How Sega All But Ruined Sonic the Hedgehog
Sega’s Blue Blur was a whirlwind of excitement in the early 1990’s. Nintendo had a magical formula in the Super Mario Bros series and every other developer had their run and jump Mario clones. Sega on the other hand, took the platforming genre to the next level by taking advantage of their new Genesis console (and it’s infamous “Blast Processing“) to introduce a new blazing-fast rodent by the name of Sonic the Hedgehog.
Speed, however was not Sonic’s lone gimmick. The landmark series on the Genesis also introduced unique elements such as the then jaw-dropping loops, super spin dash, psychedelic bonus rounds, and impressive boss battles with Dr. Robotnik’s mechanical creations.
While the Super Mario Bros. franchise was definitely colored with personality and great gameplay, the Sonic the Hedgehog titles on the Genesis and Sega CD offered an very exciting alternative to those that weren’t Nintendo fanboys.
Powered by the success of Sonic and their other cutting edge games, Sega had a great marketshare during the 16-bit era. However, they started to fall apart as they aimed to jump ahead of its competitors in the 32-bit market and beyond. The commercial failure of its newer hardware was unfortunately timed with the decline of the Sonic franchise.
While I love the Sega Saturn and its cult classic favorites, it never brought Sega fans the real Sonic game that it desired. Sega started with a Genesis and Saturn release of Sonic 3D Blast which turned out to be slow-paced and boring at times — quite the opposite of the Sonic games fans had been used to.
Sega had a great deal of inner conflict trying to develop a true 3D Sonic game (which was known as Sonic X-treme) and the closest substitute Saturn owners experienced was Sonic R, which was essentially a cart-racer without the carts.
Sega eventfully gave up on the Sonic X-treme project (and the Saturn for that matter) and set its sights on the possibilities that the Dreamcast held.
With Sonic Adventure, Sega fans finally had their fully 3D Sonic action game. Sonic Adventure had a tremendous amount of promise as the first level (which was playable on the pre-launch demo) was incredibly fast and was filled with breathtaking graphics that seemed to exceed how every Sonic fan had envisioned the Green Hill Zone would be in a 128-bit wonderland. (Nobody can forget the killer whale-bridge scene)
But all was not perfect with Sonic Team’s newest creation. In reality, very few of the subsequent levels even came close to living up to the high standards that the demo created. Instead, the game was filled with slow and annoying “exploration” areas that turned off many gamers that were expecting fast-paced action.
Sonic Adventure 2 ditched the exploration areas, but instead added more levels that required you to play as other less-interesting characters that had you perform more tedious tasks such as “find the lost emeraldsâ€. Not the idea of fun for a typical Sonic fan. To make matters worse, once words started coming out of Sonic’s mouth, the game was to the point of being an embarrassment to watch. Characters we all used to enjoy such as Tails and Knuckles all became an annoyance and a joke.
It was clear at this point that Sega had lost sight of what worked in the minds of Sonic’s most dedicated fans and had also failed to bring the sense of speed and tight control to the 3D world.
Once the novelty of Sonic Adventure’s slick graphics wore off, the more experienced gamers realized this wasn’t nearly the same game they had grown up with.
Gone were the intense sense of speed and the awe-inspiring loops. Instead, you were treated to a temperamental 3D camera that was more of an annoyance than a benefit.
The Dr. Robotnik we grew up with and his sweet robotic monsters had also experienced a peculiar makeover for the worse. Sonic Adventure ushered in re-branded “Dr. Eggman†and replaced his cool mechanical boss battles with strange creatures and dim-witted schemes to collect Chaos Emeralds.
Once Sega made its full transition away from the hardware business and developed multi-platform games, they unloaded a series of quickly-developed titles that pulled even further away from the core focus and did more to damage Sonic’s reputation.
