General Sonic The Hedgehog thread

I ultimately don’t like Unleashed that much, but to be fair that’s imo that’s because you can tell it’s experimental. A few years ago I had nothing but bad things to say about it, but now I’m more accepting of the fact that they didn’t know yet how to make this new style for Sonic challenging, which is why the Day stages are so wonky, and that they didn’t know how to make the game long enough to satisfy audiences, which is why the werehog is so long and monotonous. If it hadn’t come after such a famously awful game, it wouldn’t have even hurt so much.

Most of the ideas in Unleashed are things I think they should try again with more polish - especially worldbuilding wise. It’s the only game I can recall ever playing with a Timbuktu stage that wasn’t educational, and that’s really freaking awesome. Even the werehog has merit, maybe more geared towards Knuckles, if they can retool it to be less tedious and rife with padding.

Also, much as I love Colors and Generations’ soundtracks, Unleashed definitely has the best score of any of the “Modern” games. I could and have listened to Windmill Isle for hours. And I still think it’s a crime that Dragon Road wasn’t the Unleashed stage in Generations.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Nov 12th 2018 at 4:17:22 AM

The E-rank music in Unleashed is one thing that will never fail to make me laugh. It's one of the most brilliant pieces of music in gaming.

Hear, hear.

Edited by Zelenal on Nov 12th 2018 at 7:40:08 AM

"Perfect Dark Gaia" will never not be hype.

Arguably as far as Modern Sonic goes we're back in that period.

Frankly, I didn't dislike Unleashed either. Colors, Unleashed and Generations were all great games, and while I didn't finish Unleashed that's a product of me not finishing half the games I had at the time more than the game itself.

I still enjoyed the werehog anyway, and I'd play a game with Knuckles in that role/style.

One thing I liked about Sonic Unleashed is that it gave us actual countries, with history and geography, whereas most Sonic game are set in who-knows-where.

That's not true! We have Station Square, in Vague Place Land, and Soleanna, the country somewhere in some kind of place that can probably be assumed to be on the same place as Vague Place Land, and Angel Island! And like, sixteen different Eggmanlands.

He's really well franchised.

I always thought Soleanna was more of a city-state, presumably on the same land mass as Spagonia. But that's probably giving Sega too much credit. And don't forget the Storybook worlds, also existing in some vague nether.

Edited by PhiSat on Nov 13th 2018 at 9:48:33 AM

The storybook world alwaye seemed like alternate universes for me

Or pocket dimensions?

If the series ever decides to start worldbuilding and combine Sonic's World and Earth again, I really would like for them to show anthro NPCs amongst humans. But that makes me wonder if hedgehogs are rare on Earth. That would explain why everyone thought Shadow was Sonic.

Isn't Station Square in the United Federation? It certainly seems American, with the exception of the echidna. Apparently Amy lives in Station Square in Adventure but she moved to Central City come Battle. That's probably a random retcon but I'd like to imagine her apartment was ruined at the end of Adventure.

I always thought Station Square was in Central City for some reason. It and Westopolis being districts of the larger city.

Edited by erazor0707 on Nov 13th 2018 at 12:34:19 PM

Station Square was kind of under several feet of water and completely in ruins at the end of Adventure. I'd be surprised if anyone didn't have to move out.

Edit: Though that makes me wonder why Chaos picked Station Square as the place to level first. It was IN the Mystic Ruins when it got the last chaos emerald and, presumably, attained its perfect form. Why didn't it start its rampage there? Was Big's house too powerful for Chaos to destroy? Was Angel Island too close to smash? Was it afraid Metal Sonic would break out of Eggman's big city there and kick its face in?

Edited by ultimatepheer on Nov 13th 2018 at 1:03:18 AM

Maybe Station Square and Central City are like NYC—it's one really, really big city with little cities in it.

Unleashed is a game I can appreciate because I still maintain that it's the last time Sonic Team actually put forth their biggest effort towards a game. They were misguided as usual and it fell into the usual trappings of Modern Sonic games, but I did get the feeling they really did want to make up for 06.

And for the record, most of the people who worked on Unleashed were freelancers and guess what they're doing now? They just did Super Mario Odyssey and that kind of speaks for itself.

Edited by BlackYakuzu94 on Nov 13th 2018 at 10:15:41 AM

Chaos flooded Station Square because that's where the Mystic Jungle river was flowing towards

The critical bashing and overall hatred Unleashed received the moment of release, and the continued resentment certain people still hold for the game to this day, is something that I'll never stop being bitter about. And I apologize for being highly mind boggled by Colors' immense critical praise and love, as well as people continuing to call it a "good and fun" game. Like, I'm sorry, but it should seriously be the other way around

Yes, Unleashed has its flaws and didn't deliver on everything. I'll be the first to acknowledge that the Night Stages, more specifically the gameplay, were not a good idea, and this game continued the "giant monster as the final boss instead of Eggman" trend while being the start of the "Tails is physically useless" trend (even though I think Tails fleeing from the Dark Gaia Monsters is understandable and that this trend had been going on before Unleashed). But ultimately, I think Unleashed did a whole lot more right for the 3D games than any other game before and especially after it. Unleashed, at the very least, got the series back on track after being derailed by Sh TH and Sonic 06 and pointed it in a good direction. And it can't be understated how Sonic Team poured their heart and soul into making the game, as Black Yakuzu pointed out

