Entries with their own YMMV pages
General:
- Audience-Alienating Premise: One of the big contributing factors to the commercial and financial failure of this sub-series was that they came out at a time when the idea of Sonic starring in established mythological stories was the type of gimmick that fans and critics wanted to see the last of, and wished the series went back to its basic premise of Sonic simply fighting against Dr. Eggman. Sega obliged and then... well see Vindicated by History below.
- Character Rerailment: These games were the first to start writing Sonic as more of a rebel after years of Sega making him the Ideal Nice Guy seen in Sonic Heroes, Shadow the Hedgehog, and Sonic the Hedgehog (2006). This can be seen especially in Black Knight, with its themes of authority and moral codes.
- Critical Dissonance: On Metacritic, Secret Rings received a 69/100 while Black Knight received 54/100; although still divisive (see Black Knight's Audience-Alienating Premise entry), Sonic fans generally prefer Black Knight over Secret Rings.
- Enjoy the Story, Skip the Game: The gameplay of both titles was panned heavily due to its on-rails, too easy, linear, and just plain unfun nature. The stories, however, are considered to be some of, if not the best, that the series has produced, with consistent tone, interesting new characters, and great plots.
- Fanfic Fuel:
- The very nature of this series opens up a ton of possibilities in fanfic, such as how would certain stories change if Sonic jumped into it and what would the other characters be like in those stories.
- Given that neither game features the entire cast in the storybook worlds, it's not uncommon for fanfics to show and explore what would the rest of Sonic's cast be like in those worlds. There's also the question as to what the storybook equivalent to Sonic himself is potentially like, given that neither game features an alternate version of him.
- Most Wonderful Sound: The series gives Sonic one of chunkiest, sharpest-sounding jump sounds he's ever had.
- Vindicated by History: More and more people have warmed up to these games, Black Knight especially. Some even think that Black Knight is the best Sonic story, striking the right balance of dramatic action and family-friendliness emblematic of the franchise. Its handling of Sonic, both in terms of writing and Jason Griffith's voice acting, have been especially retroactively appreciated.
- Visual Effects of Awesome:
- Regardless of what you think of the gameplay, it is hard to deny that the storybook-esque cutscenes in both games (mainly consisting of still images), are beautifully illustrated.
- Neither game was a slouch in the graphics department either with Night Palace of Secret Rings and Titanic Plain of Black Knight being especially jaw dropping.
