Sega's decision making about Sonic.

Why the hell does Sega continue to release ports of Sonic Labyrinth?  I just realized they did this last year.

Until games like Shadow The Hedgehog and Sonic 06 were released, this was arguably the worst game in the series.

Why is Sega so bent on keeping the bad Sonic games accessible when they should be forgettable over making the good Sonic games more accessible?

Why does Sega try so hard to slow down Sonic?

Seriously, Sonic Labyrinth?

Before Sonic Pocket Adventure?

Before any of the Game Gear titles

Before the Advance series?

Really, Sega?

"Roo-gey." And who's to blame for Sonic '06's failure?

Probably the most amusing moment in all of Sonic 06's story within the intro and ending cutscenes (because those are actually the best moments in the game, period).

... (... and Shadow kicking Silver in the back of the head.)


Seems like a number of Sonic fans still think it's their fault Sonic '06 sucks.  I believe I heard this when I initially began to learn more about why the game sucks (which was a long time ago).  Was it not some Sega or ex-Sega employee who made that statement?

Honestly, this has to be anti-intellectualism at it's finest.  It has to be.  It makes no sense for a company to blame it's customers (who had nothing to do with the development of the game) for their product being rushed.  First of all:

• What kind of a fanbase whines at a company to rush the development of their product?
• What kind of a business gives the customers that kind of power over them?
• What kind of a company blames their fanbase on their incompetence?

Simply unbelievable.  I can see how it would be believable if one never played '06 and just heard and saw how glitchy it is, how expressionless the characters are, how terrible the graphics are in general and how garbage the storyline is.  After carefully analyzing the game inside and out, it isn't hard to see that the design choices of the game are it's biggest flaws.  It raises a mountain of questions when they decided to prioritize programming a mountain of gameplay styles over refining smaller aspects of the gameplay to make it playable.  It's really like the game was carelessly finished after whoever took over the game had to finish what was previously started.

Whatever was going on at Sega during the time when employees were quitting left and right could be considered nothing but chaos for the Sonic franchise.  You'd think if the fans were this influential to Sega, Sonic 4 would've actually been... a pretty damn good series.

SEGA~ Sonic Team Presents... PS4/NextBox720

Watching SGB's Sonic 06 Let's Play, which offers more insight on SomecallmeJohnny's view on Sonic 06.  Currently on Shadow's playthrough and Johnny makes some really strong points about this game and more importantly SEGA's decision making abilities - the root of this entry.  How will it affect future Sonic games for future systems to come?

When I think of Sega's decision making with Sonic 06 with stupid small tidbits like the spindash only being able to be used being at a complete stop, the fact that you can't jump out of it, the fact that the spin attack is no longer an attack, it's like... who programmed this shit?  The point that Johnny made about SEGA was that they try to make Sonic do everything.  They make Sonic games where they try to make Sonic and his friends do something unrelated to what made Sonic good to begin with.  Now, we can look at the Adventure series and find that the gameplay styles outside of Sonic's gameplay were generally met with more negative criticism than that of Sonic's.  Or you can look at other Sonic games such as Sonic The Fighters, or newer titles like Sonic & The Black Night or Sonic Unleashed.  Agreeing with Johnny again on that it probably would have been better instead for Sega to incorporate these ideas (and further develop them) in different games... no game in the franchise speaks louder about how overcompensated the programming is than Sonic 06.  Speaking of other games, Johnny also pointed out that when you play a Sonic & All-Stars Racing game, how many of the other Sega IPs do you recognize that aren't Sonic?  Me?  VERY FEW.

For myself, it really does beg the question again why Sega would re-release Sonic The Fighters.  If there's one thing about Sega that hasn't really changed, it's their own unlaced ideas for promoting Sonic in ways that further his unpopularity through his weaknesses, opposed to promoting it through his strengths.  Since Adventure, we've been given so much nonsense in one game, it totally makes sense to me now why:

• a) Sonic Heroes was such a financial success outside of it's accessibility, and
• b) why Sega can't please their fanbase.

Heroes was kept simple with two gameplay styles which gave players the access to characters they (more than anything) simply wanted to play as, even if their playstyle didn't completely reflect their actual abilities (i.e. Amy being speed based... Big being... okay, he was being big.)

But thanks to games like Adventure 1 and 2 and it's successors, the fanbase wants more story, more story that's edgier (SA2), more story that's dark (Shadow The Hedgehog), more Big The Cat (SA1), more hub worlds, more playable cast, more playable cast that has it's own gameplay (SA1/Sonic 06), more Chao Garden, another Shadow The Hedgehog game, more Sonic The Werehog, another storybook title, another isometric Sonic game, another Sonic RPG, a sequel to Sonic R, another Tails game, more Silver The Hedgehog, a successor to Knuckles Chaotix, a THIRD Sonic 4 episode, and the list goes on.

