One of the devs behind Sonic Mania, Headcannon Games was pretty much broke after it released. He was only paid for his work on the game. No royalties or bonuses from Sega despite the game being very well received and selling well over a million copies as of 2018. The dude later launched a Kickstarter for a really nice looking 16-bit style platformer called Vertebreaker. It had great 16-bit Sonic inspired music too. But due to lack of interest, mainly due to weak incentives, the campaign was soon cancelled, and he made a depressing apology video detailing the stuff I've just mentioned. Such a shame.
Imagine that. Being heartbroken not paid royalties or bonuses above your contracted salary. I bet game developers earn only $5000 a month so they barely survive.
I've got to say, much as I love the direction this series has taken these last few years... it feels kinda nostalgic to watch a Jimquisition episode that's just talking about _badly designed video games._
The problem with criticizing bad game design is when you have to consider why it’s like that, and usually it’s to do with greedy motherf***ers at the top who ruin everything. Not always the case though, but most times it is.
@@hectic105 True, but sometimes it's nice to focus on just the game's design, from an arguably artistic and development PoV, rather than the capitalistic pressures which influenced the creators into making the poor design choices.
I'm just glad more Sonic discussion invariably leads to that clip where the guy grabs the mic and bellows out an incoherent version of the Sonic theme song.
Kinda mirrors the arc the Sonic franchise has gone through Remember the old adage: "When you're a hammer, every problem looks like a nail to you"? Both Sonic and the Jimquisition should have been trying to design a better hammer, instead of constantly looking for new nails.
Speaking of starting over, I recently realized that as a fan of wrestling games, I can sort of relate to Sonic fans; every time an entry has a return to form in some area, a finger curls on the monkey's paw and other features either suffer or get removed outright. I wish they'd take a few years, make the Smash Ultimate of WWE games and just update the rosters and offer DLC, but no, sports games need to be a shitty yearly cash grab that barely offer anything new or different
Spark The Electric Jester is basically what would've happened had Sonic Team actually learned to iterate instead of replace when it comes to mechanics. Spark 1 was weird, the Jester powers made the gameplay but also didn't have anywhere else to really go. Spark 2 took the ideas Spark 1 had regarding level flow and put them in 3D, but missed the mark a little bit. Spark 3 perfected everything from the level design to the mechanics. Sonic hit Adventure, it's respective equivalent of Spark 2, and then stalled out. Every single 3D Sonic game has just been starting over from Sonic Adventure and heading out blindly into a random direction.
As someone who was raised Protestant in the United States, I was certainly very surprised to see Psalty the Songbook in a Jimquisition episode. Also traumatized, please do not show me Psalty ever again
As a Sonic fan I'm just glad we have actual reasonable takes from people like Sterling instead of "lol Sonic rocky 3D transition 06 kiss never good too fast not fast enough no reward for skill too much reward for skill 7/10".
I'm glad you mentioned the difference between the Mario franchise and Sonic. Despite all it's innovations over the years, it's telling that stuff like the triple jump and back somersaults are still just the same in Odyssey as they were in 64. The platformers have gone crazy places in things like Wonder but the DNA is still the same. The worst part of Sonic constantly changing itself is that now the fanbase is so split that even if Sega decided to "listen to the fans" like so many beg, they'd get 10 different answers for what the fans want, since now there are generations who have grown up playing and liking a certain kind of Sonic games and who want that style to come back. That meme about the Sonic Cycle will perpetuate forever because no matter what direction they decide to take the series next (or if they finally blissfully decide on a direction), there will be people who won't shut up about wanting Sonic Adventure 3 (or Generations 2 or Frontiers 2 or just a better 2D platformer, etc, etc.). Sonic fans aren't impossible to please because they're babies (well, it's not the _only_ reason (insert rimshot here)) but because Sega has made it impossible to please them.
Honestly, I could even potentially see a way out of that hole: Pick one style you think would fit Sonic the best, and stick with that for the next few mainline games. For the other things the other fans want, spin them off into their own series. If you don't think a new IP would sell well, then just slap a character you think would fit the best from the Sonic universe there, lord knows they have plenty they could use.
As a Sonic fan who likes both Colors and Frontiers, this video is absolutely bloody incredible. Well researched and well presented. Another great episode Steph. Well done
As someone whose neurodivergent hyperfixation is studying the development history of Sonic games I can at least explain some of why some of them end up such a mess In the case of the Werehog it was 'SEGA demanded that Sonic Team pad out the game by having slow levels that would add to the game's length while taking less development time and resources compared to the larger, faster daytime levels" Mania never getting a sequel I am convinced was purely spite from SEGA corporate since a game worked on by outside devteam vastly outperformed critically and commercially compared to anything Sonic Team themselves did And let me not even BEGIN on Sonic X-Treme getting run into the ground because of Yuji Naka's ego over his program code (trust me, there's plenty of people who've disliked him long before Balan and the entire stock incident)
Ding ding ding, right on the money. Would be cool to see more fans with Sonic disaster lore here. Gonna start by adding the (in fairness, well-known) catastrophe that splitting Sonic Team was during the development of '06, a game being created with a whole new engine and a whole new (bunch of) gameplay for three whole new platforms... after they realized the Wii wouldn't keep up at all. And then Naka left and took some devs from Sonic Team to create his own studio. Within the year of release. Which did not get delayed at all.
The Werehog was also there to try and copy the success of God of War wasn't it? That's the whole reason they gave it stretchy arms so it could emulate the Blades of Chaos.
I know the weird hostility between Sega Japan and Sega America contributes to these disasters, but I only know that existed historically, contributing to Sonic X-treme. I don't know if that holds to today.
ok, letś not kid ourselves, sonic x-treme was doomed yuji naka or not. The saturn was already a limping zombie of a console that was never capable of running a fast 3D platformer
@@fluffy_tail4365 Sure it can. Sonic R proved it, despite godawful physics from its formula 1 origins that send the characters smashing into every wall they encounter.
The problem with 3d Sonic games is that Sonic games were never about speed, they were about momentum. In other words: Mirror Edge is the better 3d Sonic game. Edit: If I remembed the name, I would have said Marble Blast.
Some of the Sonic games fuck that up. They have way too many obstacles and things like water that slow the pacing down, or the stages are a little too maze like. I feel like the best entries were the ones that kept shit moving at a nice pace. Sonic Mania did a great job of this with multiple paths through each stage. Kept shit moving. The Freedom Planet games are great Sonic imitators that also really got this pacing right. Alot of careful platforming doesnt really fit the game.
“I can’t find any of my sonic stuff!” *pans to a sonic figurine sitting on a shelf directly behind stephanie* I couldn’t come up with a better and more relatable description of having adhd if I tried 😂
I'd encourage giving Moon Channel's "Why Isn't SEGA Overprotective of its Intellectual Property?" video a watch as it goes into possible reasons behind the that transition from pretty good 2D Sonics to remarkably flawed 3D Sonics
I adore how JSF has not only stuck to the 7/10 for BotW for all these years but also consistently reiterated it at every opportunity, despite it almost certainly costing her viewers to this day. But you can't put a price on integrity. o7
As a Sonic fan let me just say this... When 'Sonic 06' came out. I was so disappointed by that game that I stopped playing Sonic games altogether. The last new Sonic game that I beat since then, was 'Sonic Frontiers'. I really enjoyed that game too and I'm really hoping that 'Sonic Team' listens to the fans and keeps building onto it. Anyways, great video!
"I really hope that the Sonic Team listens to fans..." I no joke once had a nightmare one time where I worked for Sega doing market research. My job was to "listen to the fans." All of it was OCs! Manfred, Rouge's estranged husband. Queen B, a dominatrix from Charmy's hive. Nomel, the green hedgehog, because it's "Lemon" spelled backwards. I know it was all in my head, but I'd caution anyone from ever listening to Sonic fans without conditions and stipulations agreed upon in a legally binding contract.
Can you imagine the existential terror of sharing a domicile with Stephanie and never knowing when you're going to come home to literally everything being covered in boglins for no reason?
Totally with you about SEGA throwing the baby out with the bathwater when they have a good idea, I'm still waiting for them to give the Adventure style momentum based gameplay another try
I really think they already nailed 3D Sonic with Adventure. They can leave out the other gameplay styles but keep the Sonic levels. Other characters like Tails and Knuckles could be playable too and have levels similar to Sonic just designed around their own abilities rather than doing the mech shooting and treasure hunting thing.
Definitely agreed. I was hopeful about Lost World because it looked like a step in Adventure's direction (especially compared to the boost-focused games that came before) with it's slightly slower pace and more room to explore, but the momentum just wasn't there, level design swung wildly between decent and atrocious and the wisps feel too gimmicky to me
@@cruzerion Eh I never saw much potential in Lost World's foruma personally, to me it felt like a desperate and unncessary attempt from SEGA to be more like Mario Galaxy to attract Nintendo fans with their Wii U and 3DS exclusivity agreement they had at the time, I would have liked to see them stick with the Generations formula but with more original level concepts. J Reviews made this point well in his Lost World review
Cuz Sega rushes Sonic Team. 06 was as bad as it was cuz Sega insisted on the game making an anniversary despite knowing damn well Yuji Naka left and took a large majority of staff with him in addition to ST being divided up to make Secret Rings prior to him leaving. Frontiers (regardless how we feel about it) narrowly avoided this by Iizuka forcing a delay. Frontiers could've came out in an even *worse* state had he not put his career on the line. Nvm that Sega didn't provide ST will a full-fledged staff, meaning ST had to cut a LOT of what they wanted to do to get Frontiers to where it was. All while again, Sega rushed ST to get Frontiers out the door ASAP
No long running franchise wants to be compared to Hellraiser. Hellraiser and Terminator are probably the most notorious examples of the first two being good and then nothing but trash forever.
@@esbenm6544 The remake was good though. It's just disappointing that the best thing to happen to the franchise after 30 years of duds was getting bought by disney.
I think most sonic fans at this point agree Sega shouldn't be trusted with sonic and need to have taken away. ScottFalco said "Superstar is a step in the right direction but how many steps do you have to take before you're just walking." and I feel like that really sums all of this up.
