Sega's 3 worst mistakes

Yes Nik, you explained that opinion before, but it really doesn't fit well here. Why? Because those same flaws appeal to every single video game out there that isn't in the arcades. Frankly, I don't think I can name a platform game that's even been in arcades since friggen' Wonder Boy anyway. With that said, the question goes to why Sonic fails where others succeed.

And the answer is simple. Poor design for the console market. Frankly though, what's bad for the goose is bad for the gander. The only difference in marketing to arcades and marketing to consoles is that if the game sucks on the arcade floor, it doesn't sell at all. If it sucks on the home floor, it doesn't matter until sales of future products get involved. We are at the point now where sales are truly beginning to suffer, largely thanks to the absolutely huge backlash that the games are getting among the younger crowds now. Sonic ceases to be appealing even to young kids when the games become needlessly difficult due to controls that suck more ass than a flag bearer for a gay rights parade.

And obviously the franchise would be a failure in arcades. Why? Because there is no money there, particularly among SEGA's target demographic. Arcades are for older kids... like us. The "been gaming since the 80s/early early 90s crowd". SEGA panders towards the little people between 6 and 12 now. The only arcade exposure those guys get anymore is what you find in Chuck E. Cheese's.

Quality-wise, sure, SEGA would have had to come to terms with their flaws a lot earlier. In terms of the market though, it's lose lose. And a lose in the market is a lose regardless.

 

To be honest, it's not like it matters. The switch to arcade development would have been necessary prior to the first release. Sonic would have enjoyed the Street Fighter 2 arcade boom era, and would probably have died out with some dignity by the late 1990s, after a short series of good games (or alternatively, would still be reasonably popular today, like Street Fighter). That said, you are forgetting arcade platformers such as Ghouls 'N Ghosts.

Of course, switching now would be a ridiculous idea because of the demographics involved, as you say. In truth, I only continue to pine for such a thing because I'm going to Sega Amusements Europe next month.

 

> Not taking the time on games before releasing them, but instead rushing and shitting out fucked up games.
> Firing the original voice actors
> Remakes of classic games and making them retarded.

 

1-Sonic The Hedgehog (2006)

There could be A LOT of things to say against this game, but since some of them have already been said, I'll focus
on what I think is the worst.
The Name.
Seriously, how could they gave this game the same name as the original.
Do you remember the promises SEGA made when first announcing the game?
I do. Day-Night cycling. Multiple paths in levels. Sonic as the only playable character.
Now, if the game kept at least 1 of these promises, there would be no problem with that, but since not only SEGA didn't kept them, but they also completely CHANGED the game to make it similar to (A very bad) Sonic Adventure, this is unforgiveable, because they ruined the name of Sonic The Hedgehog (The original game).

2-Sonic Genesis

But of course, if something ruined that name, probably this game is the worst, because it ruined also the game itself.

3-Trying to get rid of older fans

There is no other explanation to SEGA recent marketing choises.
They did so much things against us I'm surprised I still buy their game (I buy them only because I like Sonic so much).

 

They kept the second promise. Almost all the levels have multiple parallel paths, crossing at various places. (Which is why I like the game.)

 

Quoted for the truth. the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Whether it by incompetence or malice, this is easily one of SEGA's worst mistake.

 

Man, Sega is so incompetent, it can't even succeed at driving people away!

 

Fuck, I haven't seen them marketing their products at all since a Sonic Heroes commercial.

 

Bad form to quote something from a whole page ago but I do have a penny to add:

The Crash franchise is a perfect example of something that should have been retired as soon as its original owners moved on. Compare Jak & Daxter to Crash 4, there's no contest, Jak wins hands down.

Crash Team Racing was a brilliant way to end a franchise, it should've been Crash's swan-song, but alas, the desire to churn out franchise based material took over.

It seems, to me anyway, that the classic platformers, I.e. Mario and Sonic, should have stayed in the 2D era. Their whole ethos was pretty dependent on basic mechanics that the 3D era just despises, hence why Sonic now has all the 'omg uber' subgames and powers that in reality don't really add any value.

Did anyone in 1991 really think "wow, wouldn't it be cool if Sonic could grind down a staircase railing like all those kids back in the 1980s did?", it's not as if it was some kind of power that really boosted Sonic's appeal if you ask me.

