It’s insane how the Sonic franchise really was dictated by people who just remember Sonic for being that old video game that was a rival franchise to Mario.
@@heroicgangster9981 I'd highly recommend watching either Matt McMuscles' video on the Sega Dreamcast or Golden Bolt's videos on SA1 and SA2. There was a lot of turmoil going on with Sega during the SA1/SA2 period. Failing to launch a flagship Sonic title for the Saturn led to poor sales and put immense pressure for the next main Sonic title to be an absolute hit. SA1 was incredibly ambitious but wasn't even nearly enough for the Dreamcast to compete against the PS2. By the time SA2 launched, Sega had already stopped manufacture for the Dreamcast. All hope was lost and the company was basically bankrupt. Like we were incredibly close to the timeline where Sega goes under and SA2 is the last game. So at that point Sega and Sonic Team were desperate and grasping at straws. So if you have a loud minority, Sega was more than willing to appease them.
@@snakey888yeah he was at his peak success wise with the first game, but recently (especially with some massive help from the movies) sonic has been returning to the spotlight in a much more positive light.
Sonic gameplay isn’t for everyone, but some people use that as a “sonic sucks argument”, which yeah occasionally he does, the argument over the years (especially when there were some really bad sonic games like boom) has been overblown. I remember people complaining constantly about how Sonic Forces is bad and how Sonic Unleashed is still garbage (one half of it anyway), and now so many people have just agreed that it was always good, and Sonic Forces (for me at least) is slightly better when I started trying to speedrun Sunset Heights. And it’s pretty fun. The game is still really boring (except the music, that soundtrack is real nice). I’ve also wondered if Sonic & The Black Knight is any good since I really dig the aesthetic of the Storybook Games (and Frontiers to, since it’s similar). Maybe it will actually be fun with a controller instead of motion controls. Or maybe it won’t work at all.
Sega marketing Sonic 4 with the fact that Sonic's "annoying friends" weren't playable was an incredibly horrible and evil thing to do, especially when you consider the fact the game came out around the same time as New Super Mario Wii and Rayman Origins. Why wouldn't you want to play as Tails, Knuckles, Amy, Cream, the Chaotix, Rouge or even Shadow in a 2D Platformer?
It’s also kind of weird how Cream has just been ousted, she wasn’t even in Team Sonic Racing. I mean Tails has been “8” for more than 30 years now. The mandates must be weird.
I remember being so annoyed by that character countdown. "We're going to cross off the characters slowly each day until only the characters in this game are left. Can you guess which characters will be in it?" Included in that list were Big, Froggy, and "Sonic's New Friend, Mister Needle Mouse!" It was insultingly obvious that they were appealing to the "Sonic's stupid friends" crowd. That guy from J's Reviews said it best when he pointed out how it felt like Sega were almost proud of giving us so little content, and it's obvious who they were marketing this game towards. And the fact that the game was still incredibly underwhelming despite not having "Sonic's lame-o friends" was just the icing on the cake. Sega needs to stop letting these overly critical critics and smart aleck game journalists from ultimately dictating what the Sonic series can and can't be.
It’s actually genius marketing when you think about it. Play up the notion that sonic’s friends are bad, release an incredibly barebones bland game, journalists see the lack of content as a good thing. “8.5 no big the cat”
@@GoldLight73 Especially considering the fact that the Sonic series has practically always introduced new characters and elements to expand upon. It's nothing new. Yet people act like there was just this one Sonic game where suddenly there were "a Bazillion" new Sonic characters. Even more tragic is the fact that a lot of people couldn't even handle the mere inclusion of Tails.
Sega/Sonic Team was basically in a Stockholm syndrome relation to people that viewed the Sonic Series as nothing more than a punching bag, Sega continuing to bend the knee for these people as a point of reference/feedback put the series in a stagnant state it was obvious Sega/Sonic Team didn't know what to do. Luckily they were able to free themselves from that Stockholm and start getting people that were legitimately passionate for the series regardless of all the low points
To be fair, the ones that are passionate don't stay with Sega for long. The key people behind games like Unleashed and Generations left Sega. Even the Mania team seemingly have little to nothing to do with Sega anymore.
just look at the murder of sonic the hedgehog. Sonic dies very early on and the game is carried by everyone else. happens to be one of the best recent sonic games and it was april fools
It honestly makes me wonder if that was kind of a test or something. Or they genuinely thought that people would only take these characters seriously if it was an intentional joke.
Shadow managing to get out of the slump they put his character through is a sign that Sega can turn a character around if they want to, now we just gotta hope they'll do that with other members of the cast
@TheGraveKnight They didn't change Shadow's characterization at all from how it was circa the 2010s. They just finally made him be in the spotlight for once post-06.
I feel something worth pointing out about SEGA's mentality in regards to Sonic's friends is how their absence (or "rejection") was used as a selling point during the lead up to Sonic the Hedgehog 4. Of note were characters like Shadow, Amy, Shade, Charmy, Vector, Big, Chip and "Sonic's new friend, Mr. Needlemouse". All of them "rejected", leaving only Sonic highlighted. That speaks volumes about SEGA's desperation and attempt to appeal to that loud minority that wanted nothing but Sonic 1-3, but again (while completely ignoring all the 2D Sonics on handheld, apparently). And the end result was a half-baked attempt at nostalgia bait, trying to ride the Mega Man 9 and 10 coattails.
Tell me about it! That character countdown was so annoying, because it was obvious from day one what they were doing. They were winking at the audience and going "Don't worry, folks! We've got you covered with this one! There's no way that Sonic's lame-o friends are going to be in this game! And it's gonna be awesome cos of that! See, see, we get you! We're on the same level! Please love us and buy our games again!" The fact that this game was an completely underwhelming mess just proves that cutting these characters has absolutely nothing to do with a game's overall quality. I'm surprised that more people don't talk about this. It really was a time where Sega seemed more interested in marketing their games to overly critical critics, smart aleck game journalists, and even haters and detractors of the Sonic series instead of their own fans.
If those ppl truly wanted nothing but Sonic 1-3 again then they should’ve complained about the lack of other playable characters They would’ve been complaining about how they didn’t play similarly to Sonic like in the Classics But nah, those ppl hated the fact that they existed Those ppl clearly did not like Sonic for what it actually was and just wanted it to remain as a snapshot of their nostalgia
06 honestly had a really cool system for handling the multiple playable characters, felt like a compromise between all the previous games. Just wish they controlled better
@@ORLY911 why do you want a game for both of them together ? How about keeping them separated instead of just forcing them together like this all the time.
They always listen to the bad part of the fandom. "The franchise died after Sonic3 & knuckles" "Sonic doesn't need friends" "Adventure formula is bad" "Sonic should be relatable"
Man did IGN and other “critics” really ruin Sonic’s image, and it didn’t help that SEGA really took those “criticisms” to heart. Thank God SEGA is getting out of that phase.
It helps that people are starting to realize that the words of these so-called "critics" are little more than preachy bullshit. Not just with Sonic games but games in General.
@@snakey888 While they didn’t make the games, they did heavily influence SEGA’s decisions when making games, with remarks such as “Sonic’s friends ruin everything” or “Sonic was never good” that negatively impacted many of Sonic’s games during that era.
@@HahaFunn1Naem What games were negatively impacted? Besides, it's Sega's responsibility to address criticism in the most sensible way, ignoring it if necessary.
People basically just overreacted to Sonic 2006 and got the idea that Sonic's friends (or having a more serious story) were the issue rather than just bad gameplay.
Does not help that between sa1 and 06 the other characters generally did have sub par gameplay, so a strong association formed between Sonic's friends and bad gameplay. Especially when taking into account that Sonic usually had good, or at least much better gameplay.
@@iceman92211 I'm talking in a relative sense. Like the story is the closest thing to a diamond in an already rough ass mountain... more like a piece of coal but hey at least you can get something out of it.
Sonic with a broad cast of characters is why I loved the games. Playing the same character every game is repetitive and boring, so having the whole cast feels better. And it doesn't feel like it should be hard to make everyone play differently since everyone has different abilities.
