I think you guys are forgetting that there were a few crap Sonic spinoffs even back in the old days of Sonic 2D gaming. We had things on the Game Gear like Sonic Drift and Sonic Labyrinth. Also, Sonic Spinball on the MegaDrive. So spinoffs certainly isn't something new, and the 'Story book' Sonic games, such as Sonic and the Secret Rings and Sonic and the Black Knight are basically spinoffs to me. They don't destroy the canonicity of the Sonic universe because I can see them as spinoffs.
Sonic Adventure one was the first foray into 3D Sonic. It had bad camera angles, but overall it wasn't that bad for a first go. It introduced Big the Cat, which wasn't a huge deal at the time. One new character isn't too bad. Sonic Adventure two, I believe, was much better than Sonic Adventure one. The camera was still a bit iffy, but mostly improved. The gameplay was better, the story was pretty epic for a Sonic game. Even the introduction of Shadow and Rouge wasn't that bad and added to the story well I thought. The whole hero side and dark side of the story added depth and replayability to me. The two Sonic Adventure games combined was the first time we really saw a proper story within the Sonic franchise and I felt it was handled rather well.
It was only after Sonic Adventure two that things really went downhill though, and that was with the re-introduction of Shadow the Hedgehog. In Sonic Adventure two he was pretty cool, and they really ruined that. Sonic Heroes, gameplay wise, was pretty annoying to me, but at least they didn't make any new characters, just brought back the Chaotix team, which was like a happy trip down memory lane. I haven't played the Sonic DS games, but I don't understand why they had to bring out new characters for them both. Then, Sonic 06.. Well, it had potential. The gameplay felt even worse than Sonic Adventure, but it was the story that really bugged me about that game. Even Silver I didn't mind at all, his gameplay sections brought something new to the game and were more enjoyable than Sonic's. Maybe if they had worked on the problems, the glitches, the camera, it would have been the game it had the potential to be. The mach speed sections of Sonic were kinda fun!
When Sega introduce a new character, I can see that they are looking for ways to vary the gameplay, and I agree with most of you that too much variety can make the game feel mishapen. I believe the reason that they introduce the 'Warehog' into Sonic Unleashed was to add an element of combat to break up the speed of Sonic's levels, similar to how Sonic 06 was broken up between Sonic (Speed), Shadow (Combat) and Silver (Puzzle and slower platforming). In Sonic Unleashed, Sonic doesn't have much platforming action throughout the day time stages, it's all about creating a good pace, and having too many platform elements would break that up I think. But adding in the 'Warehog' gives you platform elements and combat elements.
As awesome as the Sonic Unleashed daytime stages look, the gameplay would get very boring after a while if it was the same; racing through stages, and that is why, I think we have the 'Warehog' stages, to break that up and add variety. As long as Sega doesn't add anything extra to that formula, I think it will be balanced enough to work.
But why they decided on a 'Warehog' character is beyond me. They could have just brought in Knuckles, and let him have all the platform and combat bits. Knuckles hasn't been awesome in a long time :(
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