Why is Sonic considered a bad Franchise?

[Splash the Otter]

But the problem is that people are saying, "One of the games was terrible, therefore every game is equally bad".

Edited May 6, 2013 by ElectroKyurem

[Spin Attaxx]

I'd chalk that up to everyone saying "The Adventure series and Heroes were GREAT! Excellent titles, 20/5!", then '06 was the magic mirror shards that got into peoples' eyes and made them say "Hey, y'know something? Those games SUCK! They were buggy! The graphics were terrible etc.! SONIC NEVER HAD ANY GOOD GAMES SINCE 1995!!!"

[Burnt Ash]

I dunno, I like Unleashed, but it put a pretty bad stain on the franchise, IIRC. The Adventure era games aren't looked upon too highly these days among other things as well. And then on top of that we have 06, which made a bad stain even before Unleashed.

[Frank Sinatra]

I think the mediocre spin-offs have effected the series reputation throughout the years a lot more than people think. Sure from 1991 to 1994 Sonic was a gaming god and if you didn't like one of the Game Gear games for example it didn't matter too much because the Mega Drive games coming out at the same time were so good. When Sega took a 4-5 year break in between major Sonic titles they released a lot of meh spin-offs in between that time that must have really annoyed gamers. (and it wasn't much better for most of the 00's) Games like Sonic Labyrinth, Sonic Blast (Game Gear), Tails Skypatrol, Sonic Drift 1 & 2, Sonic's Schoolhouse and the Pico titles (educational games but still crap) etc. The problem is that the Sonic franchise has been diluted with way to many mediocre spin-off titles, it's hard to even care about the main series games when its so easy for people to get burned by the spin-offs.

[t0ms0nic]

I think the mediocre spin-offs have effected the series reputation throughout the years a lot more than people think.

 

While people generally don't like most of the spin-offs, they've really not had that much of an impact on the franchise, unless you count both the Rush or Rivals sub-series' being brought into the main games. The majority of them weren't even advertised all that much and were just meant to get more small Sonic fixtures onto portable devices, they weren't big releases that had a lot going for them and paved the path for the next games to follow. Most people didn't even acknowledge them back then, like when everyone was hyped about Sonic Adventure because the Saturn didn't get it's big Sonic game and that there hadn't been a proper Sonic game since Sonic 3D Blast (or Sonic 3 & Knuckles, choose your poison).

 

Sure, you see some of the spin-offs on Worst Sonic Games lists these days, but that's just us going over the whole series after all these years and digging through the huge, mixed bag of games. They've not had a big actual impact on the series, they're more along the lines of 'oh, there's some bad spinoffs as well, I suppose' rather than being anywhere near the forefront of Sonic's problems.

[MegasonicZX]

Honestly, I think the only reason this series is bad is because a lot of the people seem to blow the problems up so much that they forget that they are hardly even noticeable most of the time, sure you could say that every sonic game is glitchy but playing back through them again I rarely even notice most of them and probably the only one where the glitches are even that irritating is sonic 06 (which is a game that I do enjoy) and I will admit every game does have its fair share of glitches and stuff and I can admit that every game has its own share of problems but they aren't problems that make the game unplayable. 

[Maddnsk]

I think that Sonic considered a bad franchise, because most of the games are not enjoyable to play, games may have glitches, but still be successful. The thing is Sega try to put elements to Sonic games  that are not meant to be there, rather than make a new game, not only that, but most of the time those elements are badly designed, which lead to games, that are chore to play. RPG elements, medal collecting, ball puzzle, fishing, werehog brawling, mech shooting, treasure hunting etc, is not what Sonic all about. Not many people will expecting and be ok with that (myself included, at some degree), because Sega advertised Sonic as a speedy platformer. Even if Sonic is bad franchise, it still has some great games in its library.

Edited May 7, 2013 by Maddnsk

[Rally the Cheetah]

Sonic I feel is a "bad' franchise because of it's age and varied fanbase. I mean think about it, the game series is over 20 years old now and during all that time the closest to a reboot it's had is the Adventure and "modern" era when they changed the character models made them 3D and made them all talk (Sonic with Green Eyes OMG big change).

Now 20 years might not seem too long for some but for a series that somewhat story driven that's pretty dang long. I mean look at super hero comic book/TV series; many have had a couple reboots in that time. 