@@eclipse5708yeah I do. The first two mech stages for Tails aren’t good, but the next two are really fun. It made me realise that for Sonic games, most games in the series can become fun if you play them like Sonic. Gotta Go Fast (speedrunning basically). Fishing was a nice relaxing break from the pretty boring Hunting stages in Adventure, but not enough to save you from Amy’s atrocious side of the game). And Treasure hunting in SA2 is fun, except for again, the first two stages (Punpkin Hill is actually more so okay, but I prefer the others, for some reason).
Project 06 offers a good approach to several characters playable, in how all nine are fun to use and are similar in how they control yet differentiated enough to where they aren't pallete swaps.
I seriously can't be the only one who thinks the discussion around the original game has been getting completely ruined/more annoying since it constantly won't stop getting compared to its unnoficial fanmade remake partially released over a decade later literally anytime the original game is talked about in any fashion because they seem to be treated as the same thing, one way or another.
And it's crazy too that we don't see them that much since 06. They all have much deeper lore and potentially cooler interactions than say the Mario series where half the cast doesn't even talk and yet its weird if DK or yoshi *don't* show up.
@@internetera1523 actually given that deception is one of his favorite fighting games, and this year was the 20th anniversary of deception, shocked he didn't review it this year
@@sezunemizuhana3870 The Archie comics, before and after the reboot, are a perfect showcase for why the Sega canon and the SatAM canon are completely incompatible with one another.
Interested in seeing some TH-camrs finally talking about this issue. I think the problem surrounding Sonic in the late 2000’s going into the 2010’s was a combination of the fickle feedback from fans and SEGA’s constant changing decisions with the series. They want to please as many people as possible but after Forces, I think they finally realized that they cannot be a Jack of all trades. The problem that I don’t think many people realize is that SEGA really takes fan feedback to heart. To the point where they take it too far and try to fix something that wasn’t broken. Case in point, the series’s tone and gameplay that is still fluctuating to this day. Some of the fans suggested adding guns to the Sonic games to mix things up and make the brand more mature, and that’s how we got Shadow the Hedgehog and Sonic 2006. The fans then said that Sonic should not be that serious. They dialed things back with Unleashed and still got burnt by critics who didn’t like the werehog gimmick. SEGA said alright fine, we’ll have no stakes whatsoever, Sonic stops Eggman, that’s it. That’s what the people want. Hire two writers who are not the least bit familiar with the franchise to pen the Western localizations for these games. Surely their dialogue will breathe new life into this series. (Anyone remember when they tried to rebrand Sonic’s image with that Sonic Boom cartoon and Rise of Lyric game? Honestly, I already forgot.) Wait, people do want a more serious Sonic story? Sonic Frontiers is a very flawed game, but it serves as a very promising foundation for what is to come if Sonic Team decides to stick with this format. Aside from awful wall running and the jumps carrying a little too much weight, I would say that Frontiers Sonic is the best he has controlled in years. When fully leveled up, you feel like an unstoppable force of nature. Like a knight of the wind! The tone of the story is also well done. It feels pretty close to the Dreamcast - Sonic X era of story and characterization. Not serious to the point of being edgy or dour, but not treated as a complete joke either.
My main thing is the fact i want some of the cast to get spin-offs without Sonic, like yea shadow is more than likely good to get another spin-off without Sonic, but what about silver, blaze give them some time in the spotlight as well sega
We just might start getting that Sega's insistent on having at least one Sonic gamve every year it seems. So what better way to keep that up then giving more charachters their own games.
@Cloud-dt6xb I would personally give Blaze a year she's my 4th favorite character in the series and if they want to stop giving sonic the boost formula just make boost games with blaze her games started the boost formula with the rush series
Well for one Mario has consistently made era defining platformers for the last 40 years, that kind of gives you a pass for anything. I'd say that aesthetically though, Sonic is in like the uncanny valley between family and cool, so although sonic himself has survived by sheer brand presence, someone like Silver, or Blaze, or Rouge, they just look cringe and kind of tryhard. They look cool to literal children and people who played Sonic Adventure and onward era games at a particular age, and it took a while for those people to start writing gaming articles. Meanwhile Mario just firmly plants itself in being a family adventure with no attempt to be cool or edgy at all, no one is going to think Toad is a badass, nor does he look like anyone is supposed to think that, so he doesn't come off as cringe.
Yet I find ironic when the Mario fans criticized Sonic for having too many friends, would be the same ones that would have a non stop meltdown over a few Paper Mario games not including their weird one off OC partners.
And they still can't give Blaze the respect she deserves. Sonic '06 just murdered her, right after her debut edit: and I'm not talking about Silver's ending lmao
It's not like she was ever a super interesting character. Cool design, but her story is boring and largely irrelevant/inconsistent multiverse nonsense.
The problem people complain about (the most common one I hear) is that Sonic has TOO MANY friends and SEGA doesn't know what to do with them 75% of the time.
I think laying off of Sonic's friends for the next few games WAS a good idea purely because the more Sega had to develop alternate gameplay styles, the less polished the main gameplay would be, making the whole experience suffer as a result. I like how Frontiers approached things now. Sonic as the only character in the main game, then Tails, Knuckles and Amy get their own stuff as a free DLC. Hell, I and many others wouldn't mind getting paid DLC with missions and even a unique small storyline for a bunch of characters like Shadow, Rogue, Cream, Omega, the Chaotix etc.
Aside from making Sonic's friends playable again, I also think they deserve their own games. There's a lot of potential SEGA isn't tapping into. I actually like '06's attempt at managing the story, characters, and level design. It just suck that everything bad about the game eclipses the positives.
Okay I don’t wanna be that d rider fan, but other than Knuckles and maybe Silver, a game with anyone other than Sonic and Shadow being the main front focus would sell as well if we’re being brutally honest. However they still deserve more chances in the spotlight in future games to become playable again
Sonic unleashed was my favorite game, until i saw how 06 uses the characters and how the gameplay is more open. That i fell in love with the adventure style gameplay
@@bluevegeta4565it depends on how polished it is (which might be easier to do, focusing on a different main character that doesn’t need nearly as huge levels to accommodate high speeds), and how well they market it.
@@nightwish1453 Uh, I wasn’t specifically referring to 06. I was talking about whether they should start receiving their own games. In which wouldn’t work as they don’t have it like Sonic and Shadow do.
The problem was never the cast but how they were used in terms of story and gameplay. When they are written well and incoorperated into the game plaay in such a way they are fun they add so much to the series.
06 was probably one of the best methods that could be used to incorporate a large cast with different play styles. 3 main stories(with one main character for each) building up to a final story(while also including some other characters to play a few stages as well as the endgame section where you get a quick but hard level with each character.) I think a story following 2-4 main characters alongside 1-2 other characters in each of their routes is the best method to include as many characters as you can
It’s sad how we’ve gone from ‘Sonic has too many friends and they’re overused’ to ‘why can’t we play as any other character other than Sonic?’ Like these ppl were complaining abt Sonic having a large cast and then later complaining on how underused that large cast is and it’s like yeah it’s cus u guys whined when u had to play as someone like Amy
@@tjlnintendowhen did a say that everyone in the community was like that? Obviously there are ppl who never thought Sonic having to many friends or playable characters were an issue
Low-key i think it's time for another Sonic RPG with Sonic and his friends but you know done better this time around.Also I would argue the recent IDW comics does Sonic's friends justice mostly.
Honestly as someone who hasn't played many Sonic games but is familiar with the series and likes the franchise well enough, the extended cast is something I actually like. It would suck if it was like Mario where it is mainly just Mario and maybe Luigi in some random ass location that will be forgotten in the next game with characters that are likely to be forgotten in the next game as well. The fact that Sonic has all these unique characters is cool and I would love to see more of them. At worse, they need to improve their gameplay gimmicks and make them work with the pacing but having different characters could easily augment the experience as oppose to destroying it.
