My vision about what people call the "Dark Era" of the Sonic franchise

[GeAr-DX]

Ok, I gotta talk about it. I don't know the age of most people here, but for those who remember 2005, do you guys remember that the Shadow game was a sucess? Yeah, heard right. The game had a lot of fanarts, the guns became part of Shadow's identity in online representations (Like the famous Nazo Unleashed), Shadow's bike appeared in games and merchandise, Shadow's symbol from the logo was awesome and people drawn it or tattoed (I don't know if I write it right), the game got player's choice in the GameCube and Greatest Hits in the PS2, here in my country we saw this game selling at every camelo (Street Shop). But talk about this game today and the only thing that most people will record is the reviews and talk that it was stupid and the gameplay is bad and bla bla bla.

That game was put as the start of what people called the "Dark Age" of Sonic. A meme that got strenght in 2007 after Secret Rings that basically put most of Sonic's games as a hype train that turn into deception. Today it generated what most people call the Dark Age of Sonic games, a era where most of Sonic games are just called bad. Some people put this era as Shadow The Hedgehog until Sonic 4, others put as Adventure until Sonic 4. So, I'm here to say my opinion of this era and sometimes compare to what was the Meta Era, which is a result of the Sonic Cycle meme, and I'm taking the most radical view of her, the one that puts the entire Adventure and Next-Gen (Modern) eras as a Dark Age.

A good evolution for the 2D

One of the things that I most like about this era was the 2D games, they didn't tryed to be the classics, they had their own identities and that was cool. It wasn't a "look and remember that there was a SEGA Mega-Drive one day" only and be more of a "This is Sonic in 2D and that is it". More moves, the modern design, and a marvelous aesthetic. It wasn't about try to be the first trilogy, they tried to be original and it was awesome. The Advance trilogy is by far my favorite 2D games of the franchise and the Rush duology is extremely awesome, the OST and aesthetic of the first Rush is totally awesome and Rush Adventure is a awesome sea exploration in a Nintendo DS!!! I like Mania and even the second episode of Sonic 4, but I really wish for something taking from were they stoped.

Stories were awesome!!!

That must be the part were most people agree, the universe of the franchise was extremely rich at that moment. Equidna civilization going to war, 50 years old experiments with conspiracy from the goverment, aliens comming to Earth in a "War of the Worlds" like plan, ancient experiments with a god that can freely control time and space, the desperation of a girl in maintain her kingdom by any cost, a robot trying to cheat his destiny and live with his friends. Some of those moments became eternal in the memories of every fan. It was real adventures with real great moments. Also, I didn't got annoyed by the kiss scene that always is used as a "reason" for people to hate this era, it wasn't the first time in media that we saw a human kissing a humanoid animal, the original Planet of the Apes started that years ago and no one thought that it was bad, and let's get real, I love the Mario franchise and good part of the lore and reasons to the games start is "Big turtle want to bang princess", and still, Bowser is a absolute chad.

Characters Personality

By far one of the greatest problems in the actual games. We got to know better and better those characters, be it in the games or in the Sonic X anime. Sonic was that adventurous free spirit with a strong sense of justice, Tails was his corageous side-kick that wanted to become someone more like Sonic, Knuckles was the guardian and friendly rival of Sonic, Shadow had a entire arc of developmen from villain to anti-hero to hero without letting his rivalry with Sonic disapear. Amy was that crazy girl that loved Sonic but not only was that a comical relief but also showed that she is ready to put her life in danger for him. At the Meta Era most of those characters were, well, "flanderized" and some of them even got tottaly out of character. Sonic became just a jerk and Tails got even worse than him, Knuckles is just the obligatory stupid, the moment that he wasn't stupid was in Forces were he got a work that is nothing like him. Shadow became the crazy edgelord. And Amy... OH, my poor Amy. They taked away all of her young girl spirit, please SEGA, put her like the lovable maniac tomboy girl that she was again!!!

A world full of live

Ok, that's a polemic opinion. But I reeeeeally hate that they don't show humans anymore. Humans were present since the classic era (Just see the Man of the Year animation, and of course... Eggman). Colors ownward looks so empty since it has no one besides Sonic, Tails, the wisps, Eggman and robots, and that became the standart for some games, a strong empitness. A good way to see how the humans made a good adition in the so called "Dark Era" is to compare the war in Forces and the war in Shadow The Hedgehog. None of the moments in Force give up that serious vibe of true war like the first stage of the Shadow game give you. I don't think that they need to be hyper realistic like in '06 or super cartoonish like in World Adventure (Unleashed), but look at both Adventures, the Archie Comics, Shadow and X, the anime style goes perfect with Sonic and inc.