So what's this mean? It's means the story and cast are becoming bloated, and it's gonna be harder for designers and developers to come up with new ideas. As it stands it's becoming more and more difficult to tell what's considered cannon anymore and, depending on who you talk to, some folks don't even know which characters are from the games, which are from the comics, and which are just popular fan characters. 

Finally, there's the age range for this franchise. I find what many here seem to forget is Sonic is a popular franchise for children and teens. That's right, complain or argue all you want but you all know it's true. I mean the main character is a blue cartoon hedgehog for goodness sake. The games are rated T at highest. I don't care how dark some of the stories can be it's still a kids game. This fact alone causes problems because, lets face it, we older fans don't want to acknowledge this at all. We've been with Sonic since the beginning, the series should be tailored to us.  And for the most part SEGA tries to listen to us, they give us our dark stories and challenging game play. But then the issue of bringing in new fans comes up. So they make games like Sonic Heroes to introduce new fans to the characters. Now, from my experience on forums and in game stores, it was mostly the older fans that disliked this game. I remember going into a game store around the time when Heroes first came out. There was a group of kids playing it and they LOVED it. They had no idea who the Chaotix, Team Dark, or Team Rose were but they thought they were awesome. They played on the display for some time and were amazed when I showed them the Metal Skins in VS mode.

So you can see how the fan age range can quickly become a problem. On on side we have older fans that feel they should be the ones that call which way the game series goes. Then we have the young fans that are just trying to get into the series. I'll come out and say it right now, many of the older fans can be just down right brutal to this group. When they ask "who's this red guy?" we laugh and say, "what rock have you been living under?"  Many of us tend to forget we all were in a similar position once. Also the Sonic cast is HUGE.  It's easy to get lost. We have not only characters from the game series, but from 4 TV series, and 2 comic series!

[Blue Blood]

I think it's unjust honestly that 2 bad games have spoiled the entire reputation of the franchise, when most of the games in the franchise are pretty good (some being actually really, really great). People call it a bad franchise because of how bad STH and Sonic 06 were, not to mention a lot of problems in the actual good games, such as genre roulette in the Adventure games. I honestly think that people should put aside their stupid ideas about it and actually play the new games before they go around calling it a "bad franchise".

 

I know this post is several weeks old, but I have to point out just how misinformed it is.

 

The series' bad reputation extends much further back than just ShTH and 06. Those two games were the just the worst of an already bad bunch. SA1 and SA2 were met with praise (mostly), yet they were both considered very flawed both as far far as gameplay and more technical issues are concerned. Over the next couple of years the only new instalments in the series were got were relatively unchanged ports of these two games. Guess what? People weren't happy. You'll be familiar with people saying "the Adventure games have aged poorly", and that was true even by 2003. SADX paled in comparison to other GCN games.

 

At this stage criticisms of the series were mainly to do with poor cameras, stories that people didn't care for nor were they seen as necessary and general glitches. Oh and voice acting. So much bitching about the VAs. 

 

Roll on 2004 and Heroes was finally released. The critics, the fans the entire gaming world was stoked for this game. A new Sonic? Team gameplay? Gorgeous graphics and a return to Sonic's roots? Fuck yeah, it looked exactly like what everyone was clamouring for. Now upon release Heroes proved to everyone to be a bit of a dud. Many liked it of course, but few would say it wasn't a disappointment. First up the controls were slippery and the camera still wasn't great. But as the game carries you find it to be repetitive and so very cheap. Every level is just a series of platforms suspended over pits too. The game everyone was waiting for was kinda sucky.

 

So now we have Heroes as a bit of a blunder, people complained about how the story ruined Shadow's death in SA2 and that the focus was being taken off of Sonic himself. The voices were as bad as ever too. What could SEGA possibly do about this?

 

... they could announce ShTH. It looked shit from day 1, and was still shit upon release. This game, with it's supposedly more 'mature' nature angered people. And rightly so! Not much more needs to be said about it. Rush was released at the same time to much positivity for being 2D, fast and dialling the number of characters right back. But it was shadowed by ShTH.