I was always an avid defender of Sonic's friends as they were arguably the main thing that drew me into this franchise in the first place. Without them, Sonic wouldn't have been nearly as interesting to me. Which is why I feel vindicated that we're now well past this stage in Sonic's history where people were just making up scapegoats to justify why they didn't like the games anymore. I hate that it took Sega and Sonic Team this long to finally figure it out that there's actually a huge fanbase that loves them, but at least they know now, and are at the point where they're going back to their roots in terms of Modern Sonic and actually incoporating more of them into the main story and lore. With that said, there are some things I don't agree with. The differences in gameplay between all the different teams in Heroes aren't negligible. They have a real impact on how you approach enemy encounters and some of the level design, more so than in SA2 where the 3 sets of characters play exactly the same as each other, with Sonic being exactly the same as Shadow and all that. Also, the challenges in Generations featuring Sonic's friends were just great and well made. The fact that Sonic's friends were even features in that game and played a major part in the game's story and gameplay is still a far cry from how they were handled in the likes of Unleashed and Colours where they were almost all completely ignored or in Lost World where even the small cast of whoever was there were merely cameos.
@@aarondx3764 Yeah, its identity was the worst Sonic game, and an argument for killing the series, or selling it to a more competent company. 2010's werent that great either, but nothing then was as bad as 06.
Well that's because the platforming is still the same regardless of what character you're playing Whereas I don't think anyone playing sonic is a fan of froggy fishing
@@DragonKingMadaraUchiha No, no boshwa20 is right. Who wants a dumb fishing minigame that takes up an entire campaign? That's the real issue with Sonic's friends, the gameplay didn't really fit the series' core appeal. In a game that's about speeding through platforming levels, you want the extra characters to provide a different take on that style. Not some random unrelated gimmick.
I remember my friend asking why Sonic's friends weren't playable in so many games. Once i told him the reason, he was pissed. My guy got robbed by fans and now he couldn't play as any Sonic character for a while until Sonic Frontiers came out.
All things considered Sonic's cast is a pretty standard size for a franchise of it's breadth. You have about 5-10 recurring characters and several minor ones that are important to single stories and cameo in subsequent ones. Getting pissed about Sonic's extended cast like getting pissed that a long-running tv show has so many characters and isn't just three people max in a universe otherwise devoid of life.
Man, Sonic and Dragon Ball has more in common than I gave credit for, Dragon Ball also misuses their extras (Especially Gohan and Piccolo up until recently)
Even down to the fans, they're similar. Some people have some of the most braindead takes I have ever heard in my life. And I haven't even been following Sonic stuff for as long as I've been following Dragon Ball!
@@DragonKingMadaraUchiha Knuckles sort of got the Yamcha treatment with him being the butt of a lot of jokes. Like in Old Generations and Lost world. Amy even knocks him towards a tree. Of course its meant for comedy but it made knuckles look bad. Also…. Forces Tails…. Oh my god they ruined Tails so bad in Forces.
I think in general, a lot of the dumber complaints about the series stemmed from the fact that Sonic 06 released around the time every day people started using TH-cam given the website was roughly a little more than a year old at the time.
If Shadow Gens is a sign of things to come, then I'm froathing at the mouth for Sonic Friends having spinoffs Get Hardlight out of the mobile division and give them the resources for a full Blaze platformer (Sonic Rush 3 minus the Sonic) Let Atlus take a crack at a new Sonic RPG taking place in Silver's future RGG... Yakuza but Knuckles + Chaotix
I’ve personally always wanted to see a dedicated Silver game that uses the inFAMOUS series (those sandbox-style character action-combat-platformer games from the PS3) as inspiration for its gameplay, with an appropriate story, world and aesthetic.
it's crazy that before sonic friends were considered a problem before and now they're the highlight, frontiers dlc, the year of shadow, the hype of the post credi scene in the movies that introduce the next character, I'm glad sega is going back to sonic friends
This is one of the reasons I think Sonic the hedgehog would lend itself really well to the Lego videogame treatment. Those games are known for having huge rosters of playable characters, each with their own distinct set of abilities for solving different types of puzzles.
That's why I said we need to the more popular characters to have their own subseries, particularly Knuckles, Shadow, Amy, and Silver. Let the least popular characters be a secondary to the one they have a relationship with and that will give them a chance to be in a spotlight. To solve the "too many friends" problem, I suggest making some characters no more than NPCs if we cannot completely retcon them. Characters such as Chip and Elise are Professor Pickle would be such characters to be non-playable.
I blame certain outlets like the Escapist. I always loved Sonic's friends and they were never the problem, but more like Sega had no idea how to utilize them outside of GBA and DS spin-offs, which is a shame. SA2 and Heroes are my favorite Sonic games and I wished the formula continued. But it seems after 06, Sega got scared of trying to write deep and impactful stories using Sonic's friends and stuck to low-to-the-ground stories with just Sonic for a while. Then they tried it again with Forces and botched it so hard by trying to play things too safe with the story and characters.
@snakey888 They were done perfectly in SA2. Don't know what you're talking about. Only problem with Heroes was were the lack of Chao and wonky controls at times.
@@Netherwolf6100 Not in terms of gameplay. The other characters were give really boring and tedious gameplay that had nothing to do with Sonic gameplay.
@@Netherwolf6100 One of the purposes is for them to have fun and engaging gameplay, in line with the series standards. Sa2 failed spectacularly in that regard. If you believe otherwise, then perhaps you are part of the problem.
2000s Sonic really gave us a goldmine of the most unique and creative games in any platformer series and everybody got gaslit into thinking they were all bad
Common 4thSnake W i appreciate that you brought up 06's use of so many characters. Sonic, Shadow and Silver have a really fun narrative theme of Present, Past and Future that ties together really well at the endgame but the game stretches itself so thin (not at all helped by Yuji Naka completely fucking over his dev team). i'm glad sega is starting to dial the extended cast back in, it's stupid that they spent so many years pandering to a demographic that wasn't going to care about the series anymore regardless of what sega did.
6:04 / 6:33 I saw a video from *Kiro Talks* the video he made is call *“The Sonic Friend that deserves better”* He talks mostly about Silver the Hedgehog. He does like the character but Silver had bad reputation for debuting in Sonic 06. Kiro Talks tries to explain if Silver’s future had change is after the end of Sonic 06. Kiro many explanations and he is not even sure. I just recently watched a video from *DevieDark,* as they both talk about Silver should get his own game. They talk about how Sonic with sonic movie, and Shadow Generations and the IDW being canon, they both Silver and his future can make many possibilities
Hit the nail on the head, great video. Love the spite too! Sonic is *more* than the Genesis-era! And it's great to see SEGA realize that now since the Adventure-era fans have gotten older and picked up the microphone.
For real. Back in the they, people insisting that Sonic having a recurring cast, while often the same people wanted one off Mario characters to return was kind of insane to me.
This is probably half the reason sonic had to turn into a wolf creature in Sonic Unleashed. Otherwise they could have just put Knuckles in the night stages since he's so connected to history of the chaos emeralds I feel like that would have made sense. They could have had sonic just not be able to run at night or fall asleep like under a curse or something at night and then you'd play as Knuckles. I also would have wanted to see Tails do more in the game. Like maybe make it so you have to do a flying segment when you first go to a new location and turn it into a full on rails shooter and ditch the button prompts.
Another way they could fix the repetition of Heroes is to lean in harder on making the 4 teams different. Give Team Dark a stronger emphasis on combat instead of just bloating the levels with enemies. Maybe make Team Rose more focused on platforming and puzzles instead of just making the same levels but shorter. I actually think 06 nails this idea in theory. Since the 3 hedgehogs are generally similar to each other and are the main focus, but you have dramatically different playstyles for everyone else and they are sprinkled in each level. Project 06 pulls this off really well I think.
Sega's bizzzare idea of deciding Sonic's friends were the issue and not "Maybe we shouldn't rush the team to release basically a beta of a game before it can be properly programed" or "Maybe we should lower the scope of the characters and have them show up as NPCs and characters in cutscenes only" is frustrating. I am so happy the newer games are getting at least the second idea though your mileage might very depending on your thoughts on Frontiers.
