Where did Sonic go Wrong?

[SonicFan47]

Title is the title of the article.

From IGN:

February 20, 2009 - Few gaming icons are as fashionable to scorn as Sonic the Hedgehog. Poking fun of werehogs is an easy sport, to be sure. But his last few adventures, including the recent Sonic Unleashed, have fallen short of his celebrated original run -- at least by reputation. Some critics claim Sonic never really survived the jump to 3D and exists today only on the fumes of nostalgic good will. Others think the trouble started much earlier, when Sonic raced along so fast that nobody noticed the ground had run out beneath his trademark red sneakers.

IGN Insider's Michael Thomsen goes so far to decree the whole franchise a sham from the beginning, saying "Our fondness for Sonic is a generational illusion."

Sonic in 1991
Sonic the Hedgehog was created by designer Naoto Oshima, now president of development studio Artoon. Oshima responded to a call from SEGA management wanting a mascot to replace Alex Kidd and compete with Nintendo's Mario, who was at the time synonymous with the entire videogame industry in the same way Pac-Man was in the early eighties. His hedgehog hero was picked from a number of competing designs and then assigned to Yuji Naka and Hirokazu Yasuhara as the central figure for a new action platformer series.

The big difference between Sonic and Mario was speed. SEGA even coined the marketing term "blast processing" to create an aura of performance that Super Mario World, the white-hot first Super NES entry in the Super Mario canon, could somehow not match. Other than the rocket ship velocity and an injection of "attitude" to make Sonic hipper than the comparatively staid Mario, the two games are really not all that dissimilar. Thomsen boils it does to this:

"You collect rings, stomp on enemies' heads, and fight a boss every now and again. You just do it at a faster speed than Mario. Instead of character altering powerups to give you a mulligan if you get hit by an enemy you just lose coins, er, rings."

Sonic was about one thing: speed.

If you go back now and play the original Sonic the Hedgehog for the Genesis, it is impossible to deny the essential truth to this. And it is doubtful SEGA would either. Sonic is a reactionary force to Mario. There are organic elements to his games, though. The villain, Dr. Robotnik (later Eggman), is a pretty clever riff on Teddy Roosevelt. The Chaos Emeralds that Sonic quests for just has a cool ring to it. The level design in the original game is especially strong, with well plotted stages full of exciting real estate, like the loops that Sonic races through when he's going full bore.

Regardless of the purity of intent behind Sonic the Hedgehog, SEGA fans ate it up to the tune of approximately four million copies. The original Sonic the Hedgehog was a massive success for the Genesis and the console's success in North America is rightfully attributed in large part to the embrace of the new mascot. Perhaps some of Sonic's success can be assigned to SEGA fans just wanting a mascot to glom on to and hold up to their Nintendo-owning friends in schoolyard videogame debates. But it was a bracing experience the first time you roared through a stage at full speed or brought down one of Robotnik's metal monsters.

Charles Onyett, editor on the IGN PC team remembers, "You ran incredibly fast while killing and collecting. If you played enough and learned all the paths through the stage, you'd collect better stuff while continuing to go really fast. Then you'd tell the story to your friends, talking about the ramps you sped up and around, of the shortcuts you'd found, overwhelmed with the thrill of it all. That's what Sonic was to me, that's why I loved it."

Tails
No surprise then that with millions of fans having a similar experience to Onyett, SEGA immediately powered forward with a sequel. Sonic the Hedgehog 2 appeared in late 1992, only a year after the franchise debuted. Sonic the Hedgehog 2 was an instant success, outselling the original game by almost two million units. By this point, the formula was set in cement and SEGA wasted zero time moving on to the inevitable Sonic the Hedgehog 3.

SEGA waited to release Sonic the Hedgehog 3 until 1994, bridging the gap instead with two Sonic spin-offs in 1993: Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine and Sonic Spinball. The extra development time was not necessarily used to alter the formula, though. Sonic the Hedgehog 3, save for a few exceptions like bonus stages, plays largely like the first game. And the sequel. In fact, the stage design in Sonic the Hedgehog 3 is not generally viewed as the strongest in the series.

I'm not gonna post the rest of the article as it would take up too much space,
But it can be viewed here: Page 1-http://retro.ign.com/articles/955/955741p1.html
                                       Page 2-http://retro.ign.com/articles/955/955741p2.html
                                       Page 3-http://retro.ign.com/articles/955/955741p3.html

Does this bug anyone else?

[Super Empra]

IGN are stupid.They even Sonic 06 a higher score than Sonic unleashed. They gave SA2 a higher score than SA2B when we all know SA2B is better.

[Shadow84786]

IGN are stupid.They even Sonic 06 a higher score than Sonic unleashed. They gave SA2 a higher score than SA2B when we all know SA2B is better.

IGN are stupid they do bad reviews on video games like Sonic Unleashed, you should look at the 360 review they did.

[revenger]

Yes, I agree, IGN are stupid.

[Shadow84786]

Yes, I agree, IGN are stupid.

They gave Sonic and the black knight a 3/10 and it didn't even come out yet.

[SonicFan47]

They gave Sonic and the black knight a 3/10 and it didn't even come out yet.

It didn't?
I thought that it came out on March 3rd for America (which was yesterday, when I found this on IGN.com)...

[Hakudamashi]

IGNorant

puns are made for a reason
lol look at the comments for that article XD
We are not alone 

[Skyle369]

IGN doesent use their brains enough.

[ChaosDazer]

Sonic didn't go wrong, Eggman just screwed him up for a bit.

[Tavy]

They gave Sonic and the black knight a 3/10 and it didn't even come out yet.

lol, IGN are such cheaters! XD Even more than mah!

[UberTails]

You do have to admit the 3D Sonic games have declined after the release of the sequel to Sonic Adventure, Sonic Adventure 2.

Nowadays, it's a mashed-up storybook adventure or something involving a werewolf/hedgehog mixbreed with horrendous RPG elements added.

Plus, Sonic Unleashed had made a disgrace to the 2D side-scroller name. Why? By inducing death-traps, fat robots firing undodgeable lasers, and making you swing off vines with physics that didn't match reality.

Yet this is all my opinion.

[NeoMetalSonic]

hopefully Sega will maybe sell Sonic to Nintendo so Nintendo can make good Sonic games

[Hakudamashi]

hopefully Sega will maybe sell Sonic to Nintendo so Nintendo can make good Sonic games

That is IGN's and ever other Game reviewers plot to make Nintendo even better and take over the gaming world

C'MON SEGA!!!!DON'T GIVE UP!!!!!!

[Super Empra]

That is IGN's and ever other Game reviewers plot to make Nintendo even better and take over the gaming world

C'MON SEGA!!!!DON'T GIVE UP!!!!!!

Nintendo have probably already done that with the Wii and DS. Its sells much more than any console including PS3 and 360 combined. SEGA are even going to publish one of the Wii's bestest games, The Conduit.

[Hakudamashi]

Nintendo have probably already done that with the Wii and DS. Its sells much more than any console including PS3 and 360 combined. SEGA are even going to publish one of the Wii's bestest games, The Conduit.

And who do we have to thank for that