this is funny to me because this was the exact reaction 10-year-old me had to SA2 after SA1. some things never change hahahahah but like, SA2 is considered The Aesthetic for a non-insignificant number of people now. when I was talking about Frontiers being kind of a return to aesthetic form I was thinking largely of the extremely hype/jank final boss a lot of people remember the game for, and how Frontiers just decided to put four of those in there, which struck me as going against the idea that the game is being dragged into too "western" territory because of its lead writer...
I think people severely overstate how big of a tonal whiplash SA2 is, because if you look past the surface elements, some of the old DNA is still there. The theme of SA2 is duality, literally all of the marketing is built on the idea of conflict between light and dark, in a similar vein how Classic games are built on Nature vs. Technology. Sonic is still nature of course, but now you have Shadow, who is artificially made and can match Sonic in addition to possessing a power Sonic's never seen before. It's extremely similar to the introduction of characters like Metal Sonic and Knuckles, but it's told much better because now you have a conflict for Sonic that he has to level up for to overcome. And the whole game is built on idea on real vs. Fake, not just with Sonic and Shadow, but with the Chaos Emeralds as well. It just all feels very much in line Sonic's usual themes. Now granted, now that I have the benefit of hindsight, I can understand how someone could be turned off from SA2's tone shift, especially since as mentioned, later games would double down on it without understanding why it worked to begin with. Really, this a problem that tends to happen a lot in this series. Fans tend to misplace their blame and not judge these games on their own merits, but against each other. SA2 tends to get lumped in with Shadow and 06 for "the bad games" and similarly, Sonic Colors tends to get lumped in with Lost World and Forces. I get WHY it happens, but it's like missing the forest for the trees and it makes these discussions a lot more difficult than they really should be. Kind of hard to have a conversation when people already have it set in their heads on what are "the bad games" and "The good games" whether it's SA2 or Colors. It's kind of funny how those two games in particular tend to be singled out by fans.
Huh, yeah, you're right... Sonic Adventure 2 and Sonic Colors have both been considered "the point where it all went wrong" by a very loud group at different times. Both were blamed, perhaps unfairly, for starting trends that would get more ingrained in their sequels. And spinning out of that, Colors was considered a "return to form" by a lot of people when it came out, just like Frontiers is now (for now) for basically the exact opposite reasons. For what it's worth, I'm mostly with JoeBro. What SA2 did was okay as a one-off, but it looked much worse when they brought back Shadow immediately and had the whole narrative of the series revolve around him for the next half decade. Same with Colors, it was nice to have a back-to-basics story focusing on Sonic and Tails' dynamic, but that was all we got for a long time after. And while I didn't personally care for much of what Frontiers did, I guarantee that if we keep getting melancholy, aesthetically grounded open-world Sonic games for the next generation, more people are gonna have affection for what we had before it. Maybe Sonic will just keep swapping from Too Serious to Too Silly every decade? It's debatably been happening from the start, I guess... I think they're doing a much better job striking a balance than they did before, though. Like, Frontiers absolutely wasn't for me, and this whole Shadow thing in Generations makes my eyes glaze over. But Superstars, Origins, and Dream Team all scratched that itch. Hopefully they can keep that up. Not every Sonic game will be to my tastes, but as long as SOME of them are...
Thinking about it, it seems that Sega's current direction for the series is using the classic Sonic universe for more light hearted stories aimed towards the general public hopping onto the franchise from the movies and Prime, or nostalgic millennials that haven't touched the series in 15 years. While the modern Sonic universe is for the more deeper dramatic stories like Adventure 2 (or at least they try to anyways). And honestly I don't hate that, it allows the series to switch between tones in a way that makes sense without offending everyone.
I see it simply as SA2 and Colors are good games, regardless of the trends they started. The subsequent games that came out afterwards are bad not because they follow on those predecessors did, but because they were just handled extremely poorly. That's the reason we've only been able to play as Sonic for over a decade; fans and critics blamed the characters for their poor gameplay and Sega took it to mean "oh they don't want to play as any other character ever again" as opposed to the characters just being poorly utilized and just fixing that. Its like even Frontiers still doesn't get it because after people complained about how lighthearted and dumb the games were, now they decided everything has to be super serious, right down to everyone having deep voices... let's just ignore that the game still isn't that well put together. The same applies to Superstars where its like "here's that Classic Sonic gameplay you love, y'all love that right" even though the game starts falling apart at the seams at certain points. There'd be a lot less complaining and bad faith arguments about these superficial elements if the games were actually good lmao. Nobody complains about Generations or Mania for being a "modern" or "Classic" game because they're good fucking games.