 

By 2005 the series had hit what you would think was rock bottom. What could possibly make it any worse? Oh I don't know, maybe a realistic title that still aims to be mature and dark but that is also a horrible mess of programming, with useless and annoying characters flying out the whazoo? Boom! Sonic '06 was born. And it wasn't the only one in it's litter. There was Riders and Rivals there to join it; more rubbish Sonic games.

 

Now the series has hit rock bottom.

 

Over the course of about 8 years (that's a long time!) the series continued to create more problems for itself which were never fixed. The only saving grace were the Dimps developed GBA games, and funnily enough back then Dimps were commonly looked over even by the fans. People didn't realise that it wasn't Sonic Team creating the games. Crappy stories, sub-par graphics, bugs, lame characters, poor gameplay... some how the series that literally defined SEGA in the early nineties had become this absolute laughing stock. People wanted to see the series over and done with because they'd certainly had enough of it.

 

Nope. Secret Rings incoming! If you weren't around at the time you might not remember that SatSR received a fair amount of praise for comprising simple Sonic gameplay with fresh ideas and other characters that were practically non-existent. It still got only average reviews though, and much like with the Adventure games, opinions of it have dropped even further over time. At least SEGA seems to be getting the idea of it now...

 

And in early 2008, you'd not be wrong for thinking so. This trailer was leaked to the world. Those graphics were amazing, that mix of 2D and 3D looked perfect and that gameplay. THAT is the Sonic game people wanted. Oh and it was going to get better yet. SEGA then released this bad boy. That was it. Sonic Unleashed had brought the series back. Somehow SEGA managed to pull it out of the gutter and create something that exceeded the expectations anyone had. Right? Right? Wrong! And just like that, it seemed as though they hadn't learnt a damn thing. You could practically hear the sighs of disappointment of Sonic fans everywhere. That was especially impressive considering so many had departed form the fanbase of the past few years. The game came out to awful reviews not only being it was a poor game, but because it stood as a shining example of how the mighty had fallen. 

 

Then Black Knight happened. It was basically ShTH all over again, except it actually starred Sonic this time. For the love of God SEGA, get a fucking clue!

 

Eventually in 2010 we got Colours, followed by Generations in 2011. Both games were good. Simple, basic Sonic gameplay that pretty much did everything the games are supposed to do. That was it though. They weren't impressive or outstanding. They didn't have much of an impact, and how could they? They were just good games with absolutely nothing on the juggernauts of gaming today. 

 

I've glossed over the pre-3D years here, which included only four or five good games compared to a larger number of unfavourable spin-offs. Face it. Sonic started going down hill as early as 2001 or even 1998 to some people. And over the course of the next 10 years it just got worse and worse. When it finally started to pick up again, it was nothing more than decent. That's why the series is considered bad, because for around half of it's lifespan is has been pretty bad. Just ShTH and '06? Give me a break. You're just jumping in from a current day perspective and saying it's not always been bad. Go back and do your research. It was only ever a good series in the Mega Drive days. 

 

EDIT: These are just from status updates about this post and I think they're relevant enough to go in here.

 

Think about your rebuttal carefully. Remember, all I did here was explain why Sonic is considered a bad franchise. And that "why" is objective. You may disagree with the point that it's been that shit for a long time or anything I've written, but there's no arguing that my points here are wrong because all I'm doing is explaining the ill-feeling. It's cut and dry. The series is considered bad because of X, Y and Z.

I said the games were received as crap. Disagree with that fine? Fine. But so long as we're talking about why people consider the series to be bad, then those games are your reason.

 

EDIT: I'm sure there's typos and grammatical errors all over the place, but I don't have time to clean them up just yet.

Edited May 7, 2013 by Blue Blood

[Semi-colon e]

Makes you wonder why we're still obsessed with this franchise, really

[Chaos Warp]

Makes you wonder why we're still obsessed with this franchise, really

Because we like it and it's an overall good, if fluctuating in quality franchise?

As for you Blue Blood, I'll respond later. Can't make that kind of long response right now, busy. 

Edited May 7, 2013 by Generations (Chaos Warp)

[Blue Blood]

Makes you wonder why we're still obsessed with this franchise, really

 

Because despite how bad it's been, it's always engrossed me. Probably because I've been playing it my entire life, and for the bulk of that time I've been too naive to think about any deeper than this, "I like Sonic. This game has Sonic. Therefore I like this game.".

