Has Sonic the Hedgehog become stagnant?

[knuckles20]

Yeah you lost me at "focus on a single character" because Solo Sonic is why I left the games. Also they've gone back to the "roots" since Colors and it's hard to say they ever left them when their "3D games" have more focus on 2D sections, Mania exists, Origins; another classic era compilation is a month away and in their recent 3D title, they threw in retro Sonic. 

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

2 hours ago, Kuzu said:

I dunno man, I have so many mixed feelings about this multimedia push Sonic is doing as of late. Putting out a bunch of passable products to appeal to the masses has never really been what sold me on this series. I get that it was probably inevitable given how iconic Sonic has become, but it doesn't make it any less disheartening to see from my own perspective. 
 

Really? Because what’s going on now is more like a repeat of how Sonic was expanding when I was growing up as a kid, back when the franchise was just starting out.

Only now, I’m an adult and watching a new generation of kids witnessing a similar boom I used experience. Cartoons, comics, and now a cinematic universe, all while we have the games.

Sonic always had a multimedia presence as far as I knew, but part of me recognizes that, as an adult, my tastes have grown a lot more advanced despite me loving the franchise.

And if I’m being more honest, branching out as a multimedia franchise allows Sonic to survive and maybe even thrive due to having more exposure and more places to enjoy. If one media falls short, the other can provide my fix—if the games don’t grip me, the comics can; if the comics fall short, the cartoons can try to pick up the slack; if the cartoons falter, the movie can entertain me; and so forth.

I don’t know, I just think it helps to be a more well rounded fan even if my tastes strongly align to one part or another of the franchise. Lessens a lot of disappointment for me.

[Kuzu]

12 minutes ago, knuckles20 said:

Yeah you lost me at "focus on a single character" because Solo Sonic is why I left the games. Also they've gone back to the "roots" since Colors and it's hard to say they ever left them when their "3D games" have more focus on 2D sections, Mania exists, Origins; another classic era compilation is a month away and in their recent 3D title, they threw in retro Sonic. 

You literally didn't understand a word of that post at all if this is your takeaway from it. 

6 minutes ago, CrownSlayer’s Shadow said:

Really? Because what’s going on now is more like a repeat of how Sonic was expanding when I was growing up as a kid, back when the franchise was just starting out.

Only now, I’m an adult and watching a new generation of kids witnessing a similar boom I used experience. Cartoons, comics, and now a cinematic universe, all while we have the games.

Sonic always had a multimedia presence as far as I knew, but part of me recognizes that, as an adult, my tastes have grown a lot more advanced despite me loving the franchise.

And if I’m being more honest, branching out as a multimedia franchise allows Sonic to survive and maybe even thrive due to having more exposure and more places to enjoy. If one media falls short, the other can provide my fix—if the games don’t grip me, the comics can; if the comics fall short, the cartoons can try to pick up the slack; if the cartoons falter, the movie can entertain me; and so forth.

I don’t know, I just think it helps to be a more well rounded fan even if my tastes strongly align to one part or another of the franchise.

From a purely critical and business perspective, the franchise is booming. You're right about that, its completely fine and I'll even say, great that the franchise is expanding so much in recent years, and I'm glad games like Origins will come out to introduce the foundational games of this series to a new generation, and the movies are making bank. In terms of publicity, this is the best Sonic has had since the 90's, no doubt about it. 

None of that changes the fact that my primary interest, the product that got me hooked on and interested in being a fan in the first place, is currently the weakest area of the franchise. I am of course talking about the games. No, I don't WANT the games to be passable enough and just move on to other media, nor do I want them cribbing mechanics from other, more popular games on the market. I want a proper successor to the games that paved the way for this franchise to begin with, and the fact that Sega do not seem interested in pursing that ideal, and are content with just throwing Sonic's face into whatever genre of gaming is popular at the time, is extremely disappointing to me. 

There's a chance that I could like Frontiers; for the most part I think the last couple of games have been good enough. But Sonic shouldn't just be "good enough", or just inoffensive enough to satisfy shareholders or whatever. They should be trying to find ways to push this franchise forward in a way that builds on the foundation established in the first four games. Instead, what we're probably going to get is a game that is like every other game on the market, but has Sonic plastered all over it so people can pretend like the series is doing something new. 