Sega’s first original multi-platform Sonic game was Sonic Heroes. Heroes took some of the best aspects of the Sonic Adventure series and put a new spin on them. However, that spin consisted of forcing players to use teams of three characters at a time, when the entire time, fans wanted to play ONLY as Sonic. It also seemed to focus less on speed and reaction time and brought it more into the league of typical platform games as opposed to the high standards that Sonic was once known for.
To give Sonic Heroes some credit, it did go back to the 16-bit roots in terms of level design and the overall look and feel. Sonic Heroes got a little bit closer on fixing some of these crucial things but still managed to screw up other aspects. It’s such a shame that things went downhill after that.
As much as everyone tries to forget about it, Sega somehow thought that the best way to solve the fact that the Sonic franchise was getting tired was to have a game centered around Shadow the Hedgehog. Shadow was supposed to be the Sonic for the hardcore gamers that needed a ro
ugh edge. (And I thought all this time, Sonic was the cool hedgehog with the attitude.)
As soon as everybody laid their eyes on the promotional artwork and screenshots filled with the pistol-packing hedgehog, the gaming community knew Sega was losing it.
Instead of renewing interest in the Sonic universe, Shadow the Hedgehog fell on its face and was mocked by reviewers around the globe. Again, some players enjoyed the game, but it really strayed from the Sonic formula.
Sega followed up Shadow with Sonic Riders, a racing title that was essentially “Sonic R 2.0â€. While I appreciate Sega trying to emphasize Sonic’s speed capabilities (even though the game was not as fast as it should have been), it wasn’t a true Sonic games and was way too rushed to be taken seriously. Instead, it turned out to be a shallow F-Zero clone thrown out on the marketplace to make some quick change.
As the new generation of platforms emerged, Sega used Sonic as a way to show off their newest graphical technologies. There is no doubt that the new Sonic the Hedgehog for the XBox 360 looks nice, but as the abysmal reviews indicate, graphics are not everything.
In order to push its cutting-edge graphics to the limit, Sega, in their infinite wisdom, felt the need to bring Sonic and his friends into a more realistic world, filled with life-like humans. As you can see from this video, there is something creepy about some giant hedgehogs interacting with humans.
My point is that Sega doesn’t seem to know what it wants to do with Sonic. It seems like Sega assigns various quick-and-dirty development projects in order to see what ideas sticks with consumers. Unfortunately, Sega fans have had to suffer through this process.
Sega’s one redeeming endeavor has been the portable titles. The Sonic Advance series has at least replicated the original Sonic experience about as much as the GBA could, and Sonic Rush on the DS was probably the best Sonic game in over a decade. (Although, the really botched the new Sonic the Hedgehog Genesis for the GBA)
Sonic Advance and Sonic Rush are essentially the only Sonic games since the Genesis (sans the initial buzz of Sonic Adventure) that the majority of hardcore fans have actually spoke positively about. One would think that maybe Sega would try to go back bringing the series back to its roots more in order to succeed. (Read How Sega Can Bring Sonic Back To His Glory)
As we turn back to look at Nintendo and what they did with the Mario franchise, you will notice that The Big N took their time developing the N64 (remember THAT wait?) and polished Mario 64 in order to maintain its magical feel and bringing a consistent experience to the third dimension. Even though Mario fans would gladly welcome more traditional Mario games, Nintendo kept the pace slow in order to keep the standards high.
Sega needs to take a long look at Sonic and decide where the games of the past really shine and focus on those aspects and those alone instead of doing even more damage.
Personally, I believe the Sonic thrives in 2D and the third dimension should be used on Sonic Team’s other fan favorite NiGHTS into Dreams. Once Sega stays focused on creating killer gameplay in
stead of the quick dollar, Sonic may be brought back to his former glory.
Part 2 – How To Fix Sonic
I followed this post up with my expanded thoughts on what Sega can do to make Sonic successful with both hardcore and casual gamers.