I'm a huge Sonic fan, but I absolutely agree with your analysis - Sonic Team just keeps throwing new things at the wall without giving the ideas time to breathe and trying to learn from their mistakes and polish them into something that works well. I may absolutely enjoy myself with every Sonic game I play, but I'm not above accepting fair criticism for them as well. I want to see Sonic games become better too! :3 I look in awe at games like Wonder and know that if Sonic got the same patient attention and development time, he could have just as many good games. Honestly, I would love to see Nintendo's take on a Sonic game! I think they would hit it out of the park. Sonic and Mario would make a fun pair, and there's clearly a huge crossover in the fans due to all the animated fan media I see of the two of them together. Missed opportunity in my opinion! :3 Anyway, just wanted to share some positivity in the comments section because I adore Sonic and I adore your show too, Steph! We can enjoy things and still be critical of them to make them better. We can have both!
So as a Sonic fan and somebody who wants expressed a similar opinion with cyber shell on one of his videos the difference with Sonic and Mario is that when Mario wants to make a weird experimental game they use one of the side characters and even though there are a lot of side characters with the one time they did so was with a 32x and that was with Chaotix. It really drives me crazy that you have so many characters that you can go and experiment with and they stick with a Sonic because it's a easy recognizable thing and to do any other is too rsky
We got a Sonic Adventure 3. It was called Sonic the Hedgehog, came out in 2006, and was terrible. What we actually need is just a straight up chao garden game, maybe it can have a Sonic minigame in it or something.
I may be in the outlier here but i really enjoyed the sonic adventure games from the dreamcast and gamecube. To this day i still fondly remember them, the edgy but cool story, the characters were badly written but in a "cheesy movie you still love/90s anime" kinda way, and the extra content with the chao garden kept me entertained for hours. To this day i say if they put full effort into a new adventure game itd do well, but it seems like sonic team is intent on doing anything else.(kinda like how pokemon keeps doing more and more new gimmicks with each gen despite the Fandom collectively agreeing that mega evolution are awesome and they've been going downhill since then, but that's another rant)
@@Ericbenson1624 Replayed it a few years and Sonic and Gamma are the best characters to play but I also thought Tails, Knuckles and (unpopular opinion I know) Amy were pretty fun too, it's really just Big that I don't like... And yeah the Chao Garden is peak and I don't understand why SEGA hasn't at least brought it back as mobile game
@RJH755 i didn't hate amys levels. They were a bit tedious(not as tedious as Big's but still) but honestly if they had built more of her areas around her instead of reusing stuff from sonic and tails's levels it would've been better lol
Pokemon has so much more to juggle than Sonic and their output requirements really doesn't compare. Pokemon has three pillars it has to try to make equally satisfying in one year while making the game unique. Competitive, story, and collection. Mega Evolution was one of the worst times for competitive since it required a 100 BST increase to become a mega and too many pseudolegendaries got their fill of it.
Agree to disagree on Sonic Frontiers, but you're definitely not wrong about Sega throwing both good and bad ideas into a fire before starting from scratch for no comprehensible reason.
Agreed. Sega just doesn't want to iterate on what they have. Hopefully with Sonic Frontiers being received actually pretty well (for Sonic), the next one will actually take what worked forward.
The biggest irony in this is that the original Genesis trilogy (and the Sonic Advance trilogy to a lesser extent) is the proof of Sterling being right, here. They built upon the level design, the physics, the bosses, all while keeping the same foundation of the same basic elements, and they were all great. (Except Advance 2, Advance 2 sucked)
I never played a Sonic game, I only had a neighbor who had a dreamcast. What I learned about most (reasonable) Sonic fans is that they love Sonic. As in the characters and (in theory) the story/setting. They want to like and even love the games but it just rarely or never happens. And I feel bad for them because I am sure there could be some amazing games, but either they aren't given the time to make a proper one, or whoever makes it does not care.
That's how I feel as a Star Wars and Fallout fan. I love the worlds and most of the characters and even stories the creators want to show/explore/tell, but I see so much wasted potential or overlooked yet glaring flaws in the execution or presentation of them.
I've played a few, including the original back when it was new. Even though my appreciation of Sonic has only increased over the years, I don't really want to like the games anymore. I've never enjoyed playing even the good ones. I watched a streamer play Sonic Superstars and had a grand old time, and I never want to try it myself.
Man, remember how there was Sonic Adventure on the Dreamcast and then, radically, they made a Sonic Adventure 2 which improved on it rather than burning everything to the ground and starting over?
I forgot where, but a SEGA rep said that Frontiers represents the first of the next ten years of 3D-Sonic games. Hopefully next time they remember to put some colour in.
Stephanie has been saying this for years. Its an example of how an obsession with "Innovation," can kill a franchise or at best alienate its audience. A similar issue had with FF in the 2010s.
Final Fantasy does have similar problems. They always innovate, never evolve, and throw out good, but unrefined mechanics all the time, but I think their downfall is a bit different. They were unprepared for the massive success and financial windfall of FF7, and were very much an irresponsible new money company. Just look at the entire Spirits Within debacle. Their problems are that 1: They have spent years trying to figure out what people liked about FF7, and have basically remade elements of it, or Cloud over and over to usually disappointing results. 2. They have a more recent history of being infested by conman managers who collect absurd salaries to mostly waste production time and have manic straying of design focus, with the promise they cracked the code (they didn't) before eventually someone comes to look at the billion dollar hole in the ground, panics, and sells the jar they filled with slime from the hole as "Final Fantasy 13" or 15, or whatever, then gets sweet talked again. You know, the protagonist of FF 13, Lightning, literally descended from a cloud. They thought they had it, someone really thought they did it. I'm more shocked that they never really realized they basically just remade Chrono Trigger with high production values at a time when that wasn't done, and that's why everything went well. But idk. I want a Final Fantasy 10 2. Not the 10 2 that exists, that thing's weird, but, just, taking the party and Sphere grid system, and ironing out the flaws
I don't think the FF comparison quite works. This is because even when Final Fantasy games are weak, they're only weak for being Final Fantasy games but are still well constructed products in general. Final Fantasy's re-invention is mostly praised and is seen as an integral part of the series whereas Sonic's re-invention is seen as a joke. And that's because Final Fantasy games almost always nail the fundamentals even if they have problems. Sonic doesn't even consistently nail the fundamentals.
@@ViviBossPlaya888 But, I mean, then I ask which Final Fantasy games you/are generally actually liked, and I usually encounter the same thing I do. Do I like Final Fantasy? Yes Which Final Fantasies do I like? Uh. Well. Fewer than I dislike, really. Usually 7 and 10. 9 is a love it or hate it. Usually 4 or 6, rarely both. 2 and 8 are atrocious and are rarely liked by anyone. 1 is bland but serviceable. 3 was just bad Dragon Quest. I don't think I have heard someone talk about 5 ever. The MMOs don't count. 13 and 15 are volatile, and the new one is too new to say, but it doesn't seem to have a promising legacy. So that's like, 4, maybe 5 games ranking in the positives?
@@aprinnyonbreak1290 My point is even the games that people don't like are competently crafted and almost all of them received strong critical reviews. Whereas many Sonic games are straight up busted. As to FFXVI, I don't know how strong a legacy it will have but fan reaction to it is not be trusted. A lot of them did not and still don't go into it with anything resembling an open mind. I personally think it's fantastic, with one of the best action RPG combat systems and an emotionally potent and fleshed out story. From the moment it went so action-based and took out playable party members, it had no chance with many FF fans. The professional reviews are far less biased in that respect.
@@aprinnyonbreak1290God I have begged for the 10 battle system ever since I played it. Honestly, I'd take an indie game heavily inspired by it at this point
Anyone else wish “Sonic Rush” would get a second chance? Or that Blaze the Cat would get her own spin-off game? Because I have fond memories of the “Rush” duology, and frankly feel Blaze is a solid enough character to lead her own game, but of course that would imply they would have to try something without Sonic for a change and I highly doubt that’ll happen anytime soon.
Yeah, her dimension should be a far more established location. I hate that people have been trying to turn her into Silver's sidekick since 06 when she probably has more potential for her own series than he does.
5:56 THAT. That right there. That is something that critics of this series don't seem to get. Speed is earned, not given. People who say the series is "about going fast" and then blame the game when they smack into enemies are becoming far too common.
Shout out to the editor Mann Zilla for trying to sneak in clips from The President Goes to Heaven (6:53). A terrible movie recently covered on my favorite podcast, the Dogg Zzone. As someone who supports both Stephanie Sterling and 1900HotDog on Patreon, I was excited to see the crossover.
For me, the reason Sonic Team keeps reinventing the wheel is because Sonic has always been defined by coolness and going against the grain. That's always how he's been marketed compared to his contemporaries, and it's how SEGA wanted to appeal to its audience for Sonic. To Sonic Team, Sonic always has to be new. That's why we see so many redesigns and new characters and new gameplay gimmicks.
I think strong evidence to this point is that sonic adventure 2 was really quite fun and while it had issues built on the things that worked about sonic adventure. Im very confident the only things i like about adventure 1 are heavily filtered through nostalgia but 2 has good stages and a really solid chao world.
I was thinking the same thing. Now imagine if they went even further beyond and did a Sonic Adventure 3? Playing it safe and polishing up the physics and whatnot. Bringing back the Chao Garden...
To be fair, there WAS going to be a Mania sequel, but due to creative disagreements between SEGA and developers Headcannon and PandogaWest Games, it was scrapped.