 

I promised Tweaker a long time ago that I would add my bitching to this thread, so here it is.


SEGA SUCKS AND IS BIAS

 

Honestly Nik, I have a hard time calling Ghosts n' Ghouls a platformer. Yeah, it is one... but oi, it certainly doesn't play like one.

Anyway, every time I see someone attributing firing the old voice actors as "one of SEGA's 3 greatest mistakes" I want to wring their neck, because it seems to me like they really don't get what made the franchise good in the first place. It's like people who want to pretend the large number of characters or the shitty storylines are what's dragging the series down. Yeah, those things suck, but in the meat of things they are pretty damn irrelevant. Give me a platform game, a platform game that features excellent mechanics and engaging level design, and I will immediately forgive whatever flaws the game has in terms of story and story presentation.

 

I'm confused. You accept that it is a platform game, but you have a hard time labelling it as such. Why? You can't be taking issue with the use of projectile attacks, as that's been a staple of the genre since Super Mario Bros and the fire flowers (and hey, probably even before then). The difference lies only in which actions the games choose to emphasise - Mario is heavy on the jumping, while Ghouls 'N Ghosts places the focus on weaponry.

Incidentally, there are other arcade platformers from near that time such as Liquid Kids and Blue's Journey. I just thought it would probably be easier to mention something that most people have heard of.

 

Yeah, my Crash never had tatoos.

This is how good franchises go bad.

 

Just reading some of these mistakes reminds me of how horribly Sega can mess something up. After Sonic Adventure their decline in quality with the Sonic franchise is just mind boggling. Obviously they rushed games so they could make money off their old pal Sonic, producing horrible titles like Sonic Shuffle.

Sonic the Hedgehog (next gen) looked promising, until I played it at a friends house. All the excitement of playing a new next-gen Sonic game disappeared the moment I realized the loading times were horrific and they added some more un-needed characters. I understand the need for new characters, but I don't see why you need to introduce a new one in every game. Tails, great. Knuckles, awesome. Big the Cat... Silver... That stupidly annoying rabbit thing from Sonic Rush Adventure? Ugh, it's painful to think about it. :P

Ah the 32X I remember that, I only had Knuckles Chaotix and Star Wars Arcade for it. When the system worked it was ok, when the stupid metal clips to hold the system in place moved and the game froze it was maddening. I just wanted to play a game, not balance a system so it doesn't freeze in mid-game. I enjoyed the Sega Saturn, although the lack of Sonic games for the system was an unfortunate event. Sonic Heroes got my hopes up when Metal Sonic returned, too bad we all know how that turned out.

I don't even want to touch the subject of Sonic Unleashed. Why Sega, why? Please, just make a fun, new 2D classic side-scroller for a non-handheld system that doesn't have 5 new characters and call it a day.

 

If only it were that easy.

 

I'm not sure it's just Sonic who's having his games get worse over time... but the reasoning of "Heavy-handed plot over gameplay" seems accurate. I miss pick-up-and-play gameplay.

 

Edit: Actually I just read the subtitle and noticed it was in the Sonic forum, so I have fixed my post. Although only my first one has really changed much.

Here is mine is no specific order:

1) Saturn International Launch Failure. If they would have held this back a year, improved it, and then sold it at a price comparable to the Playstation, it would have worked. Instead they rushed it out and it was too expensive for average people(similar to the PS3 now, however this had a better launch). I think this is what killed the DC, as the DC seemed fine. If Sonic Xtreme had been a finished and good, and/or Sonic Team actually did a Sonic game instead of NiGHTS and such, I think it would have did much better at Christmas.

2) Continued Focus on Arcades/Entertainment Centres. Simply put, these are dead, yet they still hang onto them. Last fiscal year they lost over 500 million USD on this. Imagine if they applied these funds to video games instead? They would easily be up there with EA/Activision. Instead retail video games are not taken as seriously in such a (mostly unknown) massive international company.

3) Sonic After Being Third-party. Basically they ruined the franchise as much as possible. They used SA2 as a model of what Sonic is and the series has never been the same since, constantly going downward and becoming even more different. Mostly it is just the characters and associated things slapped onto games that are not Sonic games now.