Man Sonic Adventure on the DC was my shit, I put it next to Sonic 2 that's how much I liked it. I dug Generations, but Colors did shit all for me personally. The brand still sells so they'll always be a market there however it wouldn't hurt my feelings if they decided to experiment with the franchise's formula a bit; I think that Sonic would benefit from a groundup developed handheld title with some new dynamics added into the gameplay.

Reading through this thread just made me buy Sonic Spinball on Virtual Console.

That's how you make a good god-damned Sonic game.

I consider the 2D games terrible by design. It seems like most of the 2D Sonic games make it impossible for the players to actually react in time to obstacles and the like without knowing which part is coming up. You move so quickly and you're pretty far zoomed in - how could you react in time? Yes, if you can run through everything at high speed because you know everything inside out that does feel great, but until then? Fuck design like that. I'd put that in the "trial and error" category.

That aspect is so much better within 3D, for example in Sonic Adventure 1 and 2. Depending on the draw distance, which was high enough in most cases if I remember correctly, you can anticipate stuff much, much better.

On top of that I just enjoy the extra dimension a lot, although it does come with the downside of harder to implement camera positioning and controls. And unfortunately the Sonic Adventure games did suffer in that regard quite a bit. Also, there weren't just Sonic (and Shadow) levels within Sonic Adventure 1/2. So while I still had a frigging blast playing the Sonic and Shadow stages again a year back on the dolphin emulator I have to admit that in their entirety the Sonic Adventure games are let down by the other characters' worse gameplay. (Yet, I love SA2, especially thanks to the music!)

So there's only one way I'd consider a Sonic game great, and that is a game which for the vast majority of main gameplay consisting of Sonic and Shadow SA2 like stuff. Not exactly, I'd like to see improvements and nice modifications (better Camera movement is a must), but in the general sense that's what I'd like to see. Oh, and add a Chao Garden for the fun in between. However you should get stuff for your Chao by completing a stage in a quick and precise fashion instead of slowly checking each corner for animals or so - that's just now how you'd want to play.

But looking at the trends, that's probably not what we're going to get. Instead it's more 2D Sonic games or 3D games with lot's of QTEs, that crappy boosting mechanic and enemies that you just run over while boosting. In fact, it even seems like there are many parts in the newer 3D Sonic Games where you go so quickly thanks to this shitty boosting mechanic, that you cannot really react in time any longer. I mean, aren't there even a lot "left or right trigger to quickly change from left to right lane" sequences? The fuck, why would I want that. "Ah let's take away proper control for this part, because that sounds like fun!"

So I kinda agree with egg, I think the current games are still pretty bad and seeing them getting a huge amount of praise leaves me shaking my head :|

e:

That said, I'm not a big Sonic fan really, I mean I'd enjoy if I'd get a game like I described but eh, whatever. I mean if I consider 2D Sonic games bad then I pretty much disagree with the majority of Sonic fans. If I get "my" kind of Sonic game - awesome. But I don't expect that to ever happen and am not particularly sad about it.

I haven't played it yet but i thought Generations looked pretty great... that will probably be the next game that I play actually. Thanks for reminding me.

Sonic Colors was fun, fuck everyone in this thread.

So I have never ever played a Sonic game except Generations and I thought it was pretty damn good. If they would make another one, I'd probably buy it

I don't get how people think sonic can be good...

I think the real question is "Did Sonic ever leave?"

@Imsorrymsjackson said:

@Tarsier said:

were those games actually 'great' or were they just OK compared to the rest of the crap theyve been churning out?

@Turtlebird95 said:

I don't think he'll ever have as major of a role as he once had, but the latest games have been pretty good. Plus Sonic Adventure 2 HD comes out next week.

Yeah! I'll be getting that day 1!

I totally thought that this thread was about S0n1c_h3dgeh0g, thanks goodness it's not! I hope I didn't just summon him from the dead...

Sonic Generations was great. I also didn't hate Sonic 2006 like most people did.

I liked the first Sonic. I loved Sonic 2, 3 & knuckles. I didn't like the first Adventure all that much. I loved Adventure 2. Sonic Heroes was ok I guess. 2006 was the first game I got on this hardware generation. I got it with absolutely no knowledge of it's reception or quality and I hated it. I thought Unleashed was a step in the right direction but still a failure. Werehog, what the fuck? I thought Generations was good not great.