A Amy Rose spin off could be interesting with Peach and Zelda getting their own games so why not? It can also bring back some forgotten friends like Cream and Mighty.
Those characters were a last minute desperation move when the USA canon, as exemplified by The Archie version and was held hostage in legal battles with Penders about the derivative works clause in Archie independent submissions, which affected the USA comic. They just made Sally Acron a d company retroactively never exist.
Preach! The issue was the games getting worse and sega not refining the things that worked that really hurt the series, then after they went back to basics the writing got a hell of a lot worse character wise, like some games have better stories than 06 but the characters are caricatures of themselves. Sonic X Shadow made me so happy for adding back shadow and making every character in the game go back to having an actual character
Hell, I'd say Sonic's variety in settings and characters, with a story that took itself (too) seriously is a big part as to why the series is still so popular. At least I know that's why, as a kid that grew up with the "dark era" games, I loved the world of Sonic much more than Mario's.
Not even Sonic himself was really given the respect he deserved as a charachter, after Black Knight. It's why I reached a point where I geuniuely wanted Sega to lose the ip before 2020. I was also definetly among the many who did not think that first movie would be good, until they changed the design then they caught my attention. Then it became a hit and suddenly the spark came back for Sega, none of their games since have been perfect but they also have'nt been bad either they've been really good experiences that showed Sega really is trying to improve themselves and admit when mistakes happen. It feels so good to love Sonic again
SEGA has gotten in their own way for decades now, but this decade plus of this loud minority helped really damaged the franchise. Them and the Sonic bashers/people who thought only the 2D games were good and were inflexible and whatnot didn't go away until rather recently. A lot of these folks thought that having Sonic's friends and multiple playstyles was problematic, but when classic Sonic came back for the 3rd time for Forces, they apparently were fine with it.
@@snakey888 I agree that the way Heroes and Shadow 2005 handled things was wrong, but SEGA took the wrong lessons from that. They needed to do what was suggested in this video.
People were complaining about Sonic's friends? I guess i shouldn't be surprised by whacky takes in the Sonic fandom. The issue with these games was the half baked gameplay, not the characters. Bring back Cream and Cheese, damnit!
Surprised i never caught on to the idea that "Geewunners" (people who just want to relive the original iterations over and over unchanged for the rest of time and reject anything changed, new or different) are the common factor with beloved yet turbulent IPs. Sonic, Star Wars, Transformers, Mortal Kombat, and many many more. In fact, the only outliers I can think of are certain Nintendo Classic IPs, especially Mario and Legend of Zelda, whereas nearly every other property or franchise has this generational divide, to pull from your other video breaking down the three "eras" of each franchise.
Even sonic friends are part of the franchise in every genesis game introduces at least 1 new character 1 sonic, eggman 2 sonic tails, eggman Cd sonic, amy, metal sonic 3 sonic, tails, knuckles, eggman
Shadow was by far the best part of the third movie. That proves to me that the supporting cast is great. I loved the main series in Archie, but many of the Universe stories focusing on other characters like Silver, Shadow, and Knuckles can be even better. And Sonic 06 having a huge scope was the point. The problem wasn't that it had too many characters, it was that it was way too rushed.
My favorite character is silver and I’ve come to terms with the fact that he’s never gonna be playable in anything besides the spin-off party games. I’ve even come to terms that he’s not gonna be apart of the sonic movies. Once you give up hope things feel a lot better.
It’s insane how the Sonic franchise really was dictated by people who just remember Sonic for being that old video game that was a rival franchise to Mario.
Likely mostly by people who briefly played the first levels of Sonic 1 and 2 considering 3&K kept being ignored too.
That is when Sonic was at his peak, and Sega knows that considering to this day they are implementing various call backs to those games.
@@heroicgangster9981 I'd highly recommend watching either Matt McMuscles' video on the Sega Dreamcast or Golden Bolt's videos on SA1 and SA2.
There was a lot of turmoil going on with Sega during the SA1/SA2 period. Failing to launch a flagship Sonic title for the Saturn led to poor sales and put immense pressure for the next main Sonic title to be an absolute hit. SA1 was incredibly ambitious but wasn't even nearly enough for the Dreamcast to compete against the PS2.
By the time SA2 launched, Sega had already stopped manufacture for the Dreamcast. All hope was lost and the company was basically bankrupt. Like we were incredibly close to the timeline where Sega goes under and SA2 is the last game.
So at that point Sega and Sonic Team were desperate and grasping at straws. So if you have a loud minority, Sega was more than willing to appease them.
@@snakey888yeah he was at his peak success wise with the first game, but recently (especially with some massive help from the movies) sonic has been returning to the spotlight in a much more positive light.
Sonic gameplay isn’t for everyone, but some people use that as a “sonic sucks argument”, which yeah occasionally he does, the argument over the years (especially when there were some really bad sonic games like boom) has been overblown. I remember people complaining constantly about how Sonic Forces is bad and how Sonic Unleashed is still garbage (one half of it anyway), and now so many people have just agreed that it was always good, and Sonic Forces (for me at least) is slightly better when I started trying to speedrun Sunset Heights. And it’s pretty fun. The game is still really boring (except the music, that soundtrack is real nice). I’ve also wondered if Sonic & The Black Knight is any good since I really dig the aesthetic of the Storybook Games (and Frontiers to, since it’s similar). Maybe it will actually be fun with a controller instead of motion controls. Or maybe it won’t work at all.
I'm glad SEGA finally learned from their past mistakes and improved drastically this year. And just gave the spotlight to Shadow XD
Ah yes, my favorite character, Shaodw the Hedgeohg! :P
Meanwhile poor Silver has been left to the wayside
Tbf, Shadow always was the second most popular character in the whole franchise. And besides, he's really cool.
As they should
@@TheGraveKnight we can only hope, that 26 will be year of Silver and maybe go through with Remake/Remaster of 06
Sega marketing Sonic 4 with the fact that Sonic's "annoying friends" weren't playable was an incredibly horrible and evil thing to do, especially when you consider the fact the game came out around the same time as New Super Mario Wii and Rayman Origins.
Why wouldn't you want to play as Tails, Knuckles, Amy, Cream, the Chaotix, Rouge or even Shadow in a 2D Platformer?
Exactly now with frontiers I bet that guy sounds stupid now
It’s also kind of weird how Cream has just been ousted, she wasn’t even in Team Sonic Racing. I mean Tails has been “8” for more than 30 years now. The mandates must be weird.
I remember being so annoyed by that character countdown. "We're going to cross off the characters slowly each day until only the characters in this game are left. Can you guess which characters will be in it?" Included in that list were Big, Froggy, and "Sonic's New Friend, Mister Needle Mouse!" It was insultingly obvious that they were appealing to the "Sonic's stupid friends" crowd. That guy from J's Reviews said it best when he pointed out how it felt like Sega were almost proud of giving us so little content, and it's obvious who they were marketing this game towards. And the fact that the game was still incredibly underwhelming despite not having "Sonic's lame-o friends" was just the icing on the cake.
Sega needs to stop letting these overly critical critics and smart aleck game journalists from ultimately dictating what the Sonic series can and can't be.
It’s actually genius marketing when you think about it. Play up the notion that sonic’s friends are bad, release an incredibly barebones bland game, journalists see the lack of content as a good thing. “8.5 no big the cat”
@ foxy move
Freaking preach. The notion of Sonic’s expansive cast being at fault for series downfall is such a logical farce.
@@GoldLight73 Especially considering the fact that the Sonic series has practically always introduced new characters and elements to expand upon. It's nothing new. Yet people act like there was just this one Sonic game where suddenly there were "a Bazillion" new Sonic characters. Even more tragic is the fact that a lot of people couldn't even handle the mere inclusion of Tails.
Sega/Sonic Team was basically in a Stockholm syndrome relation to people that viewed the Sonic Series as nothing more than a punching bag, Sega continuing to bend the knee for these people as a point of reference/feedback put the series in a stagnant state it was obvious Sega/Sonic Team didn't know what to do. Luckily they were able to free themselves from that Stockholm and start getting people that were legitimately passionate for the series regardless of all the low points
To be fair, the ones that are passionate don't stay with Sega for long. The key people behind games like Unleashed and Generations left Sega. Even the Mania team seemingly have little to nothing to do with Sega anymore.
