Is the Sonic Cycle a Myth?

[MulishaSoldier929]

Old School sonic didn't say a word

Yes, but modern Sonic(the one I was talking about) should shut up!

Old School sonic didn't say a word

Damn straight.

Pretty positive he said "Yeah!".

I think thats acceptable. Just look at Mario. He's all catch phrases but no real talking.

[TheRev]

Well Mario is High on Shrooms all the time

[Menegrothx]

What's your Beef with Sonic Adventure 1 and 2? I understand that Maybe Sonic R wasn't a taste everyone could enjoy but Sonic Adventure was for it's time Amazing it hasn't aged as well and Big can die in a fire But the Two Sonic Adventures are good and Sonic Adventure 2 dare I call it a Masterpiece.

I personally like SA 1 (and think that 70% of the Sonic/Shadow levels in SA2 were OK too) but they're still flawed/semi-broken (*) early 3D platform games with camera problems. Atleast you weren't forced to play with any of the other characters in SA 1 but Tails/Egg and Knuckles/Rogue levels were mandatory in SA2. I was very close to breaking my controller after getting a game over after being hit by a meteorite that I didn't see due to a poor camera angle in the last Knuckles' level of SA2, after spending over 25 minutes searching for the final crystal.
(*) Mostly because of the lack of homing attack and sudden deaths if you loose momentum/miss a a rail/spring and fall to your death. And a life system in a modern platformer game is just asinine.

And then there's the fact that majority of the gameplay is filled with different kinds of stupid minigames that has nothing to do with Sonic. Treasure hunting, car racing, fishing and whatnot. And don't get me started on the storyline. Atleast the storylines weren't too intrusive in the Sonic Adventure games, but still it's just grating to watch poorly voice acted animals talking about stuff I don't care about at all in super awkward cutscenes in a game where the storyline should be as minimalistic as possible.
Errant Signal - Sonic and Speed
That's a very nice video, explaining why things started going wrong with Sonic Adventure 1 (in short: they didn't know what to do with the character after going from 2D to 3D so they focused on speed rather than solid platforming, stupid gimmicks, awful storylines and stuff like that untill they finally got it right by combining the gameplay innovations of Colors and Unleashed to a one fine package in Sonic Generations)

Sonic Adventure 1 is my favorite Dreamcast game and I did like parts of Sonic Adventure 2, but I can see why a person who's looking for a more refined gameplay experience would dislike these games. I think it might be sort of a nostalgia thing too. A person who's never played colorful and clunky early 3D platformers as a kid and/or isn't a Sonic fan probably wont enjoy these games as an adult, they're not really timeless classics. I never played these games as a kid but grew up playing many similiar "broken" games so I can tolerate it's flaws, but I know if I told some of the older gamers who I know (they grew up playing C64, NES etc) to try SA1/2 out, they would play max 15 minutes and call it quits.

[Gamerforlife]

If there ever was a cycle, it's over. This video proves it.



EDIT: Everybody makes their come back eventually, remember Lara Croft's slump? Just waiting on Duke Nukem now

[Nemoide]

I guess the fact that Colors and Generations have gotten almost universal praise wouldn't sway you at all? Because it's not like people were calling 4 a great game or anything, lots of people hated it. Virtually everyone who's a fan of Sonic seemed to enjoy Colors and Generations, especially Generations.

What Apple said.

Please reconsider Nemoide. I absolutely adore Colors, and I do not hesitate to call Generations one of the best games of this generation. It is spectacular, and well worth all of the praise that has been heaped upon it.

I would have been all over Colors if I had a Wii. But I assume the DS version isn't as good? MAYBE SOMEDAY.
Maybe I'll get around to Sonic Generations at some point sooner...

[AppleQueso]

I guess the fact that Colors and Generations have gotten almost universal praise wouldn't sway you at all? Because it's not like people were calling 4 a great game or anything, lots of people hated it. Virtually everyone who's a fan of Sonic seemed to enjoy Colors and Generations, especially Generations.

What Apple said.

Please reconsider Nemoide. I absolutely adore Colors, and I do not hesitate to call Generations one of the best games of this generation. It is spectacular, and well worth all of the praise that has been heaped upon it.

I would have been all over Colors if I had a Wii. But I assume the DS version isn't as good? MAYBE SOMEDAY.
Maybe I'll get around to Sonic Generations at some point sooner...

Generations has a demo on PSN at least. You could always just try it out...

[BurningDoom]

I haven't played Generation or Colors yet, but I plan to. So I hope the praise is deserved.

For most of the 2000s, as far as the console releases are concerned (because Sonic Pocket Adventure and Sonic Advance games were great), the "Sonic Cycle" is pretty much true. I just don't seem to enjoy the 3D Sonic games. But I love the 2D ones. So I may be a bit one-sided here.

There are exceptions, though, IMO. The 2 Sonic Collections were fantastic (Mega Collection Plus & Gems), and I did enjoy Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 1 (haven't play Ep. 2 yet).

[Gamerforlife]

I still think it's a travesty that Rayman Origins got so much praise the year it came out, while the far better Sonic Generations didn't. Origins was a tedious collectathon, with a lot of trial and error gameplay as well. Generations was fast paced, exciting, accessible, and even kind of funny at times. It seems like the gaming media always prefer the boring games to the exciting ones.

There are bits of dialog in Generations that are pretty funny for the handful of people who actually watch the cutscenes, moments where Sega is essentially poking fun at the franchise. And just to show how classy they are, the game even included original Japanese dialog. Little things like that are the mark of a polished product.

[Gamerforlife]

I haven't played Generation or Colors yet, but I plan to. So I hope the praise is deserved.

This should get you excited




And that's not even showing off the awesome 2D levels

I don't think Sonic's ever been faster, especially on the PC version, or so I've been told (I played it on the PS3). Easily one of this gen's best platformers. Feels so good to be saying that about a Sonic game

[Violent By Design]

Portable sonic games in that time frame were very good.

"Very good" is subjective, but either way Sonic games are like Zelda in one respect: the portable games very much take a back seat to the main entries. The GBA and DS games don't make up for Shadow or Sonic '06, not even close.

A Sonic game is a Sonic game. Just because some people pretend handhelds are not the same "class" as video game as console doesn't mean they don't count. Ironically, you went out and brought up the word subjective when your statement was just that.