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Getting The Most Out of Your Dreamcast
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Classic Franchises That Actually NEED a Resurrection
Classic Game Franchises We May See Again Soon
The Best Graphics on the Dreamcast
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Wow, I agree with SO much of this, honestly though, I liked sonic adventure, sonic adventure 2, and sonic heroes, but shadow apeeled to more teenagers who already didn’t like sonic, and lost so many younger sonic fans, and pretty much after that every game is an epic failure…
I agree! although, I enjoyed Sonic Adventure one and two and sonic heroes, Shadow the Hedgehog and all the other Sonic titles after that I don’t even want to buy because they look freaky! I say that they should try making a 3d version of the original Sonic the Hedgehog, and see how well it does. they should make the levels just like what they were on the Genesis only in 3d. I’m sure that that will explode in popularity, and then Sonic Team would know EXACTLY what to do with him! I like the older games better than the new ones, and instead of trying to make new enemies to match sonic, they should just use metal sonic because he is a popular enemy. in fact, I will email Sonic Team about this giving them the link and a comment! I found on Sega.com that the email for Sonic Team is [email protected] or something. if I am wrong, let me know.
I JUST sent an e-mail with this link on it! YAAAY!!! Mr. Critic guy who wrote this, you are awsome!
Glad you enjoyed it 🙂
I actuly liked the 3d games all the things you said was annoying I dont mind in sonic adventure you have lots of speed and finding stages in the wandering stages is so easy. what you said about sonic heroes if you could only play as sonic it would all get so annoying only having one option for who you can play as I would go crazy. and you said the game shadow the hedgehog made you feel sega lost their mind the only thing that made me feel that way is charmy bee that is the only thing I hate about sonic games charmy bee
Here’s what would bring Sonic Back for sure
Redo Sonic the Hedgehog – Sonic & Knuckles on a next-gen console with 3D worlds and 2D gameplay, and take the original sound tracks, but do them with real instruments.
A modern version of Chemical Plant Zone? HELL YES!
you suck the sonic adventure games rocked and i loved the voice actors especially ryan drummond i think daivid humphrey’s voice is hot besides 4kids ruined it by moving their horrible crappy voice actors on to the sonic roles personally i think sega started screwing up when they switched voice actors seriously, and besides screw sonic + human i don’t care about that i wish that they’d put more shadow + amy rose in side there were only 4 scenes when they’re together in the whole entire series and i’m an shadamy fan and proud of it. And i loves sonic heroes, SA2B, SADX, i like hsadow the hedgehog but i wish they had there old voice actors back and shadow pwns sonic man shadow is the coolest!!!! sais from the voice of an shadamy loving 13 year old sonic fan
>_> God, some of the comments are making me cringe. It’s no wonder the newer Sonic games are so terrible when there’s fans who apparently cry over thinking about games.
Uh,what does 3D look like anyway?Toomra, what are you talking about? Kumiyama, Im a Shadow fan too, but lay off the insults.State your opinion, but show some respect for the others opinions.This site is racketboy’s house, so to speak, not your’s.We dont need another opinion war.If you’re gonna continue on with this pointless rant,Take it to a site of your own, where it wont bother these people deserving respect for there aspect of the situation.Im not trying to insult you but take wisdom in what I say.
Also, Kumiyama, I ask you, What shadow fan hasnt played the original Shadow the Hedgehog, played ALL the endings,getting the Shadow Rifle, the best gun in the game, the absolute 2-shot ammo clip, one-hit-kill Best rifle in the game and STILL claimed to be a shadow fan? I’m not insulting you, just personal question. Surely you liked the game, if you liked shadow and maria cutscenes in the shadow-including games.
you are waypastcool
Sonic Unleashed is Sonic’s last hope, if that fails, he will never return to greatness (even though the games still sell truck loads)
umm sonic died after the adventure games
both adventures were good so fail on your part
BLeH?????!!!!1!!!! Look if the series continued he didn’t die and maybe the game after the advents. was a total failure but since the advents. were so cool the wanted and prayed for a come-back from that game and ignored that game.So please just leave us to try and send a SOS for Sonic to Sega and the Sonic Team. I believe in what we all arecapable of other than just sitting on this site arguing about Sonic’s past and Downfall.So why aren’t we getting up off our a—- and trying to communicate to Sega and the Sonic Team What racketboy says that those two can do to revive Sonic and I think to tell them to do something to Sonic that takes away The Super Sonic form or edit it and take away the Dragonball-Z powers and get Creative.Know what I mean???
