On the other hand, it's hardly the only franchise that's had a wide variety of styles and concepts. It's just one of the only few where the resultant provincialism has gotten so intense and enduring. It's very much the Star Wars of video games in how groups forming in the fanbase centered around only liking one thing - and resenting anything that isn't like that one thing they liked - is the primary means in which the fanbase engages with the series.
Well, that's not completely true. There have been others, but I've found in most cases that the effect lessens as the fanbase gets older and people mature. When I was a teenager telling Megaman fans that Battle Network was my favorite game in the series was a one-way ticket to painful flame war. But nowadays the various wildly diverse corners of the franchise are one of the most celebrated things about it. Or Fallout: the war between Fallout 2 fans and Fallout New Vegas Fans and Fallout 4 fans used to be a big thing, until Fallout 4 was a smash success at which point very few cared about it any more.
But the Sonic fanbase has always, from all the way back into the Classic days to now, had an issue with treating changes in gameplay and story direction as a sign they're being forgotten and abandoned, and thus have always shown resistance to adapting to new ideas and appreciating what they can bring to the franchise.
This is understandable in part as a natural side effect of the series' long history of failures. New ideas from Sonic Team have often meant bad things in the past, so the fanbase became accustomed to the idea that resisting those ideas was the right thing to do.
But it rears its bad side when the new ideas... aren't bad. Just different.
At the end of the day, this:
Is what Sonic team, or really every video game designer, is trying to achieve. And yeah. To me it looks fine. It even looks like they're trying to find a cohesive design for the franchise to revolve around - and I appreciate them for it.
As long as it is actually decently executed and works well, the series is making the right moves imo.
Edited by KnownUnknown on Oct 18th 2022 at 6:14:59 AM
Its also due to in part a lack of oversight, particularity with alternate continuities. With AOSTH, SATAM, Underground, both Archie and Fleetway Comics, the OVA and the games each being its own stories with only the base premise (blue fast hedgehog fights an egg-shaped mad scientist that gets off of turning woodland critters into his mechanized slaves) in common, each with their own exclusive charterers, stories and lore. Like its hard to ask for unity in the fanbase when the source works don't have that in turn.
Edited by MorningStar1337 on Oct 18th 2022 at 6:13:53 AM
I mean, literally every single version of Batman, or Superman, or the Marvel characters, or the Disney shorts characters, and so on or so forth is different - some drastically so. It doesn't really cause the level of brouhaha here.
Usually, fans are aware that different versions are different continuities with different rules, and are fine with that. You don't really see people saying that it's impossible for the Batman fanbase to connect to each other just because some people prefer the DCAU and others prefer Nolan or others prefer The Batman and so on.
Comic fans especially. You used to see comic fans throwing a fit over every single change when something they liked was adapted and treating different continuities as lesser for not being what they know. But a decade or two ago there was a big push due to adaptations bringing a huge influx of general fans, and nowadays it's commonly accepted to scorn that behavior. I'm not saying people don't still do it - heavens no - but the atmosphere around that sort of thing has noticeably shifted.
Maybe the same thing will happen with Sonic when Frontiers comes out, should the game took off. It almost happened with Classic fans when Adventure was popular.
Edited by KnownUnknown on Oct 18th 2022 at 6:40:46 AM
The last time Batman and Superman had only one medium, the world was gearing up to fight Hitler.
It's rare for a popular franchise to only have one medium. If it does have only one medium, it's a sure sign that it's not popular (yet), mostly because having additional mediums is how franchises get popular.
So it's a bit unfair to say that having multiple mediums naturally results in fanbases fragmenting to the extreme degree Sonic's does because... well... that doesn't usually happen. Not to the same extent. The situation in the Sonic fanbase is the result of a lot of different factors mashing together in unfortunate ways and not really being addressed until it was too ingrained to go away (I was just thinking about how the state of the early internet and how the fanbase responded to the popularization of web forums was a big factor in it too, for instance).
In lighter news, Balena Productions is still working on their big remade Halloween vid if you like their Sonic fan animations. It's not finished yet, but they're showing off clips.
They have their own continuity for some of their other vids that I'm not completely up to date on, but they do the characters really well. I still fondly rewatch Camping Chaos when I have the time.
