Post by George Darling on Oct 24, 2008 22:36:12 GMT -8
Sonic Retrospective: The Rise and Fall of the World's Fastest Gaming Icon
The year is 1991 and the rivalry between competitor gaming hardware & software companies, Sega and Nintendo, is blossoming into the fierce, below-the-belt slug fest which hasn't really been repeated as hardcore between rival game companies since (such slogans as 'Sega does what Nintendon't' come to mind). Still, Nintendo had big-name flag bearing franchises such as Mario and The Legend of Zelda at their backs, while Sega had... Alex Kidd. Clearly the fact that a Rock, Paper, Scissors-playing, big-eared goofball who looked like a possible sex offender as a mascot wasn't really very appealing, so a new flag bearer had to be crowned.
Enter Sonic the Hedgehog; Sega's answer. He was cool, he was brash, he had attitude and, best of all, he had speed. And we're not talking holding down a button to run faster... I mean, this character was developed completely around going faster than any other video game character had gone before. Sonic was to be the messiah that would lead Sega to the promised land. And, for better or for worse, that's what he became. His initial game, Sonic the Hedgehog, was a huge success, and as word of the next big rival against Mario quickly spread among gamers, his success only grew.
In this article, I intend to follow the speedy hero through his rise to fame, to his fall from grace. First, you'll notice a lot of references to Mario games throughout. A lot of the more stubborn Sonic fans will say this isn't a fair comparison... I say to you now: go suck on a lemon. Sonic was created to compete against Mario, thus the comparison was self-enforced from the start. If you don't like it, too bad. Second, I promise I won't make any jokes about 'Blast Processing'. No, I mean it... I swear. Not a single joke about... Blast... Processing. Now, I won't be covering every Sonic game, as there are just too many at this point. Instead, I will only be covering those I feel are most self-asserting to the integrity of the franchise. Anyway, let's start where it all began: with the birth of the hedgehog himself...
Sonic the Hedgehog (1991)
The game that started it all. This game was awesome, I mean, this game was brilliant. This was one of the very first games I ever got for the Sega Genesis, and I spilled countless hours into playing it. The stage designs were superb, the enemies and boss fights were memorable and diverse, and the game physics and controls were dead-on. While a single button and the D-pad were all that were required to perform Sonic's actions, the game managed to make full use of them. In addition to the stock method of jumping on enemies, pressing down on the D-pad while running initiated Sonic's spinning attack. Again, the physics for this were amazing... the speed you were running, and even the elevation of the ground, accounted for the speed, momentum, and duration of the roll. It was really something for a game of that era.
Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (1992)
With the success of the first Sonic game, it was only natural that a sequel was on the way. Sonic 2 incorporated everything that made the first game so great, and built upon it. In addition to a second character, Miles "Tails" Prower, who would take Sonic into the two-player era it lacked in the first installment (the player could also choose to play Tails in 1-Player), additions such as the Spin Dash and even more unique and exotic stage designs really made this game stand out. This was also the first game to introduce Super Saiyajin--I Mean... Super Sonic to the franchise.
Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (1994)
The third in the series, and one of my favorites. While the game didn't add any new playable characters to the franchise's roster, a new NPC character came nonetheless: Knuckles the Echidna. The game's opening implies that Sonic still has the seven Chaos Emeralds from Sonic 2, which immediately surprised me, as games at the time always seemed to retcon any power-ups the character had got in the game before at that point in gaming (Mega Man always starting with no special weapons, anyone?), and there was a very brief story sequence which explained why Sonic lost them and had to reclaim them. Sonic gains a mid-air shield thing, but otherwise not much has changed gameplay-wise. Greatly improved sprite work and backgrounds add to the 'improvement' of the overall quality, and the save feature was a very rare find in Sega Genesis games!
Sonic & Knuckles (1994)
Released later in the same year as Sonic 3, Sonic & Knuckles would, unknowingly, mark the end of an era for the rambunctious hedgehog as the last great game to grace the franchise - And believe me, this game was great. The game allowed the player to choose to play as either Sonic the Hedgehog or Knuckles the Echidna, each having unique routes through stages unavailable to the other character.
