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The Sonic series, ever since its inception, never seems to have completely settled into one type of atmosphere for several games. This is clear simply by looking at the environments Sonic traverses throughout each game. With the exception of the classics, which maintained a similar style from Sonic 1 to Sonic 3 & Knuckles (though CD exaggerates this style a bit), each game seems to have its own distinct style that makes it different from the other games. So I figured I'd do an analysis of each game I remember clearly: All of the classics, the Adventure games, Heroes, 06, and Unleashed. So without further ado, let's start with the classics:

Sonic the Hedgehog had a very unique style from the time of its release to today. Everything was bright and colorful, the enemies were comical robot versions of many different animals, and the environment had a ton of little slopes and loops to grant Sonic more speed or serve as an obstacle you needed to build up speed to pass. With the exception of the final levels, everything felt lighthearted and whimsical. Sonic 2 and Sonic 3 & Knuckles follow this style very faithfully as well, with the only real changes being due to improvements in graphics. Because of this style, even when the levels did become more serious and sported less happy themes (Scrap Brain Zone, Chemical Plant Zone, Oil Ocean Zone, Metropolis Zone, etc.), it never felt quite real. You were always exploring these interesting, abstract environments not present on our lovely, boring Earth. Sonic CD took this a step further by seemingly basing many of its levels off of Sonic 1's and making them a bit... crazier. Palmtree Panic with its oddly shaped plants and triangular earth, Wacky Workbench with that giant... spring thing (?) at the bottom, and Stardust Speedway with its massive clusterfuck of lights and roads; nothing was a huge stretch of the imagination, but it was by no means realistic.


Sonic Adventure introduced a brand new style for the franchise. Never before had we seen such an odd blend of realism and whimsy, and it was a very interesting way of introducing Sonic to the real world. With the exceptions of Emerald Coast and Casinopolis (though the latter probably would have fit this style quite well had the developers not wanted to rely on the pinball mechanic, and the former simply because it seemed rather light on speed and was probably built to let the player learn the controls), all levels have a very "Sonic-like" style to them; featuring your trademark loops, corkscrews, platforms, several layers of pathways, and other abstract elements to keep it from feeling too separated from Sonic's previous atmosphere. The most blatant example of this is Speed Highway, featuring roads that would be absolutely absurd in real life, yet still obviously being in the realistic environment of a bustling city at night.


Sonic Adventure 2 stepped away from this design philosophy of blending real life and fantastical elements, instead favoring segregation between "realistic levels" and "unrealistic levels". City Escape had barely any "Sonic-like" features in it, being almost completely devoid of loops, corkscrews, or other reality bending aspects. It was, in all honesty, a bit bland in comparison to Adventure's levels, with all of the peculiar attributes being relegated to Sonic himself, rather than the level design. Though the city itself doesn't have many distinguishing features, Sonic's little boarding segment at the beginning of the level was anything but normal. To contrast this, we had Radical Highway, which in my opinion, is a rather underwhelming Speed Highway twin. It had less bright, flashing colors, less interesting enemies, and lacked any segment as interesting as Speed Highway's building run. Despite this, it still prominently displayed Sonic Adventure's "blending of realities". Several other levels are like this, which... with the exception of Pyramid Cave and the space levels, are all Shadow levels. ... Huh. I've actually never noticed this until just now, but it seems that Shadow's levels are generally more "unreal" than Sonic's, even when they're in the same place (Green Forest vs. White Jungle). Interesting. Anyhow, it's definitely true that the game features more realistic environments than Sonic Adventure (which to me, goes hand in hand with the darker tone of the game), and this is also where the fanbase has its first real "split" (especially since Sonic Adventure essentially feels like a classic game in 3D, whereas Adventure 2 decides to try something completely different).


