I can’t say I like Generations because the rather limited selection of levels in there I actually enjoy. Probably not unpopular. What is very unpopular is that one of the levels I like, actually love is Generation’s modem Planet wisp. Like, before I took an interest in modern crisis city (seriously, out of boredom I just play the same few levels whenever I play that game) Planet Wisp Modern was my favorite level in the game. It’s fun trying to rush through the beginning 3D section. And I actually really like the 2D platforming. Doing it well is satisfying, or maybe I just love Sonic’s stomp mechanic or the jump > air boost > stomp chain combo. Just feels good to me. This is the one that will really get me killed. Classic Sonic has not really figured out how to add proper difficulty, yet. In my perception, there either is no difficulty, or the difficulty comes in the form of stuff shooting off screen in a way that you can’t really react to unless you know it’s there. And when you do know, dealing with it is usually as simple as doing a quick jump. Sonic 1 comes close, I guess. But they dropped off pretty sharply afterwards. That is my biggest problem with the Classics, and the singular reason that while I agree they are the best games in the series, they still are not quite amazing. It's really holding them back
You are very brave for typing out that Generations Classic Sonic take. And definitely agree about difficulty. It feels like a tug of war between objects flying at you and the game slowing you down to avoid the objects flying at you. I think the way the level design sometimes forces you to slow down and gives you a sense that a hazard is coming is pretty cool, but it begs the question of if the game should even have to do that to begin with. And of course there are still hazards that are a bit unpredictable anyway. I wonder just how much it would help to zoom out the screen a little. Mania's actual resolution is just 424x240 upscaled, so there is definitely quite a bit of wiggle room to have Sonic take up less room on screen. Idk how much that would help though, and it still doesn't quite answer the question of how you could make the late game more difficult without becoming tedious.
The Generations Classic take I edited out? lol But yeah. I don't feel challenged playing the Classics. It's at least a little interesting having to carefully exert force on Classic but not too much midair to position him properly for platforming. That could just be chalked out to terrible controls, simulatenously not being responsive enough while also being too slippery, but yeah.
Oh LMAO i had this page open on my laptop and hadn't refreshed so the edit didn't load in, I can see why u took that out though given the climate In other news, this video from CodenameGamma manages to show what the game could look like with a smaller Sonic. I think for multiple reasons they could only change the width of the screen, but just imagine how much you could see if this was extended vertically to 16:9. Maybe a bit TOO far out, but it illustrates the point of how you could potentially take some "unfairness" out of the difficulty
That's a very good point, but one I'm not sure the developers could address very well. Actually adding in difficult but fair stages to a classic Sonic game would be a hard balance to strike because Sonic is rather powerful compared to most other platformer heroes (except maybe Mario). In a standard platformer you could easily buff up the difficulty by tweaking the enemy patterns, having less downtime between tricky parts or making you react to obstacles quicker, but Sonic doesn't really allow for that as easily. Between the choice of making the games a bit too easy or way too hard, I don't blame the devs for picking the choice that gets them more sales, though. Even then I saw people complain Mania of all games was too hard, so clearly it's not a foolproof strategy.
Flanderization you see it outside of western contexts too, like Akihiko turning from an interesting character in Persona 3 to just being a dude who likes protein shakes in Persona 4 Arena.
Flanderization is generally described as the exaggeration of a character's most iconic trait. What I'm describing is going in the opposite direction, reducing all of the character's most iconic traits until all you have left is this secondary trait that isn't exactly core to the character, but makes them trope-y and readable. Although I suppose they are just different means to the same end. The choice of Cartoon Network-ification came from my suspicion that the changes were made in hopes of making the character more marketable to children, rather than pulling a Flanders (or a Homer) and being campy or lazy. Edit: Hm, that article describes it as applying to minor traits as well, which is interesting.
Sonic 3 and Knuckles has the weakest OST of the Genesis games. And no I'm not saying this due to the music controversy we're dealing with now. I've always felt this way. I will say that the OST much more epic
In my experience, the Classics didn’t become better as they went along in as much they just became different. Sonic 1 was still a just a platformer with some new physics interactions and, in some cases, an emphasis on maintaining and using momentum to pull off shortcuts or provide alternate/easier ways to reach certain areas. Sonic 2 basically ditched being a platformer for the most part in favor of being a twitch based reaction based parkour game. This can be better, but it is not necessarily better by default. For one thing, it has to be done well. Like for example, I can’t even play the Christian Whitehead version of Sonic 2. While the wider screen can make things more fair, it can also severely take away from the reaction based challenge 2 was going for. There came a time when I viewed 2 as the most boring of the main Classics… …until I went back and played a version without widescreen, and realized what was actually going on. Sonic 3 has some platforming, but none as involved as Sonic 1's harder platforming. It has speed to it, but maintaining it seldom provides the same tense, reaction based experience of Sonic 2 thanks to the level design. Plus, there are some obstacles and gimmicks in certain levels that force you to stop and slow down a bit more than 2. It’s a game that quite literally tries to balance speed and plaforming by segregating them In a way the previous game kind of didn’t, though there are exceptions. Can lead to the feeling of being “automatic” at times, which is never the case in 2. In it’s linear sections, it does provide visual clues that hint at secrets hidden offscreen such as suspicious walls and open air above you indicating you can fly up with Tails and stuff like that. Paying attention allows you to reach them. This is a bit different than CD, which doesn’t hint at secrets this way, providing cues along linear paths, but is literally just a giant, open ended sandbox that ask you to go find stuff somewhere in it, and gives you stuff to play along with. You ask me, these gameplay styles aren’t comparable to where one could simply say “It’s the same thing but better.” They don’t even feel like they are going for the same thing so how can they be compared?
