You raise a good point, I think people here often underestimate just how many people out there are fans of Sonic 'as a media character' and less as a gaming icon, as crazy as that idea might seem to us. I mean, the franchise has had no less than 7 different animated adaptations, not counting shorts like Mania Adventures, is the single most prominent video game comic character, tons of weird manga spinoffs, and 2 hit films with a 3rd well on the way. By my last count, Sonic has nearly 300 episodes worth of animated material to watch 'alone'... You can literally spend hundreds of hours experiencing Sonic material without 'ever' touching a single video game. To say nothing of all the people who enjoy the games 'just' for the cinematic and storylines. Heck, in the 90s, while I played Sonic 1 and 2 at other people's homes, it was reruns of AOSTH and SATAM that got me hooked on the brand and made me finally decide to invest in the Sonic and Knuckles Collection for PC. My point is that there's a lot of Sonic fans who care more about the character's story, lore, and world (such as it is) than they actually do about gameplay like most of us here do, or at least there's more of them out there than you'd expect. Sonic is their movie star, anime protagonist, and comic hero... depending on their medium of choice, long before he's their game mascot.
Its unlikely but it definitely would be nice to see some loud Colors defenders pop up just so I don't have to keep seeing most of the online community bash it while praising Unleashed in the same breath. I think we don't give the mobile games enough credit either, they were probably single-handedly keeping Sonic alive during the post-Boom content drought (yes Mania, Forces and TSR came out in that time but that's only 3 games and 0 shows for about 5 years, compared to the yearly output pre-Boom). Lots of kids downloaded Sonic Dash and later Forces Speed Battle, along with the Whitehead ports introducing the classic games to a wider audience.
This is most definitely true and has been true since Sega focused more on action and spectacle compared to game mechanics since the jump to 3D. It's why no matter how shit the games are mechanically, people always jump to Sonic's defense because they're more of a fan of the character than the games. After a while, the games were simply an excuse to engage with the world. I think it says a lot that the Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog is one of the most acclaimed games recently despite being a VN with very little gameplay to it. It's why I compare Sonic to Pokemon, because the fans engage with the media the same way. The games are just a means to an end to engage with the world. The Pokemon Anime is arguably the most popular thing about the franchise and it's as far removed from the games as you can get. And the Sonic movies are on their way of doing the same thing for this franchise.
I strongly disagree that the 2000s games are just as bad or stale as the 2010s games. Saying they're rehashings of Sonic Adventure is disingenuous. Sonid Adventure 2 is a sequel that told its own story, introduced several characters, and refined the action stage gameplay of Sonic Adventure. Sonic Heroes then scaled back on the story for a more gameplay-focused affair. It introduced the team mechanic, a fresh idea that changed how you played the game. Of everything that was done in the 2000s, this one I find the hardest to call "uncreative". Shadow the Hedgehog had the whole branching paths thing. Sonic 06 was Sonic Adventure 3 in all but name. Sure, it wasn't a good game, but you can't call it uncreative. Sonic and the Secret Rings was yet try at an unconventional gameplay style, and one that I personally enjoyed. The presentation and setting were fresh. Things started getting "safe" with Sonic Unleashed, with a story completely disconnected from the canon that the games had been building up to then (though you could argue Sonic and the Secret Rings started that), and gameplay was simplified to boosting and 2D sections. What things did the 2010 games bring to the table? Sonic Colours introduced Wisps. Sonic Boom was an attempt at a Western version of the franchise, which I guess might count as something new, but I haven't played it and no one defends it so I guess it's not note-worthy in that sense? The other games? Sonic 4 (which some say exists) was a retread Sonic Generations was a retread Sonic: Lost World was discount Super Mario Galaxy Sonic Mania was a retread Sonic Forces is (allegedly) boring and unimaginative In summary, the 2000s games had more ambitious and interesting stories and lots of gameplay ideas that the 2010s games can only dream of.