While this game could be played in and of itself, the true marvel of it was the fact that other games could be interlocked into it, unlocking addition content in those games. Such a thing had never been done before... or since! Combining the Sonic & Knuckles cartridge with Sonic the Hedgehog 2 allowed the player to go through the game playing as Knuckles the Echidna. Combining Sonic & Knuckles with Sonic the Hedgehog 1 allowed the player to play through various bonus stages present in Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and also repeated in Sonic & Knuckles (though accessing it was only possible through a cheat code). The true value of this game, however, was by connecting it with Sonic the Hedgehog 3. Buy doing this, it combines both games into a complete masterpiece of a game encompassing the stages of both games, to be played as Sonic, Tails, or Knuckles. Combining them not only carried over the save feature from Sonic 3, but also unlocked the ability to acquire 'Super Emeralds' which allowed Sonic or Knuckles to become Hyper (a level above 'Super') and for Tails to become Super Tails (something he couldn't do in the previous two games he appeared in).
This game was revolutionary. It was extremely well thought-out, it was fun, and the compatibility it had with the previous three Sonic games encouraged ravenous children to pester their parents to buy them the entire series. It was a brilliant gaming gimmick, it was a brilliant marketing gimmick, and it met both ends well. Can you think of an expansion which could be played solo if you lacked the previous installment(s)? I can't, save for Sonic & Knuckles. Sonic & Knuckles combined with Sonic the Hedgehog 3 is arguably the best platformer for the Sega Genesis, and one of my favorite side-scrolling platformers of all time.
Sonic Adventure (1998-Japan, 1999-US)
Why did this game take so friggin' long for localization? This game was released December 23rd of '98 in Japan, but didn't make it to US shores until September 9th of '99 - a fairly sizable gap. Anyway, that has nothing to do with gameplay, so we'll move on. Sonic was dragged, kicking and screaming, into the 3-D era via his first game for the Sega Dreamcast: Sonic Adventure. Unfortunately, it was not as smooth a transition from 2-D to 3-D for Sonic as it had been for his long-time rival, Mario, and there were painful tell-tale signs of this fact littered throughout, and would mark a steady decline in quality from Sonic games henceforth.
Let's start off with a big, unintentional aspect of this game: glitches. I have never seen a game with so many... glitches. I mean, did they even bug test this game at all before releasing it? And I don't just mean minor glitches, I mean game-breaking glitches that could corrupt your save file and/or cause deletion of saved game data for this game. A lot of games have one or two glitches, which is no big deal. But the sheer quantity of them in this game, coupled with the fact that it can corrupt your game save data depending on which glitches you encounter, is inexcusable. GameFAQs.com even has an entire FAQ dedicated to the glitches of this game - and it's quite lengthy, too. There are seriously that many glitches in this game.
Now that the unintentional gameplay hiccups are out of the way, let's get down to where they went wrong with intentional game mechanics. While Sonic's stages have what you'd expect from a Sonic game: traversing large courses littered with enemies which you need to dash through at breakneck speed, the stages of other characters really set this game back. Anyone who's played this game knows who the biggest contributor to its downfall is, but we'll save him for last.
Gamma was pretty fun to play as, actually. Having a player who could shoot foes rather than jumping on them was unique, and it was executed well enough (they didn't just slap a gun on a pre-existing character... *cough*). Aside from Sonic, Gamma's game mode was probably my favorite.
Not much to say about Tails and Amy Rose. Their stages aren't exceptional, but they're also not horrible, either. All-in-all, they're not as fun as Sonic's stages, but they're definitely playable (although Amy's can get annoying at times with some rather frustrating puzzle solving).
Now, let's take a look at Knuckles. Who would think that a character who was a blast to play as in previous Sonic games would be a contributor to this game sucking? His missions are scavenger hunt missions, in which you attempt to locate fragments of the Master Emerald and use his digging ability to unearth them. His stages are very tedious, and honestly not much fun. The fragments are always in three randomly determined locations, the gameplay is slow, and the wrap-around stages are boring and, more often than not, far too small. Why couldn't Knuckles have stages similar to Sonic's but have his own special routes and puzzles worked-in implementing his ability to glide and scale walls, like in Sonic & Knuckles? Why did his stages need to be these boring, slow-paced scavenger hunts in a game renowned for lightning speed gameplay? It just... sucks!