Flanderization is the exaggeration of ANY trait when it consumes a character to the absence of anything else.
Classic Sonic's gameplay in Generations is fine. Yes, it plays absolutely fucking nothing like the Classic games, but I don't think it's pretending to. The controls are responsive, Sonic has some believable weight to him, the level design isn't cheap (except for Planet Wisp, fuck that), and there's lots of customization to play around with. There are plenty of modern-day 2D platformers that play just like it (or worse) that get far more praise for whatever reason. As far as being a platformer, you can do a hell of a lot worse.
Sonic Unleashed's renaissance has been awful, not just because I feel like it gets greatly overhyped (yes, the daytime stages are fucking AMAZING, too bad the rest of the game averages from just okay to the Werehog. Who, in truth, isn't a bad concept, but was executed so fucking poorly) but because it's created this new age of people talking about Sonic that think everything needs to be exactly like Sonic Unleashed and it's daytime stages, and that Sonic Unleashed was the peak of Sonic games and all this and meta era that. Everything needs to look like Unleashed, everything needs to BE Unleashed, holy shit look at the Unleashed intro for the millionth time (And it's fucking AMAZING, probably the best official 3D animation we've ever HAD for Sonic, but I GET IT, not everything needs to be EXACTLY LIKE IT), Unleashed was such an underrated gem, every other Boost era game is bad because they're not Sonic Unleashed, everything released after 2007 has been nothing but downhill since Sonic Kinoleashed, blah blah blah. I know I'm making lots of generalizations here but that's basically the most of what I hear. They're like the modern day equivalent of people who hated Modern Sonic and wanted Classic Sonic back, or the people who compared everything to Sonic Adventure. (And again - I fucking love SA1, but that was similarly annoying.) I'm in that age range of being young enough to play Unleashed as a kid, so I should get it, but I didn't like Unleashed that much when I was younger and I don't like it now lmao. I straight up do not get why people start throwing parades when they talk about Sonic Unleashed like it was this GOTY contender and not a mediocre to bad game. I know I'm being a cynic about it, but man, Unleashed was really not that good! It's a fun game, sure, but people act like it's the second coming of Christ because they grew up on the fuckin' thing! It doesn't need to shape the entire franchise, not everything needs to be Unleashed. I can get it on the grounds of people being drawn into the franchise based on what Unleashed brings, but jesus christ just because other games don't do that doesn't mean the franchise is dead and dying and will never, EVER be good again, because META ERA!!!!!! Damn Sonic fans, they ruined Sonic the Hedgehog!
Unleashed definitely is the last big game before this cancerous meta era began so I get it. It's also still probably the game with the best graphics with only Generations getting close. Look at the causes for those opinions and it makes sense. Also to add, Unleashed for me anyway is the last time a Sonic game was a "big deal" and not some low budget short as hell thing.