When I think of many game series, often the number most fondly remembered is the second one. Games are unique among artforms in that there are mechanical things to iterate on and improve, unlike films or books where it's just story really. The second game is often when the Devs get their groove with the gameplay
I agree with what you said here, not exactly with what games you said you liked but the sentiment. Sonic Unleashed is my favourite Sonic game. It's a weird game with horrible frame rate issues on its original hardware because they went too ballistic with the graphics, but I really love its gameplay including the werehog. The thing about Unleashed though, is that it's an Adventure game. It's even called World Adventure in Japan. And it carries with it all the things an Adventure game is meant to be about. Multiple characters as gameplay styles (just 2 this time and both are Sonic but yeah) but as refined as it could be. It follows the Adventure style in story and setting as well, I love everything about it head to toe from gameplay to music and cinematography. But it was never going to please the majority of Sonic fans, and that's probably a failure in my book. The thing is, most fans loved Unleashed's day time stages for their level of exhilarating challenge and replay value, plus they look great and had amazing music. The next game in this formula, the "boost formula" throws most of the soul out. Sonic Colours is easy, the level design is mostly vapid hallways until you're forced to pause and use a silly gimmick to continue the level. (Wisps) At least the werehog was a consistent type of gameplay with its own challenges and cool shit to learn and experiment with at your leisure, the game doesn't ever stop you and tell you to "use the gimmick thing now to get through!" (unless you count the combat in which case, whatever that's just the gameplay style) if you want to use the cool combo jumps to get the extra sun and moon medals or other goodies you have to figure that out yourself by experimenting. Sonic games since Colours are way too afraid of letting anyone get used to how they play, get skilled at them, and force Sonic Team to put in more challenging gameplay. They go for the absolute broadest audience possible including the youngest players possible, making the games vapid and easy, not allowing for the mechanical skill expression seen in the 90s and some 2000s games. They don't seem to understand what even Kirby games do. You can make the base game inviting to new players, whilst still allowing experienced players to flex their skill and have fun doing it.
I feel like Sonic Team has tried to address this with Frontiers, particularly with the DLC? But huh, I'm not sure that's the problem Steph notices, since I'd say that Superstars goes *way harder* into relaxing gameplay than any other recent game.
As a Sonic fan, you share some of my own "hot takes" like up pretty well with yours. Lost World especially! While I wasn't a fan of how generic the level themes felt, it had lots of good ideas that needed expanding upon. The fact that they haven't just tried to refine the fucking parkour blows my mind? Like it seems negligent to ignore that with a character focused on speed and movement! Purportedly, Sega is gonna lean towards the "open zone" concept for whatever comes next, and while I know that you're not a fan of that formula, I find it interesting that Sega is actively commenting on whether they're burn the whole thing down this time. It's curious at the very least
Bro they did refined the parkour they literally used it in frontiers and improved it abit as for the infinite spindash that is in frontiers inwould like to to remind lost world did it first so they use lost world's infinite spindash in frontiers and improved it...by giving it's own physical property and make it overpowered..
@@JakeThehedgehog-m1x you can only parkour on certain surfaces in frontiers... Like I love Frontiers but a sonic game hasn't done Lost World's parkour right yet
Going to add to Sterlings point here. One of my favorite game franchises is the Yakuza series. A series that is objectively clunky but steadily improved with each subsequent release. By the time Yakuza 0 was made, Sega finally got the formula down to a science and I loved just about every minute of Yakuza 0 and Yakuza 6 respectively.
I approve of Stephanie Sterling's attempt to bring us all back to the 90's by gathering together so much shit from the 90's that it warps time and space into a singularity that will drag us all back in time 30 years.
I'm a day late watching so this might have already been said, but they did WANT to make Sonic Mania 2! I have read that they were in talks about it, but unfortunately (but also fortunately!) the devs, now Evening Star, wanted to make their own thing which is coming out soon in the form of Penny's Big Breakaway, which looks great. Having said that, Sonic Superstars IS sort of what you're asking for Steph - Evening Star did advise on it in some capacity (they're in the special thanks) and they used what they were taught in Mania to build the solid physics play at work in Superstars. The fact that the zones and such are totally original for the first time in a good decade is also clearly direct feedback to Mania (and Forces, and Frontiers). Just... yeah the development team just really don't know how to fine-tune boss encounters apparently (which is a shame because there are a lot of creative ideas in them, wasted on shitty dragged out 5 minute long battles like only the worst ones in the classic games). Also I regret to say that Colours was also building on what came before from Unleashed's well-recieved daytime gameplay, and then Generations again built on those two games. Then the fanbase complained that the games were too samey so Lost World happened. It's too much of a debate on which direction was right to get into here. I guess I'll also play my Sonic fan card to legitimately answer the Werehog question - they felt Sonic wasn't popular with The Kids, God of War WAS popular with The Kids, so they tried to make God of War. Stretchy arms was their solution to emulate that sort of combat (and if we're going that deep, the lore reason is that Sonic absorbed a bit of the generic evil stuff that the stretchy enemies are also made - why that otherwise manifests as a Werewolf aesthetic is the actual mystery).
It tells you everything when the best Sonic game in the last 29 years was helmed by two fans and not even Sega's involvement at all. Seriously cannot believe that we never got to see a Mania 2, they just keep trying to reinvent the wheel every single game and it's clearly not working, frontier was trash. Honestly wish Earthworm Jim would make a comeback it had 1 bad game and went the way of the dodo, meanwhile Sonic is infamous for having bad games and they keep making more of them how and why?¿? As much as I love the Yakuza games made by Sega it's just crazy they can't make their mascot work anymore, that darn Sanic.
It was either Iizuka or Kishimoto to said on Twitter that Frontiers is effectively a word-wide beta test, to see if the Frontiers style resonates with the community
11:35 Wow, we've come a long way from "Old Man Mario." I don't disagree with what was said at the time of that particular Jimquisition episode. But everything that you said was missing from Mario games during that time is gloriously back in Odyssey and Wonder. Wouldn't mind seeing an update to Old Man Mario at some point.
Sonic Frontiers isn't good, but I'll acknowledge that it has some good ideas. There's honest to God attempts at good gameplay here and there. The question is, will they iterate and expand on that gameplay, or scrap everything for some new, random formula in their next game? I think they should expand on Frontiers' ideas... but in a different setting. One that isn't Sonic running through a bunch of barren, boring, shitty fields and hills that have nothing or very little to interact with. A cityscape would've been a better fit, both thematically and mechanically, for Sonic, imo. Just remake Sonic Adventure or make a Sonic Adventure 3 at this point, but carry over a lot of Frontiers' gameplay and refine/polish it. (But maybe scrap the 3 year long startup for Tails' and Knuckles' flight animations. Seriously, who thought that was a good idea?)
Wow, just WOW! You look fabulous in this outfit Stephanie! And now I also just realized that you have the same name as my late Grandmother (Stefania in polish). She was awsome, kind and loving person but also willing to fight for whom and what she loved. She smuggled vaccines to Jewish ghetto in Lviv, hid few of her classmates from nazis. She even gave her papers to Jewish friend which used maiden name of my grandma for the rest of her life. This friend became a doctor, and saved countless lives in Hungary in 1956. So three awesome Stephanies I'm starting to see a trend here. Love you, your kind and kinky soul, and great work. Andrzej.
I feel like the "and friends" get too much hate as a group even though at least 5 of them suck. Sonic games are often in a category of "I wish this game was good"
There was a really weird trend in the mid 00s to late 2010s where a lot of people or at least game reviewers really hated any of the characters that weren't Sonic. I think we're mostly past that now but it always bothered me because we've known Sonic's friends can be implemented well in gameplay since Sonic 3.
Some things worth noting that kind of chip away at some theories here starting with Sonic Mania. That one wasn't really Sega's doing. At least not most of it. It's closer to a licensed Fan Game. So that means it wasn't Sega refining an older formula, it was fans recreating it. That should be pretty evident when comparing it to Sonic 4 where the physics just weren't there where Mania's were spot on. The devs said 4's new physics were intentional for gameplay reasons, but it goes without saying that didn't exactly work out. For sticking with a formula to refine it in general, that "could" be the case. But not always of course. Nintendo being used as an example here, you probably remember how Luigi's Mansion was. It was a completely different sort of game than they made before and it turned out really good. So it's not as if Sega couldn't do that either, they just... Don't? I have no idea why as the Sonic franchise is almost as old as the Mario franchise. Yet with Mario you are near guaranteed a good time but with Sonic it's quality is a dice roll.
The game dev circles I’m a part of are saying a very similar thing: “BG3 is a success because Larian has been making the same kind game for years.” COD for ALL of its flaws, is a game built on decades of iteration.
came here from a tweet with the "top 10 worst sonic characters" article of yours, and wow you truly are an inspiration, if you can be a game journalist then i guess anyone can be because it actually surprises me how absolute dogshit that article was lmfao, it looks like an angry 7 years old kid wrote that garbage
I swear, I am tired of people who look at Iron Giant in Ready Player One and say "He would never do that, why is he there?" and completely forget that.. THAT'S NOT THE IRON GIANT! None of those established characters in that big fight scene are the characters themselves. They're all avatar skins on players! And if there's one thing fans do, it's to make characters act so OOC they might as well be a face claim. Anyways, back on topic: I do hope Sega actually sticks with a Sonic game type... preferably Superstars or Mania. Ooh, Superstars multiplayer in Mania sprite style....
I'd say Sonic Mania was an anomaly because Sonic Team had almost nothing to do with it, it having been developed by a trio of Indie Studios. We were never going to get another one because that would've required wrangling those same studios together again, and even more unlikely, continue to keep Sonic Team's hands off it.
I always love the clips and references in Steph's videos but having The Decemberists in the beginning? Fucking love ya even more. Edit to add my voice to the recommendations of Spark the Electric Jester, which is basically a better made indie version of Sonic. The 3rd game literally is what one reviewer called "a better and more beautiful Sonic Frontiers", so its got that going for it. Amazing series tbh.
As someone who has been a sonic fan for almost 25 years (I’m just as sorry as you are), I gotta say that you’re dead right. I can only imagine where the series would be if they just built on the groundwork set in sonic adventure
I love Sonic. I’ve been a fan since 1991. Hell, I loved Sonic Colors. Yet I fully agree with Sterling’s message because it’s the same message they communicated a decade ago. Sonic has been a mess of a franchise arguably post-Dreamcast, and only a long-term commitment to a solid formula (for 2D and 3D) will give the blue dude with the ‘tude the stability he and his friends desperately deserve.
The fact that every appearance of the jolly pacifist giant has him as a fighter or weapon (remember the Multiversus controversy?) feels like WB has canonized the fan theory that his climactic sacrifice was rewarded with a reset to factory settings.
