every time. From focusing the entire game around gravity gimmicks to letting you control any enemy you see.

They've not only been able to keep their franchise alive in a genre where peers are coming and going left and right, they've kept it thriving. Mario is coming off his most successful 3D game ever that modernizes the concept of the collectathon, expands the concept of power-ups, perfects Mario's 3D movement and really feels like it'a pushing the genre forward. Nintendo EAD are game design masters and it's hard to say they could be doing a better job with the brand. I like some 3D Sonic games but almost every single one comes short of the weakest 3D Mario has had to offer by far. It's not a contest. The mechanics on Sonic's end are just far too poorly implemented. Even with the games I like enough to compare positively it requires some concessions. I prefer Sonic Adventure to Mario 64, but the game came out 3 years later and owes a lot of its existence to Mario 64 anyway.

Even the games that are "disappointing" like NSMB always sort of present themselves in such a manner of fact way that I don't really get the scrutiny. It's polished fun for a casual audience and they still play exceptionally well for what they are. I'd still much rather play Donkey Country for sure for its more interesting world and more varied and in-depth mechanics, but that doesn't make NSMB bad. As a matter of fact I look at how bad the Sonic equivalents of this idea are in the Advance games and 4 and I have to raise my eyebrows at the comparison being made here. 

 

[DabigRG]

I honestly came here thinking this was about how the games are getting dark again in terms of tone.

[Razule]

51 minutes ago, DabigRG said:

I honestly came here thinking this was about how the games are getting dark again in terms of tone.

In that case, this would be the "Up and Down and All-Around Age".

[UpCDownCLeftCRightC]

So I'm going to use a weird stock market analogy, for funsies. I'll keep it short and simple:

A dark age for sonic (or any series) represents a down trend. A bear market, or the down trend toward the lowest period in which almost everyone is selling or fleeing. For the sonic series, the last big bear market was between sonic adventure 2 battle and sonic 06; 06 represented the bottom of this market.

A "light" age represents an uptrend. A bull market, or the up trend toward the peak period in which almost everyone is buying. The last bull market for sonic was between sonic unleashed and sonic generations, with generations being the peak. The biggest bull market for sonic was in the early to mid 90s, ending with sonic and knuckles.

A grey age (as someone else put it) represents a relatively inert period, with no clear trend in either direction. Sideways market.

The franchise as a whole right now is most probably in a grey age, or sideways market. As a short term investor, this is the absolute worst time to participate because you cannot cleanly make out what is going to happen since there is no clear movement in either direction. This is the time to get out and wait for a clear trend to be established again. It is the same with this series, if you look at it as a whole. 

Now one can separate the 2D and 3D series (which may be the smarter thing to do here) and evaluate them differently. If you were to do that, I'd say that the 2D series recently (2017 mania) transitioned from a grey era to a light era. It is worth buying into, as we have not seen the top of this era yet. You know you've seen the top generally after you started heading back towards a down trend.

The 3D series is probably not in a dark age, but rather a grey age. The last dark age for the 3D series was immediately after 06 (the bottom of that dark age), and briefly after boom. Right now, there is no clear trend either up or down and have no idea of the level of support 3D sonic will get from SEGA in the next year or two. So this is the time to get out. When you start hearing chatter about an adventure remake, or a new 3D game that is different than the last few main releases of the last 8 years or so, that will be the time to watch again. And if the game released turns out to be good, that is the time to buy into the series again.

So 2D sonic, light era, bullish.

3D sonic, grey era, sideways.

Dark eras are sometimes better for a series in that, some signficiant action will usually be taken by the company to correct its problems. This happened after sonic 06; in the next few years following the disaster we got unleashed, colors, and generations....because SEGA had to make this move. This did actually happen after forces, but unlike last time, the series has not clearly emerged into an uptrend and we have no idea the level of support it'll get from SEGA. Since we're not in the company, we have to stay out of the stock and wait until the first signs of an uptrend are established.

 

Also, when one reads posts like this one you can pretty much bank that you can find something else better to do with your time.

