Sonic's Dark Age: How did you cope?

[Tornado]

Well, there was also Shadow the Hedgehog, which could at the very least be described as being highly controversial when it first came out. Also, its probably the only game in the series that a huge amount of people hated even before it came out.

It was controversial, sure, but most of the time people dug in about it in either extreme; so as far as "what did you do when it was around" it was mostly just "argue with people." For example, some weirdos even joined just to talk about how much they loved the game.

Edited November 15, 2012 by Tornado

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

For example, some weirdos even joined just to talk about how much they loved the game.

Oh sure, call me out why don't ya, asshole.

But yeah. I came in around that very time. But like I said, realized I was showing major fanboy tendencies and then backed off the game. Says a lot when you look back on yourself.

[Milo]

Did anyone legit cry themselves to sleep?

That's how I imagine most diehard classic Sonic fanboys went through the dark age, clutching their Sonic 3 cartridges, eating ice cream, and sobbing to themselves in denial that Sonic Xtreme, in all of it's unfinished clusterfuck of a game glory, would eventually see the light of day somehow.

Fixed.

And as much flak as I give Sonic 4, it's pre-reveal hype actually got me involved within the online community of the fanbase for the first time at the official Sega blogs and Sega Forums. Funny enough, I never really started actively using that site until a couple of months later, when Episode I was the forum's wild card of fiery debates over there.

Edited November 15, 2012 by Zinos

[Tornado]

We all have our dark secrets. I remember joining just a few months before Sonic X came out, and oh my. I'm certainly glad I can't remember anything too specific, because it would be pretty embarrassing I'm sure.

[batson]

Speaking of dark pasts, i must assume that a rather large percentage of todays Sonic fans were once believers in the idea that Sonic X is canon to the games, because that idea was friggin everywhere during the days of the shows original run. It's really quite staggering how such a once-common belief in just a few years time completely died out, to the point that if someone were to say "i think Sonic X is canon to the games" today then every other fan hearing it would assume that the person was someone who doesnt know the first thing about the franchise.

[Dr. Crusher]

I didn't really have any so called "dark secrets" back then. Instead I was merely even more of an fool than I am nowadays.

[SilentDoom]

You may not believe or agree but for me the dark Sonic's ages are now.

- No good stories

No Sonic story has been "good". SA1 and 2 were okay, let down by a lot of pointlessness and terrible presentation which end up making them look somewhat laughable. Honestly S3&K probably had the best storyline due to its beautiful simplicity.

- No other playable characters

- No characters involved into the stories

And a lot of the time they've attempted this in 3D titles it's been a mess. Sega often made the mistake of trying too many things and none of them ended up being at all refined or complete. S3&K again is the example of how to do this properly.

- Lack of rock music

Are you fucking serious? As though music was a grey enough area as it is you're trying to use it as a reason as to why Sonic games are at a "dark age" now? That quite frankly, is pathetic.

- Short games

Last time I checked they've always been short for the exception of Shadow and 06 which overstay there welcome. And again length doesn't really justify the quality of the games.

- Incredibly linear games

Unleashed and the Rush titles yes. Things broadened a bit with Colours and Generations though. Personally I'd take a linear game with a fairly competently designed engine (Unleashed) than a more open ended one with a poorly designed one (Heroes, Shadow, 06). Though to be honest, I do feel level design could be more open ended.

- Easy games

The games are no harder or easier now than they were from Adventure to 06. Admittedly I found games like Advenutre 2 quite hard when I first played them, but I was a lot younger and much less skilled at gaming then. If I played them now I wouldn't find them any/much harder than the current games.

- Low replayability and lack of bonus content

Again, debatable. Largely based on preferences. I've not once touched Shadow, 06 or Heroes after I beat them and I only return to select segments of the Adventure games but I can keep going back to Generations over and over again for example. And I know plenty of people here love to replay Unleashed over as well.

I miss the times that many people label as Sonic's dark ages. For me it was much better and lively than what I have now.

I still hope they'll bring back some of things I loved (including playable characters and good stories) though.

"Bring back" implies they were there in the first place. I'd have to disagree with Sonic being in a dark age now. Sonic as a public video game icon has received a fair bit of his respect back. I'd agree more with the "playing-it-safe age". The series I think needs a little revamp with some ambitious new ideas. What they have isn't necessarily bad, just that it could be a lot more.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Honestly S3&K probably had the best storyline due to its beautiful simplicity.

Not that I don't agree with S3&K having the best story, but if it were due to it's simplicity then games like Heroes and Generations should be equally lauded, and we all know those plots were too barebones to be exceptable.

It has more to do with how it does it's narrative, not about how simple or complex it is.

[Kuzu]

Not that I don't agree with S3&K having the best story, but if it were due to it's simplicity then games like Heroes and Generations should be equally lauded, and we all know those plots were too barebones to be exceptable.