Here it is, ladies and gentlemen. The moment you've all been waiting for... one of the biggest fumbles throughout Sonic the Hedgehog's career: Big the Cat! Being a mind-bogglingly irritating character who's reminiscent of the axe-head guy from The Nightmare Before Christmas combined with the retarded younger brother from What's Eating Gilbert Grape is actually the least of this obese feline's problems. It's his gameplay which really screwed him. Big's stages consist of only one thing: fishing. You cast your lure, wait patiently, and hope to even capture Big's dear (and only) friend, Froggy, or another type of fish inhabiting the stage's waters. If you've never played this game, rest assured... I am not joking.
What were Sonic Team thinking with this?! Did they go mad?! In a franchise built upon pulse-pounding, fast-paced platforming, how did they think that fishing, a decidedly extremely slow practice, would have been a good idea?! To this day, I, nor any other Sonic fan, can really hope to answer that. It's complete and utter madness. What if, during a Nascar race, the drivers all stopped their cars and started working on a crossword puzzle instead? That is essentially what Sonic Team did. Horrible.
Another thing which grinds my gears about this game is... what is with the photorealistic city settings and all of the human NPC characters? After years of Dr. Robotnik/Eggman being the sole human character of the series we're to suddenly believe that the anthropomorphic animals are the minority? And what's with the modern, realistic city? When I think of Sonic, I think of checkerboard meadows with polygonal, moving flowers; not this crap! Imagine if a Mario game came out with the plucky plumber in a modern city as the main hub... that'd be just weird given the settings of previous games, right? It'd be retconning what we're to make of the world he inhabits, right? Right.
In closing, this game had a lot of problems, but it was far from unplayable. While the stages for Knuckles and (ugh) Big were really a chore to get through, the levels for every other character were passable.
Sonic Adventure 2 (2001)
Sonic's second venture into 3-D platforming (thankfully) removed Big, and his mind-numbingly slow fishing stages, out entirely. Sadly, Knuckles and his easter egg hunt stages went along for the ride, though the stage layouts were improved this time around, in my opinion. This game featured the option to play as either the hero group, consisting of Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles, or the dark group, consisting of Shadow (oh lord...), Dr. Eggman, and Rouge.
While this initially sounds cool, truth be told the hero and dark teams are just clones of each other, with the characters having identical gameplay and controls. Shadow is a clone of Sonic, Rouge is a clone of Knuckles, and Dr. Eggman... is a clone of Tails (wha...?). Your first thought may be: how the HELL is such a thing possible? Comparing Eggman and Tails doesn't seem possible. Well, how they did it was that Dr. Eggman is in a Egg-O-Matic walker-thing... and Tails is in a similar walking robot! Yes, I'm dead serious. Tail is riding in a friggin' legged robot. What the heck, Sonic Team?! What the heck, indeed! Ok, so I can buy that Tails, though very young, is intelligent enough to pilot a plane, but he built and pilots a robotic, armored walker?! That's ridiculous! It's stupid! I don't want to play Tails in a stupid thing like that, why couldn't he have played like he did in the first Adventure game? Why did he HAVE to be a clone of Eggman, or, why couldn't they have invented another character to clone Eggman who could have made more sense?!
Shadow is what really strikes a blow to me in this game. Rouge and Tails are clones of Knuckles and Eggman in gameplay senses only... but Shadow is actually an evil version of Sonic. The initial thought may be 'Well, that may not be so bad. I mean, Wario was an evil version of Mario, and he's a damn fine character'. Well sadly, that's not the case. Shadow sucks. Sorry, Shadow fans - but this character really helped kill my childhood in new and exciting ways. Shadow is a dark, moody, brooding character who constantly laments in dramatic fashion about his life and his lost love (a human, no less...). Why would a character like this be necessary in this type of franchise? Any franchise whose main character is a cartoonish, anthropomorphic blue hedgehog with Mickey Mouse-esque gloves, bright red shoes, and an anatomically incorrect build (including his famous 'unieye') is NOT MEANT TO BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY. In fact, the entire plot seems to carry a rather mellow dramatic tone to it. Are you kidding me?! This character never should have existed. He's an emo stereotype of the brooding anti-hero, and he doesn't fit in well with the colorful, cartoonish characters in the franchise whatsoever.
