The Essence of Sonic the Hedgehog

This is an article of sorts that approaches a rather different question: Sonic as a brand, not as a game. While we've seen is terrible management of Sonic as an icon, and even though we've seen pretty clearly that bad games ruin a reputation, it's also important to note that good games don't necessarily build one. In this OP, I shall discuss why Sonic games are criticized the way they are, why they have sold less and less even though they are supposedly better and what's the relation between commercial success and general prestige.

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Do you recognize this painting?

Actually, I hope you don't. And I hope you didn't look at the url either, because this way it'll be easier for me to explain - because, now I'll ask: do you kno who made it?

And you'll probably say "well, it's Pablo Picasso. The style is unmistakable." and so it is. Even if you've never seen this painting before, you can infer the author because of some data you've acquired before. It matches such data. Also, have you ever heard a song and immediately thought "this sounds like Beatles" even if you were listening to, say, that Lemon Tree song?

Every work of art leaves a mark, a legacy to culture in general that allows it to be recognized even when it's not present at all. It becomes "spiritual", so to speak. This, naturally, also happens to games and Sonic does have a mark. You can eat a donut and associate it to rings. We can recognize minimalist posters of Sonic, too. That's the essence of Sonic the Hedgehog.

I'm saying this because such essence is what's more valuable to a franchise in order to help it sell well (which is what's important in the end) and be recognized as an icon. That's what Sonic was made for. But what is, objectively, Sonic's essence?

I wouldn't say it's all about the elements without which the games can't be recognized as Sonic, though. Especially gameplay-wise. Some might say it's not a Sonic game if he doesn't run fast or doesn't jump high, but that's not it. The essence we're discussing here is like the following: Pietá is a sculpture made of marble. What's essential is not the element that made it be the ay it is (the marble), but the image it passes. If we make an origami that passes just the same image and people recognize it, then we can say that the essence has been preserved.

Running and jumping, you can say, are the marble. The material with which you build the game (and there IS a reason why one would want to choose marble over wood, for example). There are spin-offs that look more like Sonic than canon games (Sonic R compared Sonic '06, for example). Analogically, what's essential about Mona Lisa is not the frame, nor the paint used, not even the "mysterious smile". This is just as Mona Lisa as the original one, despite not having anything to do with it other than... well... Mona Lisa. You know, the very idea of Mona Lisa.

Essence is a creator of possibilities, not of restrictions. Because, in truth, essence is not the elements that e would like to make an ideal Sonic game: it's what makes us perceive Sonic in wherever he might be. We create Sonic, too, in a way, when he's not there.

And that's why the essence isn't the Word of God, either. There is a space of creation between the developer and the general audience. It is more or less conceived, but never completely preexistent to the first game. The audience can aggregate value to a game - let's take Pokémon as an example. Today, it's a part of pop culture, a very important one I'd say. You can use Pokémon for lots of analogies, lots of ideas etc. There's Missingno., which I point as a result of the interaction between the developer and the player and which is very much integrated to Pokémon culture even if it's not what GameFreak would define as "canon" at all.

I want to say that there is an abstract Sonic in people's mind even if no one says it. When the developer starts to mess up ith this very abstract Sonic, things start to get confusing. When you take Sonic from an universe to another without warning and without caution, the Sonic in popular imaginary is excluded and, therefore, no one knows what to expect from Sonic and opinions start to escape the earlier closed paradigm. That's how Sonic went downhill.

What has affected Sonic the most in the last years is an absolute lack of conceptual sequence. No, Sonic Generations wasn't able to repair this just because it tried to establish a timeline, a weak and contradictory canon. The problem is not necessarily internal (which means the games are not necessarily bad in themselves) - it's how the game is presented in face of the whole franchise's imaginary.

Sonic Adventure reseted the whole universe of the series, completely ignoring what had happened until S3&K. Not (only) in terms of storyline, but - most importantly - in the way one could deal with how he would make progress in the game and create emotional attachment to it.

Here's a fun fact: if Sonic CD was the first Sonic game ever, we'd automatically attach the time travel to the essence of Sonic, and, then, if they released Sonic 1 after it, everyone would complain because where the hell have the fun time travels gone? Time travel is so Sonic-y!