It has more to do with how it does it's narrative, not about how simple or complex it is.

I think he means it's a simple story done right. It doesn't intrude on the gameplay much, doesn't waste your time with long drawn out cutscenes. It tells what little story there is, and moves on,

[Komodin]

Hm, how did I cope with Sonic's "dark age"...

... Eh, I just played other games, with some of the more well-received Sonic spinoffs on the side. I never was that much of a Sonic fanboy, after all.

[Takkun]

Cope? I don't think I was particularly strained during this time. I just played them, had fun, and then waited for the next title, same as I do now.

Same. Ive been doing that since Sonic The Hedgehog 1 for the game gear that was my first Sonic game back in the day.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

I think he means it's a simple story done right. It doesn't intrude on the gameplay much, doesn't waste your time with long drawn out cutscenes. It tells what little story there is, and moves on,

It being kept to mind that there's a skip button regarding video game cutscenes for a reason, while S3&K is a simple story done right it isn't because of its simplicity. And if that's not what he meant, I'd like to hear what he meant by that before I continue to drag this further.

Edited November 16, 2012 by ChaosSupremeSonic

[Tani Coyote]

Sonic's an integral part of who I am. I didn't leave the fandom like so many others did because it was the "cool" thing to do. Needless to say I lost many friends. Well, screw 'em.

So that intense loyalty kept me in.

However, I did not apologise for Sega's bullcrap mistakes. I hated the voice change, I hated Shadow and 06 with a burning passion. While I don't hate the Werehog in principle, the stages took way too long.

To me Heroes wasn't too shocking. It was after a game that was well-received by many diehards; it is natural that what came next would have issues surpassing it.

Shadow 05 and Sonic 06 were just wretched, horribly written, lazy pieces of garbage. The first was just a blatant potboiler attempting to cash in on Shadow's popularity. As is often the case, something with a lot of potential was squandered.

I never really invested in the Riders series so it was easy to ignore.

I never finished Secret Rings, but loved Black Knight because it was very nostalgic with me of the Adventure era.

I loved Unleashed; I couldn't beat it in one sitting due to the difficulty curve. Its story wasn't as complex as SA1 and SA2's, but it was thick enough to keep me entertained.

Overall, what kept me going most is the fact the Blue Blur is part of who I am. I cannot just casually abandon him as so many have. To this day I still have narrowminded friends who will not admit the series has recovered; as such I avoid discussing games with most of them.

Edited November 16, 2012 by Ogilvie Maurice Hedgehog

[ArtFenix]

No Sonic story has been "good". SA1 and 2 were okay, let down by a lot of pointlessness and terrible presentation which end up making them look somewhat laughable. Honestly S3&K probably had the best storyline due to its beautiful simplicity.

You've got to be kidding. The adventure games are held as games with best stories by many for a reason. They may contain some pointless cutscenes or sometimes presence of some characters (like Amy in Sa2 or Big in Sa) but all in all they are well-contained with branching plots intersectioning between different characters. There is also stuff like mythology of the world, backstories for characters, mostly good character development. The games clearly have the introductory parts, middle parts and ending parts (along with epilogues). It's the definition of storytelling in Sonic games. There may be some mistakes here and there, but these are the games where Sonicteam tried to make interesting stories the most. That's why there were so many threads about characters, their past, their character development, shipping threads (in which there actually were some reasons to ship chars other than just "because I can"), mythology of places and creatures (Angel Island, Tikal tribe, Chaos, Space colony Ark). It's all because the games had a lot to discuss and to think about when you played them and finished them. I'm sure it was brought up like a hundred times as to why the adventures' stories are considered the best by so many people.

S3&K was good by THAT TIME but comparing it to giants of stories like the adventures is just wrong. It was so simple there was no room to fail. And it was so simple because at that time it was almost impossible to make a more complicated story for a Sonic game on Sega MD2. Ever heard of technology limitations?

And a lot of the time they've attempted this in 3D titles it's been a mess. Sega often made the mistake of trying too many things and none of them ended up being at all refined or complete. S3&K again is the example of how to do this properly.

What are you talking about? Double standarts? Tails's gameplay in Sa was EXACTLY like Sonics except he could fly. Oh wait, In S3&K he could do exactly the same. Knuckles's gameplay was also absolutely fine. I would agree that they overdid it in Sa2 by messing up the radar system and making levels much bigger.

And even then bear in mind that a lot of people enjoyed different kind of gameplay. I myself enjoyed playing as Gamma in Sa and Eggman/Tails in Sa2 and I think it's great gameplay!

Are you fucking serious? As though music was a grey enough area as it is you're trying to use it as a reason as to why Sonic games are at a "dark age" now? That quite frankly, is pathetic.