The problem with everything I've listed is that it is all the pinnacle of Sonic mediocrity or worse.  There is a group of fans out there who likes these things, and all Sega can do is say to themselves from their efforts, they have made this little blue hedgehog famous and simultaneously infamous.  It makes me wonder if Sonic's popularity will outlive Sega's financial stability because this strategy of popularizing Sonic's image over his gameplay that made him good in the first place doesn't seem like a long lasting tactic.  What better example of this could you find of this fact that's not Sonic 4 Episode 1 & 2 from the marketing to the music and the meat and potatoes of the gameplay.

And now, I appreciate Sonic Heroes a bit more because even though I found it's story weak and disenganging, it took the Adventure gameplay and streamlined it.  It was probably better on paper than it was when the game was finished, but I can honestly say it had much less to fix because it was... simple.  A lot of people were pleased.  Unfortunately, I wasn't among them, but look at the sales #s.  Someone did something right, obviously.

Sonic really has no need to try to go head to head with Mario anymore, but to some extent maybe he should for the sake of an almost futile comparison.  I do not closely follow the franchise, but I am a huge fan of it.  It is a wonder why there are no fully 3D Mario titles for the Wii systems as of late.  Everything has seeming fallen back to it's SMB1-3  2S roots.  I don't know if Nintendo is trying to save money or what, but it's easy to say the franchise has made some smarter decisions be it transitioning from 2D to 3D and back to 2D, some racing games that were mostly successful, and some RPGs to go down in RPG's history of great RPGs with successful spin-offs starring Luigi or Princess Peach without turning the cast into something it wasn't.

Whereas Mario's identity was established and streamlined literally by Super Mario Bros, Sonic was an identity crisis once he landed in the Adventure series.  Where Mario remained simple, Sonic tried being complex and wound up being complicated.  No Luigi in Mario 64?  Welcome to Sonic & The Gang.  1 hub world?  Here's 3.  No mini games?  Oh we've got plenty in Adventure, from pinball, to shooting an airplane, to raising Chao and even playing Frogger.

You see, Sega forgot one thing that made Sonic a worthy competitor to Mario.  Maybe you've seen it on YouTube when Sega reps were comparing Sonic to Super Mario World graphically.  Some Sega reps (or maybe it was Naka, idk) said something on the lines that Sonic was able to look just as impressive because they made the most out of their system in spite of the fact the Genesis was technologically inferior to the SNES.  To their credit, they called it "Blast Processing" (and I know, for Sega it was a challenge to make Sonic work the way it did), but Sega made no commercial comparing Sonic to say... F-Zero.

My point here is that less was more with Sonic's success from day 1 to today.  If you look at the main series console titles and their success from each predecessor, the evidence is clear.  SA2 was more successful than SA1 because it streamlined the gameplay from the first game.  Sonic Heroes was more accessible than SA2 was, but it lacked the excess of SA1 while offering a little bit of everything while being even more streamlined.  Sonic Unleashed succeeds Sonic 06 for offering a promising 3D AND 2D Sonic experience (non-werehog), more hub worlds, just 1/10,00th of the sizes offered in 06 that are full of optional things.  Sonic Colors rids the hubs, rids the mandatory non-Sonic gameplay all together, focuses on 2D through a condensed and modified Unleashed style gameplay.

Sonic Generations? Generations brings back an alternate gameplay that reflects the classic 2D gameplay, brings back 1 hub that accesses everything on a 2D plane, makes use of the cast in a non-invasive way, dumbs down the Unleashed style controls (a positive for the most part), but condenses the level design making it more about speedy platforming in open  3D areas with 2D areas that don't take advantage of Sonic's abilities enough.  Generations was as much of a small step forward as it was a small step backwards where there is a flexibility a lot of Sonic fans are all too familiar with.  It's a safe game that offers our favorite dishes of Sonic microwaved instead of freshly cooked or served edibly raw.  After what's derived from Unleashed be it Sonic 4 ep1, ep2, Colors and Generations, it's about time for a new recipe or to expand/ improve these foundations instead of making their portions (of the gameplay) smaller and refined to a fault .

And finally, what do I expect of Sonic for the next Gen systems since the PS4 has officially been the talk of the Internet town?  At first, I thought SA3.  Really?  Sure, why not?  They've had over a decade to get it right and I can still have some optimism.  However, after what a Sega forum mod said about their financial standings being that chances are there won't be a Sonic game that takes full advantage of the new graphics capability, perhaps it's time that Sega... like Nintendo has done with Mario - really go back to his roots?  If 2D, I hope Sonic Team makes a real 2D Sonic game and doesn't bite off more than they can chew for crying out loud.  Generations focuses on what works well with Sonic, but there's so much more that could have come out of both gameplays that's easily found from the games they originate from, being daytime Unleashed and the Genesis titles, or even the Advance series most people overlook.  I know Sega wants to popularize Sonic through other mediums, but he's a video game character.  He needs good video games to be worthy of being morphed into a stuffed toy or an action figure or an energy drink.  I feel like everyone is going to lose if the next Sonic game doesn't do better than Generations did, but Sega usually succeeds when it means bringing something new to the table that's Sonic related.