[Semi-colon e]

 "I like Sonic. This game has Sonic. Therefore I like this game.".

 

Honestly, I don't think like this anymore as I'm a lot more analytical about what I do and don't like about each and every Sonic game, but I think I still like most of them. I wouldn't say most of them are that good or great, but for me there's enough to enjoy.

 

Though I still consider Generations one of the greats, but these things are so subjective anyway that it's not really worth getting into a pissing contest over.

Edited May 7, 2013 by Semi-colon e

[Wittymations]

Makes you wonder why we're still obsessed with this franchise, really

Colorful characters with fairly simple designs. And nostalgia.

Edited May 7, 2013 by WittyUsername

[Chaos Warp]

 

I know this post is several weeks old, but I have to point out just how misinformed it is.

 

The series' bad reputation extends much further back than just ShTH and 06. Those two games were the just the worst of an already bad bunch. SA1 and SA2 were met with praise (mostly), yet they were both considered very flawed both as far far as gameplay and more technical issues are concerned. Over the next couple of years the only new instalments in the series were got were relatively unchanged ports of these two games. Guess what? People weren't happy. You'll be familiar with people saying "the Adventure games have aged poorly", and that was true even by 2003. SADX paled in comparison to other GCN games.

 

At this stage criticisms of the series were mainly to do with poor cameras, stories that people didn't care for nor were they seen as necessary and general glitches. Oh and voice acting. So much bitching about the VAs. 

 

Roll on 2004 and Heroes was finally released. The critics, the fans the entire gaming world was stoked for this game. A new Sonic? Team gameplay? Gorgeous graphics and a return to Sonic's roots? Fuck yeah, it looked exactly like what everyone was clamouring for. Now upon release Heroes proved to everyone to be a bit of a dud. Many liked it of course, but few would say it wasn't a disappointment. First up the controls were slippery and the camera still wasn't great. But as the game carries you find it to be repetitive and so very cheap. Every level is just a series of platforms suspended over pits too. The game everyone was waiting for was kinda sucky.

 

So now we have Heroes as a bit of a blunder, people complained about how the story ruined Shadow's death in SA2 and that the focus was being taken off of Sonic himself. The voices were as bad as ever too. What could SEGA possibly do about this?

 

... they could announce ShTH. It looked shit from day 1, and was still shit upon release. This game, with it's supposedly more 'mature' nature angered people. And rightly so! Not much more needs to be said about it. Rush was released at the same time to much positivity for being 2D, fast and dialling the number of characters right back. But it was shadowed by ShTH.

 

By 2005 the series had hit what you would think was rock bottom. What could possibly make it any worse? Oh I don't know, maybe a realistic title that still aims to be mature and dark but that is also a horrible mess of programming, with useless and annoying characters flying out the whazoo? Boom! Sonic '06 was born. And it wasn't the only one in it's litter. There was Riders and Rivals there to join it; more rubbish Sonic games.

 

Now the series has hit rock bottom.

 

Over the course of about 8 years (that's a long time!) the series continued to create more problems for itself which were never fixed. The only saving grace were the Dimps developed GBA games, and funnily enough back then Dimps were commonly looked over even by the fans. People didn't realise that it wasn't Sonic Team creating the games. Crappy stories, sub-par graphics, bugs, lame characters, poor gameplay... some how the series that literally defined SEGA in the early nineties had become this absolute laughing stock. People wanted to see the series over and done with because they'd certainly had enough of it.

 

Nope. Secret Rings incoming! If you weren't around at the time you might not remember that SatSR received a fair amount of praise for comprising simple Sonic gameplay with fresh ideas and other characters that were practically non-existent. It still got only average reviews though, and much like with the Adventure games, opinions of it have dropped even further over time. At least SEGA seems to be getting the idea of it now...

 

And in early 2008, you'd not be wrong for thinking so. This trailer was leaked to the world. Those graphics were amazing, that mix of 2D and 3D looked perfect and that gameplay. THAT is the Sonic game people wanted. Oh and it was going to get better yet. SEGA then released this bad boy. That was it. Sonic Unleashed had brought the series back. Somehow SEGA managed to pull it out of the gutter and create something that exceeded the expectations anyone had. Right? Right? Wrong! And just like that, it seemed as though they hadn't learnt a damn thing. You could practically hear the sighs of disappointment of Sonic fans everywhere. That was especially impressive considering so many had departed form the fanbase of the past few years. The game came out to awful reviews not only being it was a poor game, but because it stood as a shining example of how the mighty had fallen. 