Lol what makes it pathetic? For me, one of Sonic's appealing things was the presense of rock music which made him look more cool and lively. I'm not saying the music is bad now but I definitely loved rock music in past titles and for me the series has lost something valuable when they heavily reduced rock music. It's my personal opinion. What's a big deal about that?

Last time I checked they've always been short for the exception of Shadow and 06 which overstay there welcome. And again length doesn't really justify the quality of the games.

Let's check.

Sa is quite long

Sa2 is long as well

Heroes is short but there are four different teams making the game's replay value much higher

Shadow is quite long

SNG is long as well

Unleashed is shorter but is long enough

As you can see, any of the main titles are longer than Colors and Generations. Some of them are longer than both of them combined. And you know what? The quality of the adventures was superb and other games were not so good for reasons other than length.

Things broadened a bit with Colours and Generations though.

Hell no. Sure, Generations has alternate paths but they are all alternate paths of one and the same corridor. Colors is just as linear if not more.

Personally I'd take a linear game with a fairly competently designed engine (Unleashed) than a more open ended one with a poorly designed one (Heroes, Shadow, 06).

It's always unpleasant to know people are such desperate for a good game that they start to choose. I say WHY NOT HAVE BOTH?! I mean, both open-ended AND decently designed.

The games are no harder or easier now than they were from Adventure to 06. Admittedly I found games like Advenutre 2 quite hard when I first played them, but I was a lot younger and much less skilled at gaming then. If I played them now I wouldn't find them any/much harder than the current games.

Alright you have a point but even then there were some harder games. The advance series was quite challenging. And even if older games were easy as well they were still harder than current games. Hell, they even added signs of pits which can be thankfully turned off though..

Again, debatable.

No it's not.

Let's face the facts again.

- Sadx had lots of gamegear games and Metal Sonic

- Sa2 had Green Hill and quite a few characters for multiplayer

- Heroes had Hard mode and multiplayer modes

- Shadow had Hard mode and some guns

- S06 had multiplayer things as well (I'm not sure if other things were unlockable or DLC)

Now what do modern games have? Hm.. Unleashed has nothing. Colors has Super Sonic and Generations has Super Sonic again and some concept art pieces (but it should be a given since it's an anniversary game and to be honest, there should have been much more unlockable things).

So what is there to debate?

"Bring back" implies they were there in the first place. I'd have to disagree with Sonic being in a dark age now. Sonic as a public video game icon has received a fair bit of his respect back. I'd agree more with the "playing-it-safe age". The series I think needs a little revamp with some ambitious new ideas. What they have isn't necessarily bad, just that it could be a lot more.

Yes it's bad. They play it safe to the point the games are not only incredibly short but they also have pretty much nothing but gameplay (which is Sonic-only btw). The series needs a little revamp? God no, it needs a whole lot of revamping as well as bringing back things that were there almost from the very beginning. YES, the other characters were there from the very beginning and it's one of the reasons S3&K has such a great replay value and such clever level design.

Sure, Sonic seems to be gaining some recognition again, but it's like some stupid pop music. You know, that soulless piece of crap that millions of people seem to enjoy? That's what it reminds me of.

I haven't written such a huge wall of text for a long time.. Sorry if there is something that is a bit harder to understand.

Edited November 16, 2012 by ArtFenix

[Faseeh]

Alright, my first introduction to the series was Heroes and I love it to this date so yeah. Never cared for Shadow and when 06 rolled along, I had no idea it did.

What actually happened for me was I was backtracking. I was looking at all the games before Heroes and all that.

Then when Unleashed came along I was genuinely hyped but then I just kinda left Sonic for a while.

When I got my PS3, I got it with Unleashed and I was back to Sonic.

So yeah, then I went to backtrack and played 06. So yeah, the dark age wasn't bad for me.

Let's face the facts again.

- Sadx had lots of gamegear games and Metal Sonic

- Sa2 had Green Hill and quite a few characters for multiplayer

- Heroes had Hard mode and multiplayer modes

- Shadow had Hard mode and some guns

- S06 had multiplayer things as well (I'm not sure if other things were unlockable or DLC)

Hard Mode was no fun. SADX was not the original SA so that doesn't count. SA2 was the only to have that kinda content that was any fun. 06, eh. Just eh.

Unleashed has quite some replay value with the speed and fascination. Colours for the little fun of the adventure and Generations has a lot of replay value.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

S3&K was good by THAT TIME but comparing it to giants of stories like the adventures is just wrong. It was so simple there was no room to fail. And it was so simple because at that time it was almost impossible to make a more complicated story for a Sonic game on Sega MD2. Ever heard of technology limitations?

I'm gonna let SilentDoom take the rest of the post, but I'm coming in here to say that I agreed with you up until you said this.

S3&K is just as timeless as the Adventures, and for good reason: it actually tried to tell a story that the previous games before it never bothered to do. And we've had this discussions many, many times in these forums about how complexity or simplicity isn't a bad thing simply in and of itself.