Ah yes, the 2010s
The problem is that sega tries to please everyone, and just after that they decide to make the game.
So a Beauty and the Werehog situation, pretty cool take
@@snakey888 Ppl who worked on Gens came back for Shadow Gens
just look at the murder of sonic the hedgehog. Sonic dies very early on and the game is carried by everyone else.
happens to be one of the best recent sonic games and it was april fools
It honestly makes me wonder if that was kind of a test or something. Or they genuinely thought that people would only take these characters seriously if it was an intentional joke.
Maybe a bit of both.
Shadow managing to get out of the slump they put his character through is a sign that Sega can turn a character around if they want to, now we just gotta hope they'll do that with other members of the cast
@TheGraveKnight They didn't change Shadow's characterization at all from how it was circa the 2010s. They just finally made him be in the spotlight for once post-06.
I feel something worth pointing out about SEGA's mentality in regards to Sonic's friends is how their absence (or "rejection") was used as a selling point during the lead up to Sonic the Hedgehog 4. Of note were characters like Shadow, Amy, Shade, Charmy, Vector, Big, Chip and "Sonic's new friend, Mr. Needlemouse". All of them "rejected", leaving only Sonic highlighted.
That speaks volumes about SEGA's desperation and attempt to appeal to that loud minority that wanted nothing but Sonic 1-3, but again (while completely ignoring all the 2D Sonics on handheld, apparently). And the end result was a half-baked attempt at nostalgia bait, trying to ride the Mega Man 9 and 10 coattails.
Tell me about it! That character countdown was so annoying, because it was obvious from day one what they were doing. They were winking at the audience and going "Don't worry, folks! We've got you covered with this one! There's no way that Sonic's lame-o friends are going to be in this game! And it's gonna be awesome cos of that! See, see, we get you! We're on the same level! Please love us and buy our games again!"
The fact that this game was an completely underwhelming mess just proves that cutting these characters has absolutely nothing to do with a game's overall quality.
I'm surprised that more people don't talk about this. It really was a time where Sega seemed more interested in marketing their games to overly critical critics, smart aleck game journalists, and even haters and detractors of the Sonic series instead of their own fans.
If those ppl truly wanted nothing but Sonic 1-3 again then they should’ve complained about the lack of other playable characters
They would’ve been complaining about how they didn’t play similarly to Sonic like in the Classics
But nah, those ppl hated the fact that they existed
Those ppl clearly did not like Sonic for what it actually was and just wanted it to remain as a snapshot of their nostalgia
06 honestly had a really cool system for handling the multiple playable characters, felt like a compromise between all the previous games. Just wish they controlled better
At least the fan created project 06 exists
One day they'll do a Silver focused game, with Blaze's anniversary next year and Silvers right after, i could see them making a game with those two
@@ORLY911 why do you want a game for both of them together ? How about keeping them separated instead of just forcing them together like this all the time.
@@iceman92211because they work well together, and they are both two sides of a similar coin in a way. It’s like Sonic = Blaze & Tails = Silver.
@@Squorzelreally? i dont see that dynamic at all if anything Marine has a more Tails/sidekick like dynamic with Blaze than Silver
The fact that Sega ever bothered listening to people who don't even like Sonic to begin with is quite the baffling outcome.
Yep just like whyyyy
It's because they want to please everyone.
@@keelanbarron928 well some people you shouldn't bee listen to
So, basically sonic 2000's fans
They always listen to the bad part of the fandom.
"The franchise died after Sonic3 & knuckles"
"Sonic doesn't need friends"
"Adventure formula is bad"
"Sonic should be relatable"
I blame Arin Hanson for this ngl. He is constantly digging into Sonic because it’s “bad”
I really fucking hate him too
He is so biased he fucking sucks playing and makes it look worse
Yeah I'm glad Sega ditched that retarded hack. Now if only WayForward would do the same
😂
Thankfully everyone finally stopped giving legitimacy to this moron.
You know what they say,
"The more the merrier."
“True dat”.
i can hear eggman just saying that from a mile away
Couldn't have said it better myself.
Man did IGN and other “critics” really ruin Sonic’s image, and it didn’t help that SEGA really took those “criticisms” to heart. Thank God SEGA is getting out of that phase.
It helps that people are starting to realize that the words of these so-called "critics" are little more than preachy bullshit. Not just with Sonic games but games in General.
Why blame critics? They didn't make the games.
@@snakey888 While they didn’t make the games, they did heavily influence SEGA’s decisions when making games, with remarks such as “Sonic’s friends ruin everything” or “Sonic was never good” that negatively impacted many of Sonic’s games during that era.
That and 2010 youtube/social media.
Sonic with to many friends was overly hated for little to no reasons besides being "funny"
@@HahaFunn1Naem
What games were negatively impacted?
Besides, it's Sega's responsibility to address criticism in the most sensible way, ignoring it if necessary.
People basically just overreacted to Sonic 2006 and got the idea that Sonic's friends (or having a more serious story) were the issue rather than just bad gameplay.
Yeah I always hate when people do that because frankly the story is the redeeming factor of that game.
Its just a fundamentally unfinished product.
@@TheUltimateMachineGod no the story of that game is terrible.
Does not help that between sa1 and 06 the other characters generally did have sub par gameplay, so a strong association formed between Sonic's friends and bad gameplay. Especially when taking into account that Sonic usually had good, or at least much better gameplay.
@@iceman92211 I'm talking in a relative sense. Like the story is the closest thing to a diamond in an already rough ass mountain... more like a piece of coal but hey at least you can get something out of it.
@@iceman92211 if you ignore the stuff with princess Elise, the story isn't bad. Mephiles was a pretty good villain.
Sonic with a broad cast of characters is why I loved the games. Playing the same character every game is repetitive and boring, so having the whole cast feels better. And it doesn't feel like it should be hard to make everyone play differently since everyone has different abilities.
Fair point, the repetition definitely hurt the perception of some his friends, despite some of them having fun gameplay in their own right.
People find Emerald hunting, mech shooting, and fishing fun?
@@eclipse5708yeah I do. The first two mech stages for Tails aren’t good, but the next two are really fun. It made me realise that for Sonic games, most games in the series can become fun if you play them like Sonic. Gotta Go Fast (speedrunning basically). Fishing was a nice relaxing break from the pretty boring Hunting stages in Adventure, but not enough to save you from Amy’s atrocious side of the game). And Treasure hunting in SA2 is fun, except for again, the first two stages (Punpkin Hill is actually more so okay, but I prefer the others, for some reason).
Project 06 offers a good approach to several characters playable, in how all nine are fun to use and are similar in how they control yet differentiated enough to where they aren't pallete swaps.
I seriously can't be the only one who thinks the discussion around the original game has been getting completely ruined/more annoying since it constantly won't stop getting compared to its unnoficial fanmade remake partially released over a decade later literally anytime the original game is talked about in any fashion because they seem to be treated as the same thing, one way or another.
And it's crazy too that we don't see them that much since 06. They all have much deeper lore and potentially cooler interactions than say the Mario series where half the cast doesn't even talk and yet its weird if DK or yoshi *don't* show up.
I'm glad you are one of few people who understood this part of Sonic
4thSnake now begins his transformation into a SonicTuber
We need the Deception review to climatically close the previous phase
@@internetera1523 actually given that deception is one of his favorite fighting games, and this year was the 20th anniversary of deception, shocked he didn't review it this year
The main reason I've always loved Sonic comics is getting to see more from the wider cast.
I personally adore Archie Sonic (Flynn era 2006 - 2017) for mixing the "Games" canon and "Satam/American" canon.
@@sezunemizuhana3870 The Archie comics, before and after the reboot, are a perfect showcase for why the Sega canon and the SatAM canon are completely incompatible with one another.