To add some reason and nuance to the conversation before the inevitable storm and flood of comments: I technically consider myself a Sonic fan. I owned and played the original Genesis/Mega Drive games with a good amount of dedication growing up, and have played (and managed to derive some amount of enjoy from) most of the newer games. In fact, I would be playing Superstars right now if Sega did not have the utter temerity to try and release a 2D platformer for a full $60 like this was 1993 and they thought they could still compete head-on with Mario. However? Everything you say in this video is completely on point. Some franchises (not just Sonic, but quite a few others) have a problem where the developers or publishers look at it and rather than going 'we have a formula that works, stick with it, iterate on it and improve', they decide to constantly 'innovate' without thinking about how that innovation would actually fit within the gameplay formula. I think about franchises like Star Fox where they fell apart due to the obsessive need to do something 'new' or 'different' in every installment when all the players wanted was 'improve on what's already there'
To be fair, some games do build upon the prior one, Adventure 2 builds upon Adventure, Colours strips Unleashed down to the bare bones and builds on that and then generations built upon that.
Knuckles Chaotix, Sonic Labyrinth, Sonic 06, Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric. Those are pretty much universally agreed to be shit, but then you get into subjective territory with games like Sonic CD, Sonic Spinball, Sonic Heroes, Shadow the Hedgehog, both the Storybook games, Sonic 4, Sonic Lost World, Sonic Forces, and Sonic Colors Ultimate (specifically the remake). And that's not even getting into the portable titles
@@samcandles Chaotix is terrible man, I'm sorry. That game plays like it is half finished at best. Looks and sounds nice, but that's all it has going for it. Sonic 4 Episode 1 is a more enjoyable play than that 32x garbage
@@Trivial_ManI do not accept Sonic CD slander. When you stop trying to race through the levels and start playing it like a Mario game, it becomes one of the best Sonic games. But I guess that doesn’t make it a good Sonic game. Huh.
@@nothydrossity I appreciate Sonic CD for what it did and what it tried to do, and I think it was a necessary growing pain in order to figure out which direction to take the series, but it is fairly lackluster compared to 2 and 3 (& Knuckles). I certainly don't think it belongs down with the likes of Sonic 4 or Sonic Forces, but I have heard quite strong opinions about how terrible a game it is from multiple sources, so I put it in the subjective zone
I honestly almost had a heart attack at 3:31 when the guy in the photo looks so much like a slightly younger version of me that for a moment I assumed someone dug a some pic of me up from somewhere on the internet :p
Frontiers was absolutely fine, nowhere near deserves Jim's 2/10, but it is still 100% part of Sonic Team's usual ADHD pattern where they can't sit still for five seconds to build upon good ideas and make them even better
The sonic series doesn't have that many bad games. In my opinion, only these are actually bad: Sonic '06 Forces BOOM: Rise of Lyric Black Knight (I'd say this is on the edge, but leaning more towards bad to me) Sonic 4 Sonic Free Riders Most of the Game Gear games (due to the camera) The rest range from okay to great. As a whole, the series goes through the cycle of Good, Great, Bad (not always in that order). Some could just use more polish like Spinball not being so slow and tweaking the sound effects.
I'm still interested to see what the Yakuza devs could do with the property. I know one of the producers said they wanted to get involved in Sonic development
4:26 You're right, it's not just that it was a werehog. It's that you had to *_PLATFORM AS THE WEREHOG!_* That was never not just the most frustrating thing about that game. Even the story wasn't as bad as having to platform as a werehog (plus hearing Dan Green do his best Zelda CD-i Morshu impersonation as Ice Cream Vendor is a gem). Even Chip wasn't as bad as having to platform as the werehog.
Yeah, the platforming was probably worse than the fighting, but neither were particularly good. Had they committed to one or the other (i.e. JUST have the night sections be beat-em-ups, or JUST have them be Prince of Persia stuff) it might have worked but they clearly didn't have the time/resources/etc. to make both of them good, and so neither of them were good.
As a Sonic fan myself, I'd say you're on the money with this series analysis. We all know Sonic can be something greater and he always seems to fall short. I'm glad despite your hate for Frontiers that you can still see and feel something is in there with gameplay comcept that just needs refinement and a better setting for it to shine. Judging by recent interviews, Sonic Team not only agrees but was aware before the game launch that this would be the case. They make it sound like Frontiers was a test bed, a concept beta that was wrapped up with a story so they could present their ideas to Sonic fans, gain feedback and figure out what exactly they were looking for. As a result, the fans that stuck around were rewarded with updates based on said feedback to try a few more ideas out. I'm curious as to what you'd think of the game after trying out the added spin dash since it essentially reintroduces momentum and literally lets you fly into the air. And then for those of us that expressed disappointment on the difficulty and the ending, the last update gives you the option to throw the first ending in the garbage and take on a much more challenging final island and revamped boss. Admittedly the challenge is sometimes unfair but i get the feeling Sonic Team is paying attention this time and identifying the key areas where difficulty issues were and noting the areas that got praised. As per usual, in times where Sonic Team fell short of greatness, I love seeing the current day Sonic fans take matters into their own hands. Character mods for Frontiers with more stylish models and animations with personality, the fan games trying out other gameplay concepts like Sonic Robo Blast 2, the quality of life fixes from playing via emulation by allowing the Wii Sonic games to be played without motion controls and at better frame rates and resolutions, and the fans that saw potential in what others considered as the worst of the worst in the series and just remaking the whole thing into one of the best Sonic games ever like with the case of Sonic P-06... There is hope for the franchise if Sega can't figure out what to do with our blue boy
How much of the original development team of the original 2-3 Sonic games are even at Sonic Team still? I recently found out, that 4 out of the 5 original developers who made the very first Super Mario Bros. game on NES, also worked on Wonder (one can take an easy guess who the 1 absentee is). I think that fact also shows how Mario has been consistent with its quality over the decades. Those who really know what made it special, still work on tese games to this very day.
Since Sonic 1? 0. But Naoto Ohshima worked on Superstars. Other than that, Sonic Team has 0 members left from Sonic 1. Takashi Iizuka and Jun Senoue are the longest-staying people that comes to mind, having worked on Sonic games since Sonic 3.
Sonic Frontiers 2 has such potential to be legitimately great, as long as the team is allowed to pursue it and shave off the rough edges. They'll probably drop the ball though
One of the devs behind Sonic Mania, Headcannon Games was pretty much broke after it released. He was only paid for his work on the game. No royalties or bonuses from Sega despite the game being very well received and selling well over a million copies as of 2018.
The dude later launched a Kickstarter for a really nice looking 16-bit style platformer called Vertebreaker. It had great 16-bit Sonic inspired music too. But due to lack of interest, mainly due to weak incentives, the campaign was soon cancelled, and he made a depressing apology video detailing the stuff I've just mentioned. Such a shame.
Huh, makes me wonder if they basically have a mostly or completely new dev team every game, and if that is why it is always so incoherent
Imagine that. Being heartbroken not paid royalties or bonuses above your contracted salary. I bet game developers earn only $5000 a month so they barely survive.
@@miljororforsprakpartiet290 There's a good corporate shill. "Success is for the owners. The workers shall be content with the status quo."
Don’t worry. As a Sonic fan, I think we’re all tired of SEGA having all the ingredients in front of them for a great game but refusing to cook.
YUMM delicious bowls of flour and raw eggs :3
To be fair I hate cooking. Its fucking boring and tedious. ^_^
@@aprinnyonbreak1290Uncracked raw eggs no less.
There's a meth joke in here somewhere...
Thankfully LakeFeperd copied the recipe and called it "Spark the Electric Jester 3"
I've got to say, much as I love the direction this series has taken these last few years... it feels kinda nostalgic to watch a Jimquisition episode that's just talking about _badly designed video games._
The problem with criticizing bad game design is when you have to consider why it’s like that, and usually it’s to do with greedy motherf***ers at the top who ruin everything. Not always the case though, but most times it is.
@@hectic105 True, but sometimes it's nice to focus on just the game's design, from an arguably artistic and development PoV, rather than the capitalistic pressures which influenced the creators into making the poor design choices.
I'm just glad more Sonic discussion invariably leads to that clip where the guy grabs the mic and bellows out an incoherent version of the Sonic theme song.
Kinda mirrors the arc the Sonic franchise has gone through
Remember the old adage: "When you're a hammer, every problem looks like a nail to you"?
Both Sonic and the Jimquisition should have been trying to design a better hammer, instead of constantly looking for new nails.
OP, are the repliers missing the point of your comment? It might just be me interpreting it differently.
This is why so many fan games are so celebrated. They actually build on what was made instead of starting over
Speaking of starting over, I recently realized that as a fan of wrestling games, I can sort of relate to Sonic fans; every time an entry has a return to form in some area, a finger curls on the monkey's paw and other features either suffer or get removed outright. I wish they'd take a few years, make the Smash Ultimate of WWE games and just update the rosters and offer DLC, but no, sports games need to be a shitty yearly cash grab that barely offer anything new or different
Spark The Electric Jester is basically what would've happened had Sonic Team actually learned to iterate instead of replace when it comes to mechanics. Spark 1 was weird, the Jester powers made the gameplay but also didn't have anywhere else to really go. Spark 2 took the ideas Spark 1 had regarding level flow and put them in 3D, but missed the mark a little bit. Spark 3 perfected everything from the level design to the mechanics.
Sonic hit Adventure, it's respective equivalent of Spark 2, and then stalled out. Every single 3D Sonic game has just been starting over from Sonic Adventure and heading out blindly into a random direction.
As someone who was raised Protestant in the United States, I was certainly very surprised to see Psalty the Songbook in a Jimquisition episode. Also traumatized, please do not show me Psalty ever again
It's okay.
His pages are glued shut. Glued shut with salty cement. Psalty will never open again.
I'm from the UK, and my church started me on the journey atheism with Psalty. If that thing doesn't convince you there is no God, then what will?
@@darkforest4891As bad as Psalty is, his chomo dalmatian friend is the stuff of eldritch horrors
I'm in Australia, AND HE WAS HERE TOO! The giant spiders here didn't help soften the blow of seeing him either.
