See, my solution would be to just never change the design in the first place. Either way though, we're way past the point where we can unscramble that egg.
Was there even a debate before Forces? AFAIR most people were content with Generations' explanation that Classic Sonic was just what Sonic looked like in the olden days.
Before Generations, the Classic design had been retired for thirteen whole years, more time than it existed in the 90's. Outside of small fan circles, as far as everyone was concerned, Sonic was just Sonic. But then they did bring back the design and the floodgates were opened and now we're dealing with this. I'm not gonna blame Sega for not having future vision and accounting for the sheer stupidity of its fanbase, but I can blame them for essentially blatantly abusing classic iconography for the sake of marketing. Like, even as a self-admitted Classic fan, you can't tell me the way they're using his image is in any way ideal. Like, imagine a scenario where Mania and its properties never existed, but we still got Forces.
As a self-admitted Sonic fan, what I can't tell you (and given the limitations of text I must ask you to do me a favor, and imagine me saying this jovially) is how little interest I have in prolonging yet another Classic vs. Modern debate here at Sonic Retro. (The conceptual birthplace of Classic Sonic!) "You can't unscramble that egg," is about as much as I have to add, here. I don't think I could say anything new about it if I tried! I'm at my limit. M̶y̶ ̶a̶l̶t̶i̶t̶u̶d̶e̶ ̶l̶i̶m̶i̶t̶.̶ But I'm glad we find common ground on this: It's a very silly argument to even be having, especially so long after the fact.
I'm not really trying to spark another debate, just calling out Sega's practices. But yea, it is tiring
It's not unusual, and it's not a big deal. When Ninja Turtles or DuckTales t-shirts or collectibles are marketed to adults, they use the 1980s versions, and not the current iterations. And lots of franchises (Ninja Turtles etc.) do the "old meets new" crossovers for anniversaries and other special occasions.
Yea but those franchises aren't ongoing and most of the off shoots are pretty self contained. This isn't a case of different iterations; its more akin to Classic Mickey and Modern Mickey. Ostensibly they're treated as the same exact character but in a different art style. You don't see them establishing the black and white mickey as a separate entity from the peach colored one.
Oh, by debate you people meant the Classic vs Modern design thing. I agree it's dumb, but I'm pretty sure it didn't originate with Classic Sonic's return in the modern games. Remember that infamous green eyes debacle when Sonic 4 came out?
Mickey Generations But in all seriousness, there is some media like shorts that do treat them as separate characters so Pengi's point stands.
With the whole classic sonic thing both arguments hold up. Modern sonic has to have had the same experiences as classic sonic as Adventure 1 mentions CD and 3k, heroes mentions mushroom hill, ect. This treatment holds true up until forces which states that this is a sonic from another dimension, but it never states that this is the same as the one from generations (aside from the awful "it's been generations" line). So both I guess, gonna go with both. Sega will retcon what ever they want just so they have some nostalgia bait. But considering how much "meh" classic in forces was, I doubt we will see this going forward. Classic sonic has been tarnished by his appearance in forces I doubt anyone seeing classic sonic in a 3D game again will be hyped. Perhaps their new nostalgia trick will be using a retro pixel artstyle based on the success of mania.
That's definitely how I remember it. Their "Sonic 4 as you truly imagined it" approach to marketing opened up questions like "well then why aren't you using the design we would have imagined?", "why doesn't it play the way it should?", and so on. Generations didn't have to bring the design back, but it was one hell of a treat (and one hell of a chaser after Sonic 4), even if the gameplay still left much to be desired. Mania was a treat among treats, nailing the design and the mechanics; it felt to me like they finally, after almost a decade, more-or-less delivered on the lofty promises of Sonic 4's marketing nonsense. If the fandom is stuck warring with itself over designs as a result of the Sonic 4-Generations-Mania sequence of games, that's fine by me. If it wasn't this, it'd be a dozen other inconsequential things anyway; fandom for a brand with a built-in identity crisis gonna fandom. That's well worth miraculously squeezing one more great game out of this IP.
(slowly nods in approval) I believe everything happens for a reason. And if the Classic Sonic debacle had to happen for Mania to exist, then I'll gladly live with it.
Yea that's true, this fanbase complains about everything else, may as well get something good out of it all.
I feel sorry for the makers of Sonic the Hedgehog 4, really. They wanted it to be a smaller title, Sonic the Portable, and got saddled with the worst possible goal: making a followup to the original trilogy with an engine that was designed for smaller, portable games...
Sega didn't really use the classic Sonic character designs for about a decade. As I recall, they didn't start making merchandise with those designs again until the late '00s. For the video games, they produced new cover art for Sonic Mega Collection and Sonic Gems Collection using the Sonic Adventure designs, despite those designs not being used in any of the games included on the collections. For a time the Archie comic books weren't allowed to use the old design even in flashbacks, despite the continuity requiring the distinction. They used the new look Sonic across the board, regardless of whether or not it was the best fit. These days they seem to use whichever design is the best fit for the project, on a case by case basis. The new look Sonic is the default, but if a project makes more sense with the classic designs, then they'll use them. The original Sonic character designs, and the 16-bit Sonic games in general, are too big a part of the pop culture landscape to discard and never use again.
To be honest, I have less of a problem with using Classic Sonic than I do this weird ass segregation they started ever since they started utilizing the design again. Like, characters like Mighty and Ray got exercised from the comic continuity simply because they're "Classic only" characters. It just feels needlessly limiting. Like if you're going to have a design split, don't pick and choose
The IDW comic reflects the modern era Sonic series. Ray and Mighty have never appeared in a modern era Sonic game. As far as Sonic Team is concerned, they would need redesigning and reworking to fit into the modern Sonic series and bring something new to the table, just like Vector, Charmy and Espio were. And that's clearly not something that's a high priority for them, or something that they'd want to be lead by the comics, rather than the games. Iizuka said that prior to Sonic Mania Plus, Ray and Mighty were sealed characters, that he didn't plan on them appearing again. https://nintendosoup.com/sonic-team-explains-the-inclusion-of-mighty-and-ray-in-sonic-mania-plus/ He said something similar back in 2011, that they don't use the pre-Sonic Adventure characters anymore: But since Sonic Mania, they're letting these characters exist strictly within the classic series, which has a smaller cast of characters, as a nostalgic thing for the hardcore fans. The modern Sonic series already has a large cast of characters and Sonic Team likes every character to be distinct. http://info.sonicretro.org/Takashi_Iizuka_interview_by_EGM_(February_3,_2004) In Sonic Boom, the NPC character Cliff was originally going to be an inventor, but Sonic Team nixed that because Eggman and Tails were already inventor characters: http://www.sonicparadise.net/2017/07/de-project-apollo-sonic-boom-su.html Sonic Team doesn't like that kind of character overlap. Mighty is a "fast-action cool character" who looks like Sonic. Fang has a unique design and personality, but his shtick is that he's a jewel thief, and the modern cast already has a jewel thief in Rouge. Fans might not like it, but there is a thought process behind it.
I guess that makes sense. Like, from a creative perspective as a budding comic artist/writer myself, I can get behind this. It sucks sometimes, sure- but it's one of those necessary evils- lest the cast get too diluted.
The one Classic character I miss is Fang, as I feel he brings enough to the table, being one of the very few villainous anthros in the series and using guns without falling into Ow the Edge territory (whether he's using actual guns or pop guns ). But I do admit that Ray and Mighty feel kinda redundant. In Mania they were fun to play as, but character-wise, Ray came off as a Tails expy, while Mighty feels like Sonic and Knuckles rolled into one