Interested in seeing some TH-camrs finally talking about this issue. I think the problem surrounding Sonic in the late 2000’s going into the 2010’s was a combination of the fickle feedback from fans and SEGA’s constant changing decisions with the series. They want to please as many people as possible but after Forces, I think they finally realized that they cannot be a Jack of all trades.
The problem that I don’t think many people realize is that SEGA really takes fan feedback to heart. To the point where they take it too far and try to fix something that wasn’t broken. Case in point, the series’s tone and gameplay that is still fluctuating to this day.
Some of the fans suggested adding guns to the Sonic games to mix things up and make the brand more mature, and that’s how we got Shadow the Hedgehog and Sonic 2006. The fans then said that Sonic should not be that serious. They dialed things back with Unleashed and still got burnt by critics who didn’t like the werehog gimmick. SEGA said alright fine, we’ll have no stakes whatsoever, Sonic stops Eggman, that’s it. That’s what the people want. Hire two writers who are not the least bit familiar with the franchise to pen the Western localizations for these games. Surely their dialogue will breathe new life into this series.
(Anyone remember when they tried to rebrand Sonic’s image with that Sonic Boom cartoon and Rise of Lyric game? Honestly, I already forgot.)
Wait, people do want a more serious Sonic story?
Sonic Frontiers is a very flawed game, but it serves as a very promising foundation for what is to come if Sonic Team decides to stick with this format. Aside from awful wall running and the jumps carrying a little too much weight, I would say that Frontiers Sonic is the best he has controlled in years. When fully leveled up, you feel like an unstoppable force of nature. Like a knight of the wind! The tone of the story is also well done. It feels pretty close to the Dreamcast - Sonic X era of story and characterization. Not serious to the point of being edgy or dour, but not treated as a complete joke either.
My main thing is the fact i want some of the cast to get spin-offs without Sonic, like yea shadow is more than likely good to get another spin-off without Sonic, but what about silver, blaze give them some time in the spotlight as well sega
We just might start getting that Sega's insistent on having at least one Sonic gamve every year it seems. So what better way to keep that up then giving more charachters their own games.
@Cloud-dt6xb I would personally give Blaze a year she's my 4th favorite character in the series and if they want to stop giving sonic the boost formula just make boost games with blaze her games started the boost formula with the rush series
@thesonicgod55 Silver/Blaze/other is not iconic enough to be the protagonist of his/her game anytime soon.
@galten7361 I mean, Tails and Knux could, but I just want to Blaze cause I think she's cool
I would love a Hack'n Slay with Knuckles
I always did wonder why Sonic got hated for having alot of friends while Mario got a pass
I mean Mario doesn't really have that many friends, most of them are one offs and/or non-playable
@nathanblackburn1193 and DK typically keeps to his own series outside of Mario spin-offs and other stuff.
Well for one Mario has consistently made era defining platformers for the last 40 years, that kind of gives you a pass for anything. I'd say that aesthetically though, Sonic is in like the uncanny valley between family and cool, so although sonic himself has survived by sheer brand presence, someone like Silver, or Blaze, or Rouge, they just look cringe and kind of tryhard. They look cool to literal children and people who played Sonic Adventure and onward era games at a particular age, and it took a while for those people to start writing gaming articles. Meanwhile Mario just firmly plants itself in being a family adventure with no attempt to be cool or edgy at all, no one is going to think Toad is a badass, nor does he look like anyone is supposed to think that, so he doesn't come off as cringe.
Yet I find ironic when the Mario fans criticized Sonic for having too many friends, would be the same ones that would have a non stop meltdown over a few Paper Mario games not including their weird one off OC partners.
Look at Sonic Adventure critiques. The Sonic and Shadow levels are often much preferred over every other character's.
Seriously. This past decade allowed characters like Tails, Knuckles, Amy, Shadow, Rouge and Cream to be playable and shine again. And I love it 😂
And they still can't give Blaze the respect she deserves. Sonic '06 just murdered her, right after her debut
edit: and I'm not talking about Silver's ending lmao
It's not like she was ever a super interesting character. Cool design, but her story is boring and largely irrelevant/inconsistent multiverse nonsense.
@@deedoubs Her story is one of the best of the series!
@@deedoubs She's pretty much just a mix of Knuckles and Shadow, with none of the effort.
Then let's hope that if Silver gets a Generations game of his own, we get a touch on Blaze's Childhood after her rebirth.
Rush Adventure: exists
The problem people complain about (the most common one I hear) is that Sonic has TOO MANY friends and SEGA doesn't know what to do with them 75% of the time.
Snake I swear. This is a early Christmas present. THANK YOU!!!!
I think laying off of Sonic's friends for the next few games WAS a good idea purely because the more Sega had to develop alternate gameplay styles, the less polished the main gameplay would be, making the whole experience suffer as a result.
I like how Frontiers approached things now. Sonic as the only character in the main game, then Tails, Knuckles and Amy get their own stuff as a free DLC. Hell, I and many others wouldn't mind getting paid DLC with missions and even a unique small storyline for a bunch of characters like Shadow, Rogue, Cream, Omega, the Chaotix etc.
Aside from making Sonic's friends playable again, I also think they deserve their own games. There's a lot of potential SEGA isn't tapping into.
I actually like '06's attempt at managing the story, characters, and level design. It just suck that everything bad about the game eclipses the positives.
Okay I don’t wanna be that d rider fan, but other than Knuckles and maybe Silver, a game with anyone other than Sonic and Shadow being the main front focus would sell as well if we’re being brutally honest. However they still deserve more chances in the spotlight in future games to become playable again
Sonic unleashed was my favorite game, until i saw how 06 uses the characters and how the gameplay is more open. That i fell in love with the adventure style gameplay
@@bluevegeta4565it depends on how polished it is (which might be easier to do, focusing on a different main character that doesn’t need nearly as huge levels to accommodate high speeds), and how well they market it.
@@nightwish1453 Uh, I wasn’t specifically referring to 06. I was talking about whether they should start receiving their own games. In which wouldn’t work as they don’t have it like Sonic and Shadow do.
@@bluevegeta4565 oh sorry this comment was for something else
The problem was never the cast but how they were used in terms of story and gameplay. When they are written well and incoorperated into the game plaay in such a way they are fun they add so much to the series.
06 was probably one of the best methods that could be used to incorporate a large cast with different play styles. 3 main stories(with one main character for each) building up to a final story(while also including some other characters to play a few stages as well as the endgame section where you get a quick but hard level with each character.)
I think a story following 2-4 main characters alongside 1-2 other characters in each of their routes is the best method to include as many characters as you can
It’s sad how we’ve gone from ‘Sonic has too many friends and they’re overused’ to ‘why can’t we play as any other character other than Sonic?’ Like these ppl were complaining abt Sonic having a large cast and then later complaining on how underused that large cast is and it’s like yeah it’s cus u guys whined when u had to play as someone like Amy
You are acting like the entire community is a single person. It was classic fans crying about too many characters in the 2000s.
@@tjlnintendonot only classic fans but a lot of moron critics
Did you even watch the video?
@@tjlnintendowhen did a say that everyone in the community was like that? Obviously there are ppl who never thought Sonic having to many friends or playable characters were an issue
Personally i really want a Blaze focused mainline game as next to Shadow and Sonic himself she’s my favorite character in the entire franchise
Low-key i think it's time for another Sonic RPG with Sonic and his friends but you know done better this time around.Also I would argue the recent IDW comics does Sonic's friends justice mostly.
Honestly as someone who hasn't played many Sonic games but is familiar with the series and likes the franchise well enough, the extended cast is something I actually like. It would suck if it was like Mario where it is mainly just Mario and maybe Luigi in some random ass location that will be forgotten in the next game with characters that are likely to be forgotten in the next game as well. The fact that Sonic has all these unique characters is cool and I would love to see more of them. At worse, they need to improve their gameplay gimmicks and make them work with the pacing but having different characters could easily augment the experience as oppose to destroying it.
I was always an avid defender of Sonic's friends as they were arguably the main thing that drew me into this franchise in the first place. Without them, Sonic wouldn't have been nearly as interesting to me. Which is why I feel vindicated that we're now well past this stage in Sonic's history where people were just making up scapegoats to justify why they didn't like the games anymore.