Edited by KnownUnknown on Oct 18th 2022 at 7:02:58 AM
This is understandable in part as a natural side effect of the series' long history of failures. New ideas from Sonic Team have often meant bad things in the past, so the fanbase became accustomed to the idea that resisting those ideas was the right thing to do.
But it rears its bad side when the new ideas... aren't bad. Just different.
At this point, I do feel like this is more on Sega's reactions to the criticism they receive and the side effect it's had on the fanbase as a whole. As you yourself pointed out a few pages back, Sega have a bad habit of tossing the baby out with the bathwater when something is deemed "a failure" and just no longer revisiting it.
But also with the early 3D games, as King K pointed out, there were huge growing pains in that era. Even Mario and Zelda weren't immune to it, and with Sonic's games gradually declining in quality (but not being bad) the growing sentiment that those games were "wrong" grew more and more from both older fans and non-fans alike. And by the time 06 came out, that position was validated. Everything Sonic did from 1998-2006 was now "wrong" and "needed to go"
And Sega did exactly that, so this irrational reaction from the fanbase towards every Sonic product is due to a fear that if its deemed "a failure" Sega will remove it. Sonic games have never been the same since 06 and Sega's extreme reaction to it, even if it still led to some decent games, still left a lot alarmed.
To illustrate an example; Silver the Hedgehog. He was clearly meant to be the next Shadow, and that much was true from how he was promoted. But because of 06 being "a failure", Silver was also deemed "a failure" and while he hasn't been removed from the series, he doesn't share anywhere near as much of the prominence that the likes of Tails or Shadow still enjoy to this day. Really, you can say that about the entire extended cast too. Fans who loved playing as them will likely never get a chance to ever do so again, simply because Sega decided they weren't worth it after 06.
That sting will never leave the fanbase no matter how much time passes.
And don't get me started on the gameplay changes...
Edited by BlackYakuzu94 on Oct 18th 2022 at 10:07:59 AM
A lazy millennial who's good at what he does.Well...
This will pass eventually. It's just on the fanbase to choose whether it will pass by way of younger fans supplanting them and them being dismissed as a bunch of old curmudgeons, or whether it will pass by way of the fanbase letting the baggage go and choosing to continue to be an active positive part of wherever the franchise goes.
It happens. Some people do choose to just... leave, rather than continue to be a fan of a series that's different from what they knew. Or continue to rail against what's next until the newer fans choose to push them aside or ignore them en masse. But I always felt like that's a shame. Positivity and open mindedness from older fans can do wonders for giving franchises as a whole a sense of welcome.
Edited by KnownUnknown on Oct 18th 2022 at 7:09:23 AM
I think what keeps it going is the fan-game scene tbh; when you see fans catering to your specific tastes, you start thinking "Well why aren't [The official devs] doing that"....let's just ignore all of the logistical issues that fangames have that official games lack :V
But then Sonic Mania came out and while I won't call it a "fangame" like the fanbase does, it is a game "made by fans, for fans" as the developers themselves put it...except those are specifically Classic Sonic fans. You an Adventure fan who wanted to play as Shadow, Silver, etc. with that larger than life epic story? You SOL boy, that ain't Sonic anymore, gtfo.
So now the race is when are Adventure fans going to get "their" Sonic Mania; a game specifically crafted towards the sensibilities of the early 2000's. And they will probably wait as long as they need to until they get it.
IT doesn't really help that Sonic's library from the 2000's has all but been ignored; we get a million Classic Sonic releases, they """"ported"""" Sonic Colors to Modern hardware, and Generatios, Lost World, and Forces are all available on current hardware if you own a PC.
But aside from the (bad) ports of the Adventure games, there's no way to access that library; No Heroes, no Shadow, no Riders, no Advance, Battle, Rush, or Rivals. No Unleashed unless you have a XSX.
You brought up Mega Man BNN, well those sub-series got released; but Sonic ain't got shit unless its from post-2009 lol.
Edited by BlackYakuzu94 on Oct 18th 2022 at 10:24:03 AM
A lazy millennial who's good at what he does.Think that's bad? imagine being a fan of a character who was created only exclusivity for Archie comics only to have them be suddenly retconned out of existence because a certain jackass jacked his and SEGA's asses all the way to court. Say what you will about the likes of Cream, Blaze and Silver, but at least those are still in the game and/or its spinoffs for now.
