The Future of Sonic the Hedgehog

[Teran]

Now THAT's a game!

Since Nintendo are so keen on collaborations with Sonic these days, why not have a Sonic & Haunter game? Hell, who needs Tails when you have Haunter floating about?

 

[§leepy God]

Since Nintendo are so keen on collaborations with Sonic these days, why not have a Sonic & Haunter game? Hell, who needs Tails when you have Haunter floating about?

♪ But Tails have the Tornado, that's gangsta. D: †

♪ I'll say this, the newer Sonic game's keep having gimicks, you know Sonic have to go through diffrent playstyle to complete a game. I'm not saying all the Sonic game's that have this are bad, (looking at Sonic Adventure seires which rocked in my eyes), I'm talking about Sonic Hero's, (you have to be on teams, and the level were basicly the same), or Unleashed, (Werehog transformation), I would say much more, but I lack the time right now. †

 

[Jimnymebob]

I buy Sonic games to play as Sonic.

Sure, I'd be more than pleased if all the Sonic characters in existence were optional playable characters, but being forced to play as them more than Sonic really irritates me.
Thats the one thing Sonic Adventure got right- it gave you a Sonic storyline, then allowed you to play through with different characters. However, you didn't have to play as these characters to get to the end of Sonic's story if I remember correctly.

With Adventure 2 you had to play through the Mech stages and Treasure stages to get to more running levels

 

[Teran]

Having a Haunter sidekick reminiscent of a fairy/Midna in Zelda. My God! Such genius! It must be done! Take note Sonic Team!

 

[Kinzer]

I'm not sure, they tried to do that with Chip now didn't they?

IMO he's alright, but he didn't get the same reception from the true SBR as a whole.

Although Haunter > Chip.

...

Yes, it was called for.

 

[Firus]

I'm probably the only person in the entire universe who actually enjoyed Sonic '06, right?

*Awaits flames*

 

[Red Arremer]

I'm probably the only person in the entire universe who actually enjoyed Sonic '06, right?

*Awaits flames*

If there wouldn't have been such horrible camera and controls, that game would've had enormous potential. =/

I dunno, almost every Sonic game I know of suffers from bad control or camera. x.x

 

[Teran]

Don't forget the bestial undertones...

 

[Firus]

Don't forget the bestial undertones...

Well, okay, that bugged even me.

I know people always complain about camera and controls in Sonic games and I'm not saying they're nonexistent...but I really don't have that much of a problem with them. I don't know, maybe I'm just insane.

I'm not saying I find all 3D Sonic games to be good...at all...I just have other reasons for disliking them.

 

[Cheapless Jared]

Well, okay, that bugged even me.

I know people always complain about camera and controls in Sonic games and I'm not saying they're nonexistent...but I really don't have that much of a problem with them. I don't know, maybe I'm just insane.

I'm not saying I find all 3D Sonic games to be good...at all...I just have other reasons for disliking them.

To me the cameras are just fine...

 

[MarKO X]

Everyone says, "Nintendo should make Sonic games."

F*** that, I wanna see Konami do it. They know how to make an epic game.

 

[fromundaman]

Well, I really only read the first few posts, and while you do make some good points, we all have to agree that some Sonic games were just trash and/or ******** concepts.

Take Sonic Riders for instance: A great idea. Take an emblematic speed demon and make a racing game. Now why does it feel like the forgot to add an acceleration button?

Shadow the Hedgehog: I don't know how the game plays, but the concept is trash. Let's take Sonic's dark character, and add guns and vehicles in a time where every game is somehow trying to emulate Halo, usually by adding guns and vehicles!


I mean, come on, some of Sega's experimentations, even if they didn't pan out so well, were good ideas. I mean, I didn't play the last few Sonic games, but hey, Unleashed seemed like a good idea.

Let's go back a bit farther to something I did play: Sonic Adventure. That wasn't a bad game for the most part, but for some reason they thought adding that fat fishing cat was a good idea.

My biggest qualm with Sega is that all these ideas have to be approved at some point. Who the hell looks at this stuff and, at least for the bad ideas, approves them? For the good ideas, who decides to mess them up by adding subtracting things? (Like making a Sonic racing game be slow as balls.)

 

[Warioman123]

IMO, most critics of the new Sonic games are morons. While I do agree that Sonic has been going downhill for quite some time, why do people instantly assume that a Sonic game has to be nothing but moving at the speed of fricking sound? I mean fictionally, he's supposed to,but if he did that in his games, you'd probably fall and die or something. If that really happened, I'd prefer these new, crap Sonic games (I did enjoy Sonic Unleashed....... during the day at least). I like IGN, but that writer was an idiot, though he brought up a good point; ENOUGH NEW CHARACTERS!