@@makeitthrough_ OH MY GOD WHY DID YOU REMIND ME OF THAT?!
I'm sure Sonic fans will respond to this video with reason and nuance
I expect SO many well-constructed and respectfully worded comments that don't devolve into name-calling or transphobic insults whatsoever.
Sonic fans amirite LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL
OMG IF SOMEONE DOESN’T LIKE WHAT I’M INTERESTED IN IT’S LIKE THEY’RE ATTACKING ME I MUST PROTECT THE BRAND!
MY BRAND!!!
As a Sonic fan I'm just glad we have actual reasonable takes from people like Sterling instead of "lol Sonic rocky 3D transition 06 kiss never good too fast not fast enough no reward for skill too much reward for skill 7/10".
*As a Sonic fan, I can confirm that we're %100 reasonable and nuanced.*
I'm glad you mentioned the difference between the Mario franchise and Sonic. Despite all it's innovations over the years, it's telling that stuff like the triple jump and back somersaults are still just the same in Odyssey as they were in 64. The platformers have gone crazy places in things like Wonder but the DNA is still the same.
The worst part of Sonic constantly changing itself is that now the fanbase is so split that even if Sega decided to "listen to the fans" like so many beg, they'd get 10 different answers for what the fans want, since now there are generations who have grown up playing and liking a certain kind of Sonic games and who want that style to come back. That meme about the Sonic Cycle will perpetuate forever because no matter what direction they decide to take the series next (or if they finally blissfully decide on a direction), there will be people who won't shut up about wanting Sonic Adventure 3 (or Generations 2 or Frontiers 2 or just a better 2D platformer, etc, etc.). Sonic fans aren't impossible to please because they're babies (well, it's not the _only_ reason (insert rimshot here)) but because Sega has made it impossible to please them.
Honestly, I could even potentially see a way out of that hole:
Pick one style you think would fit Sonic the best, and stick with that for the next few mainline games. For the other things the other fans want, spin them off into their own series. If you don't think a new IP would sell well, then just slap a character you think would fit the best from the Sonic universe there, lord knows they have plenty they could use.
As a Sonic fan who likes both Colors and Frontiers, this video is absolutely bloody incredible. Well researched and well presented. Another great episode Steph. Well done
I adore the visual gags in this one. "something is missing", "get good", the Sterling Seal of Fuckin' Shiiiiiiit, all of them.
As someone whose neurodivergent hyperfixation is studying the development history of Sonic games I can at least explain some of why some of them end up such a mess
In the case of the Werehog it was 'SEGA demanded that Sonic Team pad out the game by having slow levels that would add to the game's length while taking less development time and resources compared to the larger, faster daytime levels"
Mania never getting a sequel I am convinced was purely spite from SEGA corporate since a game worked on by outside devteam vastly outperformed critically and commercially compared to anything Sonic Team themselves did
And let me not even BEGIN on Sonic X-Treme getting run into the ground because of Yuji Naka's ego over his program code (trust me, there's plenty of people who've disliked him long before Balan and the entire stock incident)
Ding ding ding, right on the money. Would be cool to see more fans with Sonic disaster lore here. Gonna start by adding the (in fairness, well-known) catastrophe that splitting Sonic Team was during the development of '06, a game being created with a whole new engine and a whole new (bunch of) gameplay for three whole new platforms... after they realized the Wii wouldn't keep up at all. And then Naka left and took some devs from Sonic Team to create his own studio. Within the year of release. Which did not get delayed at all.
The Werehog was also there to try and copy the success of God of War wasn't it? That's the whole reason they gave it stretchy arms so it could emulate the Blades of Chaos.
I know the weird hostility between Sega Japan and Sega America contributes to these disasters, but I only know that existed historically, contributing to Sonic X-treme. I don't know if that holds to today.
ok, letś not kid ourselves, sonic x-treme was doomed yuji naka or not. The saturn was already a limping zombie of a console that was never capable of running a fast 3D platformer
@@fluffy_tail4365 Sure it can. Sonic R proved it, despite godawful physics from its formula 1 origins that send the characters smashing into every wall they encounter.
The problem with 3d Sonic games is that Sonic games were never about speed, they were about momentum. In other words: Mirror Edge is the better 3d Sonic game.
Edit: If I remembed the name, I would have said Marble Blast.
That's definitely true. I'm glad people finally realised they were always about *momentum.* I wish Sega made a Sonic game with a focus on momentum.
@@Sonic_the_hedgedogThey did. sonic riders.
... this is shockingly 100% correct.
Some of the Sonic games fuck that up. They have way too many obstacles and things like water that slow the pacing down, or the stages are a little too maze like. I feel like the best entries were the ones that kept shit moving at a nice pace. Sonic Mania did a great job of this with multiple paths through each stage. Kept shit moving. The Freedom Planet games are great Sonic imitators that also really got this pacing right. Alot of careful platforming doesnt really fit the game.
Ghostrunner might be an even better, but less known example
“I can’t find any of my sonic stuff!” *pans to a sonic figurine sitting on a shelf directly behind stephanie* I couldn’t come up with a better and more relatable description of having adhd if I tried 😂
I'd encourage giving Moon Channel's "Why Isn't SEGA Overprotective of its Intellectual Property?" video a watch as it goes into possible reasons behind the that transition from pretty good 2D Sonics to remarkably flawed 3D Sonics
I adore how JSF has not only stuck to the 7/10 for BotW for all these years but also consistently reiterated it at every opportunity, despite it almost certainly costing her viewers to this day. But you can't put a price on integrity. o7
Given how hilariously petty JSS is, i'm expecting this channel's videos from 2035 to still smugly refer to that 7/10
@@Damian_1989Gotta commit to the bit, as they say.
Jet Set Fradio
Joint Strike Fighter
As a Sonic fan let me just say this... When 'Sonic 06' came out. I was so disappointed by that game that I stopped playing Sonic games altogether. The last new Sonic game that I beat since then, was 'Sonic Frontiers'. I really enjoyed that game too and I'm really hoping that 'Sonic Team' listens to the fans and keeps building onto it.
Anyways, great video!
"I really hope that the Sonic Team listens to fans..."
I no joke once had a nightmare one time where I worked for Sega doing market research. My job was to "listen to the fans."
All of it was OCs! Manfred, Rouge's estranged husband. Queen B, a dominatrix from Charmy's hive. Nomel, the green hedgehog, because it's "Lemon" spelled backwards.
I know it was all in my head, but I'd caution anyone from ever listening to Sonic fans without conditions and stipulations agreed upon in a legally binding contract.
You should play Mania and Generations too. You can ignore everything else though
The running joke of the "now I get it" had me cracking up.
Can you imagine the existential terror of sharing a domicile with Stephanie and never knowing when you're going to come home to literally everything being covered in boglins for no reason?
Sounds like a psych ward.
I can and it sounds like a fun time to me lol 😂
Totally with you about SEGA throwing the baby out with the bathwater when they have a good idea, I'm still waiting for them to give the Adventure style momentum based gameplay another try
I really think they already nailed 3D Sonic with Adventure. They can leave out the other gameplay styles but keep the Sonic levels. Other characters like Tails and Knuckles could be playable too and have levels similar to Sonic just designed around their own abilities rather than doing the mech shooting and treasure hunting thing.
Definitely agreed. I was hopeful about Lost World because it looked like a step in Adventure's direction (especially compared to the boost-focused games that came before) with it's slightly slower pace and more room to explore, but the momentum just wasn't there, level design swung wildly between decent and atrocious and the wisps feel too gimmicky to me
@@cruzerion Eh I never saw much potential in Lost World's foruma personally, to me it felt like a desperate and unncessary attempt from SEGA to be more like Mario Galaxy to attract Nintendo fans with their Wii U and 3DS exclusivity agreement they had at the time, I would have liked to see them stick with the Generations formula but with more original level concepts. J Reviews made this point well in his Lost World review
@@cruzerionA lot of lost world's style is coming back in a good way in Sonic Dream Team so that's something.
Cuz Sega rushes Sonic Team.
06 was as bad as it was cuz Sega insisted on the game making an anniversary despite knowing damn well Yuji Naka left and took a large majority of staff with him in addition to ST being divided up to make Secret Rings prior to him leaving.
Frontiers (regardless how we feel about it) narrowly avoided this by Iizuka forcing a delay.
Frontiers could've came out in an even *worse* state had he not put his career on the line.
Nvm that Sega didn't provide ST will a full-fledged staff, meaning ST had to cut a LOT of what they wanted to do to get Frontiers to where it was.
All while again, Sega rushed ST to get Frontiers out the door ASAP
Sonic is the Hellraiser of video games. When it works, it works REALLY well, and when it doesn't, it plumbs the shitty depths of what's possible
Now there's a crossover I need to see.
Good comparison. However I won't look up Sonic on the internet because I don't want to see those sights.
No long running franchise wants to be compared to Hellraiser. Hellraiser and Terminator are probably the most notorious examples of the first two being good and then nothing but trash forever.
@@esbenm6544 The remake was good though. It's just disappointing that the best thing to happen to the franchise after 30 years of duds was getting bought by disney.
We have such speeds to show you
I think most sonic fans at this point agree Sega shouldn't be trusted with sonic and need to have taken away. ScottFalco said "Superstar is a step in the right direction but how many steps do you have to take before you're just walking." and I feel like that really sums all of this up.
I love how the dragon flyz immediatly displayed why there were recalled. I had many a black eye from mine as a kid.
I'm a huge Sonic fan, but I absolutely agree with your analysis - Sonic Team just keeps throwing new things at the wall without giving the ideas time to breathe and trying to learn from their mistakes and polish them into something that works well. I may absolutely enjoy myself with every Sonic game I play, but I'm not above accepting fair criticism for them as well. I want to see Sonic games become better too! :3 I look in awe at games like Wonder and know that if Sonic got the same patient attention and development time, he could have just as many good games. Honestly, I would love to see Nintendo's take on a Sonic game! I think they would hit it out of the park. Sonic and Mario would make a fun pair, and there's clearly a huge crossover in the fans due to all the animated fan media I see of the two of them together. Missed opportunity in my opinion! :3
Anyway, just wanted to share some positivity in the comments section because I adore Sonic and I adore your show too, Steph! We can enjoy things and still be critical of them to make them better. We can have both!