Sonic Heroes goes against this trend of introducing something as of yet unseen and attempts to go back to the more fantastical style of the classics. This is clearly seen in stages such as Seaside Hill, a very obvious homage to Green Hill Zone and Bingo Highway, which looks very similar to Casino Night Zone. The decision for Heroes to have this style was probably made to cater to those who preferred the atmosphere of the classics over those of the Adventure games. Unfortunately, Heroes was ultimately not as praised as Sonic Adventure 2 before it (though obviously for gameplay reasons), which may have influenced Sonic Team's decision to return to the more realistic style of Sonic Adventure 2.


Now... Sonic 06. If we're going to ignore Shadow, this is where the franchise took a huge jump in one direction and feels like a flanderized Sonic Adventure 2. Everything seems more realistic, even the "abstract levels" of the game. Looking at the levels themselves, it's clear that the game followed Sonic Adventure 2's segregation of styles between levels. While several of the levels do indeed seem unreal, the slight majority is of those that feel more realistic. Despite this though, the more unrealistic levels only ever really go to the same extent as Sonic Adventure 2's levels did; "Sonic-like", but never quite as fantastical as Adventure's stages. Rather than being realistic places blended with the flair of the previous games, they seem to be realistic places with some "Sonic-like" (how many times have I used that term now?) aspects thrown in in order to keep the levels from being to jarringly different from what Sonic made himself known as. For example, while Windy Valley is taking a realistic environment (mountains) and blending it with Sonic's usual flair (tornado's everywhere, highways in the sky, giant fans, etc.), Kingdom Valley seems like a realistic place with a few "Sonic" segments dispersed throughout the level (and mostly in the phases that were widely publicized. The opening phase (or at least what I think was the opening phase didn't really have many features that made it distinctly "Sonic")). The tone of the story also took more cues from Adventure 2 than anything else. It was more serious, more dark (by Sonic standards, anyway), and even more of a step away from Sonic's roots, rather than an evolution, as Adventure 2 was. This flanderization of the style created in that game created an even more noticeable split in the fanbase.


Unleashed proved even further that Sonic Adventure 2 wasn't so much a sequel to Sonic Adventure as it was a completely different game banking on a successful name. In my opinion, Sonic Unleashed is the true Sonic Adventure 2, with Adventure 2 being something completely different, and 06 being a sequel to that. Unleashed completely throws away the whole idea of segregation and instead goes back to the style introduced in Sonic Adventure; having a bunch of realistic area and turning it into something completely "out there", while still maintaining the nature of the original environment it was based off of. Savannah Citadel is instantly recognizable as Africa, yet never feels like it doesn't belong. The same goes with the other levels, with the most distinguished one, coincidentally, being Skyscraper Scamper. Skyscraper Scamper is extremely similar to Speed Highway in every way, with the only real difference being the lack of color (which is obviously intended, as smog is clearly visible throughout the level, most likely to emphasize the feeling of a massive, polluted city like New York). The similarities to Sonic Adventure don't end there though, as Unleashed's story also had a very similar tone, with key story elements being blatantly copied from Adventure.



The classics introduced a style that Sonic the Hedgehog fit perfectly. Interesting, abstract environments that kept a supersonic blue hedgehog from feeling out of place. As time went by, this style, for whatever reason, seems to have been abandoned in favor of other styles, some of which work, while some don't. Sonic Adventure sought to utilize new technology to introduce Sonic to our world, and Sonic Adventure 2 took this one step further. Sonic Heroes was a sadly ignored return to form, and this was the last we saw of this type of atmosphere in the mainstream games. Sonic 06 seemed to have the same desire as Sonic Adventure, but rather than do the same thing, took Sonic Adventure 2's style yet another step further. Sonic Unleashed was yet another return to form, but unlike Heroes, decided to emulate the style of Sonic Adventure, rather than the classics. Colors, while not included in the analysis, is worth mentioning for having a style completely of its own; going beyond the classics completely in terms of surrealism.

Which style suits Sonic the most? Which did the best job of doing what it set out to do? Personally, I think the styles of the classics, Colors, Adventure, and Unleashed all suit Sonic very well, with the only ones that I felt as "off" being Sonic Adventure 2 and Sonic 06.

So... thoughts?

Edit: Added a few pictures to make the post seem like less of a wall of text and help picture what I'm trying to say.