I hate that it took Sega and Sonic Team this long to finally figure it out that there's actually a huge fanbase that loves them, but at least they know now, and are at the point where they're going back to their roots in terms of Modern Sonic and actually incoporating more of them into the main story and lore.
With that said, there are some things I don't agree with. The differences in gameplay between all the different teams in Heroes aren't negligible. They have a real impact on how you approach enemy encounters and some of the level design, more so than in SA2 where the 3 sets of characters play exactly the same as each other, with Sonic being exactly the same as Shadow and all that. Also, the challenges in Generations featuring Sonic's friends were just great and well made. The fact that Sonic's friends were even features in that game and played a major part in the game's story and gameplay is still a far cry from how they were handled in the likes of Unleashed and Colours where they were almost all completely ignored or in Lost World where even the small cast of whoever was there were merely cameos.
THIS IS WHY I'LL ALWAYS SAY CRITICS CAUSED SONIC TO BE MID IN THE 2010s and did some serious damage to the franchise makin it lose its identity
The franchise already lost its identity in the 2000's with less than mid games back to back for a decade.
@@snakey888 bad taste, sorry
@@SR.PlayAlot64
You think games like 06 is good?
@@snakey888No, but 06 definitely had an identity lol.
@@aarondx3764
Yeah, its identity was the worst Sonic game, and an argument for killing the series, or selling it to a more competent company.
2010's werent that great either, but nothing then was as bad as 06.
And for some reason mario friends, who 90% of them play exactly as mario. Dont have any complains
Well that's because the platforming is still the same regardless of what character you're playing
Whereas I don't think anyone playing sonic is a fan of froggy fishing
I mean it depends on the game. In 3D World and Mario 2, each character would have their own abilities. Not to different from the 2D sonic games
Yeah the Mario Fandom is a cult of toxic fanboys who refuse to take any criticism of their favorite series.
@@boshwa20 Thanks for confirming that you know nothing about Sonic Games.
@@DragonKingMadaraUchiha No, no boshwa20 is right. Who wants a dumb fishing minigame that takes up an entire campaign? That's the real issue with Sonic's friends, the gameplay didn't really fit the series' core appeal. In a game that's about speeding through platforming levels, you want the extra characters to provide a different take on that style. Not some random unrelated gimmick.
I remember my friend asking why Sonic's friends weren't playable in so many games. Once i told him the reason, he was pissed. My guy got robbed by fans and now he couldn't play as any Sonic character for a while until Sonic Frontiers came out.
All things considered Sonic's cast is a pretty standard size for a franchise of it's breadth. You have about 5-10 recurring characters and several minor ones that are important to single stories and cameo in subsequent ones. Getting pissed about Sonic's extended cast like getting pissed that a long-running tv show has so many characters and isn't just three people max in a universe otherwise devoid of life.
Good stuff, was never a Sonic guy myself but I enjoy watching you ripping into certain topics in video games.
Man, Sonic and Dragon Ball has more in common than I gave credit for, Dragon Ball also misuses their extras
(Especially Gohan and Piccolo up until recently)
Even down to the fans, they're similar. Some people have some of the most braindead takes I have ever heard in my life.
And I haven't even been following Sonic stuff for as long as I've been following Dragon Ball!
Nah Tien is the king of missued Dragon ball characters
None of the Sonic Characters were ever treated like Yamcha or Tien.
@@DragonKingMadaraUchiha
Knuckles sort of got the Yamcha treatment with him being the butt of a lot of jokes. Like in Old Generations and Lost world. Amy even knocks him towards a tree. Of course its meant for comedy but it made knuckles look bad.
Also…. Forces Tails…. Oh my god they ruined Tails so bad in Forces.
@@DragonKingMadaraUchiha or Puar, Oolong, Roshi (Kinda), or even worse, Launch (Tho, Mighty and Ray do fit that category)
I think in general, a lot of the dumber complaints about the series stemmed from the fact that Sonic 06 released around the time every day people started using TH-cam given the website was roughly a little more than a year old at the time.
How they're used was the problem. How anything is used is always the problem, not the thing itself.
00s era e celebs and game journos has done so much damage to this franchise its insane
If Shadow Gens is a sign of things to come, then I'm froathing at the mouth for Sonic Friends having spinoffs
Get Hardlight out of the mobile division and give them the resources for a full Blaze platformer (Sonic Rush 3 minus the Sonic)
Let Atlus take a crack at a new Sonic RPG taking place in Silver's future
RGG... Yakuza but Knuckles + Chaotix
I’ve personally always wanted to see a dedicated Silver game that uses the inFAMOUS series (those sandbox-style character action-combat-platformer games from the PS3) as inspiration for its gameplay, with an appropriate story, world and aesthetic.
@@samuelpierce2.088 Only if they avoid writing him as fanon/IDW Silver (the one that's less Future Trunks and more Steven Universe).
Imagine SEGA wanting to please the GAME GRUMPS of all people! 💀
it's crazy that before sonic friends were considered a problem before and now they're the highlight, frontiers dlc, the year of shadow, the hype of the post credi scene in the movies that introduce the next character, I'm glad sega is going back to sonic friends
This is one of the reasons I think Sonic the hedgehog would lend itself really well to the Lego videogame treatment. Those games are known for having huge rosters of playable characters, each with their own distinct set of abilities for solving different types of puzzles.
Why is this one of the best ways of handling Sonic's cast that I have ever heard?
I blame zero punctuation and arin from game grump for this
Dorkly was peddling this take as well, claiming it “damaged the integrity of the series” or some nonsense like that
@@RLCguy It's so bad too because the Saturday Morning Cartoon era of Sonic games was sooooo god damn boring from a story telling perspective.
Funny how all of those creator were never good
No one actually takes yahtzees opinion seriously even the fans
@@RLCguyI will also blame SomecallmeJohnny for peddling that "Sonic shouldn't have basic storytelling and just be fourth wall jokes and quips"
Now let them have good writing.
That's why I said we need to the more popular characters to have their own subseries, particularly Knuckles, Shadow, Amy, and Silver. Let the least popular characters be a secondary to the one they have a relationship with and that will give them a chance to be in a spotlight. To solve the "too many friends" problem, I suggest making some characters no more than NPCs if we cannot completely retcon them. Characters such as Chip and Elise are Professor Pickle would be such characters to be non-playable.
I blame certain outlets like the Escapist. I always loved Sonic's friends and they were never the problem, but more like Sega had no idea how to utilize them outside of GBA and DS spin-offs, which is a shame. SA2 and Heroes are my favorite Sonic games and I wished the formula continued.
But it seems after 06, Sega got scared of trying to write deep and impactful stories using Sonic's friends and stuck to low-to-the-ground stories with just Sonic for a while. Then they tried it again with Forces and botched it so hard by trying to play things too safe with the story and characters.
To be fair, they did botch them with both sa2 and heroes as well.
@snakey888 They were done perfectly in SA2. Don't know what you're talking about. Only problem with Heroes was were the lack of Chao and wonky controls at times.
@@Netherwolf6100
Not in terms of gameplay. The other characters were give really boring and tedious gameplay that had nothing to do with Sonic gameplay.
@snakey888 that statement shows you're part of the problem when it comes to misunderstanding the purpose of Sonic's friends in the games.
@@Netherwolf6100
One of the purposes is for them to have fun and engaging gameplay, in line with the series standards. Sa2 failed spectacularly in that regard. If you believe otherwise, then perhaps you are part of the problem.
I think that most of Sonic's friends a better than the blue hedgehog himself. My personal favorites are Knuckles, Rouge, and Espio.
Same. Sonic on his own isn’t interesting and he shines his best when he bounces off other characters.
Sonic's friends were never the problem the problem was their implementation and the writing
2000s Sonic really gave us a goldmine of the most unique and creative games in any platformer series and everybody got gaslit into thinking they were all bad
To be fair, many of them were not that good, especially the high profile ones.