Even if I do ultimately end up liking Frontiers, there's always gonna be a part of me that wants that hypothetical 3D follow up to Sonic 3 and I'm never gonna stop thinking about it until its a reality. 

[knuckles20]

3 minutes ago, Kuzu said:

You literally didn't understand a word of that post at all if this is your takeaway from it. 

It's what stood out to me the most, so I decided to comment on it.

Other than that I see the reason for the numerous output of games during the 2000s were because SEGA where following trends instead of making their own mark. And yet I still get more enjoyment from Heroes and Riders than Colors and Mania.

Aaside for "actually give a damn about 3D gameplay" I don't view Wraith's solution any different than what bloggers and critics have been saying since 2007, and I feel that those voices have been almost exclusively catered to since. 

 

 

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

I don’t want the games to just be passable either, as they too are what got me hooked into the franchise. They’re ideally the most immersive part of the franchise, and by that measure should be just as strong—if not stronger—than all other media. Why watch a movie or show, or read a comic about Sonic doing cool shit when I can play Sonic and make him do cool shit?

 I’m not denying that appeal in the least.

But at the same time, I found an advantage in branching out to minimize that disappointment. As much as I would place a higher value on the games giving me a Sonic fix, I can still get a close enough fix if the others manage to deliver. The folks behind the games may be stagnant, safe, and hesitant, but elsewhere I’m seeing the ambition I’ve been craving despite the sacrifice of…watching or reading instead of playing.

I guess that’s just my way of dealing with the cynicism these days.

[Diogenes]

28 minutes ago, knuckles20 said:

Yeah you lost me at "focus on a single character" because Solo Sonic is why I left the games.

Then you probably never really cared about Sonic as a game series in the first place. You said it yourself, you've got every other piece of Sonic media to experience the rest of the cast through. But those of us who came to Sonic for the gameplay can't possibly get that anywhere else, and prioritizing a large playable cast is an obstacle towards getting that right.

28 minutes ago, knuckles20 said:

Also they've gone back to the "roots" since Colors and it's hard to say they ever left them when their "3D games" have more focus on 2D sections, Mania exists, Origins; another classic era compilation is a month away and in their recent 3D title, they threw in retro Sonic. 

That's not the roots, that's the bark. It's all surface level. Getting back to what made Sonic games great in the first place isn't about bringing back Classic Sonic or revisiting Green Hill Zone or being in 2D, it's about the fundamentals of the gameplay and the experience they build, the reason the games were successful in their time and are still worth playing today, even with as many ways as they've been surpassed, because they found something that was fundamentally fun and engaging. And there's only been one new game in over twenty years that gave enough of a shit to get that right, and it wasn't even Sonic Team that was responsible for it.

[Wraith]

46 minutes ago, knuckles20 said:

It's what stood out to me the most, so I decided to comment on it.

Other than that I see the reason for the numerous output of games during the 2000s were because SEGA where following trends instead of making their own mark. And yet I still get more enjoyment from Heroes and Riders than Colors and Mania.

Aaside for "actually give a damn about 3D gameplay" I don't view Wraith's solution any different than what bloggers and critics have been saying since 2007, and I feel that those voices have been almost exclusively catered to since. 

 

 

I'm beyond this 'us vs them' mindset and no longer care for discussions that are framed this way. The reality is that both sides ask for stupid shit and get pandered to on rotation while the fundamental problems from game to game largely remain unaddressed. I'm tired of hallways and homing attack chains so I don't care whether Sonic or Shadow is the one doing them. I'm tired of playing worse versions of other games so I don't care about whether Mario or Jak was the inspiration, etc.

[knuckles20]

13 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

Then you probably never really cared about Sonic as a game series in the first place. You said it yourself, you've got every other piece of Sonic media to experience the rest of the cast through. But those of us who came to Sonic for the gameplay can't possibly get that anywhere else, and prioritizing a large playable cast is an obstacle towards getting that right.