I think the Sonic franchise has failed so many times for people that they are heavily biased against it. Like the people saying that the people who believe the recent games are good is because the others were bad. It actually seems kind of insulting. "I know this is your opinion but are you sure your opinion isn't wrong?" I don't know. It's fine to not like them or even hate them as long as you show some respect to the fans. Not the ones that want to fuck Sonic or make recolours and call them their original character Blonic but the ones that just legitimately enjoy the games or think they're great. Sometimes it's fueled by nostalgia by other times they just like the fucking game.

Sonic is weird in like the Star Wars way in that because of the bad shit in their franchises people retroactively hate the original stuff. There are people that don't like the original Star Wars trilogy anymore because of the prequels and that has happened to Sonic in some ways. Some people in the bomb crew during their Sonic quicklooks even ask a couple of times if the original Sonic games were ever any good because the later Sonic games weren't. I don't really understand that way of thinking.

I like how nearly everyone who has responded in this thread has ignored everyone else and either says Sonic is good or Sonic is shit. There's so little in between. Can't Sonic be ok?

@JasonR86 said:

I like how nearly everyone who has responded in this thread has ignored everyone else and either says Sonic is good or Sonic is shit. There's so little in between. Can't Sonic be ok?

Why can't we see a competitive sonic game come out. Which requires extreme reflexes. The sense of speed hasn't changed since the mega-drive :(

@glyn: Have you played Unleashed or Generations? The Mega Drive would explode if those games ran at that speed.

Nope.

Honestly, he can be, but the people making the games now are stuck trying to capture the glory of the first 3 or so games. Because gaming has evolved past that, they're never going to surpass the older titles doing what they are doing. Colors was a step in the right direction but just shows that Sonic is better suited in 2D. The Sonic 4 games aren't terrible but they need serious work to be worth the 15 price tag and to live up to the old school Sonic.

And, seriously, Sonic games haven't been terrible since Sonic Unleashed and only then because of the shitty werehog business. The spin off gimmicky stuff can be summed up as cash grabs and really are legitimately bad, but the story driven core Sonic games only really have a few rotten eggs (Unleashed, 2006, Shadow, 3D blast). Most of the others weren't nearly as bad as the internet wishes they were. The Advance games were well done, Ep. 1+2 only have minor problems, and the rpg was great.

SEGA needs to take a cue from today's downloadable game developers and focus on innovation and not gimmicks and nostalgia to get people to care about Sonic again, as there are brilliant games in the downloadable space that well outshine their latest efforts.

Sonic Unleashed was the beginning of an upward trend (Sonic 06 was rock bottom), and it has progressed to where Generations is the best Sonic game since Adventure 2 so yeah, I believe he's back.

How many of the people complaining have even played Generations? People are quick to shit on Sonic, and it was well deserved until recently for years upon years of garbage, but Sonic Generations was fantastic and one of my favorite games of last year. That game is like a speedrunner's dream, and I've revisited all of Modern Sonic's stages dozens of times to try to improve my times.

I think people are just so used to Sonic games being garbage that they just assume they're terrible and point to reviews even though they didn't play them, and in Generations' case there aren't even many negative reviews.

@glyn said:

@ JasonR86 said:

I like how nearly everyone who has responded in this thread has ignored everyone else and either says Sonic is good or Sonic is shit. There's so little in between. Can't Sonic be ok?

Why can't we see a competitive sonic game come out. Which requires extreme reflexes. The sense of speed hasn't changed since the mega-drive :(

Generations was the fastest Sonic game that has ever been released. That said, that sense of speed doesn't make Generations or the older Sonic games good (though it helped). Further, the old and new Sonic games never needed extreme reflexes. They needed pretty good reflexes. But reflexes also wasn't really the point.

Sonic hasn't been "back" since the first Sonic Adventure.

Yep, Soncis is back for sure, the new game is going to be great. Until it is released that is and everyone realised, yeah, this is kind of bad, thus the Sonic cycle continues. I'm sure the game after that will be great though.

Its an anomoly but then again I don't like sonice.

I think Sonic games are at the not bad for a kid's game but just mediocre for everyone else. That said I did think Colors and Generations were a step in the right direction and I think Sega has the potential to make a really decent Sonic game in the near future. Unless they do something really retarded the Sonic game after the next one will be good.

I liked Sonic Generations, but only because I liked the Genesis games.