 

[Sukai]

My view on Sonic.

SpadeFox, after this post, I'm gonna request you as a friend, because you've gained my respect, a healthy deal of it in fact.

Anyway, there were Sega games (namely in the Dreamcast era) that sold great, but that's besides the point.

First of all, IGN sucks, they have a bias against Sonic, everyone--and I do mean everyone--knows that.
Now their article about Sonic, is questionable.
Yes there is truth in it, but alot of is is exaggerated.
First his concept, so what if Sonic was Sega's answer to Mario? Crash Bandicoot was Sony's answer to the both of them at the start.
And then they dare slander the fanbase.
Tell me when was it wrong to become a fan of something?? There are fans of more ridiculous things.

The second Sega stepped out of the hardware business, Sonic and Mario could not be compared--or rather, the second a Sonic game debuted on a Nintendo console.

But that's besides my rant.
Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (& Knuckles) had absolutely the most love put into a Genesis game ever. The stage design was grand, although it retained the "left to right, point A to point B", there were so many alternate paths to take, and the stages, unlike in Sonic 1 and 2 that lasted about 2/3 minutes, these lasted 4/5 minutes, and at the end of both acts, a boss was provided.
Personal Preference is one thing, but it's clear that the overall quality is greater in Sonic 3 & Knuckles.

Now that that's out of the way, time to address the character deal.
List of Recurring Mario Characters
This cast is well accepted by the gaming community in itself let alone Mario fans.
So why is there so much conviction for newer Sonic Characters? People's first complaint was that they only appeared in 1 game and nothing more.
But what about Silver, who appeared in 3 Sonic games, about to be 4, or Blaze who have accumulated almost the same number.
Cream who is a contemporary add on, Big made an appearance in some places, Shadow and Rouge are also mainstream characters. What is so bad about them???

True that some games aren't as good as they could have been, how many games are out there that properly implement speed in a 3D Action Adventure game???
No one else even tries to do it right, so there's no archive to go off of, so you can't expect everything to be done right on the first try. It's a trial and error deal and nonetheless, these games sold greatly, save for a few.
I wholeheartedly agree that these days Sonic haters don't know what they want, but I believe that they don't want anything. They enjoy their anti-Sonic bias and they go into a game looking for bad things to find about it, that right there is a discreditably bias against something. IGN has no backbone, these days no game reviewing magazine has one.
I don't read game reviews, and if I do, then I don't take it seriously, which is something I cannot say for most of the gaming community who look to reviews to decide on buying a game, which is more or less not as reliable as it was in the retro days, the base line is too high and now there are standards that every game must have, like Online Multiplayer and downloadable content, and a gun--yeah I see that every game review magazine dickrides shooting games.

But now I'm drifting. You can't get mad at Sega for being the only company who has dared to implement high speed action into a 3D Adventure game, there wasn't any example to go off of, no one sees this. Yeah, Mario and Zelda moved into 3D smooth and easy, but these games are simple enough as it was, not to mention that 3D Mario and Zelda games are essentially the same, the major difference is that Zelda has more navigation to areas than Mario, where there it's a quick and easy ordeal. Now I enjoyed every 3D Sonic game except for Sonic 06 (which was a strict gameplay issue, that and the loading times), some of these game could have been done better, but that didn't make them bad.
The fans loved the Overworld in Sonic Adventure, and complained about the lack of one since then.
Then Sonic 06 had one--which wasn't bad if it wasn't for the loading times--and Unleashed for the 360/PS3 has one, which now people began to complain about it..
What the ****?
You can see the contradiction here.
I don't care for Sonic haters, they hate Sonic without reasonable logic, and with that, there is no hope for them, let them hate Sonic, I'll keep on liking it, and to the gallows with IGN.

 

[LSDX]

Sonic was awesome in SSBB. Except the fact that his voice actor was Jason Griffith in SSBB.

RYAN DRUMMOND = WIN

Just f***ing great, we have 4Kids ranters on SWF now too! The last thing we need is a bunch of whiny fans complaining on how much they hate Jason Griffith and the whole cast of 4Kids. I'm going to say it here like everyone other Sonic fan with common sense has said: Sonic games are about gameplay, not the voice actors.

Get that through your head New Gen Sonic fan...

