"Sonic Spitball" - a deconstruction of the franchise

There's a subset of Sonic fans who take it weirdly personally when someone suggests that their favorite Sonic game isn't perfect and act like an oppressed minority whenever it happens. Hell, I still see people who insist that no one disliked Sonic Adventure 2 until ProJared made a video about it. It’s bound to happen anytime a YouTuber with a decent following makes a Sonic video but the scale at which it happens always makes me roll my eyes.

 

This was the inevitable result after Sonic Colors came out and specifically aimed to systematically remove all of the things fans of the 2000 games loved, so now those same fans have a huge ass victim complex whenever those games are criticized.

You still have people who get defensive about Sonic 06 to this day.

 

And nowadays this series is going to hell once again because it's trying to appease to these people. Probably because attempts to fairly criticize bad Sonic games has resulted in relentless harassment from fans ever since Forces released, whereas teary-eyed, self-martyrizing, masturbatory and victim complex -infused defense of all the noughties dogshit (see: JebTube) has been praised as "brave" expression of "unpopular" opinions ever since.

Died in 2010, reborn in 2022. Welcome back, laughing stock Sonic.

 

Some fans also have a huge ass victim complex whenever they're reminded Shadow exists. Laughing stock Sonic didn't die in 2010 just because a contingent of fans really liked Colors or whatever. If anything 2010s Sonic spent a lot of time leaning into that 'laughing stock' reputation.

 

It's just sort of inevitable in franchises with multi-generation fanbases, I guess. The most fervent critics of the Star Wars prequels were the fans who grew up with the original trilogy, and now the most fervent critics of the Star Wars sequels are the fans who grew up with the prequels. Likewise, I know plenty of Zelda fans who grew up with games like Ocarina of Time and Wind Waker who strongly dislike the direction that Breath of the Wild took things in. It's always going to happen, for better or worse.

 

I don't think Origins and Superstars having the problems that they do is because Shadowheads are eating. And even if it somehow was, I don't think Origins and Superstars' problems mean the series is "going to hell".

 

I think you're right. Other fandoms like Pokemon or Fire Emblem can also be extremely vitriolic. I think it's more of a matter of social media in general than something particular to Sonic.

 

Frontiers is literally the second best selling 3D game whether you like it or not, so this is an extremely weird complaint to make. I don't even like Frontiers much either, but it's kind of obvious how popular it is within the fandom.

The only other fandoms that compare are Zelda as you said, Pokemon and Final Fantasy. All multi-generational franchises of varying degrees of quality each with their own specific subcultures... and they all hate each other.

This really makes discussion about them annoying because nobody really judges these games on their own merits, but how they made them feel when they were kids.

I fuck with Sonic Adventure 2, but that doesn't mean that I'm not gonna acknowledge some of that game's poorer design elements. But doing that instantly gets you labeled a "hater."

It's why I just steer away from internet fandoms nowadays, discussion just feels pointless when nobody even tries to be constructive anymore.

 

And the best selling one is Heroes, right? That alone serves as proof that we should not judge the general consensus of these games based on their sales - especially with enough hindsight.

 

But we're totally cool judging this rocking two 7/10 games as "laughingstock Sonic" because they got slightly less afraid to put the mean alien starfish on screen?

Like I think the 2010s games were what Sonic needed at the time and they're unfairly judged as "soulless" or "too safe" nowadays, but this is stupid.

The 2000s went downhill the way they did because Shadow -> 06 -> Secret Rings was a perfect 3-hit combo of awful, followed by the "Sonic is a werewolf" gimmick game and the "Sonic has a sword" gimmick game. All of these except debateably Unleashed were nigh-incoherent, and arguably all of them are messier than every game released since.

There is not a 2010s or 2020s equivalent to this, and I don't think there's going to be. Rise of Lyric doesn't count, and there's a reason it totally dropped out of discussion after a year. Lost World is weird and Forces is stupid, but they're not broken the way Shadow and 06 were, and there's nothing about Frontiers, Superstars or Sonic X Shadow's Oiled-Up Twerk-Off Generations that suggests this decade of Sonic is going to go any differently.