That's why there's no such thing as "evaluating a game for what it is". That's a fallacy. No one ever does that because there are expectations as of what has to do as what has not to do with the abstract, social Sonic. And, as we see the games more inside a context, our opinions change. That's how people have grown fond of Sonic 3 whereas it was criticized at the time, and that's how Sonic Adventure has grown older and older and the flaws have become more and more evident. Whether Sonic Adventure is more flawed than Sonic 3 doesn't matter: Sonic 3 has a whole essence, a whole base to support it. Sonic Adventure doesn't.

You know, there is a funny phenomenon in the fanbase. We hype up the most recent game and completely forget the last ones.

Remember 2007?

"The franchise has gone downhill, oh, woe is me, no one likes Sonic because of that pesky '06 game. But wait! Here we have Sonic and the Secret Rings, which is a light at the end of the tunnel! I SO wanted to play with Sonic only once again! Sonic is back, guys!"

Remember 2008?

"Yeah, Sonic and the Secret Rings surely made some progress, but it had a completely un-Sonic story and a stupid new transformation. It's not what we wanted after all. But wait! Here we have Sonic Unleashed, with whole new mechanics and 2D and WHOOOO! Sonic is back, guys!"

Remember 2010?

"Yeah, Sonic Unleahed surely made some progress, but it had a completely un-Sonic story and a stupid ne transformation. It wasn't enough after all. But wait! Here we have Sonic Colors, which is a simple, fast-paced game, yet full with platforming! Sonic is back, guys!"

Remember 2011?

"Yeah, Sonic Colors surely made some progress, but it had a completely un-Sonic Sonic and didn't get that much attention. It wsan't enough after all. But wait! Here we have Sonic Generations, which even has Classic Sonic and all! Sonic is back, guys!"

We've seen it all a lot of times. And even though the games haven't been so smashed by the critics recently, they've sold less and less. Sonic and the Secret Rings sold 2,42 millions of units, whereas Sonic Colors has sold about half of this amount. What's wrong, then?

It's simple. No one cares about Sonic anymore outside of the fanbase. Because the "abstract Sonic" has simply vanished - not because the games were exactly bad, but because they were horribly, horribly WRONG. Sonic is today a pensive franchise, trying to find its way into 3D. And it has been like this for more than 10 years. What Sonic needs is not a good game. It needs to be able to bear an unique, recognizable UNIVERSE once again. Sonic Adventure even had some interesting elements, like the Chao and the Echidnas, but nowadays the general audience can't build ANYTHING on Sonic's universe, because there isn't one. Actually, there are about a lot of them, but no one is consistent ith one another. That's symptomatic in Sonic Generations - the difference between Chemical Plant and Crisis City, visually, is abysmal. What's important now is to gather elements that everyone can recognize, establish a coherent style for the games (in terms of visuals and even music) and understand hat's the right time to release the right game. For now, it would be for the best if they weren't releasing anything at all.

What needs to return is not necessarily the black eyes or the 2D gameplay. I, for one, do think the earlier design is far better than the new one and I do think the level design we have had sucks. But focusing on creating a distinctive "Sonic feeling" once again is far more important than these scattered details that do build a franchise's essence, but not if the developer doesn't try to. There needs to be a masterplan, and this is lacking HEAVILY in Sonic Team.

Each game we have had was a mechanical response to the last one instead of the next gear in a machine. Everyone hated Sonic '06, they acknowledged the critique and made Sonic and the Secret Rings and then Sonic Unleashed, which have in common the fact that you play with Sonic alone in them. Everyone hated Werehog, so they removed it. The games are NOT consistent with the rest of them. There is not a train of thought in them, only cause and effect. The games didn't have a sense of where they were going, they all had a sense of here they were not.