 

[Bobnik]

I swear I see the similar topics being made at least twice a week. Like, I don't expect this place being all sunshine and rainbows, but chill with this "We dropping into Dark Age 2 bois". Anyway, I guess I'll entertain myself a bit.

I can't say that this is the "second dark era" of this franchise, because the only (even if the biggest) part of the franchise that's truly suffering are games. Comics are good, the merch is doing fine, the animated shows we got these last few years were actually quite good, and we're getting a movie next year, which will probably be bad, but it shouldn't influence the brand itself (at least not in a way games do). Compared to what we had between SA2 (or SA1 if you truly hate anything 3D) and 06 - comics being all over the place and Sonic X being a thing (which wasn't *that* bad, but I wouldn't really consider it good as well), this time doesn't come close.

That said tho, I can characterize this "era" in 2 ways - "Identity crisis" era and "cheap-ass" era. The first one was already a thing in the pre-06 time, sure, but it became truly apparent starting with Generations and the introduction of Classic Sonic as a different character. Since then (or maybe even earlier - since Sonic 4 episode 1) the franchise got was some of the most blatant "Hey, remember the 90's?!?" pandering with one of the shoddiest 2D Sonic games (Sonic 4), the biggest bastardization of both the Classic and Modern art-styles (Lost World), another sub-franchise that ultimately fell on its face and at this point is dead (Sonic Boom), a great game that still relied on the "REMEMBER THE 90'S" nostalgia pandering a bit too hard(Sonic Mania), the biggest bastardization of the boost gameplay that has 2 Sonics in one game again, but this time with a shoddy execution in terms of story and an even shoddier execution of all the gameplay elements that were established years ago (Forces), and soon we're getting a spin-off game that removed not just "SEGA" stuff, but any sort of obscure uniqueness, making this one of the most neutered fanservice games I've ever seen (TSR). It's been so all over the place it's even harder to pinpoint what "Sonic" is actually supposed to be outside of "blue speedy hedgehog boi that fights an Eggy boi". The gameplay style hasn't been established, the art-style is all over the place, the characters change their personality every game, and the execution on the gameplay has been just piss-poor.

The second one is something that was probably inevitable. It's mostly speculation on my part, so don't take this as a fact, but from the looks of it, the franchise has been hemmoraging SEGA's bank a bit, especially with Boom's critical and commercial failure. So I wouldn't be too surprised that at this point in time they're just putting more resources on something that they're sure is profitable, while putting less resources on the development of Sonic games. And yes, I know that budget isn't everything, you can make a good game even with limited resources (case in point - Mania), but the drop in production values has been very noticable these last few years and it's a bit sad that Sonic became another franchise that's there just for making profit by putting as little effort as possible.

So yeah, these are my takes. Is it the "dark era 2: the darkening"? No, I don't think so. Will we get out of whatever place the gaming part of the brand is in? Probably, but I don't see it happening in the near future.

[Korke]

I think the biggest difficulty of the franchise is to capture the attention of the general audience. Forces tried it, and failed miserably. Mania sold well: For a Sonic game, as expected. It only did hit the 1 million mark in March to April, meaning that it was very catchy between already-fans, but the common people did not care.

How can the franchise leave this limbo? I have absolutely no idea. Even a very good game like Mania wasn't able to get trendy. Perhaps it was because it arrived near the moment when Cuphead was mainstream AF (broke the 3 million mark, btw). In the eyes of the normies, both are in the same boat of "retro", I guess.

[UpCDownCLeftCRightC]

19 hours ago, Korke said:

I think the biggest difficulty of the franchise is to capture the attention of the general audience. Forces tried it, and failed miserably. Mania sold well: For a Sonic game, as expected. It only did hit the 1 million mark in March to April, meaning that it was very catchy between already-fans, but the common people did not care.

How can the franchise leave this limbo? I have absolutely no idea. Even a very good game like Mania wasn't able to get trendy. Perhaps it was because it arrived near the moment when Cuphead was mainstream AF (broke the 3 million mark, btw). In the eyes of the normies, both are in the same boat of "retro", I guess.