Heck naw keep Nintendo away from sonic bruh
I dunno I loved watching eggman in the olympics I'll be honest. @@Eminster
Sonic team isn't a real thing any more. It's just which random people get stuck making the current sonic game.
So as a Sonic fan and somebody who wants expressed a similar opinion with cyber shell on one of his videos the difference with Sonic and Mario is that when Mario wants to make a weird experimental game they use one of the side characters and even though there are a lot of side characters with the one time they did so was with a 32x and that was with Chaotix.
It really drives me crazy that you have so many characters that you can go and experiment with and they stick with a Sonic because it's a easy recognizable thing and to do any other is too rsky
Because they stopped including chao gardens!
people keep saying they want a sonic adventure 3, but as a sonic adventure fan i don't need that, i just want chao gardens to come back
We got a Sonic Adventure 3. It was called Sonic the Hedgehog, came out in 2006, and was terrible. What we actually need is just a straight up chao garden game, maybe it can have a Sonic minigame in it or something.
YESSSS
@@BladedEdge I thought Sonic unleashed started out as adventure 3
I may be in the outlier here but i really enjoyed the sonic adventure games from the dreamcast and gamecube. To this day i still fondly remember them, the edgy but cool story, the characters were badly written but in a "cheesy movie you still love/90s anime" kinda way, and the extra content with the chao garden kept me entertained for hours. To this day i say if they put full effort into a new adventure game itd do well, but it seems like sonic team is intent on doing anything else.(kinda like how pokemon keeps doing more and more new gimmicks with each gen despite the Fandom collectively agreeing that mega evolution are awesome and they've been going downhill since then, but that's another rant)
SA1 is my favourite Sonic game!
@@RJH755 story wise i def agree! But for the side content? They went all out in 2 lol that chao garden was addictive
@@Ericbenson1624 Replayed it a few years and Sonic and Gamma are the best characters to play but I also thought Tails, Knuckles and (unpopular opinion I know) Amy were pretty fun too, it's really just Big that I don't like... And yeah the Chao Garden is peak and I don't understand why SEGA hasn't at least brought it back as mobile game
@RJH755 i didn't hate amys levels. They were a bit tedious(not as tedious as Big's but still) but honestly if they had built more of her areas around her instead of reusing stuff from sonic and tails's levels it would've been better lol
Pokemon has so much more to juggle than Sonic and their output requirements really doesn't compare. Pokemon has three pillars it has to try to make equally satisfying in one year while making the game unique. Competitive, story, and collection. Mega Evolution was one of the worst times for competitive since it required a 100 BST increase to become a mega and too many pseudolegendaries got their fill of it.
Sonic cant even be original about abusing people in wheelchairs: Sonic stole that opening from Mac and Me!
Haha, ripping off one of the worst rip off movies ever made, is quite an achievement.
that's what Out of Context clips can do@@Bellitchi
Agree to disagree on Sonic Frontiers, but you're definitely not wrong about Sega throwing both good and bad ideas into a fire before starting from scratch for no comprehensible reason.
Agreed. Sega just doesn't want to iterate on what they have. Hopefully with Sonic Frontiers being received actually pretty well (for Sonic), the next one will actually take what worked forward.
The biggest irony in this is that the original Genesis trilogy (and the Sonic Advance trilogy to a lesser extent) is the proof of Sterling being right, here. They built upon the level design, the physics, the bosses, all while keeping the same foundation of the same basic elements, and they were all great. (Except Advance 2, Advance 2 sucked)
Everyone has forgotten the true meaning of sonic... Chili Dogs.
I never played a Sonic game, I only had a neighbor who had a dreamcast.
What I learned about most (reasonable) Sonic fans is that they love Sonic. As in the characters and (in theory) the story/setting.
They want to like and even love the games but it just rarely or never happens. And I feel bad for them because I am sure there could be some amazing games, but either they aren't given the time to make a proper one, or whoever makes it does not care.
That's how I feel as a Star Wars and Fallout fan. I love the worlds and most of the characters and even stories the creators want to show/explore/tell, but I see so much wasted potential or overlooked yet glaring flaws in the execution or presentation of them.
I've played a few, including the original back when it was new. Even though my appreciation of Sonic has only increased over the years, I don't really want to like the games anymore. I've never enjoyed playing even the good ones. I watched a streamer play Sonic Superstars and had a grand old time, and I never want to try it myself.
Yup that about sums it
Same. That’s why I’m more of a Mario fan.
0:26 The shade of zooming at Sonic when Steph said they couldn't find their Sonic stuff XD.
Man, remember how there was Sonic Adventure on the Dreamcast and then, radically, they made a Sonic Adventure 2 which improved on it rather than burning everything to the ground and starting over?
I forgot where, but a SEGA rep said that Frontiers represents the first of the next ten years of 3D-Sonic games.
Hopefully next time they remember to put some colour in.
Stephanie has been saying this for years. Its an example of how an obsession with "Innovation," can kill a franchise or at best alienate its audience. A similar issue had with FF in the 2010s.
Final Fantasy does have similar problems. They always innovate, never evolve, and throw out good, but unrefined mechanics all the time, but I think their downfall is a bit different.
They were unprepared for the massive success and financial windfall of FF7, and were very much an irresponsible new money company. Just look at the entire Spirits Within debacle.
Their problems are that 1: They have spent years trying to figure out what people liked about FF7, and have basically remade elements of it, or Cloud over and over to usually disappointing results. 2. They have a more recent history of being infested by conman managers who collect absurd salaries to mostly waste production time and have manic straying of design focus, with the promise they cracked the code (they didn't) before eventually someone comes to look at the billion dollar hole in the ground, panics, and sells the jar they filled with slime from the hole as "Final Fantasy 13" or 15, or whatever, then gets sweet talked again.
You know, the protagonist of FF 13, Lightning, literally descended from a cloud. They thought they had it, someone really thought they did it.
I'm more shocked that they never really realized they basically just remade Chrono Trigger with high production values at a time when that wasn't done, and that's why everything went well. But idk.
I want a Final Fantasy 10 2. Not the 10 2 that exists, that thing's weird, but, just, taking the party and Sphere grid system, and ironing out the flaws
I don't think the FF comparison quite works. This is because even when Final Fantasy games are weak, they're only weak for being Final Fantasy games but are still well constructed products in general. Final Fantasy's re-invention is mostly praised and is seen as an integral part of the series whereas Sonic's re-invention is seen as a joke. And that's because Final Fantasy games almost always nail the fundamentals even if they have problems. Sonic doesn't even consistently nail the fundamentals.
@@ViviBossPlaya888
But, I mean, then I ask which Final Fantasy games you/are generally actually liked, and I usually encounter the same thing I do.
Do I like Final Fantasy? Yes
Which Final Fantasies do I like? Uh. Well. Fewer than I dislike, really.
Usually 7 and 10. 9 is a love it or hate it. Usually 4 or 6, rarely both.
2 and 8 are atrocious and are rarely liked by anyone. 1 is bland but serviceable. 3 was just bad Dragon Quest. I don't think I have heard someone talk about 5 ever. The MMOs don't count.
13 and 15 are volatile, and the new one is too new to say, but it doesn't seem to have a promising legacy.
So that's like, 4, maybe 5 games ranking in the positives?
@@aprinnyonbreak1290 My point is even the games that people don't like are competently crafted and almost all of them received strong critical reviews. Whereas many Sonic games are straight up busted.
As to FFXVI, I don't know how strong a legacy it will have but fan reaction to it is not be trusted. A lot of them did not and still don't go into it with anything resembling an open mind. I personally think it's fantastic, with one of the best action RPG combat systems and an emotionally potent and fleshed out story. From the moment it went so action-based and took out playable party members, it had no chance with many FF fans. The professional reviews are far less biased in that respect.
@@aprinnyonbreak1290God I have begged for the 10 battle system ever since I played it. Honestly, I'd take an indie game heavily inspired by it at this point
Anyone else wish “Sonic Rush” would get a second chance? Or that Blaze the Cat would get her own spin-off game? Because I have fond memories of the “Rush” duology, and frankly feel Blaze is a solid enough character to lead her own game, but of course that would imply they would have to try something without Sonic for a change and I highly doubt that’ll happen anytime soon.
Blaze so deserves more time in the spotlight. Silver too tbh, but I fear the dreaded 06 reception has screwed them both over. TT_TT
Rush adventure was lovely
Yeah, her dimension should be a far more established location. I hate that people have been trying to turn her into Silver's sidekick since 06 when she probably has more potential for her own series than he does.
5:56 THAT. That right there. That is something that critics of this series don't seem to get. Speed is earned, not given. People who say the series is "about going fast" and then blame the game when they smack into enemies are becoming far too common.
There's a certain irony that this video had an ad for sonic before it played.
That first minute and a half was a childhood cavalcade. I feel deeply moved. And old. I feel very old right now.
I was actually startled by the mid roll ad. How DARE TH-cam interupt Ms. Sterling with that corpo trash.
Mario eternally evolves, Sonic perpetually prototypes.
Shout out to the editor Mann Zilla for trying to sneak in clips from The President Goes to Heaven (6:53). A terrible movie recently covered on my favorite podcast, the Dogg Zzone. As someone who supports both Stephanie Sterling and 1900HotDog on Patreon, I was excited to see the crossover.
YESSSSSS OMG I wanna like this comment 100x. Thank you!
Gota' say, you and Z man make a fucking *AMAZING* editing team!! LOVED this one! =D
I feel Z started out good and has only gotten better.
For me, the reason Sonic Team keeps reinventing the wheel is because Sonic has always been defined by coolness and going against the grain. That's always how he's been marketed compared to his contemporaries, and it's how SEGA wanted to appeal to its audience for Sonic. To Sonic Team, Sonic always has to be new. That's why we see so many redesigns and new characters and new gameplay gimmicks.
“The Murder of” is my favorite sonic game
I hope so badly that "I get it" becomes a running joke
I think strong evidence to this point is that sonic adventure 2 was really quite fun and while it had issues built on the things that worked about sonic adventure. Im very confident the only things i like about adventure 1 are heavily filtered through nostalgia but 2 has good stages and a really solid chao world.
