Why Sonic Games Suck Now

NetRaptor here.

This is a popular topic of debate on numerous forums across the web. “Why do Sonic games suck now when we loved the original ones on the Genesis?”

Lots of theories crop up. They’re too complex. There’s too many new characters. The camera sucks. The controls are too finicky. Sonic has become irrelevant to the modern gamer. Only little kids who don’t know any better like modern Sonic games.

There’s some truth to all of these statements. And yet they aren’t the entire truth. At what point does a game series “start sucking”?

Sonic 1 was loved because it was fast. Sonic 2 was loved because it was fast, and it also introduced Tails. Sonic 3 was loved because it was prettier, gave the characters more abilities, and introduced Knuckles. Sonic and Knuckles, the second half of Sonic 3, was also loved because it locked onto Sonic 3 and allowed for the unlocking of Super and Hyper forms for the characters.

Then the Sonic games entered an odd time period where Sonic Team handed development over to Traveler’s Tales. So we got things like Sonic 3D Blast and Sonic R. They were good, but not really Sonicy. We were used to side-scrolling action.

Then Sonic entered the 3D era with Sonic Adventure, and gamers have been whining ever since.

Yet is it really the games that suck? Each game has its own strengths and weaknesses. Even the much-hated Shadow the Hedgehog game did a few things right, like fixing some of the long-broken abilities and taking the multiple endings even farther than in the other games.

Do modern Sonic games really suck? Or is it our perception of them that is flawed?

People tend to love the first part of a thing that they encounter. If someone picks up Final Fantasy 8 at random, having never encountered the Final Fantasy series before, and they come to love it, they will then dislike Final Fantasy 7. They compare the new game to the old one in their minds, and everything that the first did better, the second one of course does worse.

The same applies to everything in life, whether it is meeting new people, trying new food, or picking out new pants. Once a person has decided that they really like something, all other things are compared to that first thing as a standard. This is how the human brain operates. It’s how we make decisions.

Sonic the Hedgehog debuted in 1991. Suppose you were ten or eleven when you picked it up. Now you are almost thirty.

The first Sonic game you ever played will be the benchmark for all other Sonic games. Naturally all of them fall short, both because of design shortcomings, and because of basic game differences.

Sonic 3 had the fire shield, the lightning shield, and the water shield. They worked as gameplay elements. But do we really need them in a 3D Sonic game that has completely different gameplay elements?

Sonic 2 and 3 unlocked Super Sonic for play in the earlier game levels. This worked in a 2D sidescroller. Sort of. The game was not really designed for Sonic to move that fast or jump that high, so there are really bizarre ways to die that the game designers did not plan.

Think of the fastest stages in the 3D Sonic games, like the Shadow game in general, or the speed stages of Sonic 360. Steering is difficult, and a slight overcompensation sends the main character flying off a cliff, or they get stuck on walls or obstacles. Now, seeing as this is already bad design without the character being super, how much worse would it be if they allowed it?

Super Sonic is relegated to specially-designed levels where he is fun to play. He wouldn’t be fun if set loose in the rest of the game. Period.

The aging Sonic fanbase is stuck back on the games they played as kids. It’s what they like best, and nothing will ever compare, because the series has moved on.

But the new generation of Sonic gamers have fallen in love with the 3D games that the older ones hate. Sonic Unleashed is still selling well, and Werehog is popular in the younger fanbase, in art and fiction.

Older gamers can sneer all they want, but Sonic doesn’t suck any more or less than he ever did. The Genesis games had really rotten, hateable parts, too. (Remember the death spike pits in Mystic Cave of Sonic 2, or the bouncing barrel in Carnival Night in Sonic 3? Yes, you remember.)

Older gamers need to get off their high horse and remember why they liked Sonic in the first place. Because his games are fun. If you don’t find them fun, then stop raining on the parade and go play Mass Effect 2.

If it’s as good as the first one, that is. It depends on your perception.