 

Then Black Knight happened. It was basically ShTH all over again, except it actually starred Sonic this time. For the love of God SEGA, get a fucking clue!

 

Eventually in 2010 we got Colours, followed by Generations in 2011. Both games were good. Simple, basic Sonic gameplay that pretty much did everything the games are supposed to do. That was it though. They weren't impressive or outstanding. They didn't have much of an impact, and how could they? They were just good games with absolutely nothing on the juggernauts of gaming today. 

 

I've glossed over the pre-3D years here, which included only four or five good games compared to a larger number of unfavourable spin-offs. Face it. Sonic started going down hill as early as 2001 or even 1998 to some people. And over the course of the next 10 years it just got worse and worse. When it finally started to pick up again, it was nothing more than decent. That's why the series is considered bad, because for around half of it's lifespan is has been pretty bad. Just ShTH and '06? Give me a break. You're just jumping in from a current day perspective and saying it's not always been bad. Go back and do your research. It was only ever a good series in the Mega Drive days. 

 

EDIT: These are just from status updates about this post and I think they're relevant enough to go in here.

 

 

EDIT: I'm sure there's typos and grammatical errors all over the place, but I don't have time to clean them up just yet.

Alright, you're right. This is indeed why people hate Sonic.

 

...................But I still think it's unjust. Riders? Not crap, at least not the one that came out in the "dark ages", the original. That game's really great IMO (if flawed), and Zero Gravity was okay too (albeit a big step down from Riders 1). The Rivals games don't suck either, sure they are not the best Sonic games ever but I think they are decent for what they are. Heroes is really flawed, but it removed a lot of the genre roulette problems that the Adventure series suffered from, and focused on pure Sonic gameplay with the team concept, and I think it's still decent. Unleashed is nowhere near on the level of the abominations that were Shadow and 06, the Werehog is just unfitting for a Sonic game and it's unfair for people to lump it into that category. I also think it's unjust that the handheld games get looked over, considering how good some of them are. Advance 1? Awesome. Miles better at being Sonic 4 then the actual Sonic 4. Advance 2 and 2 are also good. Rush and Rush Adventure are also really good, if boost-happy. Secret Rings has ass gameplay, no problems there, and so does Black Knight (even if those games have really great stories).

 

So in conclusion you described why people hate Sonic, and I stand by my original point that it's unjust, just with a more detailed explanation. 

Edited May 7, 2013 by Generations (Chaos Warp)

[Diogenes]

Blue Blood pretty much hit the nail on the head. To throw a visual out, here is (roughly, so don't quibble over exact numbers) how I feel the series has gone:

 

Granted this is only my own opinion and some (most?) of you like the Modern games a lot more than I do, but even if you raised it a few points this is not the kind of graph that a "good" series should get. Even if you think the Modern games are great there's still a big huge pit of suck in the middle of it, and if I had tracked this by date rather than by game that pit would be even wider.

[Wraith]

Alright, you're right. This is indeed why people hate Sonic.

 

...................But I still think it's unjust. Riders? Not crap, at least not the one that came out in the "dark ages", the original. That game's really great IMO (if flawed), and Zero Gravity was okay too (albeit a big step down from Riders 1). The Rivals games don't suck either, sure they are not the best Sonic games ever but I think they are decent for what they are. Heroes is really flawed, but it removed a lot of the genre roulette problems that the Adventure series suffered from, and focused on pure Sonic gameplay with the team concept, and I think it's still decent. Unleashed is nowhere near on the level of the abominations that were Shadow and 06, the Werehog is just unfitting for a Sonic game and it's unfair for people to lump it into that category. I also think it's unjust that the handheld games get looked over, considering how good some of them are. Advance 1? Awesome. Miles better at being Sonic 4 then the actual Sonic 4. Advance 2 and 2 are also good. Rush and Rush Adventure are also really good, if boost-happy. Secret Rings has ass gameplay, no problems there, and so does Black Knight (even if those games have really great stories).

