Dimps and Sonic Team: What Happened?

[Classic Fan]

I just don't get it, how can Sonic Team and Dimps go from making good games like Sonic 1-2, Sonic CD, Sonic 3& Knux, Sonic Adventure 1-2, Sonic Advance 1-3, and Sonic Rush to making bad or meh games like Sonic 2K6, Sonic 4, Sonic Unleashed, Sonic Lost World, Sonic Back Knight, and Shadow the Hedghog? Did both Dimps and Sonic Team fire their old staff in the mid 2000s, Why is it now a struggle for them to even make a good Sonic games these days?

[MegaMan_EXE]

For one, I don't find Sonic Unleashed (somewhat) or Sonic Lost World to be bad games, and the same goes for Black Knight. Sonic 4 may be very underwhelming, but I wouldn't say that it's the worst of Sonic. 

If you want a bad Dimps Sonic game, I suggest Sonic Advance 3, and from what I've been hearing, the 3DS version of Lost World.

The franchise is perfectly fine now, certainly better than the dark age, which is over.

[Classic Fan]

^What caused the Dark age and how was Sonic Advance 3 a bad game?

[spinny]

Sonic Team, I consider to have only messed up with 2006. With Naka's leave and such, I can understand that it must've been a struggle, but a company shouldn't push out an unfinished game starring their mascot like that. So, all-in-all... Sega really had only themselves to blame for 06.

 

I've never been a fan of Dimps apart from Sonic Rush Adventure. I find the Advance series to be heavily overrated, featuring sluggish (Advance 1) or linear (Advance 2/3) level design and cheap bosses (this ESPECIALLY goes to Advance 3). However, I can appreciate the Advance games for their AMAZING sprites and music. Ice Mountain act 2 is one of my favourite songs in the series. Plus, Advance 3 managed to take the tag-team feature from Knuckles' Chaotix and rewire it in a way that doesn't make me want to puke.

 

Rush is... eh. I love the soundtrack and the introduction of the boost, but the physics, level design and bosses are really, in honesty... kinda shitty. I can accept the lackluster physics with Rush, with how it was trying its own identity and not trying to be a classic game, but overall I think Rush is... mediocre.

 

Rush Adventure is to me the most underrated game in the series. Dimps really did try to introduce a lot of new concepts with the sailing and such, and dare I say, they succeeded. The level design is also a lot cleaner than in Rush (Sky Babylon aside) and, VERY unlike Rush, Rush Adventure features some of my favourite bosses in the franchise. Machine Labyrinth's boss in particular is just <3

 

Sonic 4... yeah. I'm pretty notable for despising Sonic 4 with all of my heart. There must have been changes in Dimps' development team to make Sonic 4 be so... BAD. Shitty physics, terrible level design consisting of springs, boosters and homing attack chains, rehashed level tropes and bosses, and the entire game looking like plastic, just to name a few. If they used Advance's engine, it could've been... okay. But the use of Rush's engine without a boost really just entirely broke the game. After Generations and Lost World 3DS are decent efforts at best... I really can't ever expect anything great out of Dimps anymore.

[WhoWhatMan]

Even though I LOOOOOOVE Sonic Advance 3, The levels can be bullshit at times.

And I like every Sonic game (Minus Black Knight and Sonic 3 & K) so the series is fine for me.

[MegaMan_EXE]

^What caused the Dark age and how was Sonic Advance 3 a bad game?

Poor direction with the series at the time, with games such as Shadow the Hedgehog, and Sonic 06. Not to mention, the series was the butt of everyone's joke thanks to mediocre games, and rabid fans.

As for Advance 3, I hate it because the level design is cheap, the bosses suck, the hub worlds were not needed, and the game dragged for me. It also didn't help that getting the Chaos Emeralds, like Advance 2, were retarded. 

[Tara]

At least from my perspective, Sonic has had a ratio of several "okay" to "great" games for two or so "bad" to "outright terrible" games.  That's about the same ratio as any platformer series, as far as I see it.  So, I honestly don't see the problem here.

[gala]

I don't really have a huge problem with Dimps. The Advance games were awesome, Rush and Rush Adventure were pretty cool too. Sonic 4 was also really good, even though they weren't that close to the classics, and I enjoyed Lost World 3DS. To me, their most dissapointing game was Generations 3DS, and yet I still had some fun with it. Keep in mind that these are my opinions, so I'm not saying Dimps ARE good, I'm saying that I THINK they're good

[Milo]

Hardly anyone from the original Sonic Team are in the current team-the only one there I know of is Takashi Iizuka.

 

Same goes for Dimps-I believe none of the staff who worked on the Advance games or the Rush games has worked on Dimps games since Sonic 4.

 

I think both play a part on the decline of quality for both console and handheld Sonic games since the late 90s/early 2000s (console Sonic) / late-2000s (handheld Sonic).