On addition, I have seen people claim that Sonic no gets poked fun at because it's cool appeal couldn't stand the test of time and that some characters, like Mario and Pac Man, were born timeless. However, it's not like characters have an intrinsical value that decreases over time. Mario's "timeless everyman appeal" wasn't found stuck in a rock like a diamond - it was constructed by lots of elements that make Mario recognizable even when he's not there. The flower, the Goomba, the shells etc. Sonic lacks these many elements, even more because the ones that ere established get tossed in the next game. Where are the Chao? Where have the echidnas' gone? The flickies, all the metal paradigm, the floor with trippy patterns, the mysticism about the chaos emeralds, the sense of Robotnik's grandeur while progressing through the game (except for Eggmanland), the badniks, the importance of the rings (gameplay-wise, not only to feed your Boost), the item boxes, the speed shoes, invincibility? It all gets reinvented all the time. This makes it impossible for Sonic to have a racing game, an RPG game, even a platform game that stands on its own.

I have to agree on one point, though: it's difficult to mantain Sonic's cool attitude actually cool. But we've seen characters close themselves inside of an universe over time just so that the appeal would be preserved - becoming more and more "cartoonish" in their own account, in a way. It's happened to The Simpsons, Kiss (the band) and perhaps Harry Potter, for instance. The problem with this is that the other extreme of loss of essence is self-caricaturisation. However, Sonic didn't do this - its lack of "Sonic-y" sorroundings made its cool appeal have to face other cool appeals with bare hands, and so it was undermined.

Indeed, Sonic Unleashed and Colors share similitarities and Sonic Generations was a message from Sonic Team about how they do have a more concise plan now. I support this plan, even if I'm not really into it. Also, I can't deny that Sonic Generations got *some* nice media attention and SEGA will be really smart if they start investing in marketing. However, that's not all.

Some might say Sonic Colors and Sonic Generations were targeted at different bases - that's not how it should be. This Sonic for you, this Sonic for them. It doesn't work quite like this, even if franchises tend to do that sometimes. The thing is... indeed, SEGA can't take any risky steps. But targetting different audiences when the to games are supposed to be deeply connected and "canon" is a risky step. Instead of searching for a market, SEGA should create it for Sonic, because he has this much potential.

It's like Angry Birds or Temple Run etc. It doesn't have target audience; it has a target media. It creates, around itself, some kind of pop culture fuss that attracts people, their preferences aside. Sonic did that perfectly with Mega Drive/Genesis. It's about having some kind of image attached to it - and you can build this with a very, very unique universe and very, very unique elements. Triforce, Portal Gun, GlaDOS' voice, the mushrooms, Goombas, colored ghosts, an eyepatch, pixeled art etc.

 

Thank you, sir. Maybe we as fans should indeed develop a Sonic textbook. There's much to be said about what made Sonic great back then.

Indeed - Sonic Colors did a good job. However, it doesn't present itself so - it doesn't really try to start something new, to be developed further. The problem is that the elements in themselves are only one part of the issue. How such elements face the other ones, however, is just as important. That said, Sonic Colors was presented more as spin-off-ish than reboot-ish. Maybe this is why Sonic needs to stop for a while.

Me, too. Man, do I miss the jump SFX! Anyway, that's why I think there aren't bad ideas - only inadequate ones. Context pretty much defines what comes across as terrible or great to me. Even the boost and - if you want to be radical about it - the werehog could work if placed in another context instead of trying to *be* the context. But I completely agree with you - some things don't say "Sonic". Congratulations, you've worded it in a stylish fashion.

That's for sure. Advertising is how you spread it and how you create it - but what do you show? Sonic alone? Not every Pokémon t-shirt has a pokémon on it: that's the story about pretending you're Sonic with your friends and using donuts as rings. There are subtle, very subtle things that remind you of Sonic or of other franchises - quirky sounds, hidden references. To put Sonic deep inside the people's imaginarium demands these kinds of things - that seem small firsthand.

It's not. It's perfectly comprehensible like this, because Sonic Adventure 2 established another Sonic - even if a different one, the important part is the word "established". You would know what to expect from a next Sonic Adventure game and there was enough material to be used in subsequent games, including art style. Sonic Battle feels very Adventure-ish and it isn't even an action game. You could point some elements, but in the end the conclusion would be "it's there".

Sonic Heroes, however, didn't know here to go. It stood in a middle ground, which, by the way, didn't exist before. Sonic Adventure felt like a Megaman X series to Sonic, at most. When Sonic Heroes tried to unite them or something like that, it was really weird.

