Sonic Tier Lists Thread

I considered placing Mania in A, but then I'd have needed to reconsider like every tier below S... Still ain't my number one, but it was a labour of love that delivered arguably the best engine to the masses and continues to be iterated on, thankfully.

 

Presented without context

 

I've updated mine:

 

Figured it'd be fun to do one of these since I havent in a very long time, pretty much just did games ive played in at least some decent capacity

 

Oh hey, I didn't know we had one of these threads. Well, I've obviously got opinions on the remaining 25 years of games, but I've only taken notes on the pre-Sonic Adventure games for now, so here's my ranking of those:

(That's game.com Sonic Jam at the bottom, by the way)

 

Youtube. If I can get an obscure product working, I have an obligation to cover it, and an even bigger obligation to subject my friends to any torture I undergo.

 

Man, it’s surprising to see just how polarising the Advance games are. There doesn’t seem to be a clear consensus on them.

 

This depends entirely on your perspective; a lot of people would say the Advance games are underrated due to how nobody talks about them for essentially holding down the fort for 2D Sonic in the early 2000's, and some consider them a good modern interpretation of the Classic formula.

But then you have the perspective of people who see them as inferior to the Classics and then when Sonic 4 came out, Dimps' reputation within the fandom tanked, so people retroactively applied that to the Advance games too and suddenly, everyone just started highlighting their flaws.

 

I am not concerned how the fandom view DIMPS.

I enjoyed Episode 2 last time I played it, and I don't remember hating 1 when I played it as a kid.

I still don't think the Advance games are very good each for it's own reason. No bias or retroactive application there.

 

Here's mine.

Now to defend my terrible hot takes: I unironically enjoy both Shuffle and Sonic The Fighters quite a bit. I think Shuffle's soundtrack and the game's weird quirks are so sick, even if the gameflow is not the most riveting thing ever the vibe of the experience keeps me coming back. Sonic the Fighters soundtrack is awesome and the cartoony aesthetic saves the game from being just a decent fighter to me.

I also have a soft spot for the game gear games, Sonic 1 GG is superior to the genesis version, and Triple Trouble is a flatout banger. Chaos would be A Tier of the levels lasted longer than 2 seconds and it was more challenging.

I also remember having quite a bit of fun with Sonic Edusoft with a friend late one night, I don't think the game is remarkable in any way but I found it quite fun to explore once through.

Sonic Adventure has a lot of issues and is a pain in the butt to complete 100% but I can't help but love it. The soundtrack, most of the stages, the prototype nonsense. It's a weird barely finished mess but I love it

As a kid I preferred Sonic Rush Adventure to the original, I found the locations and the grander scale more fun and the bloated length of the game was a plus to me since I rarely had money for DS games.

Sonic Drift 2 is pretty fun, great soundtrack too. Hilltop has a great little tune.

Knuckles Chaotix is a game I wish I loved. On the contrary, Sonic CD is a fantastic game and I love it even with its horrible design choices. One of my most replayed games.

Never had access to the main consoles during the Wii - PS3 era so I never got to experience the riveting mediocrity of the Story Book games or the first two boost games.

Sonic Lost World would be a lot higher if 75% of the platforming wasn't automated.

 

At release, in the present, and at every point in between I've held Sonic Advance in very high regard. It understood and progressed what had been established in the core classic trio. Unfortunately I cannot say anything remotely as glowingly positive about its numbered sequels. Rush was a course correction, but still implemented flawed concepts deriving from 2 & 3.

As for Sonic 4... I enjoyed the first episode at release and occasionally feel compelled to revisit it. It is inferior to Advance in like every way, but I can enjoy it. The sequel is where I struggle to find and maintain enjoyment. The first is flawed, but I can excuse it knowing about its origin and primary development as a mobile game before Sega mandated console releases and stamping on a new title. What is Episode 2's excuse?

Overall I just don't see DIMPS as some demon.

 

I think all the Advance games are good, but my views of them are definitely a bit scattershot:

• The first Advance is probably the best from a pure gameplay standpoint, since it's the one that hews closest to its Genesis brethren. There's a good balance of speed and platforming, and you use your raw momentum like you did before - and the physics engine feels almost exactly like the one from the Genesis games (hell, it's probably the closest thing to them, outside the Retro Engine remakes and Mania). However, its soundtrack is one of the series' more forgettable (especially in contrast to its sequels, which had fantastic OSTs), and the Special Stages are lame.
• Advance 2 is an admittedly admirable attempt to combine the Advance engine with the breakneck speed of Sonic Adventure 2's Sonic stages. The problem is that the levels and bosses end up feeling ridiculously samey, and the difficulty is blatantly unfair. It's still worth playing, especially since it introduced many concepts that would be revisited and refined to near-perfection in Rush, Rush Adventure, and Colors DS, but it's by far my least favorite of the Advance series. Also getting to the Special Stages is a PAIN and getting the final boss is 100% not worth the effort.
• Advance 3 is by far my personal favorite, less because it's a perfect game and more because it's bursting to the brim with creativity, fun mechanics, and replayability. The level design is rough in places (it's not as samey as Advance 2's, but there are way more death traps than Advance's) and it retains the problem of the Special Stages being a pain to access, but there's a surprising amount of depth to the team mechanics. A lot of the fun for me comes from doing different combinations and then just toying around with them in the levels and coming up with ludicrous stunts to pull off.

They're all fun games, which makes it even more baffling that Sega hasn't put them out on modern hardware yet. I'd easily snatch them up.