That a huge false claim to make when the Sonic games were my entry to the franchise as a whole. As for the gameplay I'm not impressed with the overall boost; it makes the games way too easy and short.  Plus there's the whole "we're gonna call this a 3D game even though we don't care about 3D gameplay" that irritates me. As much as I like the media portrayals of the other characters it's still no substitute to playing as them. I don't expect the whole lot them to be available all at once. I would be fine with at least have 2 non-Sonic characters playable  and the overall cast to be stop being portrayed as helpless NPCs that can't do anything without Sonic because that's just dumb. Do you know the first time I've heard the "they need to get Sonic right" record? Sometime around when Unleashed came out. And the more I hear the more pathetic that excuse gets.

 

[Diogenes]

2 minutes ago, knuckles20 said:

That a huge false claim to make when the Sonic games were my entry to the franchise as a whole.

Doesn't matter. Pretty much every single post I've seen you make shows that your primary interest is the characters. The games are a means to an end for you, a way of experiencing the characters. That's why, by your own words, you left them behind when they stopped doing that.

[Kuzu]

10 minutes ago, knuckles20 said:

That a huge false claim to make when the Sonic games were my entry to the franchise as a whole. As for the gameplay I'm not impressed with the overall boost; it makes the games way too easy and short.  Plus there's the whole "we're gonna call this a 3D game even though we don't care about 3D gameplay" that irritates me. As much as I like the media portrayals of the other characters it's still no substitute to playing as them. I don't expect the whole lot them to be available all at once. I would be fine with at least have 2 non-Sonic characters playable  and the overall cast to be stop being portrayed as helpless NPCs that can't do anything without Sonic because that's just dumb. Do you know the first time I've heard the "they need to get Sonic right" record? Sometime around when Unleashed came out. And the more I hear the more pathetic that excuse gets.

 

All of this still is still surface level stuff. You care more about just seeing more characters, but don't really care about how they play whatsoever. How you can say you're a fan of the gameplay, but not understand why trying to stuff so many characters into a single game, over actually making sure the game is actually mechanically interesting? The fact your priority is more about how the supporting cast are portrayed as opposed to how they play just exposes where your priorities are, and they aren't for the gameplay as much as you claim otherwise. 

And that's fine, if you care more about the supporting cast that's on you. But don't pretend like having more characters was somehow making these games better. The games sucked when they were stuffing all of these characters into them and they still suck nowadays without them. If merely seeing them is all you care about, then just go read the comics or something. 

[knuckles20]

1 minute ago, Wraith said:

I'm beyond this 'us vs them' mindset and no longer care for discussions that are framed this way. The reality is that both sides ask for stupid shit and get pandered to on rotation while the fundamental problems from game to game largely remain unaddressed. I'm tired of hallways and homing attack chains so I don't care whether Sonic or Shadow is the one doing them.

Rotation? There's only one game that can be argued that wasn't geared towards classic fans and yet they still threw in Classic Sonic and most of the game ended up as 2D anyway.

1 minute ago, Diogenes said:

Doesn't matter. Pretty much every single post I've seen you make shows that your primary interest is the characters. The games are a means to an end for you, a way of experiencing the characters. That's why, by your own words, you left them behind when they stopped doing that.

So the characters are my hook to the series, that doesn't mean I have no thoughts regarding gameplay.

[Kuzu]

2 minutes ago, knuckles20 said:

So the characters are my hook to the series, that doesn't mean I have no thoughts regarding gameplay.

You haven't really provided any thoughts beyond talking about how much it sucks you can't play as Shadow or something and how the games were much better when you could play as him. 

[knuckles20]

7 minutes ago, Kuzu said:

All of this still is still surface level stuff. You care more about just seeing more characters, but don't really care about how they play whatsoever. How you can say you're a fan of the gameplay, but not understand why trying to stuff so many characters into a single game, over actually making sure the game is actually mechanically interesting? The fact your priority is more about how the supporting cast are portrayed as opposed to how they play just exposes where your priorities are, and they aren't for the gameplay as much as you claim otherwise. 

The characters have become my deal breaker, but that doesn't me I don't have any other problems with the games. I have expressed that the two biggest problems are the "3D titles" that prioritize 2D above anything and the boost makes things so brain dead easy to the point the games become brief that they can be beaten within hours after release.