I was thinking the same thing. Now imagine if they went even further beyond and did a Sonic Adventure 3? Playing it safe and polishing up the physics and whatnot. Bringing back the Chao Garden...
To be fair, there WAS going to be a Mania sequel, but due to creative disagreements between SEGA and developers Headcannon and PandogaWest Games, it was scrapped.
The "I get it" after the books joke got me brilliantly 😂
I caught an ad for the new Sonic game at the start of the video and I've been choking on the irony since
When I think of many game series, often the number most fondly remembered is the second one. Games are unique among artforms in that there are mechanical things to iterate on and improve, unlike films or books where it's just story really. The second game is often when the Devs get their groove with the gameplay
Yep, TH-cam played a Sonic the Hedgehog ad before this video played.
I agree with what you said here, not exactly with what games you said you liked but the sentiment. Sonic Unleashed is my favourite Sonic game. It's a weird game with horrible frame rate issues on its original hardware because they went too ballistic with the graphics, but I really love its gameplay including the werehog. The thing about Unleashed though, is that it's an Adventure game. It's even called World Adventure in Japan. And it carries with it all the things an Adventure game is meant to be about. Multiple characters as gameplay styles (just 2 this time and both are Sonic but yeah) but as refined as it could be. It follows the Adventure style in story and setting as well, I love everything about it head to toe from gameplay to music and cinematography. But it was never going to please the majority of Sonic fans, and that's probably a failure in my book.
The thing is, most fans loved Unleashed's day time stages for their level of exhilarating challenge and replay value, plus they look great and had amazing music. The next game in this formula, the "boost formula" throws most of the soul out. Sonic Colours is easy, the level design is mostly vapid hallways until you're forced to pause and use a silly gimmick to continue the level. (Wisps)
At least the werehog was a consistent type of gameplay with its own challenges and cool shit to learn and experiment with at your leisure, the game doesn't ever stop you and tell you to "use the gimmick thing now to get through!" (unless you count the combat in which case, whatever that's just the gameplay style) if you want to use the cool combo jumps to get the extra sun and moon medals or other goodies you have to figure that out yourself by experimenting.
Sonic games since Colours are way too afraid of letting anyone get used to how they play, get skilled at them, and force Sonic Team to put in more challenging gameplay. They go for the absolute broadest audience possible including the youngest players possible, making the games vapid and easy, not allowing for the mechanical skill expression seen in the 90s and some 2000s games. They don't seem to understand what even Kirby games do. You can make the base game inviting to new players, whilst still allowing experienced players to flex their skill and have fun doing it.
I feel like Sonic Team has tried to address this with Frontiers, particularly with the DLC? But huh, I'm not sure that's the problem Steph notices, since I'd say that Superstars goes *way harder* into relaxing gameplay than any other recent game.
As a Sonic fan, you share some of my own "hot takes" like up pretty well with yours. Lost World especially! While I wasn't a fan of how generic the level themes felt, it had lots of good ideas that needed expanding upon.
The fact that they haven't just tried to refine the fucking parkour blows my mind? Like it seems negligent to ignore that with a character focused on speed and movement!
Purportedly, Sega is gonna lean towards the "open zone" concept for whatever comes next, and while I know that you're not a fan of that formula, I find it interesting that Sega is actively commenting on whether they're burn the whole thing down this time. It's curious at the very least
Bro they did refined the parkour they literally used it in frontiers and improved it abit as for the infinite spindash that is in frontiers inwould like to to remind lost world did it first so they use lost world's infinite spindash in frontiers and improved it...by giving it's own physical property and make it overpowered..
@@JakeThehedgehog-m1x you can only parkour on certain surfaces in frontiers... Like I love Frontiers but a sonic game hasn't done Lost World's parkour right yet
Going to add to Sterlings point here. One of my favorite game franchises is the Yakuza series. A series that is objectively clunky but steadily improved with each subsequent release. By the time Yakuza 0 was made, Sega finally got the formula down to a science and I loved just about every minute of Yakuza 0 and Yakuza 6 respectively.
Any thoughts on Y:LaD?
@@DarknessIsTheTruth I have yet to play it. It’s on my list though. So I guess, look forward to a future video review on Yakuza: Like a Dragon. ✌🏻
I approve of Stephanie Sterling's attempt to bring us all back to the 90's by gathering together so much shit from the 90's that it warps time and space into a singularity that will drag us all back in time 30 years.
I'm a day late watching so this might have already been said, but they did WANT to make Sonic Mania 2! I have read that they were in talks about it, but unfortunately (but also fortunately!) the devs, now Evening Star, wanted to make their own thing which is coming out soon in the form of Penny's Big Breakaway, which looks great. Having said that, Sonic Superstars IS sort of what you're asking for Steph - Evening Star did advise on it in some capacity (they're in the special thanks) and they used what they were taught in Mania to build the solid physics play at work in Superstars. The fact that the zones and such are totally original for the first time in a good decade is also clearly direct feedback to Mania (and Forces, and Frontiers). Just... yeah the development team just really don't know how to fine-tune boss encounters apparently (which is a shame because there are a lot of creative ideas in them, wasted on shitty dragged out 5 minute long battles like only the worst ones in the classic games). Also I regret to say that Colours was also building on what came before from Unleashed's well-recieved daytime gameplay, and then Generations again built on those two games. Then the fanbase complained that the games were too samey so Lost World happened. It's too much of a debate on which direction was right to get into here.
I guess I'll also play my Sonic fan card to legitimately answer the Werehog question - they felt Sonic wasn't popular with The Kids, God of War WAS popular with The Kids, so they tried to make God of War. Stretchy arms was their solution to emulate that sort of combat (and if we're going that deep, the lore reason is that Sonic absorbed a bit of the generic evil stuff that the stretchy enemies are also made - why that otherwise manifests as a Werewolf aesthetic is the actual mystery).
I was already agreeing with the video. Then you put the Piranha Plant song on.
10/10 game journalism of the year
By the way, thanks for hiring Z Man Zilla, he is doing fantastic work and is a hilarious compliment to your awesome performance.
Thank you so much!
It tells you everything when the best Sonic game in the last 29 years was helmed by two fans and not even Sega's involvement at all. Seriously cannot believe that we never got to see a Mania 2, they just keep trying to reinvent the wheel every single game and it's clearly not working, frontier was trash. Honestly wish Earthworm Jim would make a comeback it had 1 bad game and went the way of the dodo, meanwhile Sonic is infamous for having bad games and they keep making more of them how and why?¿? As much as I love the Yakuza games made by Sega it's just crazy they can't make their mascot work anymore, that darn Sanic.
@@nothydrossity wow... that's dumb
@@joaquindiaz3621 yeah
This is a particularly fantastically written script, with video and sound editing to match
I feel violated by the gag about Stephanie filling Psalty with something salty on several levels 💀💀💀
Only Steph could make me sit through a 17-minute video about _Sonic,_ of all things, and remain engaged the whole way through. Now, _that's_ talent!
cybershell could probably do it too
What? Sonic is literally one of the most interesting franchises in video game history in terms of development
@@Eminsterthrowing shit at a wall over and over isn't interesting
It was either Iizuka or Kishimoto to said on Twitter that Frontiers is effectively a word-wide beta test, to see if the Frontiers style resonates with the community
the editing in this video is hilarious, great job
11:35 Wow, we've come a long way from "Old Man Mario."
I don't disagree with what was said at the time of that particular Jimquisition episode. But everything that you said was missing from Mario games during that time is gloriously back in Odyssey and Wonder. Wouldn't mind seeing an update to Old Man Mario at some point.
Old Man Mario 2: Return of the Sequel
Sonic Frontiers isn't good, but I'll acknowledge that it has some good ideas. There's honest to God attempts at good gameplay here and there. The question is, will they iterate and expand on that gameplay, or scrap everything for some new, random formula in their next game? I think they should expand on Frontiers' ideas... but in a different setting. One that isn't Sonic running through a bunch of barren, boring, shitty fields and hills that have nothing or very little to interact with. A cityscape would've been a better fit, both thematically and mechanically, for Sonic, imo.
Just remake Sonic Adventure or make a Sonic Adventure 3 at this point, but carry over a lot of Frontiers' gameplay and refine/polish it. (But maybe scrap the 3 year long startup for Tails' and Knuckles' flight animations. Seriously, who thought that was a good idea?)
Wow, just WOW! You look fabulous in this outfit Stephanie!
And now I also just realized that you have the same name as my late Grandmother (Stefania in polish). She was awsome, kind and loving person but also willing to fight for whom and what she loved. She smuggled vaccines to Jewish ghetto in Lviv, hid few of her classmates from nazis. She even gave her papers to Jewish friend which used maiden name of my grandma for the rest of her life. This friend became a doctor, and saved countless lives in Hungary in 1956. So three awesome Stephanies I'm starting to see a trend here.
Love you, your kind and kinky soul, and great work.
Andrzej.
I feel like the "and friends" get too much hate as a group even though at least 5 of them suck. Sonic games are often in a category of "I wish this game was good"
The same dilemma I run into with Fallout 4; "I can see what they were going for, but man they flubbed the execution/presentation of it"
There was a really weird trend in the mid 00s to late 2010s where a lot of people or at least game reviewers really hated any of the characters that weren't Sonic. I think we're mostly past that now but it always bothered me because we've known Sonic's friends can be implemented well in gameplay since Sonic 3.
Some things worth noting that kind of chip away at some theories here starting with Sonic Mania. That one wasn't really Sega's doing. At least not most of it. It's closer to a licensed Fan Game. So that means it wasn't Sega refining an older formula, it was fans recreating it. That should be pretty evident when comparing it to Sonic 4 where the physics just weren't there where Mania's were spot on. The devs said 4's new physics were intentional for gameplay reasons, but it goes without saying that didn't exactly work out.
