Sonic Unleashed came in as another in the long line of attempts for Sega to freshen up the Sonic name with some all-new gameplay. In that one, he occasionally turns into a "werehog" and bashes up the scenery with stretchy Plastic Man arms. I played a meaningful chunk of it, and I sort of hate it. It reminded me that I've sort of hated almost every "new" Sonic game that's come along since Sonic Adventure on the Dreamcast, and even that was only really a novelty due to the newness of polygonal Sonic. "Boy," I kept thinking, "Sega sure doesn't seem to be able to capture what made Sonic fun back on the Genesis." Sure, I'm not the first to think this way. It's pretty much become the standard mantra for players in a certain age range. We remember the original Sonic. He was edgy, he was fast, the games were simple but fun. But I was also 15 when the game was originally released. And in the 16-bit era, "edgy" meant "he impatiently taps his foot when you don't move." Standards were way, way lower.
The more I think about it, the more I wonder what we all saw in those Sonic games. It was a simpler time. That's about all I've got. So why does Sega keep trying to push out more Sonic games? Well, the answer's probably pretty simple: Sonic isn't for me. It hasn't been for quite some time. While those of us who remember the early days keep expecting the series to grow up alongside us, Sonic has been squarely aimed at its core market--kids--all along.
Check this video out.
This kid loved Sonic so much that he wanted a hedgehog as a pet. When he discovered that his city made owning a hedgehog illegal, he spent like three years fighting to get the hedgehog ban overturned. He succeeded and the local news covered it. At first I totally knee-jerked and thought this kid was pretty pathetic for putting so much excitement into such a lame game character. Then I remembered that kids of that age probably primarily know Sonic from the cartoons that have been pumped out alongside the games for years. This kid probably totally digs Sonic Unleashed.
Actually, you know what? That's probably going a bit too far. With its frustrating camera and convoluted overworld, I'd have a hard time believing that anyone actually really loves Sonic Unleashed. But if I try to at least consider this kid's crazy level of fandom, the game at least makes a little more sense. I'm not outraged by its very existence or anything like that.
Of course, there's a danger to what I'm saying, because you could argue that I'm making the assumption that kids don't know any better when it comes to good and bad games, or that they aren't as good at games as, say, I am. For the record, I think that kids who play a lot of games probably know the difference between good and bad, but if they're anything like I was back then, they'd rather play a bad game than no game. Also, being a fan of a property can go a long way, regardless of age. If you were some kid who was way into the Sonic cartoon or something, you could probably look past a lot of Unleashed's flaws. But then, I'm guessing. Because just about the last thing I want to do right now is watch a Sonic the Hedgehog cartoon.
To that end, I think I'm going to stop playing Sonic Unleashed. Kids' games really aren't our specialty around here, and writing one more review that says "HEY GUESS WHAT THIS SONIC GAME PRETTY MUCH TOTALLY SUCKS AND WHILE I'M AT IT LET'S TALK ABOUT HOW MANY THINGS I REMEMBER FROM SONIC CD" doesn't do anyone any good. But, for the record... hey, guess what? This Sonic game pretty much totally sucks. And while I'm at it, let's talk about how many things I remember from Sonic CD. It was awesome. And you could travel through time. And it was the last truly great Sonic game for most people of our relative age group.
So to those of you who keep spending valuable blog time trying to "save" Sonic with a bunch of "great ideas about how Sega should reboot this ailing franchise," just get over it. It's a lost cause. Sure, the games should be a better than they are, but it seems totally obvious to me that they're not even attempting to reach players who remember the original games in the series.
As an aside, Brad just pointed out to me that Mario games are still good. My response to that is that Sega isn't Nintendo. With stuff like Super Mario Galaxy, Nintendo is living the glorious Disney dream of making products that appeal to new players while scratching the nostalgia itch in all of us who grew up with Mario games. To expect that to be the norm--especially from a company that's changed as much as Sega has since the 90s--is straight-up crazy.