After 06, how can a fan not worry, though?

btw, Johnny's playthrough is making me change my mind about wanting to play 06.  Gamegrumps makes it look bearable, but Johnny?  I think it's because I've watched his Silver playthrough while the grumps are still on Shadow's with an incomplete Silver run.  The missions look atrocious and redundant, Silver's gameplay look redundant and uninspiring.  The story promotes anti-thought and when it tries to promote thought, it's not even thought provoking (yet I can understand how that aspect holds allure to some).  Johnny responds with the question, "What were they thinking?" towards a lot of things in this game, but it makes me ask...

"Were they even thinking at all?"

*drops mic startling everyone he put to sleep*

Sonic 4 Episode 2, Week 1 - Sonic going backwards.

With my youtube subscriptions predominantly filled with people from the Sonic fanbase, there are tons of LPs and... not as many speed runs of Sonic 4 Episode 2.  After looking at some, it actually led me to agreeing with what Copley said about Sky Fortress Act 2.  It's not hard to see that the level design here was actually... WELL THOUGHT OUT.  I mean, aside from it having the worthless spring/speed booster placement, the level itself is actually interesting as you're not faced with a huge wall, repetitive design and 360 loops.  Flaws of the game aside, this is a good stage.

Why didn't I notice this out earlier?  I've only watched one LP of the game (Beta 8) and the gameplay was so boring I fell asleep in the middle of it.  By the time I woke up, the player had reached the midst of Sky Fortress... Act 3. lol

So the first week of Episode 2 as far as Sega's ever so seemingly valuable metacritic score is concerned... hasn't at all improved very much.  If Sega employees are just sitting around their desks in Japan, pondering, "Well, what went wrong?"  But what went right?  Seemingly the sales on the iOS platforms were a success (I do not understand how they work and didn't look into it deeply if deep at all).  As of today, the PS3's score is 62 out of 100 and the 360's is 61 out of 100.  This game is stacking up to the likes of Sonic Unleashed HD's score (I have no problem with Unleashed HD's scores.  Based on my own experience, it really was not that great the first time around, but after finding the enjoyment of the Daytime stages, that just leaves half of the game left to be desired through the Nighttime stages.)  However, I find it ironic that both of these games suffer for the same reason, and it's that in their own way (in spite of their huge budget differences), they tried too hard to be casual and please the masses.

It's not that there were bad ideas implemented, just poorly executed ideas.  In Unleashed, the evidence is clear.  Most people found the werehog stages super tedious from it's ridiculous length and some poor design (where is the shadow below him when he platforms?  The camera in this game is far from being completely in your control).  When I played some of the DLC stages, I was surprised to find that they were A LOT BETTER.  They made sense as they were a lot shorter with better designs as a character that moves so slow should not have to feel as if they are getting from New York to London on foot.

Ep2 is just filled with poorly executed ideas... so many, there's really no point in going into detail with them as a lot of them are found in reviews here or on metacritic's bag of mixed reviews.  The co-op, the level gimmicks, the team gimmicks, episode metal (or episode re-colors), the physics (which I will get into) which a lot of reviewers state are fixed, but only seem to have tested them based on simply jumping forward and walking up a hill while overlooking the roll/spin dash and downhill momentum.

I would probably be prone to purchasing this game if everything I saw was an outright visual work of art depicting Sonic and Tails running through the pretty scenery - worthy of hanging on my living room wall that said, "It looks fun."  But I can't be so blind to it's purpose as most of the effort put into it are just further steps backwards than the backwards steps Episode 1 took.  Really, this game is such a tragedy.  To think that Sonic is sold merely for being a blue hedgehog that runs to springs and speed boosters is like Aston Martin selling a DBS because of it's beautiful shell, and not it's engine for it's purr as it escapes from the exhaust or it's suspension for it's comfort and sportiness or it's interior to remind you it has a sense of value... or even heritage.

Do you know how you can tell the difference between a good Sonic (in this case, 2D) game and a bad Sonic game?  The ones the fans base their games off of.  To say the least, some of them have made better examples of how the series could move forward.

From here on out, this is where I want to shift my focus away from Ep2 in my blog (really in general).  Certainly, things can change (and yes, I've ragged on the game for long enough), but I'm convinced here that what's done is done.  What Sega plans to do next with the series seeing that the reception is weighing in less and less further from what Episode 1 reached is but a timely (hopefully not a timeless) wonder.