[Kuzu]

2 minutes ago, knuckles20 said:

The characters have become my deal breaker, but that doesn't me I don't have any other problems with the games. The two biggest ones are the "3D titles" that prioritize 2D above anything and the boost makes things so brain dead easy.

Those are probably the least of the problems these games have been facing...

[knuckles20]

Just now, Kuzu said:

Those are probably the least of the problems these games have been facing...

Regardless it's how I feel about the gameplay. I hate that I'm not getting a 3D game, but a 2D game with occasional 3D and the mechanics of the boost, which can lead to surprisingly short run times make me question why would pay $40+ for a product where I can could've used that money on a game that is worth the price.

[Kuzu]

10 minutes ago, knuckles20 said:

Regardless it's how I feel about the gameplay. I hate that I'm not getting a 3D game, but a 2D game with occasional 3D and the mechanics of the boost, which can lead to surprisingly short run times make me question why would pay $40+ for a product where I can could've used that money on a game that is worth the price.

Like I said, I don't think you understand as much you think you do about the gameplay of Sonic if your primary concerns are about how many characters there are or if they're in 2D or 3D or not. 

As mentioned, that's just literally the most superficial and surface level parts of these games. 

[Raya]

I don't know if Sonic become stagnant, but for me personally the series lost its "something big" feeling. Maybe it's just my nostalgia glasses, but back in 2000s when new Sonic game came out, it had a feeling of a reallly important release. Sonic Adventure 1 and 2 was obviously big because of being Dreamcast exclusives. I remember video games magazines highlighting insane sales of Sonic Heroes. Hell, even Sonic 06 before the release was something important and was advertised as a "new, next-gen start of the series". And beyond that we had really great Sonic Advance series and Sonic X, which was a really big success for the kids show. But after 06 failure something happen - and tbh, every next game release, from Unleashed and Colors to Mania and Forces feels just like... welp, just a new game. Of course, everyone loved Mania, but looking honestly, SM was just a really little side-project and can't lift the series for a long time. 

It is probably only my feelings, but I really miss the times when Sonic games were packed with new ideas and a lot of a new characters. I like IDW comics because of that but it's just a comics, the second movie was great but this is still just a movie, not a game. Now we have Sonic Prime and Frontiers on the horizon - and tbh, Frontiers must be something fresh and big if I want to change my point of view. 

[Shade Vortex]

At the end of the day, the problem is 'complacency", not "stagnation". There is no drive or passion behind any of these creative decisions and there hasn't really been for a decade or even more depending on who you ask. Mania is an exception, and far from the rule- Sonic Team's own efforts are what counts most for their own damn franchise.

Even the most well received games in the last decade; Colors and Generations, are not -amazing- games. Let's be honest about their faults; Modern Sonic did not need -so- many 2D sections when Classic Sonic was there to give us that, the Classic Sonic physics and level design are simply not accurate enough to really sink your teeth into playing the levels over and over again unlike the actual Classic games. Colors has so little 3D that it being called the best 3D Sonic game we've gotten in "recent" history is laughable as a statement, yet is what it got touted as. The platforming is notoriously blocky in a way that does not jive with Sonic's usual audience/level design and has a completely different appeal, plus the game has -tons- of required filler content that's not nearly as engaging as the rest, like the spring levels, or the short levels that make use of specific Color powers, which should have been optional/extra content at the end of the game (similar to the bonus/Hidden world in Lost World. Even Generations had this problem, making 3 bonus missions per era a requirement for progress).

And yes, I will concede that the problem is not INHERENTLY whether the gameplay is 2D or 3D, but whether or not that gameplay is GOOD. But the thing about that is that I want an actual 3D Sonic game AND have it be good. We haven't had a proper 3D game since Unleashed, and even there, it was mostly on the werehog's side, while the Modern Sonic sections had the same problems looking back that Generations (and Colors) has: Too many scripted sections, too many 2D sections, and the 3D sections that are there to be played are mostly Temple Run. That leaves the last game that actually attempted to do something interesting with its 3D space while still trying to be a Sonic game as... Sonic 06.