 

What are we even talking about, here? What's this "laughingstock Sonic"?

 

The Sonic I don’t like.

 

On top of that, the 2000s was the decade in which Sega left the console industry which I think added salt to the wound. Like not only did they surrender to Nintendo and Sony, but their mascot dropped heavily in quality. You can only have that conga-line of humiliation once.

 

If the game is selling well, that's generally a sign that there is a demographic that gravitated towards and likes it.

More to the point, this whole tangent is alluding to the idea that Sonic became a laughing stock because it tried to be different as opposed to the games being shit. If this was the case, why does everyone and their mother talk about 06 but nobody but Sonic fans even give a damn about Forces? Because one game is very blatantly mechanically worse than the other.

Frontiers got decent reception because, at least compared to its predecessors, it's ultimately a functional game.

If Shadow being the main focus of a game again is a sign of being a "laughingstock" in spite of the very blatant fact that he is literally one of the franchises most marketable characters, then I don't really know what to tell you. Especially in a game that was already as well liked as Generations to begin with.

 

Among the common folk, Heroes is beloved. We just had everyone going nuts over the possibility of a Heroes remake. It's really only from Sonic fans deep into this shit that I ever hear people grinding their teeth when they utter the word "Heroes".

And I'm one of them.

 

I just started replaying Heroes today, for the first time since right after release, and my god do I hate EVERYTHING about it.

 

I remember back when Sonic Heroes came out, everyone, including non-fans, were hating on it, laughing at the bugs, etc. Of course, most people played the subpar PS2 port.

 

Not if I have anything to do about it they aren't.

YouTube Videos Playlist
MediaFire File Downloads
Internet Archive Uploads

I actually downloaded the first 3 videos in the series from YouTube years ago, as I believe they're thoroughly well made and very informative, plus they're particularly fitting and useful reference material for my Sonic fan game project. I downloaded them along with a bunch of other YouTube videos in order to watch / listen to them offline for R. & D. / inspiration purposes and such. After becoming aware of Sonic Spitball videos being privated, I very recently downloaded the 4th video's file thanks to an archived Wayback Machine video page, and I've used that page along with other Wayback Machine archived pages to grab the videos' original descriptions, upload dates and custom thumbnails, so these details can be retained on the YouTube and Internet Archive reuploads.

I find it sad and frustrating to see someone feeling pushed out of / put off a community, especially when it's to the point where the person deems it necessary to remove their content in order to catch a break from bullshit. I'd absolutely hate to see shoogles' hard work vanish from public viewing. At the same time, I also dislike people being harassed. I think and hope my reuploads strike a balance of preservation while also respecting the creator, as all YouTube video comment pings should now go to me instead, hopefully meaning that shoogles is able to take time out from harassment without the videos being scrubbed from convenient viewing.

I don't know how shoogles feels about reuploads, but I guess time will tell and we'll see how it goes. I believe the important things are to keep him untagged and unbothered on YouTube and X / Twitter while also preserving his work elsewhere so it doesn't get lost to time. Additionally, as a secondary side-effect, I hope my reuploads help prevent people from dogpiling shoogles about making his original uploads public again.

Furthermore, my initial thought upon first seeing shoogles' posts was to immediately start reuploading videos; however, I decided to wait until at least a week's time had passed from his posts being made, with the aim to give him some breathing room, let the dust settle 'n' all that stuff. I hope he feels better soon!

On the topic of the videos themselves, I think this more recent Sonic video of his pairs well alongside the Sonic Spitball series, particularly when it's put next to his detailing of classic Sonic gameplay in Sonic Spitball Part 1.

 

Update, playing through Lost World for the first time, and it has dethroned Heroes as my most hated Sonic Game

 

Not entirely related but after hearing he deleted the videos, I was immediately reminded of this gem

let's make Sonic vulnerable