Gameplay-wise, this game wasn't ultra glitchy, as the first Adventure was, which was a relief. The pole-grinding, fast paced gameplay in Sonic and Shadow's levels leaves you with similar feelings as the previous game. Unfortunately, they are sometimes plagued by puzzles or other diversions which slow down gameplay and didn't seem too necessary. Knuckles and his levels were briefly mentioned above, and Rouge's are the same. Not much else to say about those. Tails and Eggman's levels were annoying, and the controls didn't seem as well polished as the other characters. A lot of times I fell and died simply because I couldn't calculate a jump right, and the spotty camera angles didn't help too much in that regard, either.
Sonic Heroes (2003-Japan 2004-US)
This game is very strange, and it initially seems like something so... gimmicky would be a spin-off game, but apparently it's mainstream. In this game, you control a team of three characters... simultaneously. This instantly made me think of Knuckles' Chaotix, released back in the day, and it's horrendous two-character problems and your partner's horrible AI and knack of jumping off ledges and dragging you down with them via these bungee ring... things. Luckily, it's nowhere near that bad. Each team consists of a Speed character, a Power character, and a Flying character. The teams are Team Sonic (Sonic, Tails, Knuckles), Team Dark (Shadow-what the hell, didn't he die at the end of SA2?!, Rouge, and E123-Omega), Team Rose (Amy Rose, Cream, Big-Oh God, he's back!), and Team Chaotix (Vector, Espio, and Charmy - Mighty apparently got booted from the team, zing!).
During gameplay you could freely switch between your party members, and each party member had a different skill to help you pass obstacles and defeat hordes of generic, red robots which all look pretty much the same (Eggman must be losing imagination in his robot designs by this stage in the Sonic franchise). Having to switch between characters in the heat of the moment could slow game play speed, but I didn't find that it impacted the game in a way as to render it a major complaint. Camera angles, as with all 3-D Sonic games, were pretty bad, as always, which is inexcusable in a platforming game where you always need to see where you're jumping.
All four teams play the same - but this is a good thing. Unlike the Adventure games, no matter who you play, or which team you choose, it's all about running, jumping, and destroying baddies as you make your way from point A to point B (though Team Chaotix had some more mission-oriented stages). I was amazed to find that even Big the Cat was no hindrance to gameplay this time around.
This game wasn't bad, it was certainly a step back in the right direction. Gameplay was fast and reminiscent of what you'd expect from a hedgehog game, and unlike the previous two games you didn't dread having to play as a particular character since all four teams played the same. I enjoyed this title, but it may have been too little, too late by the time it was released, and while it was playable, it was hardly 'grand' enough to pull Sonic out of his slump.
Sonic the Hedgehog (2006 ~ Xbox360/Playstation 3)
There's not much I can say about this game. In all honestly, I lost any and all respect for the Sonic franchise with the release of 'Shadow the Hedgehog' - it was the final nail in the series' coffin, as far as I'm concerned. What I can tell you about this game, from what I've read and watched video clips on YouTube, is that the unfitting dramatic overtones have been taken into overdrive, and yet another serious-oriented Sonic clone emerges in the form of Silver (he's a silver hedgehog, isn't that name original?) who seems even more ridiculous than Shadow, if at all possible. He has psychic powers, and came from the future to stop some great disaster (no, not the Terminator). The cut scenes of this game (several of which I watched for research for this article before I couldn't stand any more) are horrendously dark and, again, dramatic. To reiterate; characters as silly looking and colorful as these shouldn't be used in serious context.
At some point, Sonic is killed by a suspiciously Dragon Ball Z looking attack and, in a heart-wrenching scene, the human princess of this tale kisses him, reviving him as he transforms into Super Sonic. Unfortunately, I fear no amount of puckering can resurrect Sonic's career after this game. I'm proud to say I never played this game, and really hope that I'm never tempted to do so. How dare they deem this game good enough to bear the name of the game that started it all. They have a lot of nerve.