Style over substance and a complete lack of depth or complexity to the mechanics and level design has really hurt the replayablity of these games, and that's more important than people account for. The reason I can keep coming back to Sonic 1, 2, 3 &K and CD no matter how many times SEGA rereleases them, is because below the surface, there's something more of value there. Forces DEFINITELY doesn't have this and my argument is that nothing -really- has since 06 happened, at least, not to the same degree; or even IF it did, it did not play in a way that appealed to my tastes.

[Zoomzeta]

A lot of franchises becomes stagnant due to how long they have existed for some time.

Call of Duty, Assassin's Creed, and yes, Sonic are some notable example. Although in the cases of the former 2, it seems to be down to a lack of innovation and the frequency of their releases.

In Sonic's case, it has been due too much innovation and the latter, though we have seen a significant slowdown in mainline releases for some time. 

That's my take on it.

[Speedi]

14 hours ago, Wraith said:

When Sonic team strapped RPG mechanics to Sonic Adventure, or beat-em up mechanics to Sonic heroes, gunplay to Shadow the Hedgehog etc they were moving away from the core Sonic experience to pander to whatever else was popular. They were doing what they thought was a safe bet at the time, because Sega was on fire and they needed to sell units to keep afloat. It's no different to them jacking mechanics that they didn't need from Mario to make Colors and Lost World except it's framed by the fanbase as some sort of sincere push toward breaking new ground instead of the creative dead end that it is. The way they approach game development hasn't actually changed all that much. Things are more polished because they scaled down the amount of features they put in each one and release them further apart, but the fundamental question of "this does not need to be in a Sonic game, why is this in the game?" is one I still ask every release.

I mean I kinda get what you're saying, but I think you're looking at it from an unnecessarily cynical angle. Adding those "popular at the time" mechanics to Sonic Team's games doesn't suddenly equate to them having literally no integrity as a developer and not trying to make the games they want to make. Yes, it really is such a shame that a bunch of people making games for a living took inspiration from other games to... make money so that they can continue to keep making games? And that somehow equates to everyone at Sonic Team just being a leaf in the wind doing whatever pays their bills out of fear with no convictions. I literally don't get this opinion at all.

Even if you refuse to believe that the people in interviews are giving honest answers to questions about their ideas, the fact of the matter is that Sonic Team has literally been "doing what they want" for decades and it probably won't change anytime soon. Isn't this one of the fandom's biggest complaints with them? How is being inspired by other games a bad thing, now?

14 hours ago, Wraith said:

The only difference I can tell is that their pandering hits on shit you guys either already like or aren't aware of. This board has a lot of Kingdom Hearts fans so of course all the final fantasy hack n slash bullshit in the dreamcast era struck a chord. I'm a big twitch platformer fan so I'm softer on games like Sonic Unleashed and Sonic Rush Adventure than most, but they still isn't a good substitute for just booting up Dustforce or something instead, just like Sonic Adventure 2 isn't a good substitute for downhill jam and Sonic Lost World isn't a good substitute for Super Mario Galaxy 2. The "aren't aware of" bit is a bit of a different point, but short version of it is that there's a minority of Sonic fans that don't actually play different shit and think everything the hog cribs from other games and brings to them are actual new ideas. Most of those people don't even post here though so we're not gonna talk about them today.

So because games with similar ideas exist it means Sonic isn't worth looking into since you prefer their execution? Well, I'm not going to actually get into a discussion about something that much of a matter of preference. But even if I said I preferred Galaxy 2 to SLW. Which I do. It doesn't mean that Lost World isn't it's own game with it's own ideas? Like do you really expect me to take this seriously when you're just oversimplifying the nuance of things you don't like to make your own favorites look better? 

Like "Oh, well this game has anti gravity mechanics and planetoid level design so it's literally just a worse version of Galaxy 2" is something you're free to think. But it's also just... wrong and disingenuous. And this is coming from someone who hates Lost World with a passion, mind you.

And can we PLEASE stop with this obnoxious "Sonic fans need to play experience more non Sonic things before they can talk to me about QUALITY." elitism nonsense? It adds nothing productive to a conversation but getting people really defensive about their preferences. Like, actually just stop?