But despite all that, Unleashed gets trashed into oblivion and everyone had the audacity to use it as an example of Sonic Team not caring about the fans, for the sole crime of having Sonic become a Werehog... A concept that, all things considered, isn't even a bad idea to begin with: Sonic's character prides himself on his appearance and super-speed, what better way to challenge that than to have him turn into a slower moving monster at night? And it's not even the most ridiculous thing this franchise ever tackled; Sonic and the Secret Rings had Sonic being teleported into the world of '1001 Arabian Nights', the most popular character as of recent is a princess with pyrokinetic powers from another dimension, and the very next game had Sonic turning into drills, cubes, and rockets via alien squids! I mean, really! Sonic being afflicted with a dark form similar to lycanthropy is "too absurd" but that same hedgehog transforming into drills, cubes, and rockets isn't?! Well, it's no fucking wonder Unleashed was the last game Sonic Team put in their biggest effort, or any at all. Why would anyone dare to put significant effort in a game again if the one they made the most sincere effort to make great gets absolutely rejected?

And then we get Colors, a game that only got such immense praise because it gave everyone what they were demanding, speaking frankly. No more alternate gameplay of any sort, no characters at all other than Sonic, Eggman, and Tails, no 'darkness or seriousness' in general, Eggman is the sole threat, and Super Sonic is playable in levels again. That isn't to say Colors is a bad game, but I'm very hard pressed to call it good either. Nevermind how much of a downgrade the story and characterization were from previous games (sans Sh TH and Sonic 06), the gameplay that is Colors' 'claim to fame' isn't exceptional in the slightest. It's a downgraded version of the Day Stages with "Color Powers" forced in and predominantly 2D with the few 3D sections being just "there", and the level design is 90% block-based platforming! Not only is the minimal use of blocky platforming, in favor of slopes, what set Sonic apart from all other platformers of the time, but it does not synergize with the Boost gameplay at all. I played that game from beginning to end when it first came out and, by the end, I was far more frustrated with Colors' gameplay than I ever was with both Day and Night Stages of Unleashed

Really, the only merit I'm willing to give Colors at all is that the Wisps are a genuinely creative idea (despite what I said above, I have no beef with them, just as I have no beef with a werewolf hedgehog) and finally having Eggman be the final boss, even if that fight wasn't nearly as climactic as the Egg Lancer or even the Egg Dragoon. But overall, Colors is an extremely mediocre game that did not deserve even a quarter of the praise it received and only pushed the franchise down a path that, while not nearly as bad as Sonic 06, was not remotely as ideal as the direction Unleashed pointed to, as Lost World and Forces demonstrated ^note Not counting Generations, Sonic Boom, and Mania as Generations is a genuinely good game that didn't really possess a lot of Colors' influence aside from Sonic and Tails' characterization, Sonic Boom was made by a completely different developer with no direct influence or inspiration from Colors, and Mania was also made by completely different developers that took all its inspiration from the Classic games

Well, at least for me, the last straw against Unleashed was that the level design for the Day stages was very poor, rife with mishandled difficulty and lacking in foresight - very much a case of form over function: they looked amazing, but didn't play very well. As such, even the "good" part of the game separate from the werehog (which I don't think was all that bad, especially towards the end of the game, just very monotonous) was a chore to get through.

Colors, "downgraded" as they may or may not have been, did refine the concept that went into the Day stages into something that was a lot more... playable, allowing them to get a great deal more out of the mechanics. Though Generations got the most out of it by fusing the two to an extent.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Nov 14th 2018 at 9:44:49 AM

Fair enough. The trial and error of the Day Stages had given me a good deal of grief and can accept your reasoning. I just think Colors' own level design is no more an improvement since it's predominantly 2D for a "3D game" (compare Unleashed, where there's a healthy balance of 3D and 2D segments) and the extensive use of blocks for platforming, which I consider to be up there with vehicles as something a main series Sonic game should never do and has its fair share of unfair deaths due to the blocks being counterintuitive for the Boost. But I can fully agree that Generations is a true improvement over both Unleashed and Colors when it comes to the Boost gameplay

I just really want to see more characters again. At least Mario has its spinoffs so it can indulge in other characters. With mainline games sticking to just Sonic, I feel starved for other characters, playable or otherwise.

The Sonic franchise really should've committed to the "spinoffs" idea when it had the chance. It's kind of late to do it now, but back when they actually had spinoffs running in the late 90' and 2000's, they could've built them into a buffer for the series as a whole.

I remember it was brought up a really long time ago that Sonic could have done something like Mario did with the New Super Mario Bros series: a standard series of simple but refined gameplay that gets new installments every once in a while, which is never anything exceptional but is always good. That, in addition to the other spinoffs, ensures that even if the Mario series ever creates something that's not for everybody, it still has the reputation for always having something for somebody.

They've almost had it a few times, but dropped those series before long in favor of brand new stuff. Sonic Team's inability to commit to single ideas hasn't done them any favors.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Nov 14th 2018 at 10:54:48 AM

Didn't people hate the new super mario bros series? Or at least the latter installments?