With Sega's huge financial loss from last years sales as their company heavily relies on Sonic as their main source of income seeing that Episode 2 may not make it to it's usual financial success in the franchise, one wonders just how much longer Sega can afford to ignore their fans.

Yuji Naka speaks out on recent Sonic games.

TSSZ News released some news on Naka's reaction towards the current generation of Sonic titles and his feelings about returning to the franchise.  If you don't mind, I'm going to paste this article here:

Expresses Interest in Returning to Help with Franchise 

In an interview with GamesIndustry International, Prope’s Yuji Naka, one of the key individuals behind the creation of Sonic the Hedgehog, conceded that in his opinion, recent Sonic fare simply doesn’t compare to the past. 

“I also think that recent iterations have not been as fun when compared to those of the past,” Mr. Naka said in the interview.  “I think the number one reason for this is that the games have become much easier, so the gamer doesn’t feel that extreme joy that comes with the satisfaction of accomplishing something that was very difficult to achieve.” 

In the interview, Mr. Naka suggests Sonic games of today are tailor made to appeal to as wide an audience as possible.  He believes it would do Sega some good to up the challenge a bit. 

“Sonic has a very simple control scheme that is capable of doing a lot of advanced things while sprinting at a high speed, that’s what makes it a good game in my opinion,” Mr. Naka explained.  “I think even moderately raising the difficulty level in the future could work well.” 

Those remarks led to Mr. Naka expressing an interest in returning to Sega in the future to perhaps work on Sonic again, or properly revive another of his classic franchises, such as NiGHTS into Dreams. 

“Unfortunately, I haven’t had the opportunity to do so but perhaps at some point in the future if I could come back and contribute, that could be fun and gratifying,” he said. 

Mr. Naka also noted he’d like to see the rivalry between Mario and Sonic from the revived again.  You can read the piece in full at the link cited above.

My thoughts?  I think Sega intentionally made crappy 2D Sonic games to lure Naka back in.  I'm serious!  I think Sega plotted this since 2009 and said, "We are going to get Naka back in.  How do we do that?  We take the best parts in Sonic games and make them into something worse.  We'll get Dimps to do it w.i.t.h l.i.t.t.l.e m.o.n.e.y, make it look like an old Sonic game, and it shall be called Sonic The Hedgehog 4!  If he doesn't come back, we'll use the earnings and make another episode where we'll have room to butcher even more of his legacy!"

This has to to be the most logical reason behind those pathetic excuses for a Sonic game, to bait Naka as a plan to increase the value of the franchise by making terrible Sonic games based off of the classics that brought Naka into the limelight.

And if it works... meaning Sega gets him to work on 2D Sonic games, I'll buy Episode 2 on every platform I can play it on.  Naka working on 3D games?

(Why is that the best line in the entire game?)

But seriously, Naka and 3D games?  Lets take a stroll down memory lane, shall we?

Now, Naka may have aimed Sonic in the direction (sort of) of Sonic's future in gaming jumping from 2D to 3D, but while these games get praise for players by simply stepping outside of it's 2D boundaries being somewhat of an over-complex Mario 64 (Adventure series), the games had many design issues such as clipping through the floor to fall to your death (or fall eternally), disobedient cameras, and terrible collision detection.  After Heroes, I was done, mostly because Heroes was pretty on paper but pathetic in pixels.  Just like Sonic 4, Naka wasn't free from making games that were utterly boring that were centered around forced mechanics (but at least they didn't stop the flow of the gameplay and coated with multiple forms of automation).  Shadow The Hedgehog (game) to my knowledge was his last finished work and although I never played it, it was received as the worst game on the Adventure engine.

But who really knows?  Since he left Sega in the midst of working on 06, perhaps he's got some good ideas?  He says that the current formula isn't challenging.  Now... before I go, OMG, speed running is sooo hard, he has a point.  Have you ever just walked up to some of the enemies in the recent games to see what they'd do?  You can idle around a lot of them or just avoid them easily.  Unleashed did a decent job of enemy placement to prevent Sonic from boosting through everything.  For players who do not speed run these games, you're pretty much left with simply navigating Sonic in a comfortable, unchallenging manner.  In Generations main acts, there aren't many enemies that check you for going fast or not going fast enough.  It's mostly memorizing the level and reaching the end without any objectives within the level.

So yes.  If they bring back Naka and he throws in ideas for the 3D Sonic games, all I can say is... if it ain't broke, don't fix it.  Right now, as I've stated before, 3D Sonic is where it's at now.

Absolutely worth watching.

I love videos like this.  What we have here is a video of how speed works in the Sonic games as well as a few others.  Watched it once and now I'm about to watch it a second time, if you will excuse me.

*goes back to school*

JUST TO USE THESE.

... then again, it would've probably had 06 artwork... nvm.