Colors to me was precisely the 'yes, enough of that Dark Gaia/Mephiles/Black Doom nonsense and let's go back to the colorful and fun Classic Sonic style' moment.
I've tried to make an effort to separate myself from the metanarrative around the Sonic series. There's obviously this mini culture war going on with light vs dark, east vs west etc that flares up whenever the tide shifts in any particular way. I would have argued against insecure western marketing and focus-tested driven creative decisions from SOA in most cases but SOJ has fucked up just enough that now I'm just kind of indifferent. "Is Sonic Frontiers a fun game?" is a more interesting discussion to me than how many dour sequels it might inspire or who feels alienated by what. Odds are you won't feel alienated enough to skip the next game at the end of the day. The aesthetic shifts of this series feel as predictable as the sunrise at this point, especially now that we know Superstars under performed. They're going to ride this until the wheels fall off and then pivot hard in the opposite direction after enough people are vocally sick of it, but no sooner. Some of the edgier stuff reads as severely off-key to me but it tends to be more of an execution issue. Sonic doesn't look like he belongs in Frontiers, but that's more of a failure of the artists than anything else. The actual content never leaves the realm of cartoon aimed at 8 year olds though, unless your concept of that is entirely influenced by what we air stateside which isn't all that helpful of a perspective in this case.
Sega mentioned recently it sold slower in the holiday season than they'd hoped. But the thing is that their entire holiday season lineup sold slower than they'd hoped, not just Superstars (including the new Total War, which usually sells pretty well if I'm not mistaken).
I've been meaning to make a big post in the Superstars thread but I've been busy this weekend. SEGA posted their financial results on the 9th. You can look at the data here under Q3 Financial Presentation. SEGA launched a total of 11 titles so far and almost their entire line up fell short. Sonic series sells did go up by 2.3 million this quarter for a total of 5 million. This for all Sonic titles though, not just Superstars, so it includes sales from previous games like Origins and Frontiers. Although I can't imagine either of those shot up to a million sales this quarter and drowned out Superstars. This lines up with my previous estimate that Superstars at least cleared 1 million units, but could not have cleared 2 million based on the sales charts we had back in November. Despite the increase in Sonic sales from Q2 to Q3 this year, Sonic series was still below 2022's results in the same period. By Q3, Sonic sold 4 million units that quarter for a total of 6.7 million. We know Frontiers sold over half of that with 2.5 million by December. This plus their previous statement leads me to believe SEGA was feeling themselves and forecasted Superstars performance to be closer to Frontiers rather than having realistic expectations. Releasing a clearly lower quality game for $60 against giants like Mario and Spider-Man was stupid. But so was releasing Persona 5 Tactica against Super Mario RPG and a fucked up version of Total War PHARAOH. The upcoming quarter is looking better for SEGA with Persona 3 breaking records for Atlus and the new Yakuza game being a hit. I guess those results are possible when you push out quality looking games worth the entry price.
I was gonna post about it, but I didn't wanna come off as a hater. You should probably put that in the Superstars thread though.
I don't wanna. Shadow drops February 15th and I rather discuss that. Just present the data and you won't come off as a "hater". Don't be book smart, be money smart.
Here's a scorching one: Sega's currently trying to gaslight us into believing that Amy was Always There and Always Important, and I don't really like it. Regardless of your opinion on the character, it's 100% a fact that from 1992 to 1997, she was nothing but brief cameos and roster fodder for spinoffs. Take a look at most promotional art from the Classic Era - Japanese or Western - it's almost all Sonic, Tails, Knuckles and Eggman. What Sega's currently doing with the character, especially in stuff like Superstars and the Classic Sonic IDW comics, is like if Warner Bros. suddenly started acting like Foghorn Leghorn was one of the main pillars of classic Looney Tunes alongside Bugs, Daffy, Porky, Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner. At least she's fun to play as in Superstars though.