For sticking with a formula to refine it in general, that "could" be the case. But not always of course. Nintendo being used as an example here, you probably remember how Luigi's Mansion was. It was a completely different sort of game than they made before and it turned out really good. So it's not as if Sega couldn't do that either, they just... Don't? I have no idea why as the Sonic franchise is almost as old as the Mario franchise. Yet with Mario you are near guaranteed a good time but with Sonic it's quality is a dice roll.
the fucking zoom in on sonic in the beginning floored me
The game dev circles I’m a part of are saying a very similar thing: “BG3 is a success because Larian has been making the same kind game for years.” COD for ALL of its flaws, is a game built on decades of iteration.
Excuse me while I prepare a 4 hour video essay filled with Sonic jpgs to destroy you and everything you stand for…
I can't wait for Sonic -Sweat of the- Empire.
Fry: I get it!
It's because Frontiers is a synonym for Wilds.
Fry: Now I get it!
came here from a tweet with the "top 10 worst sonic characters" article of yours, and wow you truly are an inspiration, if you can be a game journalist then i guess anyone can be because it actually surprises me how absolute dogshit that article was lmfao, it looks like an angry 7 years old kid wrote that garbage
I swear, I am tired of people who look at Iron Giant in Ready Player One and say "He would never do that, why is he there?" and completely forget that.. THAT'S NOT THE IRON GIANT! None of those established characters in that big fight scene are the characters themselves. They're all avatar skins on players! And if there's one thing fans do, it's to make characters act so OOC they might as well be a face claim.
Anyways, back on topic: I do hope Sega actually sticks with a Sonic game type... preferably Superstars or Mania. Ooh, Superstars multiplayer in Mania sprite style....
Zman is on point with the editing of this one. Fantastic work!
I'd say Sonic Mania was an anomaly because Sonic Team had almost nothing to do with it, it having been developed by a trio of Indie Studios.
We were never going to get another one because that would've required wrangling those same studios together again, and even more unlikely, continue to keep Sonic Team's hands off it.
One of your greatest videos in awhile.
Wonderful takes, great humor, and the picture today were on point.
Lol, poochy.
I always love the clips and references in Steph's videos but having The Decemberists in the beginning? Fucking love ya even more.
Edit to add my voice to the recommendations of Spark the Electric Jester, which is basically a better made indie version of Sonic. The 3rd game literally is what one reviewer called "a better and more beautiful Sonic Frontiers", so its got that going for it. Amazing series tbh.
As someone who has been a sonic fan for almost 25 years (I’m just as sorry as you are), I gotta say that you’re dead right. I can only imagine where the series would be if they just built on the groundwork set in sonic adventure
I do not recognize Psalty and I don't know if I should be relieved or not.
Love your work, Steph
I love Sonic. I’ve been a fan since 1991. Hell, I loved Sonic Colors. Yet I fully agree with Sterling’s message because it’s the same message they communicated a decade ago.
Sonic has been a mess of a franchise arguably post-Dreamcast, and only a long-term commitment to a solid formula (for 2D and 3D) will give the blue dude with the ‘tude the stability he and his friends desperately deserve.
Great point about Iron Giant in RPO, I hadn’t thought of that. Garbage.
The fact that every appearance of the jolly pacifist giant has him as a fighter or weapon (remember the Multiversus controversy?) feels like WB has canonized the fan theory that his climactic sacrifice was rewarded with a reset to factory settings.
@@autobotstarscream765 that’s bleak
To add some reason and nuance to the conversation before the inevitable storm and flood of comments:
I technically consider myself a Sonic fan. I owned and played the original Genesis/Mega Drive games with a good amount of dedication growing up, and have played (and managed to derive some amount of enjoy from) most of the newer games. In fact, I would be playing Superstars right now if Sega did not have the utter temerity to try and release a 2D platformer for a full $60 like this was 1993 and they thought they could still compete head-on with Mario.
However? Everything you say in this video is completely on point. Some franchises (not just Sonic, but quite a few others) have a problem where the developers or publishers look at it and rather than going 'we have a formula that works, stick with it, iterate on it and improve', they decide to constantly 'innovate' without thinking about how that innovation would actually fit within the gameplay formula. I think about franchises like Star Fox where they fell apart due to the obsessive need to do something 'new' or 'different' in every installment when all the players wanted was 'improve on what's already there'
I started Sonic Frontiers this past weekend mainly for the soundtrack.
It has a great soundtrack. I love Cyberspace music. Still listening on Spotify.
Sonic games might be a, uh, mixed bag, but at least the soundtrack will slap.
To be fair, some games do build upon the prior one, Adventure 2 builds upon Adventure, Colours strips Unleashed down to the bare bones and builds on that and then generations built upon that.
I can only think of a small handful of actually bad sonic games in comparison to how many damn good ones there are
Knuckles Chaotix, Sonic Labyrinth, Sonic 06, Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric. Those are pretty much universally agreed to be shit, but then you get into subjective territory with games like Sonic CD, Sonic Spinball, Sonic Heroes, Shadow the Hedgehog, both the Storybook games, Sonic 4, Sonic Lost World, Sonic Forces, and Sonic Colors Ultimate (specifically the remake). And that's not even getting into the portable titles
@@Trivial_Man hey don't lump chaotix in there
@@samcandles Chaotix is terrible man, I'm sorry. That game plays like it is half finished at best. Looks and sounds nice, but that's all it has going for it. Sonic 4 Episode 1 is a more enjoyable play than that 32x garbage
@@Trivial_ManI do not accept Sonic CD slander. When you stop trying to race through the levels and start playing it like a Mario game, it becomes one of the best Sonic games. But I guess that doesn’t make it a good Sonic game. Huh.
@@nothydrossity I appreciate Sonic CD for what it did and what it tried to do, and I think it was a necessary growing pain in order to figure out which direction to take the series, but it is fairly lackluster compared to 2 and 3 (& Knuckles). I certainly don't think it belongs down with the likes of Sonic 4 or Sonic Forces, but I have heard quite strong opinions about how terrible a game it is from multiple sources, so I put it in the subjective zone
I honestly almost had a heart attack at 3:31 when the guy in the photo looks so much like a slightly younger version of me that for a moment I assumed someone dug a some pic of me up from somewhere on the internet :p
Frontiers was absolutely fine, nowhere near deserves Jim's 2/10, but it is still 100% part of Sonic Team's usual ADHD pattern where they can't sit still for five seconds to build upon good ideas and make them even better
Maybe grinding on rails is what they consider the core gameplay they’re iterating on.
The sonic series doesn't have that many bad games. In my opinion, only these are actually bad:
Sonic '06
Forces
BOOM: Rise of Lyric
Black Knight (I'd say this is on the edge, but leaning more towards bad to me)
Sonic 4
Sonic Free Riders
Most of the Game Gear games (due to the camera)
The rest range from okay to great.
As a whole, the series goes through the cycle of Good, Great, Bad (not always in that order). Some could just use more polish like Spinball not being so slow and tweaking the sound effects.
I'm still interested to see what the Yakuza devs could do with the property. I know one of the producers said they wanted to get involved in Sonic development
4:26 You're right, it's not just that it was a werehog.
It's that you had to *_PLATFORM AS THE WEREHOG!_* That was never not just the most frustrating thing about that game. Even the story wasn't as bad as having to platform as a werehog (plus hearing Dan Green do his best Zelda CD-i Morshu impersonation as Ice Cream Vendor is a gem). Even Chip wasn't as bad as having to platform as the werehog.
Yeah, the platforming was probably worse than the fighting, but neither were particularly good. Had they committed to one or the other (i.e. JUST have the night sections be beat-em-ups, or JUST have them be Prince of Persia stuff) it might have worked but they clearly didn't have the time/resources/etc. to make both of them good, and so neither of them were good.
As a Sonic fan myself, I'd say you're on the money with this series analysis. We all know Sonic can be something greater and he always seems to fall short. I'm glad despite your hate for Frontiers that you can still see and feel something is in there with gameplay comcept that just needs refinement and a better setting for it to shine. Judging by recent interviews, Sonic Team not only agrees but was aware before the game launch that this would be the case. They make it sound like Frontiers was a test bed, a concept beta that was wrapped up with a story so they could present their ideas to Sonic fans, gain feedback and figure out what exactly they were looking for. As a result, the fans that stuck around were rewarded with updates based on said feedback to try a few more ideas out. I'm curious as to what you'd think of the game after trying out the added spin dash since it essentially reintroduces momentum and literally lets you fly into the air. And then for those of us that expressed disappointment on the difficulty and the ending, the last update gives you the option to throw the first ending in the garbage and take on a much more challenging final island and revamped boss. Admittedly the challenge is sometimes unfair but i get the feeling Sonic Team is paying attention this time and identifying the key areas where difficulty issues were and noting the areas that got praised.
As per usual, in times where Sonic Team fell short of greatness, I love seeing the current day Sonic fans take matters into their own hands. Character mods for Frontiers with more stylish models and animations with personality, the fan games trying out other gameplay concepts like Sonic Robo Blast 2, the quality of life fixes from playing via emulation by allowing the Wii Sonic games to be played without motion controls and at better frame rates and resolutions, and the fans that saw potential in what others considered as the worst of the worst in the series and just remaking the whole thing into one of the best Sonic games ever like with the case of Sonic P-06... There is hope for the franchise if Sega can't figure out what to do with our blue boy
Did you know Tommy Tallerico was the first American to kiss sonic on his little mouth? His mother is very proud.
I got a pre-roll add for Sonic Superstars when i clicked on this video, and thought jim was trolling me for a second
How much of the original development team of the original 2-3 Sonic games are even at Sonic Team still? I recently found out, that 4 out of the 5 original developers who made the very first Super Mario Bros. game on NES, also worked on Wonder (one can take an easy guess who the 1 absentee is).
I think that fact also shows how Mario has been consistent with its quality over the decades. Those who really know what made it special, still work on tese games to this very day.
Since Sonic 1? 0. But Naoto Ohshima worked on Superstars. Other than that, Sonic Team has 0 members left from Sonic 1. Takashi Iizuka and Jun Senoue are the longest-staying people that comes to mind, having worked on Sonic games since Sonic 3.
Sonic Frontiers 2 has such potential to be legitimately great, as long as the team is allowed to pursue it and shave off the rough edges. They'll probably drop the ball though