14 hours ago, Wraith said:

Anyway, I'm getting off track here: The only way to make a truly unique and ambitious Sonic game is to return to his roots: A pure, arcadey 3D platformer with the confidence to focus on a single character in a single gameplay mode without insecure pandering or meaningless fluff padding it down. It would stick out in the market because games like classic Sonic hardly exist anymore. They barely existed back then even when it was hot. Games like Streets of Rage 4 manage to stick out by bringing back tried and true formulas that elicit feelings that are absent in the modern gaming market. Sonic proved that it can do this too with Mania and be successful. Why not expand upon that?

If that's all you want then I guess we have very different ideas of what ambitious, insecure pandering or meaningless fluff is lol. 

15 hours ago, Wraith said:

You can tell this is the ambitious route because risk averse Sonic Team refuses to make this game. They are terrified of the idea of just making a Sonic game. They basically said as much in the Dreamcast era and they haven't evolved beyond this insecurity since. They are some of the most cowardly developers in the industry because they don't have any faith in their own, massively popular, wildly beloved creation. They're some of the least ambitious developers in the industry because they always look for ground treaded by other developers and try to capitalize on it in the quickest, most slapdash way possible. I love a lot of these games but I'm done giving them credit they didn't earn.

This argument legit only works under the perspective that what Sonic is at the gameplay's core hasn't actually evolved over the past 3 decades. Because to people with this perspective, it seems to them classic Sonic is legitimately all Sonic should ever want or strive to play like. And that anything that is too different from classic Sonic shouldn't count as an evolution, or ambitious because there isn't enough emphasis on THEIR personal favorite way to play this series.

With this logic you can literally describe any Sonic gameplay mechanic you just don't LIKE as meaningless fluff because to you, anything that's not similar to Classic Sonic enough is regardless of quality simply because it's not similar enough to Classic Sonic and that's it.

And it's funny, because I rarely ever see people say things like this about Mario or Zelda's 3D games despite being AS different from their 2D entries as Sonic's usually are. And if it's just a matter of quality, then I refuse to get into a discussion about how good we both think 3D Sonic games are. Because that's not really the point. And if quality was all you really cared about then you wouldn't keep trying to convince people the series needs to go back to it's roots every time a discussion like this pops up. 

There's a big difference between "Classic Sonic is my favorite and I wish Sonic Team made more games like it" to "More games like Classic Sonic is literally the only way Sonic can be what fans of the shallow, pandering games pretend most Sonic games are like when they're not."

[Kuzu]

13 minutes ago, Speedi [ スピヂ ] said:

So because games with similar ideas exist it means Sonic isn't worth looking into since you prefer their execution? Well, I'm not going to actually get into a discussion about something that much of a matter of preference. But even if I said I preferred Galaxy 2 to SLW. Which I do. It doesn't mean that Lost World isn't it's own game with it's own ideas? Like do you really expect me to take this seriously when you're just oversimplifying the nuance of things you don't like to make your own favorites look better? 

Like "Oh, well this game has anti gravity mechanics and planetoid level design so it's literally just a worse version of Galaxy 2" is something you're free to think. But it's also just... wrong and disingenuous. And this is coming from someone who hates Lost World with a passion, mind you.

And can we PLEASE stop with this obnoxious "Sonic fans need to play experience more non Sonic things before they can talk to me about QUALITY." elitism nonsense? It adds nothing productive to a conversation but getting people really defensive about their preferences. Like, actually just stop?

Well if that's the case, what does Sonic Lost World offer in terms of mechanics over Super Mario Galaxy and its sequel? Or rather, why should I as a consumer go with Sonic over Mario beyond merely aesthetics?

[Diogenes]

3 minutes ago, Speedi [ スピヂ ] said:

This argument legit only works under the perspective that what Sonic is at the gameplay's core hasn't actually evolved over the past 3 decades.