Considering that Heroes and even Generations (as good at that game is) happen to be simple stories that amass criticism while S3&K happens to be a simple story that amass praise by contrast should tell you as much that it's all about how you handle them. And while I seriously doubt that S3&K was good because of its simplicity - because praising it on that factor alone is frankly bullshit when it could have just as easily failed - it is an example of how a plot can still be as good and epic as a more complex one like that of the Adventures.

I mean, I'd love to go and write an apocalpytically long post about this stuff,

[Solid SOAP]

I was extremely cynical and jaded back then. Of course, I was younger and much more involved in the fanbase, now I have a social and professional life that I put before anything, but back then I nearly hated this series because it was so bad and I was so passionate about it. Constant disappointment after disappointment from Shadow to '06, I bought them all and hated them regardless, I don't know why. After buying each one I would go online and rant, it was pathetic. Glad the series is back on its feet now, too bad this renaissance didn't occur when I was more passionate about these games, because I'd likely appreciate them a ton more.

[batson]

I find it very difficult to compare the story of S3&K with the stories of later games, because as had been said, S3&K had so little story. Like, one can easily compare the stories of SA2 with that of Heroes by looking at everything from the characters personalities to the dialogue to the camera work during cutscenes, and so forth. But with with S3&K, many of those aspects that one would normally think about when evaluating a story simply doesnt exist.

I guess one way to evaluate any stories in adventure video game series such as Sonic would be to compare how "caught up" one gets when plaing the game, as in, to what extent you lose yourself in the fictional universe and how pumped up you get to acchieve whatever heroic task you are meant to acchieve there. But of course then the thing is that the actuall narrative is far from the only thing that matters in this question. Such things as music, visauls and not to mention gameplay becames just as important.

Personally, i did get very caught up properly playing through S3&K from start to finnish for the first time, however the same is true for S1 and S2 as well, two games which have very little actuall story, so i really dont know to what extent it was the actuall story in S3&K that caught me and to what extent it was the games other qualities.

Edited November 16, 2012 by batson

[ArtFenix]

I'm gonna let SilentDoom take the rest of the post, but I'm coming in here to say that I agreed with you up until you said this.

S3&K is just as timeless as the Adventures, and for good reason: it actually tried to tell a story that the previous games before it never bothered to do. And we've had this discussions many, many times in these forums about how complexity or simplicity isn't a bad thing simply in and of itself.

I'm not sure you got me right.. I personally love S3&K story! But a big part of it's appeal were SETTING and connections, not the actual story. It's very well paces and transitions between the zones were awesome as we could see the locations as parts of one big world. We could see how the characters got there and the little cutscenes helped to improve the plot's progression. Iconic locations and great soundtrack helped as well.

But all in all it's VERY easy to create a story like in S3&K especially since there are no dialogs and it's up to us to imagine what characters would say to each other. I understand it's a classic game and it's definitely great in it's own right compared to S1 and S2 but it's just incredibly simple compared to stories like in Sa or Sa2.

Also, I'm not sure if I understood the point Batson made, but I guess what he said makes sense.

Edited November 16, 2012 by ArtFenix

[Stritix]

You may not believe or agree but for me the dark Sonic's ages are now.

- No good stories

- No other playable characters

- No characters involved into the stories

- Lack of rock music

- Short games

- Incredibly linear games

- Easy games

- Low replayability and lack of bonus content

I miss the times that many people label as Sonic's dark ages. For me it was much better and lively than what I have now.

I still hope they'll bring back some of things I loved (including playable characters and good stories) though.

I agree. I haven't enjoyed a Sonic game since 2008.

They are just getting more linear, short, and dull overtime. They may have hell of a lot more polish put into them, but that's all they have.

[Faseeh]

I agree. I haven't enjoyed a Sonic game since 2008.

They are just getting more linear, short, and dull overtime.

Level design wise, nope. Story wise maybe so.

But in no way are they dull.

[Stritix]

Level design wise, nope. Story wise maybe so.

But in no way are they dull.

You know that screenshot is from the part where you don't even touch the controller for almost a minute, right?

[Faseeh]

You know that screenshot is from the part where you don't even touch the controller for almost a minute, right?

We're talking about dull here. Well then fine.

[ArtFenix]

Excuse me but what are you trying to show there? Cool graphics? If so, well duh! It's from a game from 2011, of course it will look pretty. I think by dull he meant something else.

[Faseeh]

Excuse me but what are you trying to show there? Cool graphics? If so, well duh! It's from a game from 2011, of course it will look pretty. I think by dull he meant something else.

Dood, no. Heroes is brighter than 06. Unleashed is bright. So is Colours and Gens.

Not pretty-looking, uncool graphics does not = dull