Also, racketboy, can you tell me how I can make my own site? I’m really interested in that and I wish to put in a link on that site if I can build it, to your How Sega can Revive Sonic page, not this one.It’s taken enough carnage, I think.
And people, please stop posting negative comments!racketboy’s probably read enough to the point that if you do,Somebody’s porbably already said that same thing so if you haven’t got anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all. I’ve said it once, I’ve said it twice, and I’ll say it thrice,THIS IS RACKETBOY”S SITE, NOT YOUR OWN. TAKE IT TO YOUR OWN SITE!!!!!!!1!!!!!!!
I don’t see why people don’t like Shadow the Hedgehog. I think it was a very good game. People need to see that just because something is different doesn’t mean it’s bad. In fact, if Sega didn’t make the game part of the Sonic series and just used different characters, it would have probably been a hit.
y won’t SEGA make anymore sonic the hedgehog series? Sonic X was awesome….cause i watched the entire series…i mean if that was awesome than,think of how good it would be now.im just shocked to see that they won’t make a sequel for Sonic X….and im sad
It’s just my opinion, but I like to play all of the sonic games. It just kinda seems wrong for me to say any sonic game sucked. The only Sonic game I didn’t like was Sonic Laberinth. Sonic was slow. That’s it. It was the worst sonic game.EVER. But I like the rest.
I agree with everything but the games were fun like sonic heroes but not right for sonic when I was little the very first game system I played was the genesis(I was like 1 and I already new how to start the game since I saw my mother play.)when I grew I got addicted to it everyday I played Sonic&knuckles but my mom saw that my grades were sliping and toke them away 🙁 so I didn’t notice much how games were changing until a few years later I saw a sonic game all 3d I really wanted it I found away 😉 but as soon as I played it (Sonic heroes) I saw it was NOT the same game I was used to (I might as well find my old games>: )so I decided to listen to my friends about ignoring sonic I was okay until I saw a add on TV about a sonic game it was hard to ignore it was SONIC MEGA COLLECTION PLUS I saw SEGA really did want to make a fast buck putting games like that just to trick old fans I went on and forced my self to play it for old times sake it was perfect sound play color it was incredible but it was hell not new so I went on and saw this game HALO combat evolved and few years later I found this article.
I’m back again =P haha
I think Sonic Unleashed is gonna be AWESOME!!! I have a really good feeling about this game. + I feel Sonic is in safe hands in the japanese studios ^^
Not sure about the Black Knight still, but I’m not gonna judge it until I actually play it, it’s just I can’t imagine Sonic with a sword.. or why he would ever need one/want to use one for that matter XD
GO SONIC!! PROVE THE SHITTY NINTENDO FANS THAT YOU’RE GAMES STILL RULE!!! Hahaha
ya im getting soic uleashed i hope its really good ! and soic with sword? hmmm.. sega is losing it….. the soic rpg looks dumb too
soz i mean sonic lolz >=) my keyboard is messed up x(
I agree with the article, although I have to say, sonic heroes, even though the team play is freakishly stupid, the overall gameplay is good, it’s fun.
Dreamcast, in my opinion, was the true death of SEGA. All SEGA games from then on suck big time; too many characters, stupid storys, light rendered graphics without physics… a shame, I think that what made sonic special was the physics (much more interesting in 2D). Recently, I even played sonic gems collection, and honestly, I could have went on for hours and still want to play more!
Sonic team must, if it whiches to return, fix the camera (totally uninspiring now), connect the player’s controls with a proper physics engine, forget the super powers unless in a boss fight, and change the characters appearance (please, sonic when still looks like is wearing a helmet).
Oh, almost forgot, should also try to make bosses intelligent for a change.THAT would be a challenge.