Edited by MorningStar1337 on Oct 18th 2022 at 7:31:43 AM
To be fair, we only just found out BNN was getting a rerelease like a month ago. Before that it was commonly accepted that Capcom would never acknowledge that portion of the franchise again.
Heck, Megaman Legends fans are still pretty sure Volnutt's gonna be stuck on the moon forever.
Edited by KnownUnknown on Oct 18th 2022 at 7:30:48 AM
Capcom said they were planning on doing something with BN a long while ago but COVID happened and delayed their plans. And yeah, I'm not optimistic about Legends 3 happening considering how capcom mismanaged the whole thing, especially when you consider how conservative they're being with Mega Man now. MM 11 was 4 years ago, was well-received by fans and had some of the best sales in the entire franchise (that capcom themselves said they were happy with) and they've yet to announce a new game.
Edited by Draghinazzo on Oct 18th 2022 at 11:36:41 AM
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Well given that Legends 3 was literally cancelled...
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You have my condolences...at least you have fan content?
Its tough being a Sonic fan sometimes lol.
....Wow, Shadow really was the only character introduced in the turn of the century to reach a level of popularity as the Classic characters huh...well him and Big
Oh man, World's Collide was so fucking cool!!!
This being the same exact situation as Mania is actually so funny. Its like Sonic and Mega Man are cut from the same cloth.
Edited by BlackYakuzu94 on Oct 18th 2022 at 10:41:12 AM
A lazy millennial who's good at what he does.Both as cool and blue as the Earth.
Ports on the switch, friends. Pull for them.
I never got to play Sonic Battle on a console as a young'n. I only have emulators now.
Edited by KnownUnknown on Oct 18th 2022 at 7:49:23 AM
>Blue-Colored protagonist
>Elderly Mad scientist Antagonist (often causes the apocalypse by accident)
>Sidekick who helps them fly to higher spaces
>Red-Colored rival who eventually becomes a (reluctant) ally.
>Black-Colored rival who maintains a semi-antagonistic/antiheroic role.
Its actually extremely uncanny.
Edited by BlackYakuzu94 on Oct 18th 2022 at 10:48:28 AM
A lazy millennial who's good at what he does.Mega Man is rather dormant as a franchise because Inafune was such a huge part in organizing the development of Mega Man games that him leaving caused any momentum in the company for them to be made to just disappear. Notably, Legends 3 wasn't technically cancelled because it was never greenlit by higher ups in the first place. Inafune just took his own initiative to gather up devs from around Capcom that weren't too busy to start working on it. When he left it was "cancelled" because there was no longer any leadership for the project and it wasn't something Capcom had planned to make anyway. (And of course, people who are uncharitable towards Inafune after the debacle with Mighty Number 9 think he even knew the game would be cancelled for those reasons when he left and he could use the anger from fans over it to shill his own new project.)
And an another important thing, Mega Man hasn't really been a huge franchise in a long time. Even by the 2000s the franchise was only really getting moderately popular handheld titles, while Capcom had other series with hugely popular console titles. At this time Capcom's higher ups probably have little reason to make sure new ones are getting made compared to series that currently have huge popularity and momentum like Street Fighter, Monster Hunter, and Resident Evil.
At this point, any attention paid to the franchise by Capcom is hope that maybe your favorite part of it may get something new eventually that you otherwise wouldn't have, which is probably why the Mega Man fanbase doesn't really argue with each much over it.
But that situation is very different from Sonic.
No, just saying that the conversation is no longer The capital F Font of the entire Fallout fanbase. You can find more facets to the fanbase now than you could years ago.
The unity in hating 76 may have aided in giving the sides some common ground, tho.
Edited by KnownUnknown on Oct 18th 2022 at 8:07:26 AM
It's been 15 years at this point. The extended cast has been reduced to bit parts. It's not always certain the Chaotix stick together. And to this day, the main cast of Tails, Knuckles, and Amy still haven't been playable in a mainline 3D Sonic game for over 10 years now. And even in the 2D games, they aren't guaranteed. But we get Wolf Sonic, Baby Sonic, and OC Sonic

i just think the blue rat is pretty cool