 

I was sooooo not going to make a comprehensive tier list. Add Sonic 1 for the Master System in Best Games Ever and Sonic Rush Adventure in Good Games

 

My thoughts on the Dimps games if we’re discussing them.

If Sonic Advance 1 had:
1) an actual narrative that incorporated level transitions and cutscenes like 3K
2) 4 or 5 more levels
3) Super forms in regular stages
4) Advance 2’s trick system
I think I’d rank it in the top tier with Mania and 3K.

The art is phenomenal, the level design is decent to great, and Amy is a fantastic addition to the playable cast. It’s just that as it stands, the game feels too much like a regression in terms of presentation. It’s much more like a modernized Sonic 2 than 3, which is fine, but 3 was a more complete feeling package and it lacks the length and creativity in level tropes to beat 2 at what it does.

Advance 2 retains and advances the art style while introducing some more interesting level theming, but falters in actual level design. The special stage system is super annoying as well, and I think Amy as an unlockable was lame and the change to her gameplay, although it may have been necessary for the level design, was for the worse. The game is still decent and I have fun with it, but it’s a shallower enjoyment than the classics.

Advance 3 is has the most complete feeling package of the three, but I have a few issues. The first is that it takes too long to travel to the level switch hub. Going there to swap characters, change stages, or check the Chao count is just long enough to be annoying. If you could do that from the pause menu, it’d be great. The second is that I wish every character and team retained the R-button tricks when launched. The third is that the level design, while an improvement over 2 in terms of creativity, is a bit too labyrinthine and has too many death traps. Finally, the special stage system is okay once you know to check the Chao list in the stage select hub, but I think some extra indication within the levels themselves would have been good. Maybe if after beating the game once they made the list available in stage, had a sound indicator, or something along those lines, it’d be helpful. As always, too few levels and no transitions are also a drawback.

Sonic Rush is super fun but I view it similarly to Advance 2 in that it’s sort of shallow. The presentation is top notch but I would have preferred sprites. The Blaze sprites in the credits are amazing and it would have looked fantastic on the DS. Also, the trick noises are too loud, enemy rooms can suck a fat one, and the physics are too far removed from the classics so the game feels off when you’re not boosting.

Rush Adventure was a good expansion on Rush, but I think the stage art is super flat looking. It’s not too bad later in the game, but the first level in particular looks incredibly cheap. I’d have to look at them all again, but none of the stages impressed me in the same way as the Advance games and Rush 1.

Colors DS is good. If the cutscenes weren’t mostly cutouts, I’d say it’s the better version. I also dislike getting boost from wisps, but that’s more of a Colors problem than just this version.

Edit: I forgot Sonic 4 Episode 1 and 2. I don’t hate Ep 1 but it’s a mediocre pastiche of Sonic 1 and 2 tropes without the quality of Advance 1 or the novelty/charm of Pocket Adventure, and the physics are… Sonic 4 Ep 1. Ep 2 is an improvement in every way and I’d rate it as “pretty decent,” but it’s been years since I’ve played it and I don’t remember specifics. They’re short so I think they’re worth 100%ing but they’re just not Sonic 4.

 

I personally don't think Sonic Advance was trying to be a follow up to Sonic 3 at all. It was a new Sonic for a new generation, so keeping things simple was probably the intention for it. The last thing you wanna do is confuse new consumers, so taking a back to basics approach made sense. Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles all played like an approximation of their classic selves, but Amy was there to add something new to the table after her starring role in Sonic Adventure. Which is why I don't understand why some fans try to portray it as "the real Sonic 4" when that wasn't what it was trying to be to begin with.

Its also why I don't hold Sonic Advance 2's design against it much, because once again, it's doing its own thing as a game. It never made any attempt at selling itself as a follow up to the Classics despite it being a 2D game. And sure, its flawed and streamlined in many areas compared to the first game, but I think it a says a lot that Advance 2 became the basis for what became the Rush games and not Advance 3.

Advance 3 felt like it was trying to address a lot of the criticisms of Advance 2 and dialed it back, but as a result it feels like a game without its own identity...mostly. The tag mechanic is a pretty unique way to add some replay value...even if some character combinations were better than others (Sonic & Knuckles) but the level design is all over the fucking place. It wants to be fast like Advance 2, but also encourage exploration too.


But I feel like all three games definitely don't get the reputation they deserve, even back in the day. Handheld games were seen as lesser than console games back then and the fact that the games have never been re-released means they're gonna remain annuls in Sonic's history where they don't deserve it.

 

I know that was the intention, but that’s why I, and many others, think it’s not as good as the classics lol. As good as the New Super Mario Bros series can be, very few people are going to rank them with the originals because they fail to be a progression of the series. You can say, “That’s the point,” but it doesn’t change the fact that it makes them less memorable, less compelling to play, and ultimately a less heavily praised experience to consumers.

So yeah, Sonic Advance doesn’t try to be a follow up to Sonic 3, and that’s why it’s not as good. Everything it lacks from Sonic 3 makes it a worse game. Don’t ask why people don’t consider the games as highly as the classics and then say all the reasons were the creators’ intention. It doesn’t make the problems go away. They’re still good games though.

 

I said that because I personally don't feel its right to judge a game for not being something when that was never the intention to begin with. An apples and oranges situation basically.

Like for Mario, its even in the title. Its "NEW Super Mario Bros." for a reason. New, as in not old.


If you think the games are inferior for not being Sonic 3 and wanna look at them that way, fine but I'd rather judge the three advance games how they stack up against each other as opposed to judging for not being something else.

It makes sense for Sonic 4 when that game literally sold itself as a sequel to Sonic 3, so judging it as one is fair game there.