I think you're being extremely disingenuous to make a point, which is exactly what @Laura was pointing out. Sonic Adventure 2 completely changed up the flow of gameplay from Adventure, which has been a hot debate between the two games to this day. Sonic Heroes is notorious for how long the levels and how riddled they are with bottomless pits, not to mention the controls. Shadow is also infamous for its poor controls and overly demanding missions requirements that often force you to backtrack. 06 is a bad game, no amount of creativity is going to change that. Secret Rings is a poor implement of the auto-scrolling gimmick, and Unleashed still gets shit for the Werehog. On the flipside, Sonic Colors introduced the Wisp, which have been a stable since. Sonic Generations is still highly praised as being the best controlling 3D Sonic game to date, with tons of creative level design. For better or worse, Lost World introduced the Deadly Six and introduced a parkour mechanic for Sonic that gets used in Frontiers. Mania is quite literally the highest rated Sonic game in years. For every "praise" you can give the 2000 games, there's an equally large flaw in them. And for every "flaw" you see in the 2010s, there's something they introduced that's still relevant. I don't care if you like one over the other, but these disingenuous arguments is exactly nobody can ever agree on anything.
Wisps are no more relevant to Frontiers' formula than SA2's rail grinding or Heroes' combat. Black Doom is the villain in the new sub-game where Kingdom Valley is getting a whole ass remake. The movies do great despite all the Sonic 06-ass realistic environments and humans. Are the 2010s games really more relevant or would you personally just prefer it be that way?
Literally the last main game before Frontiers utilized Wisps, and Zavok still makes appearances in side media to this day. I don't have to pretend about anything when the evidence is literally right there. And before anyone says shit, I fuck with early 3D Sonic games probably more than anything else that's not the Classics. But I'm not about to play double standards for one over the other. There were things I hated about 3D Sonic in the 2000s, and things I didn't mind about them in the 2010s and vice versa.
I liked Unleashed, Colours, and Generations, and wish they'd stuck with the Unleashed style instead of diluting it as they have. That's all I have to say.
A minor mechanic that serves as the basis of one of the main playable characters????? You literally cannot play as the Avatar without using a Wispon, or at least, its extremely suboptimal to do so. What is with some of y'all and willfully trying to downplay something simply because you don't like it? People telling me that Shadow isn't popular (he is) and now people saying Wisp never mattered (They did) JFC....
I think there's a huge difference between "Minor mechanic that you don't have to engage with" and "Mechanic that is the backbone of one of the game's main playstyles" It's like saying grinding is a minor mechanic when its become a stable in the series since its inception, come on now. The somersault is a minor mechanic, the gems in 06 are minor mechanics.
Honestly, if we're going to look at the decline in quality of Sonic games, it really goes beyond these "Eras" that everyone likes to use. Personally, I believe the quality of the games diminished starting with Shadow the Hedgehog in 2005 (I dare anyone to say that the level design in those games was better than the 3 games preceding it) and was only made worse by the disaster that was 06. Unleashed had good ideas and level design, but when it didn't completely turn things around, the budget got cut and we were given Colors which has predominantly 2D levels. Generations likewise peaked in terms of gameplay & level design, but those lessons were not retained. Lost World tried something new (possibly as a response to the problem that boost stages are apparently hard to design) but in doing so they created more problems for themselves as the planet-esque design is equally if not more complex. Forces we don't really have to say much about given how unambitious the title was, but I believe it had a fairly green staff working on it. Frontiers having decent levels is something of a miracle all things considered. Instead of focusing on a grand stage that takes you all over the landscape and tests your reflexes like Unleashed did, they made the goal "make it to the end of the stage as fast as you can to maximize your reward" and in that context, these smaller stages work much better. I would argue that those of us who dislike this "era" of Sonic dislike it because the stages can feel bland and uninteresting, there does not seem to be a lot of heart poured into games in this time period, and there were severe budget cuts that curtailed any ambition Sonic Team may have had until very recently. The franchise took huge risks in 05 & 06 in spite of difficult deadlines and terrible upper management decisions and it backfired spectacularly. Naka left and the team had to pick up the pieces for Unleashed, but half of that game was torn to shreds as any goodwill from outlets was gone with 06. The franchise was scandalous if decently profitable and a flagship brand image, so it makes sense that the powers that be would keep it around only in a limited fashion. The movies showed upper management that the franchise had potential and with a push from Sonic Team they took a chance on Frontiers' lofty ambitions. Frontiers, despite some lack of polish, does have a lot of heart and ambition poured into it, and I think the reaction it has received is because people can feel that. For the first time in seemingly a decade, Sega & Sonic Team are actually trying again. Try as I may, I can't really feel much love put into the franchise between 2010 & 2020 outside one or two games, and that's why I don't like it as much.