*Spindashes out*

 

[Super_Sonic8677]

game play or not griffeth still sucks. Though admittingly not as bad as he used too. Since you HAVE to sit through the story sequences it's part of the game.

I've been a fan of the blue blur since 96. Don't give me no newschool fan crap.

Gameplay certainly does COME FIRST though. And that's the biggest problem above all else. All the other stuff justs adds to it.

Spoiler

I don't exactly remember when I got my sega genesis so I'll just say 96 and that's close enough XD

 

[LSDX]

game play or not griffeth still sucks. Though admittingly not as bad as he used too. Since you HAVE to sit through the story sequences it's part of the game.

I've been a fan of the blue blur since 96. Don't give me no newschool fan crap.

Gameplay certainly does COME FIRST though. And that's the biggest problem above all else. All the other stuff justs adds to it.

Spoiler

I don't exactly remember when I got my sega genesis so I'll just say 96 and that's close enough XD

I was complaining at you, I was referring to Tornadith. I'm the oldschool Sonic fan, and when I hear peeps b*tch bout voice actors and what not, it just makes the overall fanbase look bad. Just throwin' that out there.

 

[Aurasmash14]

I just read through the first few posts so im kinda sorry if im disturbing anything. But anyway my view on Sonic is that he seriously needs improvement. I mean I was playing sonic games since StH2 and there's a big drop of quality after 2003 when sonic heroes came out.(**** i hated that game.) The plots started to stink, heck everything sucked. The only good thing now is that the bosses are way cooler and more epic than fat old eggman. What they need is to do A game where you actually can pick your character so you arent forced to play the crappy ones,(cream anyone?) Speed through the level (or fly or glide, honestly Tails and knuckles are the only worthy sidekicks, they should kill off the others.) and fight the cool boss at the end.

 

[Super_Sonic8677]

In terms of plot, Sonic heroes was really old school. Eggman wants to take over the world. Sonic has to stop him. And until the final story where it's really Metal Sonic, that's all there is to it. Games do kinda need a story of some sort now a days.

Mario doesn't count because he's never had a story so now we dont care. Plus his gameplay his amazing in all his games. Heroes was the last Sonic with semi-solid gameplay. Even if you didn't like the teams thing, it had pretty cool level design. And you could choose which team you wanted to play through the game as.

So you were only forced to play 3 characters, so if you hated Big and Cream , and Amy just annoyed you, you could just not use that team. Though if you like Shadow and Rouge but weren't a fan of Omega, then you were kinda screwed.

Unless you wanted to unlock the final story which meant playing everyone and getting the chaos emeralds. Which should not change. For the main part of the game, you played who you liked, as all teams went through the same levels.

Even though going Super and blasting through the levels as a bright golden rodent of doom sounds freakin awesome, look at how fast daytime Sonic Unleashed is. Super Sonic would HAVE to be even faster yet. (MADNESS) Or normal Sonic would have to be slowed down. ( )

Fix the gameplay, kick out 4kids, and Sonic Team would be in good shape.

 

[Halaster]

Carnival Night Zone was a **** move on their part.

Seriously, where in the manual did they say that you could control those ****ing cylinders by standing on them and hitting up and down? I was trying to do some crazy desynch **** with Tails to get this one dead end open.

One day, I was playing a ROM of the game and I noticed I could stand on it and move it by pressing up and down, and the childhood me wanted to cry.

This bugged me forever (Made me hate the level). I got the PC release of Sonic 3 and Knuckles that Sega did, fortunately this tip was on the internet by that time, which made things better. Still I played through the Sonic 3 and Knuckles as Knux and beat it long before I figured out how to deal with those blasted platforms.

Moving on to the topic at hand, (albeit this is highly improbable) if we want a good Sonic game with, at least a well fleshed out universe (and probably a decent story), they should totally collaborate with the Sonic the Hedgehog Comics by Archie. Even if they went back to the old school running around Mobotropolis kinda thing with the freedom fighters, that'd be amazing. That's kinda been my dream Sonic game for a while now.

As far as topic of modern Sonic Games, I do enjoy the handheld ones a ton. I haven't played '06, Unleashed, or Shadow the Hedgehog. At first I really loved the Sonic Adventure games when I finally got them on Gamecube (I've always been a fan of Sonic, but only owned Nintendo systems), however I just find them kinda boring now. The same is true of Sonic Heroes (though the level designs were flipping sweet there).

I also agree with tERAN (lol). These games will need the difficulty of the classics to make a comeback.