Sonic and the Secret Rings (2007)
Apparently the critique and anguished Sonic fans didn't fall upon deaf ears, as Sonic Team guaranteed a 'return to form' for the blue blur in the Nintendo Wii-exclusive game Sonic Wild Fire (later renamed into the above title). I was stoked about this game, until I learned that the levels would be on rails. Yeah, Sonic never stops running. Remember how in Sonic the Hedgehog, for the Sega Genesis, Sonic was perpetually moving forward, with no option to stop or retrace your steps? What, you don't?! Well, neither do I! What sort of 'return to form' is this?! Poor controls and the unstoppable vicious camera angle monster which ravages any and all 3-D Sonic games also pop-in to say 'Hello'.
Closing Thoughts
On the serving plate for the future are now Sonic Unleashed (multi-platform) and Sonic & The Black Knight (Wii-exclusive). At the time I wrote this article, neither game has been released in Japan or the United States, but I really am hoping that they are at least somewhat presentable, as Sonic Heroes and the Sonic Rush portable games were. I would really like to have faith that these games will be good, but at this point the chances are far from good, given Sonic Team's track record.
It really is a shame that things wound up this way. Sonic went from being one of the most recognizable and awesome characters in the gaming world, to being renowned for his lackluster games riddled with glitches, poor controls, shaky camera, unnecessary character additions and stories and scenarios which just don't fit the franchise's original simplistic motif. While there are still a lot of Sonic fans who are blind to their hero's decay and religiously buy each new installment, there are many more who accept his demise for what it is and would as soon have the flow of shoddy games come to an end to allow Sonic at least some shred dignity.
Maybe the upcoming games will fix the common problems prevalent in the series and surprise us all. But, if not, we always have our memories of those classic titles which we poured countless hours into as kids, and remember that, whatever he is or isn't now, Sonic was once one of the coolest video game characters around - and few will ever deny that.
Bonus Coverage: Sonic CD (1993)
I originally intended to leave this game out of this article, as I don't find it to be very pivotal to the franchise. However, because it's so popular, I decided I may as well cover it; but I ultimately decided to tack it on outside of the regular retrospective titles.
This game gets a lot of praise from Sonic's fan base, and some hail it as the best of Sonic's early 2-D games. Frankly, I don't see why. With full knowledge of the prospect of being lynched by an angry mob of Sonic fans, I'll still be bold enough to admit: this game is greatly overrated. The first thing I noticed about this game is that, with the exception of a few new sprites, this game recycles the sprites from Sonic the Hedgehog - which is pretty darn lazy, if you ask me. Sonic the Hedgehog 2 had a new set of sprites... why didn't this game have them? Or at least use Sonic 2's, seeing as they were the most appealing, updated sprites available at the time? It just makes no sense to me. The music and the fully animated opening and closing sequences are very pretty: but the core of any game is gameplay, not eye/ear candy.
This game feels like a step backward, not a step forward, for the series. The stage designs will feel greatly inferior to those in Sonics 1 & 2. The Spin Dash Sonic gained in Sonic 2 is gone, to be replaced by some bogus Figure-Eight running technique which is less conventional, less essential to gameplay, and generally just... an un-needed ability for Sonic to ever have, which is likely why it hasn't appeared in a Sonic game since. Another gameplay gimmick are special checkpoints which, if you reach a certain speed, changes the stage's point in 'time'. Three times - past, present, and future - are available. Aside from swapping the color palette of the stage and changing a few minor things within the stage itself, this feature really wasn't utilized to its full potential, and playing in one time period really doesn't add to the gameplay in any significant way versus playing in either of the other two time periods. This feature had potential... unfortunately, the developers failed to properly utilize it.
The collection of Time Stones is also a step backward. Not only are the UFO-themed special stages more irritating than fun, unlike in previous games where the special stages were actually enjoyable to play, but Super Sonic (introduced in Sonic 2) is absent, limiting the true merit of collecting all of the Time Stones and generally making it less worth your time and efforts, overall.
This game wasn't bad - but it wasn't great, either; regardless of what some fans might want you to believe. This game is merely... average.