It's going to be difficult for sonic games to capture the attention of general audiences again without two drastic measures:

1) A large increase in marketing resources. Neither mania or forces were marketed that heavily or widely compared to big sonic titles in the past. (We Probably need to verify this but it definitely appears this way on the surface)

2) the brand has been in a damaged state for a long time. People know sonic, but people know sonic games have, on average, been medicore for a long time. After almost every release, reviewers lament "back in the 90s when sonic was actually good" Even when mania came out, a return to the series classic formula, it was a surprise to many general gamers that it actually worked out well. The series needs to be consistently good/great again in order to cancel out that negative perception. Many people think that sonic 06 and the dark eras of sonic cannot kill sonic but this is one of the ways in which they, in fact, can neuter sales and growth potential and already have.

 

And to follow up 2, this is one reason why I think a total brand refresh would be a good idea even though it make some fans unhappy. Sonic games need to be known for fun and quality like they once were, and then they wont have any trouble selling in the multiples of millions. But the reputation has been bad for so long, and resources seemingly depleting that sonic has morphed into a niche series. 

 

[Sega DogTagz]

21 hours ago, Korke said:

In the eyes of the normies, both are in the same boat of "retro", I guess.

Retro in of itself is a niche - which means there is a lower ceiling as far as sales go. If you want to get into the nitty-gritty, we are witnessing total market saturation the last few years between games like Mania, MegaMan, remastered classics like Spyro and Crash and even the Mini-Console wars. To say nothing of the ever present online marketplaces shopping old school classics.

Despite being good, Mania stepped onto a crowded playing field from day 1. It benefited from the in-fashion retro hype, but also gets to compete with all the too. It a high floor low ceiling market if I've ever seen one.

[Rowl]

It will be hard getting the interest of the audience again. Sonic kinda lived from his 90s image. Been radical and hipper than Mario. That kinda got him the attention for his game. But nowadays you have such big competition in the jump'n run genre alone. You have series like Mario, Kirby, Donkey Kong Country and Yoshi. Crash and Spyro are also back (at least for now, I'm not sure, if they will stay). Ratchet and Clank, even though they are more of a third person shooter, still can be considered a half jump'n run. Than we also have some of the indie titles that can grow and become bigger jump'n run series like A Hat in Time and Yooka-Laylee (but the last one most kind improve itself if it's worthy to be called a competition). Rayman and Sly are both also still around and maybe will also get a new game.

Sonic... has got a lot of rivals at the moment. Even if you only count the jump'n run series that really have at the moment a fully platform game you still got with Mario, DK, Yoshi, Kirby, Crash and Spyro 6 big "rivals" for Sonic to defeat.

[MadmanRB]

On 10/22/2018 at 11:43 AM, Razule said:

In that case, this would be the "Up and Down and All-Around Age".

Or Gray age as i call it, much shorter to write too.

[Shadowlax]

Short answer. No

 

Long answer. No its actually worse. The dark age I feel was an issue with cranking shit that should have been an 7 to 12 and not completing video games. A lot of trying to do too much and rushing things out the door. These are still problems with sonic brand, look at sonic forces. Now we have that combination with the movie, them doing the previous statement with multiple parts of the fanbases complete failures like sonic boom, and the feeling that they don't know where to go with the 3d games or elements of the franchise, not having a team to actually stick around and work on these things, seemingly not being funded as much and just general incompetence about the brand itself. We have reached a level far beyond a dark age.

Complete brand dissaray

The darkage was sonic needing to be focused and steered in another direction, a lot of directions would have done .This one is " We don't even know where to go or steer or whatever "

Like its gonna take more than another mania to fix this or begin to like, try and go forward

[Multikaris]

On 10/21/2018 at 7:21 AM, Roger_van_der_weide said:

I think the biggest diffrence between now and then is hope.
Back in the 06 era, I felt most people had a "If only Sonic Team makes a 2d game again, it'll be fine/ If only Sonic team get's rid of the other characters, it'd be fine/ if Only Sonic Team get's more time, it'd be fine." sense of hope.