[T-Min]

I just don't get it, how can Sonic Team and Dimps go from making good games like Sonic 1-2, Sonic CD, Sonic 3& Knux, Sonic Adventure 1-2, Sonic Advance 1-3, and Sonic Rush to making bad or meh games like Sonic 2K6, Sonic 4, Sonic Unleashed, Sonic Lost World, Sonic Back Knight, and Shadow the Hedghog? Did both Dimps and Sonic Team fire their old staff in the mid 2000s, Why is it now a struggle for them to even make a good Sonic games these days?

1. You didn't mention either Colors or Generations. Do you think those are good games?

 

2. Sonic Lost World isn't really a bad game on any level so much as a really weird experiment that hits with some people and misses with others (I personally loved it). I think it's at least pretty fair to say that even if it's not as good as Colors or Gens, it's still miles ahead of any of the "dark ages" games. Not to mention that Sonic Team has actually started listening to criticism now and really trying to make their games work, so I think it's jumping the gun a bit to proclaim London Bridge to be burning once more and that "it's a struggle for them to even make a good game" when they made a game a whole lot of people loved only two years ago. But that's just me.

 

But as for Dimps...bleh. I used to be a pretty dedicated defender of them, but it seems nowadays the only games I can still truly enjoy are Advance 1, Rush and Sonic 4: Episode 2 (and Pocket Adventure if that counts). So as far as I'm concerned, they've always been sporadic in quality. I personally think Advance 2 was like a really dull prototype for Rush and Advance 3 was an awkward mess. I do think Episode 2 actually had some semblance of effort into it over the abysmal first episode (and I actually have fun playing it), even if it still wasn't quite a proper "Sonic 4". But then Lost World 3DS happened, so I don't know. Advance is an awesome successor to the classics and Rush is just plain fun, but I think the series would just be better off if SEGA stopped outsourcing to them. Then again, that's how most people feel at this point, so...

[azoo]

Sonic Team's only massive falls were two or three mainstream games (Heroes, Shadow, 06) which were varying levels of awful and all a heavy dosage of embarrassing. Besides those three games (or two if you don't count ShTH as a main title), Sonic Team's been doing alright I guess. Not amazing, but anywhere from pretty okay to great. Besides, Unleashed was half of a great game (other half a decent albeit unfitting one), and Lost World was pretty average-to-good.

 

Dimps though? Yeah, they haven't been too great at the whole "making Sonic games" thing lately. Advance 1 was great, Advance 2 was good, Rush was alright and Rush Adventure was pretty awesome, but Advance 3, ColorsDS, Gens3DS and LostWorld3DS are pretty dang bad. And Sonic 4 speaks for itself.

[MegasonicZX]

I would only say that dimps has really been having a bad run as of late not because I find the games bad but because I know they could do so much more than just imitations of the console counter parts.

[Salamander]

I suspect that there must have been some big change in staff and/or funding between Unleashed/Colours and Rush Adventure / ...Colours again.  Basically, before Colours.  Okay, gameplay and level design have always been a bit iffy, but the more I look back on it the more I think the story, and moreover the way the story was told, were far better in terms of detail, event, and scope before Colours.  And I'm willing to put up with fairly bad gameplay if I like the story.

[MegaMan_EXE]

I'm going to elaborate on this topic a bit more, since I feel that my posts here are very shallow. 
Sonic Team has only fucked up a few games for me. Those games being: Shadow, Sonic 06, Secret Rings, and to an extent, Unleashed. For the most part, Sonic Team is competent, and have been consistent as of late, even if Lost World annoyed some of this fanbase.
Dimps... bleh. To be honest, the only Dimps game I fully enjoy is Advance 1. That game had great level design, and was an awesome continuation of the classics. Advance 2, while not awful, I personally felt that the level design was a bit on the bland side, and for Advance 3... ew. I hate Advance 3 in every way that involves level design. This games tries to balance platforming and speed, but it ends up failing on its shoes, and caused one of the worst Sonic experience I had to sit through. As for the Rush series, I'm not a big fan of them. Don't get me wrong, I still enjoy the first Rush, and Rush Adventure to an extent, but I find the level designs to be a bit too simple for my liking, and the platforming is stiff in those games. I've never played Colors DS, so I don't know how that one handles. As for Sonic 4... meh. The first episode is a mess, and the second episode, while better, I still don't find myself to be enjoying it that much. Generations 3DS was very, very shallow compared to the console version, and doesn't deserve its full price. I've never played Lost World 3DS, but I've heard that it's terrible, and I've seen the shit they make you do, and I'm scared to play that version. I have a friend at school who's playing the 3DS version, and I got introduced to the horrors of Frozen Factory Act 3. Oh, god. I thought Frozen Factory Act 2 on the console version was bad... 

Anyway, Dimps is a rather sloppy company, imo, and is basically a B-team to Sonic Team, and not a very good one at that, personally.