To be fair, I don't think people should base Sonic's identity purely on Sonic 3 and Knuckles. They are two games. It's perfectly legitimate for a game to follow in the steps of Sonic 1, 2, or CD.
The thing about this is that from the very beginning, Sonic had been interpreted very differently depending on where in the world you grew up with him. He was either a freedom fighter fighting against tyranny, a looney toon prankster and surrogate older brother, or a smart ass who constabtly belittles his allies. The games were foundation, but they were broad enough and didn't favor one of particular continuity, so fans were free to interpret the series however they saw fit. But that changed with Sonic Adventure, which was the first real reinterpretation of the series and threw out all of those other continuities, which caused the first real rift in the fanbase. Most fans tolerated it likely because it retained enough from the classics to not alienate people. But with Sonic Adventure 2 and onward, the games started drifting further and further from the classic foundation, on top of the games just being poorly made in general, culminating in Sonic 06. That vindicated the people who felt Sonic had lost its way, and needed to go back to its classic roots. Sega was attempting to do that, but now they had a new generation of fans who grew up on these games that critics were saying were what's wrong with Sonic and started getting upset that what they saw as the series foundation was being taken from them. Sega's attempts at pleasing all of these different factions, in addition to losing money and staff members is how we got a game like Forces, that just doesn't know what it wants to do. The American branch trying to cultivate an image of ironic self depreciation isn't helping. The foundation is important as you said, but Sonic has reached a point where said foundation is different for many fans. For some, its Sonic 1. For others it's Sonic Adventure 2, or Sonic Colors, or hell, even the movie. Everyone wants something different out of this series. The sad truth that is that Sonic is never going to completely satisfy everyone, it can't. Because there's always going to be fans who feel their voices aren't being heard, and social media makes it all too easy for these voices to reach game developers.
I wasn't talking about any of that stuff. I was talking about the games themselves, not the marketing or comics or cartoons. The series' foundation is Sonic 1. It's not going to be every player's first game, but it's always going to be the original game that everything else is an off-shoot of.
So what if I'm not a fan of Sonic 1 and think that foundation isn't good for the series versus Sonic Adventure. You're right, Sonic 1 is always going to be the foundation of the series, but not everyone has to agree that's where creators should look when taking inspiration, because as I said, not everyone cares for Sonic 1.
1. You've never admitted to being wrong or that your opinion may not be absolute. 2. When enough people disagree with you, you just start insulting them. You told a mod to blow you once. 3. Nobody here on a Sonic forum with several gay and trans members care about you being a furry. Can you go back and read your first post here and see why it might offend someone or upset them? The way you talked about the game was hate filled and unnecessarily cruel. Yet when someone makes fun of SA2 you get super mad. Come on.
We’re reaching new levels of cringe even by your standards. Please, please stop embarrassing yourself.
Frostav, stop playing the victim. This isn't a thread about how amazing or not SA2 is, it's a thread about Sonic Colours. Yes, we know, you hate it. Lord knows you've told us enough. Maybe move on? This has nothing to do with you being gay or a furry, stop trying to play a sympathy card when it's evident you're in a minority on this. My opinion on Colours: Easily the best game the franchise had put out in years and years, possibly as far back as S3&K itself. I rate it very highly and wish Sega would put out a version with polished HD textures on Switch or something. I'd buy Colours again in HD. Game doesn't need motion controls of any kind, I played the entire thing with a GameCube controller.
I am really shocked they've never rereleased Colors. They put fucking Lost World on PC but not the one people like? Bizarre decision. Why they ported Lost World and not Unleashed or Colors is beyond me.
Probably because it was the latest Sonic game at the time, so they didn’t have to try very hard to get it on pc? Unleashed was old and laggy and Colours was a wii game, so it made sense to release Lost World at the time. Let’s not forget it wasn’t a very high effort port
I grew up with mega collection and riders on the gamecube as my only sonic games for years before I lost my copy of riders. Eventually I bought my own copy of advance 3 and had those two games for a long time. Then in 2015 I got advance 1 and 2 and sonic colors as my first new sonic games in years. Colors really left an impression on me back in the day. I still love it to pieces, but I can say my overall appreciation for it has shrunk a bit since I've played most other sonic games by this point
I enjoyed Colors mostly for the atmosphere. I wasn't a big fan of the 2D sections, but then again I'm not a fan of any of the boost games' 2D sections. Not even the Classic Sonic sections of Generations. I wasn't the biggest fan of Wisps either, but I found them tolerable. Sonic Colors the game is just...inoffensive in the end. But the atmosphere of Colors? The experience? That felt like a return to form. It's the same reason why I still enjoy Heroes, despite its myriad problems.