Now, I must agree that Sonic's position as a mascot is very important to form his image. He was created to be a mascot. But~! There are possibilities for him. As I said, the essence doesn't generate restrictions, but possibilities. He's not just a mascot, he's also a 16-bit icon and there are infinite ways to make him huge and distinctive again. The ad you mentioned is a positive light, but all that it shows is Sonic - it's Sonic in the ad's context, but it would be ideal if it were an ad in Sonic's context. And this is a step (actually many steps) ahead.

 

Not quite. Quality is one thing, but there is no absolute standpoint to compare. Therefore, what's important is not how good a game really is - if we try to discuss it, we'll never reach a consensus based on a parameter of "quality" - but how people perceive quality. Why is rehash better accepted on some franchises than on others? And, even then, I don't think Sonic Unleashed/Colors/Generations are an actual improvement, in the end of the day. Even if they are technically better, they've sold less, not more. Not even comparatively.

As for Sonic 3D Blast, there were many more problems about it: its release was not properly handled, so much so that it was released in 2 SEGA consoles. It was not good enough for the time. It's also important to look how the game is doing in face of its time, naturally.

Technical excellence is obviously important - but, then again, it's the least a game must do. This and providing fun. A game being fun is like a book being readable. The essence, or, if you will, the magic is the "something else" that makes an icon out of a game. I do take the point of Sonic SatAM and AoStH making it more difficult to identify why people like Sonic, but some points can also be raised about different mediums etc. - more importantly, it makes me wonder that so many people liked Sonic from different starting points and all, supposedly without the fissure in the fanbase. You see, it bugs me that people think the fanbase has to be "fixed", as if, for example, Sonic Retro was an endogenous phenomenon that could happen within any fanbase if people were crazy enough.

I didn't mean to imply that simply making games coherent with one another would raise sales (even though I believe it would help a lot), because releasing the right game at the right time is just as crucial. This, too, constitutes essence. Which games are automatically relevant and which ones are not - even though I can't really say what's the cause and what's the consequence in this process. Metal Man's statement about correlation could be applied here, I suppose.

And I do agree with Black Squirrel in that it's difficult to keep the rush of a cultural phenomenon. But it's possible to keep it iconic, without messing up with what people regard as important to them.

EDIT: It's difficult to present a tangible solution having this in mind. The possibilities are unlimited; one can do basically anything with Sonic, as long as it's done well. What I intend is to specify as much as I can what is it to do it "well".

 

Ah~! About that. No, I can fully agree with you, but this becomes problematic in another framework of analysis - a more macro one. It becomes problematic that a) if you ask whether two or three people liked X, they may even agree with each other, but if you look further you will always find someone who disagrees. Then we must wonder why would this happen, specially because b) people don't always like X for the same reasons, and this can be confusing if you're trying to emulate a particular feeling or feature. That's basically why you'll find people saying they didn't like Sonic 4 because it was too much like the classics and people saying they didn't like Sonic 4 because it was nothing like the classics.

That's where a designer should think about what is being done and for what purposes. In the end, the elements that succeed in comprising the most possible "ways" to like it are the ones that separate simple solidity from cultural phenomenons.

Take Matrix, for example. Some like it because of the action scenes, some like it because of the philosophy behind it. That bullet-dodging scene is iconic - and I feel compelled to ask what would we remember from the movie if this scene didn't exist. I'm not saying it would be a catastrophe and it would fall into oblivion, but e certainly would have a lot less parodies and the first thing to come to many people's minds at the sound of the word "Matrix" would be different.

But we see some games categorised as rehash and some games that aren't, even if it can be argued that they actually are. For example, we never question whether Pitfall's mechanics are actually good or not - they are just... there. Had they released another game with different paradigms and comparison would be inevitable. This would lead to the question of which mechanics is better and, then, emulating the old mechanics would strike as something different of just having kept the same paradigms all along. In gamers' minds, you know.

True, and I'm an example. I just don't care about these games. Still, their reception was better than, say, Sonic and the Secret Rings and people still didn't buy it. That's the whole point: quality alone doesn't sell.

No, no~! Even though I see why you would think that. The point is, in fact, "they may improve everything and make really great games. But, if attention to the very brand presentation and elements of easy access to people's imaginarium, nobody will care". I see many other problems with the franchise - it's just that fixing them and not having it look as something more than just a fix wouldn't have the desired effect (even if it is always positive, of course).