Strong in the japanese roots and no fear to be cool

Sonic is a japanese franchise but after 2010 it looks like it tried to be more and more like a american saturday morning cartoon. That identity crises was the main reason for a lot of problems and it's something that other japanese franchises also passed (Dragon Ball with the start of Super and Devil May Cry with DMC).

The japanese demographic likes cool things that are just cool, and the root of Sonic's cool style isn't because he was made thinking of the US, but because he's a japanese vision of cool stuff from the US. It is something that make some japanese characters so lovable like Ken Masters from Street Fighter, Terry Bogard from Fatal Fury and Franky from One Piece (Even if the world is another, each of the straw hats crew was made thinking about a country of the real world).

And that is something that people here also love, after all, anime was such a great hit here in the ocident because it had it's own style. I know that in the actual days something that is just cool for be cool can be looked as something bad (I dunno why), like there was some people annoyed by the Devil May Cry 5 style and missile surfing (How does people don't like that??). And Sonic should embrace back this just be cool without fear like when they made a game about flying surfboard with Matrix powers.

LET THERE BE ROCK!!

That isn't a part that the meta era throw away completely. We got some awesome songs in the rock genre, like the Act 2 of City Escape in Generations, Asteroid Coaster, Egg Reverie from Mania and both Infinite's Theme and Fist Bump. In this case I just wanted more like in the 2000s. Team Sonic Racing was perfect in this point. (Personal wish, I still wish for World Adventure to come to PC, just to change the Werehog battle music to the cover of Taste the Blood from LittleVMills)

 

Well, that's it, that's my opinion. And well, thanks for reading that, peace bros!

[Dr. Mechano]

Look, I'm gonna be real with you. As an Eggman fan, I'm super biased against the dark age. There are exceptions, of course; I loved Sonic Adventure 2. My favorite character was playable in a mainline platformer! It was awesome! Though I wouldn't even necessarily consider SA2 part of the so-called "dark age" to begin with, but am including it because it was the introduction of Shadow, who was kind of the harbinger of the "darkening" of Sonic's tone in the 2000s.

The following "dark era" games, though? They really mishandled Eggman at best and disrespected his character at worst. You've got Shadow the Hedgehog, where I had to sit through three (3!) different endings of Eggman getting slapped to death. Then came along 06, which sucked out all the humor and likability from the character and just turned him into this boring, generic villain with no theatrics, no showmanship, and no charm. I'm not sure if Heroes counts as a "dark-age" game either, given its comparably lighter tone; Team Dark's story is tonally a bit more in line with Shadow's game and kinda feels like it's there to set up that game - and Eggman just spends the entire game locked up in a closet. So it doesn't get any love from me either.

(Him merely being usurped or there being another villain isn't the problem, mind you. Chaos, the Biolizard, Gemerl, Dark Gaia, the Zeti, Heavy King, etc. all got out of Eggman's control - but those games still did interesting things with him and still depicted him as a cool, important part of the story.)

All of this is to say, when Sonic Colors came along and simplified things to being just "Sonic vs. Eggman" again - for the first time in a traditional 3D title, no less - I was sold instantly. The so-called "meta era" restored my favorite character to prominence as Sonic's undisputed main villain, something none of the mainline 3D games in the 2000s did (though in fairness, most of the 00s handhelds did - but I feel like these games don't tonally fit with what people consider the "dark era").

I know this is a super tunnel-vision, single-issue-voter kind of position on my part. But I have to be honest and say that comparing the 00s and the 10s side by side, while I enjoyed parts of both (again, I loved SA2, Unleashed, and the Dimps handheld games), the '10s just appealed far more to what I want out of a Sonic story. I was happy to see the "dark era" go, and I do not miss it.

I am optimistic about what Ian Flynn is bringing to the table, however. I expect a more serious story than what we've been getting for the past ten years, but I also think he's got the writing talent to pull it off without sapping the humor and charm out of these beloved characters. He can walk that tightrope and balance the tone so that Sonic still has its sense of fun and whimsy. On his podcast, he's outright said that Shadow's game is an example of trying so hard to be dark that it becomes - in his words - "laughable." So I trust him to never go too far in that direction.

We're at the beginning of a new era for Sonic stories, and I think it'll probably appeal to fans of both of the previous eras. So I'm pretty excited to see what Flynn brings to the table with Frontiers and - hopefully - many more titles in the future.