Now everything we wanted at the time has been tried and it's "If only Sonic Team makes a 2d game...Oh, Sonic 4. If only Sonic's friends are back, oh, Rise of Lyric... If only Sonic Team was given more time, oh, Sonic Forces had 4 years. If only Sonic Team let's another team take over, oh, Rise of Lyric..."

The ultimate irony of the current era is that we have a parody of everything people loudly wanted. Okay, so Sonic 06 was terrible because it was too far removed from the classics, 3d doesn't work, Sonic's friends are terrible, the story too convuluted and serious and there are too many gameplay distortions? Well okay then.
Now 3d gameplay has been reduced to be the amateur opening act for the grand 2d gameplay concert, gameplay is just running straight to the goal with no weird diversions, Sonic's friends are rotting in a corner, story's a meaningless parade of shiny nostalgia objects dangling in front of your stupid face, the finest "I'm sure I've heard his exact joke in every cartoon ever" humor is pounded in your face non stop and Green Hill Zone is shoved so far down your throat that you'll barf Classic Sonic until judgement day.
And hey, Boost, Wisps and nostalgia were praised when they were introduced, so let's desperatly cling onto those and shove them in everywhere.
Everything you complained about is elminated, everything you praised is expanded. Sonic Forces is the perfect Sonic game, enjoy.

Sonic Team's like the genie from those fairytales that lets everyone's wishes backfire on them. I don't know if they do it delbieratly to troll people, or it's a perfect example of doing what people want without understanding why people want it, but the results are so artistically genius that they belong in a museum.

The only hope people seem to have at the moment is to put the Mania team back into action. I feel sorry for the Mania team, they'll have a huge burden to bare if they ever dare step into the ring again.
And me personally, I only care for Neo Classic Sonic if they'll give him a brand new and semi-serious adventure again because I'm utterly DONE with the shallow nostalgia pandering meme humor. It has overtaken every other quality the series used to have.
Cute as that Mania adventures cartoon was, I have no interest in the sequel show unless it's going to be closer to the OVA movie in tone. Comedy in support of an adventure rather then absorbing it like the all consuming black hole that it is.

I believe there is no room for something like Boom in terms of approach in this franchise anymore. Overt comedy has become completely toxic at this point. And yes, Hope is the big difference between the eras. Now there’s “why don’t they base a game on the comics?”, “What about remaking some of their past games?”, “How about more character spinoffs?”, “A PROPER Mario crossover, please.”, “dating sim!”, “Make things full 3D again!”, etc. 

 

I wonder if they will ever try those...

On 10/22/2018 at 9:11 AM, UpCDownCLeftCRightC said:

So I'm going to use a weird stock market analogy, for funsies. I'll keep it short and simple:

A dark age for sonic (or any series) represents a down trend. A bear market, or the down trend toward the lowest period in which almost everyone is selling or fleeing. For the sonic series, the last big bear market was between sonic adventure 2 battle and sonic 06; 06 represented the bottom of this market.

A "light" age represents an uptrend. A bull market, or the up trend toward the peak period in which almost everyone is buying. The last bull market for sonic was between sonic unleashed and sonic generations, with generations being the peak. The biggest bull market for sonic was in the early to mid 90s, ending with sonic and knuckles.

A grey age (as someone else put it) represents a relatively inert period, with no clear trend in either direction. Sideways market.

The franchise as a whole right now is most probably in a grey age, or sideways market. As a short term investor, this is the absolute worst time to participate because you cannot cleanly make out what is going to happen since there is no clear movement in either direction. This is the time to get out and wait for a clear trend to be established again. It is the same with this series, if you look at it as a whole. 

Now one can separate the 2D and 3D series (which may be the smarter thing to do here) and evaluate them differently. If you were to do that, I'd say that the 2D series recently (2017 mania) transitioned from a grey era to a light era. It is worth buying into, as we have not seen the top of this era yet. You know you've seen the top generally after you started heading back towards a down trend.