Yeah, I think that last one is the big kicker there. Sonic games have kind of taken a back seat to SEGA's more profitable stuff lately (Yakuza, Persona even though they don't fully own that, etc.) and while they still prioritize Sonic because he's their goddamn mascot, it's easy to tell that they've maybe focused on it a bit less as of recently. Even back then, it felt like Sonic was kinda winding down to just be this franchise they drop every year or so, so they might've just put less into it and solely focused on making new Sonic games per year. It certainly does show in the quality drop in terms of visuals/etc. But it's because of that I wish it'd stop getting used as this eternal goalpost. Yeah, it sucks that Sonic's kind of been given the short end of the stick lately, but I don't think that means every single Sonic game released past Sonic Generations is a bomb and has ruined the franchise AND the character. Stuff changes, and while it sucks to see Sonic move away from the stuff that looked super fucking cool in Unleashed, that doesn't automatically make everything that comes after bad. It just means it's different. It's kind of why I hate the term "meta era" - no, it's still the boost era, I think trying to slap a term on it just because you didn't like that window of games (which is completely fine, because I wasn't big into all of them either, lol) and treating them like they're the devil is very silly. Also because the term is just kinda stupid. Call it the Pontac era or something, literally anything but "meta era" lmao I'm not saying that it's completely unreasonable, but that I just think the people who hold Unleashed on a pedestal compare the entire franchise and everything that comes afterwards to it, and it just gets exhausting to see every time something Sonic related drops. It's got absolutely amazing visuals, I cannot deny that at all, but it's clear that's not what the franchise is aiming for anymore. Obviously that's still annoying, and you'd still want Sonic to get the proper treatment any game deserves, but at times I feel like people get way too picky about certain things and enter this doom-and-gloom mode because of it, and then they go "well Unleashed was like XYZ, why can't we have this again?". Not saying they have to suddenly wake up one day and go "Wait a second, Sonic Colours wasn't that bad!" but I feel like you have to temper your expectations a bit when it comes to video games sometimes. Any time a new Sonic game gets announced or a new Sonic ANYTHING, or even when there's no Sonic news at ALL, people are just like MAN, REMEMBER SONIC UNLEASHED???? WHY CAN'T WE GET THAT AGAIN, THAT WAS THE BEST GAME EVER! and it feels like it's not only getting viewed in this rose tinted lens, but that they just absolutely cannot move on from Unleashed. It absolutely sucks, but it's an unfortunate reality when it comes to games (not even just Sonic) in the modern day and age. To clarify a bit - I'm not saying people can't dislike modern day Sonic, nor that they can't be harsh on it or critique it. Everybody likes and dislikes different things - that's fine. I just feel like some of the people that are tend to get a little too up in arms over every little thing that's different, and they constantly compare it back to Unleashed. At some point it feels less like valid critique and/or disappointment and more "Oh, I already KNOW this is going to bomb, because it doesn't remind me of the game I played when I was maybe 9 or 10 years old, because the fucking length of his quills is different or some shit." It feels less like they want Sonic to be like that again, and more like they just want everything to be like it was when they were a kid.
Nah that's bullshit, it's definitely the meta era. If you think Forces and Colors are like Unleashed and Generations you're way off. It's called the meta era because it's when the franchise started being too cool for itself for the sake of bad jokes. There's some overlap because I'd consider Generations in gameplay to be close to Unleashed but Forces/Colors are definitely not despite sharing the basic skeleton. Ultimately, you gotta recognize that it's not out of some kind of reverence for Unleashed. It's because everything after lacks sincerity or heart (besides Mania). Colors wasn't bad, it worked but it was so boring. Block levels, padding, awful writing, kids from then are just growing up. Myself included.
I still think meta era is a stupid term for what is essentially like 3 games. Feels more like a "These are the BAD games the ones I DON'T LIKE" classification. Colours came before Gens but after Unleashed, and yet it gets grouped into this era that really should be sorted differently. But that's just me I know it's not about Unleashed, but it always goes back to that. It feels like any time I see this kinda stuff, it's about Unleashed and it defining the entire franchise, or they're making comparisons to Unleashed, etc. I do understand the desire to want Sonic to have that heart again, to really feel like it's a series that isn't just trying to beat down on itself or something, but at times it definitely just feels like people are just finding nitpicks for the sake of finding nitpicks. Not very frequently, but it does still happen. They call doom and gloom before we even know anything because of their burnout from the last few years. And again - that is totally fair and I completely get it. It's much better to not get your hopes up for the billionth time and have them dashed. But I just feel like it gets to a point where it's just like "okay, maybe you just have to move on". People attach themselves to something they haven't liked in years and years in hopes of it maybe reaching that point but they always get disappointed and just act miserable about it. I'm not saying you have to suddenly never like Sonic ever again, but it gets tedious seeing it all the time. I dunno. I definitely do understand the desire to see Sonic at his best again rather than awkwardly fumbling through hurdles over and over, but sometimes it just feels like people want to complain for the sake of complaining, because they're burnt out but they don't want to move on to greener pastures. I don't want it to seem like I'm saying "NEVER EVER COMPLAIN. DON'T DO THAT!!!!" because I'm not exactly pleased with how Sonic's been handled in the last decade (Jesus, has it really been that long???) or so. I just feel as if it sometimes reaches a point where it's like "Okay, maybe you're just a bit bitter and kind of finding reasons to nitpick just to make conversation."
Meta era isn't just games, a lot of it is the social media presence, shows, movies, merch, etc. It's more in reference to the brand as a whole. It just so happens before the meta era the brand was mostly dictated by the games. When you hang with superfans, you get nitpicks it's what people do to things they love. Just that simple, most people who wouldn't sign up for a site like this are just what you described. That being said, I feel as if people have a way of letting others ruin things for them and I've never been able to get on board with that. All the weird furry crap and OCs didn't stop me from liking Sonic back in the day, you only need you to enjoy something. The hell with what "they" are saying or doing. All that matters is do you like the thing being put out.