[Cayenne]

My opinion about the dark era changed a lot for the better over the years, but, as much as I absolute love its games and over the top anime energy, I still think it had many lows for Sonic, specially in terms of gameplay and game design. After Sega became a third party company and started making games for other platforms, I felt Sonic was the franchise that took the hardest punch in the stomach terms of quality.

I wish I had a better grasp of English to give a more detailed explanation of why I think some games of the dark era rightfully deserved the bad reviews they got, but since I don't, I will resume what I dislike with this:

I don't play Sonic just for the stories, characters and cool aesthetics: Sonic's unique and addictive gameplay is one of the main reasons that made me a fan of the series, and dark era games like Heroes, Shadow, and Secret Rings, for example, have much of their gameplay hold together with duct tape, with some very baffing game design decisions. I consider myself very lenient about them nowadays, but I understand very well why someone inside and outside the fanbase may not like them. They are far from being polished games.

 

[BadBehavior]

Man I'm just hoping that everthing we've seen with Frontiers means we're finally moving past the Colors era. Even if we did get a few gems like Generations, I will 100% not miss it.

Even if Eggman's totally gonna come out of nowhere to usurp the real villains place as the final boss for the 3rd time in a row. Eehh, can't win em all.

[Dr. Mechano]

1 hour ago, BadBehavior said:

Even if Eggman's totally gonna come out of nowhere to usurp the real villains place as the final boss for the 3rd time in a row. Eehh, can't win em all.

What times are you thinking of?

In Generations, the Time Eater appeared to be an independent villain, but was under Eggman's control the whole time; And for an anniversary game celebrating Sonic's history, who else but Eggman makes sense as the main villain? And in Lost World, I wouldn't call it out of nowhere. Eggman started the game as the main villain, with the Zeti subordinate to him, then he lost control, then he regained the "main villain" spot again in the end, after a strong presence throughout the game. His final boss role was telegraphed by the story and felt earned.

Even if you considered those two to be examples of this, Frontiers still wouldn't be the third time in a row - since Forces happened between Lost World and Frontiers, and Eggman (despite being the final boss) didn't usurp anyone to get there, since Forces didn't have any competing villains in the first place. Infinite was a new villainous character, sure, but he was always depicted as a loyal minion of Eggman rather than his own independent entity.

With that said, I can take or leave Eggman as the final boss. I want him to be the final boss often enough that we don't end up with a 2000s situation (where it basically never happened in the home console games), but I think he can be forced into interesting roles when there are other threats as well - whether it's a playable character or a nonplayable truce with Sonic or a competing villain. Putting him in a more vulnerable scenario can be really interesting, as we saw with games like Adventure 2. 

Whether Eggman's the main antagonist or not, I think it's more a matter of how they do it. 

[Iko]

The only part that I miss of the so called "Dark Era" are the handheld games... the Advance and Rush games, and spin-offs such as Battle and Pinball Party. That was the golden age of Sonic for me and I really miss that period of time, and that style of games.

About the 3D games, except of Adventure 2 there isn't much that I like... Adventure 1 is ok, but not my cup of tea. Maybe I could have liked the Riders series, though I never played it so I don't know.

Regardless, I still would rather get more of the "Dark Era" than more of the "Meta Era" or whatever you want to call it, even just for the fact that I don't like the boost gameplay introduced from Unleashed onward (including Generations); ironically Colors is the game which I tolerate the most, because its gameplay is not just mindless boost but you have to think more,

[SolidSurgeTT]

When I say "dark period" I just mean the period where the major releases were all dreck and unfun to play, which for me is 2003 to 2008 (Heroes through Sonic 360), it's not so much about the tone of the games themselves. Unleashed kind of broke through that ceiling.

[batson]

I've realized that even though the products of the dark era and the products of the meta era are very different, my own personal response to many of those products are basically the same, that response namely being disapointment. Most main series installments after SA2 have been either mediocre or bad. Whether its bad controls, boring gimmicks, awful dialogue or awful scripts, almost every main Sonic installment over the past 20 years have left me disapointed to some degree. I remember when Sonic was considered equal to Mario, and that makes this incredibly long stretch of Sonic not living up to the series inital potential extra hard. Personally, when it comes to major Mario platform game releases, the only one that truly disapointed me was Mario Sunshine. But aside from that one blunder, Mario has just delievered hit after hit after hit during the same period as Sonic has delivered miss after miss after miss.