The 3D series is probably not in a dark age, but rather a grey age. The last dark age for the 3D series was immediately after 06 (the bottom of that dark age), and briefly after boom. Right now, there is no clear trend either up or down and have no idea of the level of support 3D sonic will get from SEGA in the next year or two. So this is the time to get out. When you start hearing chatter about an adventure remake, or a new 3D game that is different than the last few main releases of the last 8 years or so, that will be the time to watch again. And if the game released turns out to be good, that is the time to buy into the series again.

So 2D sonic, light era, bullish.

3D sonic, grey era, sideways.

Dark eras are sometimes better for a series in that, some signficiant action will usually be taken by the company to correct its problems. This happened after sonic 06; in the next few years following the disaster we got unleashed, colors, and generations....because SEGA had to make this move. This did actually happen after forces, but unlike last time, the series has not clearly emerged into an uptrend and we have no idea the level of support it'll get from SEGA. Since we're not in the company, we have to stay out of the stock and wait until the first signs of an uptrend are established.

 

Also, when one reads posts like this one you can pretty much bank that you can find something else better to do with your time.

 

For 3D, just try to exclude all the 2D, not just have it in favor of 3D like in Rise of Lyric or a 50/50 split in Unleashed

On 10/22/2018 at 6:17 PM, Korke said:

I think the biggest difficulty of the franchise is to capture the attention of the general audience. Forces tried it, and failed miserably. Mania sold well: For a Sonic game, as expected. It only did hit the 1 million mark in March to April, meaning that it was very catchy between already-fans, but the common people did not care.

How can the franchise leave this limbo? I have absolutely no idea. Even a very good game like Mania wasn't able to get trendy. Perhaps it was because it arrived near the moment when Cuphead was mainstream AF (broke the 3 million mark, btw). In the eyes of the normies, both are in the same boat of "retro", I guess.

That’s why Mania 2 should do something new.

17 hours ago, UpCDownCLeftCRightC said:

It's going to be difficult for sonic games to capture the attention of general audiences again without two drastic measures:

1) A large increase in marketing resources. Neither mania or forces were marketed that heavily or widely compared to big sonic titles in the past. (We Probably need to verify this but it definitely appears this way on the surface)

2) the brand has been in a damaged state for a long time. People know sonic, but people know sonic games have, on average, been medicore for a long time. After almost every release, reviewers lament "back in the 90s when sonic was actually good" Even when mania came out, a return to the series classic formula, it was a surprise to many general gamers that it actually worked out well. The series needs to be consistently good/great again in order to cancel out that negative perception. Many people think that sonic 06 and the dark eras of sonic cannot kill sonic but this is one of the ways in which they, in fact, can neuter sales and growth potential and already have.

 

And to follow up 2, this is one reason why I think a total brand refresh would be a good idea even though it make some fans unhappy. Sonic games need to be known for fun and quality like they once were, and then they wont have any trouble selling in the multiples of millions. But the reputation has been bad for so long, and resources seemingly depleting that sonic has morphed into a niche series. 

 

Indeed, another refresh, much bigger than Boom, can be a thing. But it has to be better than Boom.

14 hours ago, Shadowlax said:

Short answer. No

 

Long answer. No its actually worse. The dark age I feel was an issue with cranking shit that should have been an 7 to 12 and not completing video games. A lot of trying to do too much and rushing things out the door. These are still problems with sonic brand, look at sonic forces. Now we have that combination with the movie, them doing the previous statement with multiple parts of the fanbases complete failures like sonic boom, and the feeling that they don't know where to go with the 3d games or elements of the franchise, not having a team to actually stick around and work on these things, seemingly not being funded as much and just general incompetence about the brand itself. We have reached a level far beyond a dark age.

Complete brand dissaray

The darkage was sonic needing to be focused and steered in another direction, a lot of directions would have done .This one is " We don't even know where to go or steer or whatever "

Like its gonna take more than another mania to fix this or begin to like, try and go forward

Well then, it’s time to re-unify the brand again. This time, even include characters from the alternate continuities such as the Archie comic. A Mania 2, with an aggressive marketing campaign, would do the trick.