1:36 Bros flexing on us
2:14
Common 4thSnake W
i appreciate that you brought up 06's use of so many characters. Sonic, Shadow and Silver have a really fun narrative theme of Present, Past and Future that ties together really well at the endgame but the game stretches itself so thin (not at all helped by Yuji Naka completely fucking over his dev team).
i'm glad sega is starting to dial the extended cast back in, it's stupid that they spent so many years pandering to a demographic that wasn't going to care about the series anymore regardless of what sega did.
Like my friend said: thank you for making this video, it's my Christmas present!
It's good people are finally realizing sonic's friends were never the problem
6:04 / 6:33 I saw a video from *Kiro Talks* the video he made is call *“The Sonic Friend that deserves better”* He talks mostly about Silver the Hedgehog. He does like the character but Silver had bad reputation for debuting in Sonic 06.
Kiro Talks tries to explain if Silver’s future had change is after the end of Sonic 06. Kiro many explanations and he is not even sure.
I just recently watched a video from *DevieDark,* as they both talk about Silver should get his own game. They talk about how Sonic with sonic movie, and Shadow Generations and the IDW being canon, they both Silver and his future can make many possibilities
Yes finally thank you sonic friends were never the problem idiots were the real problem
Great Vid. I'm tired people who said that Sonic's were an unecessary addition and should've never be in the games
Silver really just hauls his ass back in time to loiter god damn
Hit the nail on the head, great video. Love the spite too!
Sonic is *more* than the Genesis-era! And it's great to see SEGA realize that now since the Adventure-era fans have gotten older and picked up the microphone.
8:17 I mean can't get mad at greatness. That's what paved the way for everything else we have today. The Ultimate Lightweight included. 😏🤣
I am so happy this notion has shifted.
Now give me a game with Tangle and Whisper as playable characters.
Good vid, good recomendation, love the consistency Snake
For real. Back in the they, people insisting that Sonic having a recurring cast, while often the same people wanted one off Mario characters to return was kind of insane to me.
Dropped this? ---> 👑
something else to note is even the classic games kept introducing new characters
This is probably half the reason sonic had to turn into a wolf creature in Sonic Unleashed. Otherwise they could have just put Knuckles in the night stages since he's so connected to history of the chaos emeralds I feel like that would have made sense. They could have had sonic just not be able to run at night or fall asleep like under a curse or something at night and then you'd play as Knuckles. I also would have wanted to see Tails do more in the game. Like maybe make it so you have to do a flying segment when you first go to a new location and turn it into a full on rails shooter and ditch the button prompts.
If the gameplay remained the same, Knuckles would get the same flak the werehog did.
Another way they could fix the repetition of Heroes is to lean in harder on making the 4 teams different. Give Team Dark a stronger emphasis on combat instead of just bloating the levels with enemies. Maybe make Team Rose more focused on platforming and puzzles instead of just making the same levels but shorter.
I actually think 06 nails this idea in theory. Since the 3 hedgehogs are generally similar to each other and are the main focus, but you have dramatically different playstyles for everyone else and they are sprinkled in each level. Project 06 pulls this off really well I think.
Great video
Man I would die (or kill) to see more sonic videos from you
Sega's bizzzare idea of deciding Sonic's friends were the issue and not "Maybe we shouldn't rush the team to release basically a beta of a game before it can be properly programed" or "Maybe we should lower the scope of the characters and have them show up as NPCs and characters in cutscenes only" is frustrating. I am so happy the newer games are getting at least the second idea though your mileage might very depending on your thoughts on Frontiers.
Misconception Zone Act 1
A Amy Rose spin off could be interesting with Peach and Zelda getting their own games so why not? It can also bring back some forgotten friends like Cream and Mighty.
@juliusbossman7280 Peach and Zelda are much important in their games than Amy ever was.
Those characters were a last minute desperation move when the USA canon, as exemplified by The Archie version and was held hostage in legal battles with Penders about the derivative works clause in Archie independent submissions, which affected the USA comic. They just made Sally Acron a d company retroactively never exist.
I'm just glad Shadow's back bruh
Preach! The issue was the games getting worse and sega not refining the things that worked that really hurt the series, then after they went back to basics the writing got a hell of a lot worse character wise, like some games have better stories than 06 but the characters are caricatures of themselves. Sonic X Shadow made me so happy for adding back shadow and making every character in the game go back to having an actual character
4th snake woke up today and decided to speak nothing but pure raw facts.
Hell, I'd say Sonic's variety in settings and characters, with a story that took itself (too) seriously is a big part as to why the series is still so popular.
At least I know that's why, as a kid that grew up with the "dark era" games, I loved the world of Sonic much more than Mario's.
We want to run and jump platforms to the right. Not treasure hunt
The Sonic franchise is healing while our world is worsening, a soul for a soul.
Definitely would like to see more team dark, the chaotix, and Blaze and Silver
8:56 amazing as always Mr snake, even with a non MK related video you definitely out done yourself ❤
Not even Sonic himself was really given the respect he deserved as a charachter, after Black Knight. It's why I reached a point where I geuniuely wanted Sega to lose the ip before 2020. I was also definetly among the many who did not think that first movie would be good, until they changed the design then they caught my attention. Then it became a hit and suddenly the spark came back for Sega, none of their games since have been perfect but they also have'nt been bad either they've been really good experiences that showed Sega really is trying to improve themselves and admit when mistakes happen. It feels so good to love Sonic again
Meanwhile Sonic's all-time rival Mario has loads of one-off new characters that appear once and never again. Because Sega does what Nintendon't.
SEGA has gotten in their own way for decades now, but this decade plus of this loud minority helped really damaged the franchise. Them and the Sonic bashers/people who thought only the 2D games were good and were inflexible and whatnot didn't go away until rather recently. A lot of these folks thought that having Sonic's friends and multiple playstyles was problematic, but when classic Sonic came back for the 3rd time for Forces, they apparently were fine with it.
Multiplay playstyles is a problem though. And fans of the Mega drive Sonic games were not pleased with Classic Sonic in either Forces or Generations.
@@snakey888 I agree that the way Heroes and Shadow 2005 handled things was wrong, but SEGA took the wrong lessons from that. They needed to do what was suggested in this video.
@@zmr3352
Not just Heroes and Shadow, there was sa1, 2 and 06 as well.
Not touching the issue a lot of characters were effectively thought as part of one off stories and not having much to do past their introduction
People were complaining about Sonic's friends? I guess i shouldn't be surprised by whacky takes in the Sonic fandom. The issue with these games was the half baked gameplay, not the characters. Bring back Cream and Cheese, damnit!
Love this. It feeds my autism. Can't wait for an Wasted Potential on the Sonic franchise!
Surprised i never caught on to the idea that "Geewunners" (people who just want to relive the original iterations over and over unchanged for the rest of time and reject anything changed, new or different) are the common factor with beloved yet turbulent IPs.
Sonic, Star Wars, Transformers, Mortal Kombat, and many many more. In fact, the only outliers I can think of are certain Nintendo Classic IPs, especially Mario and Legend of Zelda, whereas nearly every other property or franchise has this generational divide, to pull from your other video breaking down the three "eras" of each franchise.
Even sonic friends are part of the franchise in every genesis game introduces at least 1 new character
1 sonic, eggman
2 sonic tails, eggman
Cd sonic, amy, metal sonic
3 sonic, tails, knuckles, eggman
Shadow was by far the best part of the third movie. That proves to me that the supporting cast is great. I loved the main series in Archie, but many of the Universe stories focusing on other characters like Silver, Shadow, and Knuckles can be even better. And Sonic 06 having a huge scope was the point. The problem wasn't that it had too many characters, it was that it was way too rushed.
Happy holidays, snake
Was not expecting you to have a Sonic related video bc all I ever see you to a video for is Mortal Kombat, but I guess that's on me lol
My favorite character is silver and I’ve come to terms with the fact that he’s never gonna be playable in anything besides the spin-off party games. I’ve even come to terms that he’s not gonna be apart of the sonic movies. Once you give up hope things feel a lot better.
Bro I just got the voice actor for Eggman doing a voice over for the ad of clash of clans for the ad before the video started 😂