 

So in conclusion you described why people hate Sonic, and I stand by my original point that it's unjust, just with a more detailed explanation. 

 

 

These are all your opinions, and they do not match up with those of the general gaming public, who is used to far better than what Sonic offers.

Edited May 7, 2013 by Wraith

[Semi-colon e]

The knock on effect from all this is that now the critics bash the games for dumb reasons such as the mere inclusion of anything past 3&K in Generations despite that defeating the purpose, because a lot of these things in the past were more symptoms of poor quaity, not pure indicators. People didn't hate the other characters for existing, they hated the gameplay styles and them taking over and making Sonic himself seem irrelevant. However, it's not always reasonable to expect critics to be well informed so scapegoating happens. Much like all the people hating on Team Ninja for Metroid: Other M even though most of the dumb design choices were all Sakamoto's doing.

 

Basically, even as the series claws it's way back, it's a long tough road ahead as the fallout is still being suffered.

Edited May 7, 2013 by Semi-colon e

[Chaos Warp]

These are all your opinions, and they do not match up with those of the general gaming public, who was used to far better than what Sonic offers.

IDK, I don't see many people outright hating Unleashed for example-I just see them saying that half the game was good and half sucked. And you don't hear anything about the Rivals games.

[Dummy Bear]

So basically, this series is pretty much doomed from ever being considered good again.

 

Ugh... Mario here I come(blech).

Edited May 7, 2013 by Slash

[Chaos Warp]

So basically, this series is pretty much doomed from ever being considered good again.

 

Ugh... Mario here I come(bleh).

 

 

It's not doomed, just a long, hard crawl back up to good faith. 

Edited May 7, 2013 by Generations (Chaos Warp)

[Diogenes]

Heroes is really flawed, but it removed a lot of the genre roulette problems that the Adventure series suffered from, and focused on pure Sonic gameplay with the team concept

I just gotta say...no, it really didn't. It didn't do away with genre roulette, it just rolled it into one "character" (team). The Speed characters are the only ones that play anything like a Sonic game (though it's still a pretty weak imitation); the Fly and Power characters are far too slow, and are relegated to slow-ass platforming and combat.

[Blue Blood]

IDK, I don't see many people outright hating Unleashed for example-I just see them saying that half the game was good and half sucked. And you don't hear anything about the Rivals games.

And that half a game being made up of pure suckage completely overcasts whatever good there may be. It's not like it was the first time the series failed to deliver either. There was a huge period of what're though to be crap games, and Unleashed didn't buck that trend. Riders and Rivals may not be talked about much either, but they still exist. They're still games that weren't well received, and so don't make people think any more highly of the series. And likewise, games like Rush were so small and insignificant compared to the main series they didn't change opinions either.

Stop thinking about it as far as opinions go and try to look at this objectively.

Edited May 7, 2013 by Blue Blood

[Chaos Warp]

I just gotta say...no, it really didn't. It didn't do away with genre roulette, it just rolled it into one "character" (team). The Speed characters are the only ones that play anything like a Sonic game (though it's still a pretty weak imitation); the Fly and Power characters are far too slow, and are relegated to slow-ass platforming and combat.

At least they don't treasure hunt. They still go forward towards the goal, which is essentially Sonic at the very, very core.

 

And when you're playing, why would you use Fly and Power for anything other then their purpose (Power for fighting enemies quickly, flight for flying places). I'm not denying that Speed is the most multipurpose formation though. 

And that half a game being made up of pure suckage completely overcasts whatever good there may be. It's not like it was the first time the series failed to deliver either. There was a huge period of crap games, and Unleashed didn't buck that trend. Riders and Rivals may be talked about much either, but they still exist. They're still games that weren't well received, and so don't make people think any more highly of the series.

Stop thinking about it as far as opinions go and try to look at this objectively.

But there's no such thing really as "objectivity", because all debates really are are people arguing which one of their opinions is more sound. Which isn't a bad thing. You can only apply objectively when you're dealing with facts.

 

And the Werehog wasn't "pure suckage" it was just unfitting for a Sonic game.

[Mauro Fonseca]

There is, in fact, such a thing as objectivity.

 

"Sonic Unleashed sucks"- not objective.

 

"Sonic Unleashed was not well-received by the majority of notable critics"- objective and comprovable if needed.