What makes people perceive something as good or, more importantly, desirable is, exactly for not being objective, subject to manipulation and centralization in what you want to show, exactly because what you do will be acknowledged in different ways. The less you open spaces for negative acknowledgement, the more successful is the product.

tl;dr: you can even sell garbage and make people worship it if you make them think it's an icon of something.

 

I wonder if this isn't a question of management. Completely ignoring the current fanbase alone would open Sonic's achievable market (in the devs minds, at least). Just as you said in your post, Sonic Generations failed to develop an universal appeal - or maybe it never tried to. I'm inclined to think that some good 5 years without Sonic would help, but that's just a very personal opinion.

The recession angle is... really hard to deal with, I must admit. Because there is so much more to it - Japan market's decadence may not be related to economic recession but may be an isolated crisis instead that happens for its own reasons. I lack the means to analyze this - however, my base is comparison. Sonic wasn't even the best selling platform franchise in any of the consoles he was in. Even if you discount Mario. This makes the issue of economic recession secondary IMO, because if Sonic can't even compete with its peers... and indeed, popular games tend to score higher and sell better. Did I ever imply anything agains this? Because I fully agree. It's all entwined to me.

We may be having a communication issue here. Are you saying these factors belong to the technical quality area? Because I believe they constitute essence. Still, we agree in that these factors helped much in the subpar sales and overall excitement about the game.

Are we even disagreeing at all? Haha. Unified world and feel are all I'm talking about. If anything, I think the undamaged fanbase is a consequence of those.

Still... I may have made it look like the "iconic nature", as you would say, is an isolated feature of the game. No, and I must retract whatever I said that made it look like it. Essence is a plan behind the game, but also a consequence of all the rest, and this much you can see here:

If it was a visual issue only, games wouldn't be art. Distinctive gameplay, innovations - it's all a part of what makes a game stand out. From Space Invaders to Pac Man to Tetris to Mario to Zelda OoT to GTA - the changes and the innovations are indeed paradigmatic and bring a whole new pack of ideas each time. Each has a legacy, and "legacy" is pretty much one end of the essence. And the technical nature is a part of it, but I ill assume I misused the word "technical". When I talk about technical problems, I'm talking about bugs, disfunctions, endless loading screens etc. Even though these can, if extreme, actually become iconic (Superman 64, Big Rigs), this is yet another topic.

As for Mass Effect, it indeed bugs me that it didn't sell that well and its iconic nature just asn't enough. However, the sales are very stable in X360 and this is also important.

Point taken. You will have to carry the ornament around anyway, so it's better to give it some movement.

 

I see, and I'm sorry for being this aggressive.

However, can we agree that we only have such a large number of styles to compliment because they were created in the first place? Not only gameplay-wise. That's why, imo, it is SEGA's fault indeed, and for the reason you've mentioned. The route SEGA chose, it seems, was the third option - dying by loss of interest due to repetition of gambling on variety. The opinion wars are inevitable, but they could at least have put everything under the same universe.

I understand that some might say it's everything due to the fact that Sonic is no longer the mascot of a notorious company, but this doesn't exclude the possibility of Sonic not having been managed properly since then.

Thing is: a stance of middle ground doesn't work just so well as a stance of a single ground imo - and there's not much room for different views of what a good Sonic game is if you create many Sonics.

That's not to say that Sonic should never change, that's not it. I don't like Sonic Rush (I REALLY don't) but it sold well, was praised by the critics and had the potential to create a new Sonic without mixing everything together. The boost, Blaze, the cohesive art style, this could all have been used as a landmark, a starting point. There's a distinctive Sonic Rush feel, that's what I mean. The problem would be if, for example, Sonic 4 had the name of "Sonic Rush 2" or something. Or if Sonic Unleashed had the name of "Sonic Adventure 3".

I do think moving on is important. Forget the classics if you want. But do it with a long-term project in mind and don't try to please specific groups - focus on making Sonic pleasing, this much I find important - it's essential. I doubt Tetris had a specific target audience (having been developed in USSR, even moreso) like "children" or "Americans" (having been developed in USSR, even moreso), let alone both with different sequels.