Because it hasn't. It's decayed. What do you even do in a Sonic game at this point? You hold boost and spam homing attack. There's no mechanical through line that makes the gameplay more than the sum of its parts, it's just a couple disparate pieces loosely held together by the concept of going fast. The Genesis games tied Sonic's movement and abilities, the level design, level gimmicks, and interactions with enemies into the same physics system and that's at the core of why those games are fun to play, but since then they've chopped it up and stripped it down until there's basically nothing left of it.

3 minutes ago, Speedi [ スピヂ ] said:

And it's funny, because I rarely ever see people say things like this about Mario or Zelda's 3D games despite being AS different from their 2D entries as Sonic's usually are.

Because Mario and Zelda have actually preserved the parts of their origins that made them good. SMB was revolutionary in part because of how much it improved the control and feel of platforming and Nintendo has continually refined and expanded on that; whether it's 2D or 3D, linear or collectathon, simple or complex, there's always a focus on satisfying movement. And LoZ is a game about exploration, combat, and puzzle solving, the same core elements that every Zelda game has focused on, with BotW specifically looking back to the original LoZ to recapture the fun of open-world exploration that it had started wandering away from. Sonic doesn't do that, when Sonic does new things it's never about preserving or enhancing or complementing the original, successful gameplay experience, it's chasing trends or padding the game or just some pale, warped imitation of what it used to be.

[FlameStream]

I feel this way, but I'd lump in all the recent games, even Mania, that contributed to this state. I suppose I'm looking for Sonic to evolve into something more than just an arcadey game. Good games in the general audience's mind evaluates the full package's experience after all.

Further than games, I'd go as far as saying that Sonic's presentation and setting has also become pretty stale. To the point where I'm a little disappointed when I see Green Hills so prominently.

[Ricochet]

Stagnation achieved by shallow attempts of renewal, how ironic. The comics, movie and tv show might push forward the franchise's 
visibility to the masses, but Sonic games will remain as franchise's core.

This is not Arcane, which does display a world completely detached from LoL's Summoner Rift metaverse so It does have the power in becoming its own thing. Gameplay aspects (Sonic's speed,ring,loops,etc) are always showed on top of everything else in any shape of Sonic related media, whose only purpose is to serve as franchise side props. Hence, If the future games are tepid shit, stagnation will keep on going strong.

In contrast of the amalgam of signature gameplay with half-assed gaming trends official 3D Sonic turned out to be. Sonic Robo Blast 2 provides a plausible evolution path of what's featured on Sonic Jam. Despite of technical limitations derived from the Doom engine and control's learning curve, the fangame has built and expanded over the foundations of Sonic's seamless movement mechanics: Levels designed with somewhat appropiate extension and paths for either skip over by skilfully dashing around or do a thorough exploration to your heart's content, enemies able to exploit gaps in your player's ability to control the character, special stages paying a neat homage to night into dreams,etc.

19 hours ago, Wraith said:

when Sonic Team's idea of a hubworld isn't a place where you can explore freely and find secrets, and instead RPG towns where you fish around for a story trigger, and they do that three fucking times, it's clear that they don't even think about these things the same way I do and there's no point in defending it.

Whilst Mario 64 HubCastle is a playground from the start, cinematics kept to a minimum and with magical gateways to another world as paintings logically placed on the local setting instead of incompatible stuff latched together without any regard of cohesion whatsoever (such as a freaking subway railroad connecting to Angel Island just fallen from the sky and flooded the place...) but I digress.

I dunno how SEGA thought dialogue cutscenes with the clunkiest timing ever were the next step forward to the cool scripted events played in background on classic sonic games, or the jump panel plates were a good idea either.

It's like if a CEO peered over what was all the rage on the gaming industry and handed over a checklist of features to the devteam.

[knuckles20]

18 hours ago, Kuzu said:

Like I said, I don't think you understand as much you think you do about the gameplay of Sonic if your primary concerns are about how many characters there are or if they're in 2D or 3D or not. 

As mentioned, that's just literally the most superficial and surface level parts of these games. 

I had more than enough time to consider what I want out of Sonic games aside from more playable characters: honest to god 3D games that don't lean on 2D sections like a worn out crutch and I don't like the boost mechanic because it removes any challenge and ultimately results in very brief lackluster games. I'm not apologizing that my viewpoints aren't complex enough for you.