Most lighthearted Sonic game

[Marco9966]

Hey guys! We all talk about how dark some games are, some love it and some hate it, but today I wanna talk about the lighthearted games (in a good way), what is for you the most lighthearted Sonic game??

For me, it's Sonic Riders, the story may look dark at first with the night cutscene, but the stages and cutscenes later are really colorful, and there is very good humor considering it's an adventure era game! Funny moments between Knuckles and Storm, Knuckles and Tails, Jet and Wave...

It shows that a game can have many characters AND funny moments (I think Colors and Lost World are funny too thanks to Eggman and Orbot and Cubot, the new games are really lacking in funny character moments).

[Nestor]

Sonic Heroes, possibly? There were very few dark moments and it was all fairly bouncy and cheesy (admittedly in part due to its minimalist plot).

Sonic Colors was also fairly lighthearted, with its constant joking, although the whole 'imprisoning cute aliens in a hellish underground volcanic facility to be fed like cattle into a machine to suck out their essence and turn them into mindless animalistic versions of themselves' angle pushes it up a darkness notch.

Generations too - probably the darkest thing in that was Time Eater and even it turned out to be an Eggman manipulation.

[Multikaris]

The Drift series. No stakes, cheerful music, bright colors, everyone seems to be friendly and fair. This race is absolutely in good fun. 

[A person, that exists]

SegaSonic popcorn shop.

It's Sonic and Eggman fighting for popcorn in a looney tunes manner. What could be more lighthearted than that?

[NikoS]

Heroes, the plot taking a back seat really helps the lighthearted mood here, the serious parts are mere moments in the overall experience.

[SenEDDtor Missile]

Sonic Riders. Aside from a few moments near the end, the game's plot is pretty light hearted. I also frankly think it's a case of lighthearted done right, because while it's pretty much an excuse plot, it does make more of an effort to keep things moving along plotwise and the humor rarely, if ever detracted from any scenes, or enhanced them in a way that still showed the characters were at least taking things seriously, even in the context of the goofy circumstances, while still able to have moments at their expense.

Even if the acting was mixed at best and like I said, the plot is an excuse and not exactly written very well, I still find myself at least able to appreciate that it never went to sheer obnoxiousness that the current era of Sonic's humor currently sits at.

[A super No.1 washedupgamer]

Sonic's schoolhouse.

[Multikaris]

7 hours ago, A person, that exists said:

SegaSonic popcorn shop.

It's Sonic and Eggman fighting for popcorn in a looney tunes manner. What could be more lighthearted than that?

I agree. Other than educational games, both this and the Drift series seem to be the lightest in the entire franchise overall.

[Osmium]

31 minutes ago, Dangerous WOO! engine said:

Sonic's schoolhouse.

Are you quite sure of that 

[Multikaris]

2 minutes ago, A crocodile said:

Are you quite sure of that 

None of those were intended to be scary. 

[Osmium]

2 minutes ago, Miragnarok said:

None of those were intended to be scary. 

It's called a joke.

[Shaddy Zaphod]

Sonic X for the leapster.

 

Nah but probably Heroes or Colors, but only by process of elimination. There's enough Sonic games with literally no plot whatsoever (beyond "stop Eggman") that the idea of a clear and distinct brightest tone is kind of meaningless. After all, Heroes still had a murderous android and Colors had a plot to turn the earth into a hivemind.

[Iko]

Only considering the main platformers:

I'd say Generations, the whole game is a birthday party and even the ending with the 2 Eggmans stuck in white space is just a joke. The only "dark" thing is Time Eater that's a bit scary-looking at first, but when you realize it's just another Eggman's mech, it just becomes the usual "defeat eggman for the sake of it" plot.

Heroes comes very close though.

Colors is not really lighthearted at all, there is that constant joking and the theme park context, but it's a game about Eggman transforming little aliens into slaves and destroying their planet, you clearly see Eggman's machines ruining the beautiful environments of Planet Wisp and you have those little creatures asking for help... and the fact that Eggman sucked up their energy so much that he corrupted them transforming them into nega wisps. Not the darkest Sonic game but definitely not the most lighthearted either.

Sonic Lost World is probably a third place, there is Eggman sucking the energy from the world, though the thing is generic and it's not really seen as a threat for real. The darkest scene is when Sonic loses contact with his friends while they're seen suffering from what Eggman is doing (though, it's still too vague and left to interpretation); Tails' kidnapping is a joke and it feels like something from a Sonic Boom episode.

[BaronGrackle]

If I were to rate the Genesis+CD games from lightest to darkest, I'd go: S2 -> S3&K -> S1 -> SCD.

S2 barely wins it because there is no "bad ending" and no real down moments. The harder zones are also upbeat in music and tone.

 

EDIT: Yes, even Japanese SCD with its toots and clown Eggman music is the darkest of the classics, thanks to bad futures and also a bad ending where I'm pretty sure Sonic kills Eggman by throwing a rock...

S2 and S3&K are like the James Cameron sequels of Sonic. When I say they're lighter, it's like saying Terminator 2 is lighter than Terminator, or Aliens is lighter than Alien. It has action, explosions, and good popcorn times like a summer movie.

[Tara]

 

Sonic's Gameworld is a cute little game for small children.  No real plot or tension, but it has some cute character interactions that I don't think we often got to see from the main series games.  Kind of wish we had more things like this today.