 

[Jimnymebob]

Moving on to the topic at hand, (albeit this is highly improbable) if we want a good Sonic game with, at least a well fleshed out universe (and probably a decent story), they should totally collaborate with the Sonic the Hedgehog Comics by Archie. Even if they went back to the old school running around Mobotropolis kinda thing with the freedom fighters, that'd be amazing. That's kinda been my dream Sonic game for a while now.

An Archie comic Sonic game wouldn't work, due to it being USA exclusive, when most Sonic games are made in Japan. Also, the fact it is USA exclusive would make the game irrelevant for anyone outside of America.

 

[Red Arremer]

They did it twice before.

Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine, the Western port of Puyo Puyo was - like Tetris attack using Yoshi characters - using Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog Robotnik and other characters from the show instead of cutesy characters.

Sonic Spinball was using characters from the SatAM show. I forgot why and such, but it did.

 

[Arbutus]

Carnival Night Zone was a **** move on their part.

Seriously, where in the manual did they say that you could control those ****ing cylinders by standing on them and hitting up and down? I was trying to do some crazy desynch **** with Tails to get this one dead end open.

One day, I was playing a ROM of the game and I noticed I could stand on it and move it by pressing up and down, and the childhood me wanted to cry.

This bugged me forever (Made me hate the level). I got the PC release of Sonic 3 and Knuckles that Sega did, fortunately this tip was on the internet by that time, which made things better. Still I played through the Sonic 3 and Knuckles as Knux and beat it long before I figured out how to deal with those blasted platforms.

<3

 

[Lord Viper]

Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine, the Western port of Puyo Puyo was - like Tetris attack using Yoshi characters - using Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog Robotnik and other characters from the show instead of cutesy characters.

☆ Your 85% correct, but you forgot to say Kirby Avalanche though it's a Sonic thread, lol. Also Puyo Puyo art is more manlier than the Panel De Pon art sort of speak, just that the Puyo Pop art is more cutesy, I wish they still had the Puyo Pop series run in the US still, I don't know why they stopped selling it to the US, this series is one of a few game series that's helping Sega. D= ☆

 

[Jimnymebob]

They did it twice before.

Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine, the Western port of Puyo Puyo was - like Tetris attack using Yoshi characters - using Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog Robotnik and other characters from the show instead of cutesy characters.

Sonic Spinball was using characters from the SatAM show. I forgot why and such, but it did.

I meant a game with an actual storyline, I knew Mean Bean Machine was based off the cartoons, it was my 3rd Sonic game XD. I never knew about Sonic Spinball being based off SaTAM though.

 

[Red Arremer]

<3

I never will get why people always had such a hard time with that barrell. It's not that hard to figure it out. =/

@Viper
I was just giving an example, I didn't mean to list all games which had cutesy art and were replaced with popular game series.
Also, Puyo art is cutesy no matter what you think, even if it's not anime fairy girls like in PdP.

 

[Arbutus]

I never will get why people always had such a hard time with that barrell. It's not that hard to figure it out. =/

Gee I dunno, because I was like....6 when I played the god **** game? D:

 

[Red Arremer]

Gee I dunno, because I was like....6 when I played the god **** game? D:

Me too, but I figured it out in a matter of like 2 minutes at most.

 

[Arbutus]

Me too, but I figured it out in a matter of like 2 minutes at most.

I think it was like I time overed twice before I got it. o:

 

[Skrah]

Kill. Off. the cast.

Genocide on all those stupid additions.

 

[finalark]

Kill. Off. the cast.

Genocide on all those stupid additions.

We don't need Sonic's ever growing ontourage of woodland animals!

-- A great critic

Agreed. And kill off Shadow, he was cool back in Sonic Adventure 2. But now... I can only shake my head in shame.

 

[Teran]

Make a storyline element that Robotnik nukes all the crappy new additions, and Sonic hunts him down for revenge.

 

[Super_Sonic8677]

Kill. Off. the cast.

Genocide on all those stupid additions.

It's ten days short of being a 2 MONTH difference between your post and the one above you.

lol

The worst thing about Sonic is the game play isn't fun because it's so poorly done anymore(post heroes), it sucks. If that were fixed, no one would care about the other stuff as much.

Though the 4 kids cast does infuriate me to no end

 

[Red Arremer]

That's because he made a blog about the topic and I redirected him here.

 

[Kinzer]

Make a storyline element that Robotnik nukes all the crappy new additions, and Sonic hunts him down for revenge.