At the risk of continuing a tangent, I'd like to ask what the definition of Sonic "completely satisfying everyone" constitutes here. Because if we're meaning that in the sense of catering to each and every Tom, Hick, and Jerry who may not even like or care about Sonic, or pandering to any hypothetical fan for every Sonic product that's ever been released (and doing so all in one trip on top of that), then I'd honestly like to ask why Sonic never being able to "completely satisfy everyone" is a "sad truth".
I was the one who said that, you could have just quoted me I said that mostly in the sense most fans are convinced that their preferred versions of Sonic will be universally loved and that Sega should listen to them, and anyone who doesn't listen is a dumb dumb. All I said was that, it doesn't really matter what Sonic, because even the "good" games like Colors and Mania have vocal detractors who denounce it's good qualities, simply because its not what they want out of the series.. That's what I was saying.
I thought they were Tom, Dick, and Harry... Jokes aside, it's not a sad truth at all. It's just the truth. Plain and simple. Mario doesn't satisfy everyone with each game he has under his belt. Afaik, when odyssey came out, 64 and sunshine fans were praising the game as a return to 3d form, while galaxy fans were virtually turning in their graves (I have people on my dev team like this). Sonic not pleasing every crowd at once with each game is nothing new in the gaming world. I don't get why people act like it is. (I'm trying to not start something and get in trouble again, so I'll stop here) Edit: phone typo
They ported Lost World because they’d had the port sitting around for years but couldn’t release it due to the exclusivity deal. Lost World was originally developed for the PC, not the Wii U.
I always felt it was a bit more pronounced with Sonic just due to how vocal this fanbase tends to be. Like shit, I know final fantasy fans are all united. But in all my years, the Sonic fanbase is the one that gets the biggest labeling as being unpleasable.
Sonic Adventure is a reinterpretation of ideas first presented in Sonic 1. The discussion was what constitutes a "real" or "proper" Sonic game. Sonic 1 is the foundational work. It's the North Star. Everything else is a reinterpretation of that original work and its ideas. Some diverge a little, some diverge a lot. There's no one correct way to build upon that foundation, just as there's no one correct way to cover, remix or sample a song. What matters is the end result. Did they do a good job with the source material they had to work with? Did they put that source material to good use? Was the end product something fun and cohesive?
This is quickly getting off topic, but I will like to say here and now... Can you really tell me with a straight face that tails skypatrol stems from sonic 1 (gameplay wise, not franchise or continuity)? I'm joking btw, don't answer that Meanwhile, back in sonic colors... I think it's fair to say we have two different boost styles; the unleashed/gens style, and the colors/forces style. I've noticed that (for better or worse) colors and forces share a lot of design philosophies
I just don't think the original work is neccesarily the foundation of a series. Is Mario Bros the 'real Mario' but not Super Mario? You can list loads of examples. How far back should we go? Is the 'real' Sonic the Japanese concept art before the US team touched him up? Are Ohshima's needlemouse drawings, the origin of the character, the 'real' Sonic? If not then are we just basing the original iteration of Sonic on the first comercially sold product? Sonic 1 is arguably less influential on the series than Sonic 2 and indeed many people would say that game represents Sonic'a core identity. But what about Sonic 3? The concept of reality is subjective. Heroes is more authentic to the classic aesthetic, but it's no more 'real' Sonic than SA2.
I do think there's some things though that are ubiquitous from future installments that should be counted as foundational. For instance, some form of method for getting up to high speed (whether that be the spin-dash, or the boost), the core concept there is almost always present in all forms of Sonic platformer (minus the original version of Sonic 1, whilst future variants like the Sonic Jam version or Christian Whitehead remaster having it present with the spindash patched in). I would argue that although it's not present in the original work, it's a core element to making Sonic, and would be remiss if it wasn't there. I think although the original work *can* be a foundational work, anything that builds upon that foundation that directly improves it should be incorporated into that foundation. It's not necessarily the be all and end all. (Sonic Team could do to learn this... Sonic Colours was okay, but they didn't learn from any mistakes made in the game lol)