I don't think you get my point (or Laura's), because you've just built a strawman. You're essentially replying "but all of those games changed things in ways people didn't like and/or parts of them sucked!". That's not the point! I didn't claim that they were polished gems free of problems. I'm literally replying to Laura's saying "I really dislike the accusation that Sonic got unimaginative, boring, and stale in the 2010s as if the Sonic series was a creative powerhouse in the 2000s.". The Sonic games in the 2000s were definitely more creative than the safe games and retreads we got in the 2010s.
Can we not with the "ambitious/more creative" stuff? That's extremely subjective and usually just gets used to put down the stuff that people don't like. I can say the same about the 00s games and this conversation will just devolve into circles (like it already has).
It's not really a strawman, I just think people really lack perspective when they say things like this. Sonic's not first the mascot platformer to have more ambitious stories (The PS2 era platformers were doing that, and were much better at it) or have multiple gameplay styles (Donkey Kong Country 64, Spyro: Year of the Dragon, and Crash 3). Even within those niches, they were still chasing trends established by other franchises at the time. Sure, if you don't play anything but Sonic games, it might seem more ambitious, but I've played all of those games I mentioned and they utilize those ideas in Sonic way better. I guess solely in the context of Sonic, those games are more "ambitious", especially if you fuck with that Shonen anime stuff, but that doesn't really make up for the games just being mechanically uninteresting. Like yea, Sonic punching out kaiju is cool and all, but that doesn't make them really fun to play.
I mean, I was just offering my honest opinion on the situation. Everyone's free to agree or disagree, but the question was asked.
As someone who grew up mostly in the 2010s (I was nine when the decade started) I do kind of have a feeling that there won't be nearly as much of a presence of fans from that era compared to the ones before it. I'm not sure how it was in other parts of the world but up here in Canada, it legitimately felt like Sonic barely existed in the time period between Generations and the first movie. I honestly feel like the fact the 2010s didn't have much auxiliary media for Sonic really hurt the franchise's relevancy more than people assume. I knew kids with Colors, I knew kids with Generations, I didn't know a single kid who cared about Sonic after that, which I feel like is weird for a bunch of 12-14 year olds. It makes more sense for high schoolers but the fact people in middle school were treating Sonic as a "thing from 5 years ago" wasn't a great sign. The 90s had multiple cartoons, the "movie" OVA, and multiple comics to supplement the games, not even mentioning toys and other stuff of that nature which all helped the series stay around even when things got dark in the Saturn era. The 2000s lost a lot of that, only having Sonic X and Archie's worst era keeping the non-game media afloat, but X was something a lot of kids (myself included) would watch and have something to say about. The 2010s...? Of course, Boom existed, but it largely seems like that show courted a younger audience than average Sonic media does and the failure of it's games makes me believe it's gonna have a staying power closer to Underground than SatAM (not that it's nearly as bad as that). As did Archie, but those comics were on their way out and I didn't know a single kid who read them. I distinctly remember being like, 14 in 2015, and legitimately feeling like Sonic was a dying franchise. It had 0 relevance in the real world, not a single toy to be found in stores and 0 presence outside of his owns games (and the eternal internet discourse, which had largely started to take over the conversation). I only knew a single other person irl who had played a sonic game newer than Unleashed. Things got better once Mania rolled around, just by virtue of being a game that MOST people could agree was good, but after Forces was the 5/10 it was I legitimately think the series would have been in danger had the movie not happened. This is, of course, all anecdotal (and written around 3AM) but still. Sonic's target demographic is kids, as someone who was a kid for most of the 2010s, I often felt like the only person in the room who cared about Sonic even remotely.