I mean, you're not wrong. Amy was no more relevant than Fang or Metal Sonic in the series pre-SA1. The only game back then that kind gave us the Classic Quartet that we always see represented now was Sonic R. Amy's appearances were sporadic and borderline random. She got a few appearances in things like the Sonic Screensaver artwork, Gameworld on the Pico. Arguably that makes her more present in Japanese media, but not particularly significant. The thing is though, she had a couple of important distinctions: she was the only girl and she was the only recurring character that wasn't a villain. SA1 promoted her to the main cast and it's kind of been strength-to-strength from here (apart from her demotion to side character in both games that go by the abbreviation SA2). Amy just works quite reliably as one of the main cast. Even if her role as one of the Classic cast is overstated now, there's a good reason for it. She did exist back then and she's definitely been the 'fourth character' for most of the series' history now. SEGA tried to push other female characters like Cream and Sticks as the fifth characters in the past, but none of them have really stuck. I wonder if Trip is going to be the next attempt?
That girl reminds me of the highway between Fort Worth and Dallas: no curves. Amy Rose was given life in Sonic the Comic, but it's hard to know what the official plans were for her prior to Sonic Adventure - I'd put money on Yuji Naka not even knowing who she was when working on Sonic 3. Sega of America seemed to be pushing Sally Acorn for a while before giving up - I would expect Amy would have been in more games were there a clearer vision of what those games were meant to be. I don't recall being "surprised" when I learnt this character would be playable in Sonic Adventure - she was in Sonic R after all!
Not surprising, given that both characters are annoying with no redeeming qualities. Cream was introduced in Sonic Advance 2 because her mother was kidnapped. Why was her mother kidnapped? So Cream could be introduced. She was forced into the series, and past that game has no reason for being there. Sticks was introduced in Sonic Boom, and we all know how that went.
Related to two posts above, I absolutely love Cream. I don't think that's unpopular, but from what I can gather it was when she first showed up. Now for my main thing, I feel like the series is trying to pretend the cast is all adults and I don't like that. I don't think Sonic has acted 15 in a long while, nor Amy 12 or Tails 8, and so on. The only characters I feel are exempt from this are Cream and Charmy, but that's because they're both 6 and I feel would be the most jarring to just about everyone if they weren't written as such. These criticisms are primarily directed towards the IDW comics, since I'm new here I'll formally admit that I really, really don't like the IDW comics, and I don't get why anyone does. That isn't to say anyone who likes them is wrong, I'm not gonna be a bully, (and if I ever come off as one, please say so.) I just genuinely have trouble seeing what they see. Back on track, I feel like the IDW comics in particular just plain ignore the canon ages and write them as thinking and speaking in ways I don't think anyone their ages would. It took me out of it when Amy said Rouge was being "awfully altruistic" or something. I don't think a single 12 year old knows what being altruistic means. This issue has also resulted in everyone being dreadfully boring to me. Similar sentiment directed towards Frontiers as well. I know it's quite silly for me to ask the Sonic series to be realistic in their portrayals of ages, what with Tails being a 300 IQ genius mechanic at age 8, but I swear it was much more believable for me to view him as 8 in older material. Maybe this is why they've quietly retconned the ages recently, but this problem had lasted long before that. And it's going to take a long while for me to not view the characters as those ages, but I understand that's entirely on me.
Amy kind of bungled her way into being part of the main cast if we're being honest. She was clearly never intended as such and that's true by how little of a role she had in the pre-SA1 era. But seeing how she was literally the only female character up to that point, someone on the dev team probably decided to update her design put her with the group. Honestly, it worked out for the best seeing how she compliments Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles aesthetically well enough, but it's pretty funny seeing how firmly established she is as part of Team Sonic when that wasn't always the case. The cast have never acted according to their stated ages. It's not even just Sonic either, a lot of adjacent media was like that too. The teenage mutant ninja turtles sure as hell didn't act like teenagers. Everyone just kind of exists in the nebulous age range of "Child" and "Not a child." Tails is where it gets weird because he was originally designed as a child character, but that slowly got phased out after Adventure and now they kind flip-flop between on whether Tails is a child or not.
