How Sega Ruined Sonic the Hedgehog

The always entertaining RetroGaming with Racketboy has a long post up railing against Sega for ruining Sonic the Hedgehog. The blue, spikey hero has had a rough time of it of late. Outings from the series like Shadow the Hedgehog, and even the next-gen title simply named Sonic the Hedgehog, have gotten simply terrible reviews. He longs for a return to simple, fun, not-creepy play. From the article: "As the new generation of platforms emerged, Sega used Sonic as a way to show off their newest graphical technologies. There is no doubt that the new Sonic the Hedgehog for the XBox 360 looks nice, but as the abysmal reviews indicate, graphics are not everything. In order to push its cutting-edge graphics to the limit, Sega, in their infinite wisdom, felt the need to bring Sonic and his friends into a more realistic world, filled with life-like humans. As you can see from this video, there is something creepy about some giant hedgehogs interacting with humans. My point is that Sega doesn't seem to know what it wants to do with Sonic. It seems like Sega assigns various quick-and-dirty development projects in order to see what ideas sticks with consumers. Unfortunately, Sega fans have had to suffer through this process."

Comments

Start the video at 00:34

[Animats]

Start the video at 00:34 to avoid the blithering asshat.

Re:Start the video at 00:34

[icepick72]

Read the parent post between characters 20 and 24 to avoid the blithering asshat.

Re:Start the video at 00:34

[ofcourseyouare]

personally, I thought the "blithering asshat's" comments were the best-expressed and best-acted part of the whole video...

Hope for the Wii version

[neostorm]

For the first time since the 2D Sonics, here is a really promising looking Sonic game:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ruxm9D0p6P8

Some of the environments in the screenshots look fantastic too. The game looks just like the 2D games in 3D, which is probably what they should have done in the first place.

Re:Hope for the Wii version

[badasscat]

They are making 2d-esque games (Sonic Rush, for example) and those are still pretty good

I'd go further than that - Sonic Rush is the Sonic game all these people have been waiting for. It's amazing to me that so many people complain about the current Sonic games and hardly any of these people have bothered playing Sonic Rush. It's rarely even mentioned in any of the talk about recent series entrants.

Sonic Rush is a much more natural evolution of the Sonic series than any of the recent 3D games on home systems. Ironically, Sonic Rush is 3D, in the same way the Klonoa series is - the graphics are mostly cel-shaded 3D, the gameplay basically 2D. This lets the old-school gameplay that Sonic fans want shine through, while still adding some new 3D elements and the fully 3D boss battles.

One of the big sites - it was either GameSpot or GameSpy - called this game the "most significant" Sonic game in many years. I would agree with that if only more people had played it. It is an example of what Sonic games can be in the modern age, although unfortunately for all concerned, it didn't sell particularly well. What lesson does Sega take from that?

If you want good Sonic games, buy the good Sonic games. If you don't buy them, Sega won't make them. And that's what's happening now; Sega is unsuccessfully searching for a new formula, having apparently been convinced that the original formula no longer works in the marketplace.

The whole concept of praying

[antifoidulus]

to whatever god she was praying to for sonic's revival is even creepier than the kiss. I want to convert to whatever religion it is where you can pray for the revival of giant anthropomorphic hedgehogs.

Re:The whole concept of praying

[TCQuad]

Clearly, she was praying to Shenlong. Sonic, surrounded by glowing orbs, is brought back to life and immediately goes Super Saiyan.

Wow

[Mongoose]

Sonic goes super saiyan! Does the 360 game have Freeza in it?

Project S

[Stormwatch]

These days, the only new Sonic game I really want is Project S. It's a fan project that aims to complete the infamous cancelled Saturn title Sonic X-treme . And here's the most interesting bit: the project is being led by Sonic X-treme's own director, Chris Senn.