But instead there is a surprise ending where Sonic actually shakes Eggman's hand for doing said nukes on said terrible games (This does not include Black Knight or Secret Rings for me ).

 

[Jimnymebob]

I could never understand the Sonic Heroes bashing.

That game followed the same structure as the originals, and why the bosses may have been similar, and it did go down hill slightly from the rail levels, it contained a load of running stages- around 14 for each team, so 56 running stages, compared to Adventure and Adventure 2's small amount.

 

[-Coco-]

Mario rpg says hi <_<

 

[Jimnymebob]

Mario rpg says hi <_<

Errrr......

Hi Mario RPG.

Spoiler

lolol Geno didn't get in Brawl but Sonic did

 

[K Hedgehog]

To me, there were 3 points in the history of Sonic's games.

The 2-D era :
Genesis awsomeness

The Adventure era:

Sonic Adventure1 my jaw fell to the floor when I first played it. Go play the Windy valley zone again and then then watch him go straight down a skyscraper in the city level. win.

Shadow was an awsome character and at the time, completly changed everything in the Sonic world. It got a noticeable bit darker after this point at least for the duration of SA2. And added some grit and maturity to Sonic games from that point on.
Rouge fits right in with the cast imo.

This came out on dreamcast first btw. I have both versionsXD But back when the game was still newer people loved Shadow as a character. It wasn't until his controversial return in SH and then his own very very lame idea of a game that changed how people thought of him.

Sonic Heroes: teams was kinda neat. Metal Sonic makes his return. Shadow's line before he fights Sonic. win.

Finally
The 4kids/New Sonic
At this point Sega had moved to 3rd party and with Sonic X making a debut on fox box they decide to use that cast for the games too. Even though they all fail epicly at acting.

All right, I can cringe at the character's new voices as long as I can get to what's most important and have fun: the game play. But some how at the exact same time, Sonic games started to really go down hill.

Starting with Shadow's game where the Ultimate Life form was made to use vehicles even though he's almost or as fast as the Blue Blur himself. And guns.....wut Guns?! seriously....why? He can shoot energy blasts out of his hands! What happend to that superior than thou attitude from SH and SA2?! He's above using such "primitive objects."

And then Sonic 06, that was just a programming disaster. It was like all the glitches that might happen in SA and SA2,but alll the time instead of once in a while. I don't own that game. I just played it for awhile at walmart and got a through a few levels. Shadow using vehicles again. And why is he with GUN again? Don't they want him locked down due to the ARK incident 50 years ago? Or do they not care now?

Sonic Riders was a really good game,though Sonic looked like a total wuss in it. The SA2 Sonic wouldn't have put up with being talkeded crap to like that by that stupid bird lol (I blame Griffeth for this) They could have just skipped the whole story and kept it mario kart simple as far as that goes.

Unlike Mbreeto, I see the point of Sonic's decline as the inclusion of Jason Griffeth and the 4chankids cast and the removal of Ryan Drummond and the SA cast.

Can't talk unleashed and rings because I'm out of time lol

Rings was ok,but was limited because of the wii hardware(controls) Unleashed Day>night Sega did it pretty close to right in that game.

All the handheld games are great aside from Genesis which is a port gone all wrong. I have every one aside from rivals which I play at my friend's against him when I see him.(he haz 2 psps lol)

But between SH and about Shadow's game/06 Not only the games but Sonic as a character is different. Sonic has lost alot of the "attitude" that he had from previous games. His personality seems to be that of a different character with Jason griffeth then Ryan Drummond. Might just be the insane fanboi in me not liking the voice of my hero changing thoughXD but I think he really changed in character after Heroes. =/

(I typed this quickly, forgive my grammar XD)

All I can say about the voice acting part is, WHO ****ING CARES!? Voice acting is not what makes a game, it's the gameplay. If voice acting is what judged a game, then games like Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, Shenmue, & most arcade games would've been sentenced to death. If Drummond was the one who voice acted in Sonic 06 It would've still sucked because the gameplay was horrible. Also, in my opinion, both Ryan Drummond & Jason Griffith aren't that good in the first place. Graphics & voice-acting aren't what makes a video game, it's the gameplay & only gameplay so everyone please stop *****ing about the voice actors.

 

[GreenKirby]

Nevermind the fact that K Hedgehog bumped an old topic, the fact that people even listening to IGN on how to fix Sonic, or even listening to IGN at ALL, is just sad.

Worse is that the responses here are just the usual responses in which no one, except a few, really even know what they're talking about.