The Video Game Critic

As a fan of Sonic the Hedgehog, I am very concerned about its future. After the disastrous Rise of Lyric, it's gonna take something big to bring the franchise back to glory. But I think I have a solution: try something darker and more serious.

Now, I know what you're thinking: they already tried something like that in "Shadow the Hedgehog", and it didn't work out. But just because it didn't work before doesn't mean it isn't possible. In fact, I don't care if their next attempt is so dark that it gets an M rating. It's the execution that either makes or breaks a game, and if they manage to do something fresh while still staying true to the Sonic canon, it could lead to a very kick-@$$ game. I'd like to see a Sonic game with stronger story and character development as well as stronger intensity to make Sonic's struggle more interesting. With an idea like that, perhaps Sonic could finally be taken seriously again. I can only hope that Sega will make this vision in my head a reality and ultimately restore hope for my favorite character.

astrodomekid wrote:But I think I have a solution: try something darker and more serious.

astrodomekid wrote:It's the execution that either makes or breaks a game, and if they manage to do something fresh while still staying true to the Sonic canon, it could lead to a very kick-@$$ game.

Which one is going to start this comeback, making it dark or making it good? They seem to be more or less independent, even in the context of your post. In any case, why can't a Sonic game have "story and character development" without turning into some stone-faced, M-rated Metal Gear Solid wannabe? On top of their incoherence, what made Shadow the Hedgehog and Sonic '06 so laughable was that they tried to shoehorn that kind of storytelling into a world of primary-colored talking animals - it's impossible to take seriously something so tonally inappropriate. When Sonic plays to its strengths, it's a cartoon, whether in the over-the-top anime climax of Sonic 3 & Knuckles or in the self-aware humor of Sonic Colors; any time it pretends otherwise, it falls flat on its face. And as cartoons go, while an Up is a bit much to hope for, a Kung Fu Panda is certainly feasible - comical and exaggerated, but with high stakes and genuine emotion; it doesn't make a point of being serious, but it can certainly be taken seriously.

All that aside, regardless of what anyone posts on a forum, the developers of "Project 2017" have already decided what they want to do and have been working on it for several months now. The question is no longer open.

I never said that it has to be M-rated. It doesn't have to go overboard; it could still be something more mature without being too corny or over-the-top while still retaining some of the light-heartedness from traditional Sonic games. Also, when I said stronger story, character development, and intensity, I was thinking of something like what "Man of Steel" was going for (minus the flaws).

But perhaps I'm incapable of explaining it properly. If I could visually re-create that vision via a short animated film and upload it to YouTube, maybe then you would understand. But if they're going to make Sonic games the traditional way, the least they could do is improve on the voice acting to make it less corny and improve on the characters to make them more likable.

I don't think a mature Sonic game is going to solve Sonic's problems. In my opinion, Sonic's character and world wouldn't make sense with that kind of story. Sonic is basically a whimsical title so it would take a very talented writer to create a story that worked. Sega has proven time and time again that they are incapable of writing a good Sonic the Hedgehog story. Shadow the Hedgehog, Sonic 06, Sonic Boom, Sonic Adventure 2, the list goes on and on. If Sega is that terrible at writing a good story they should stick with what they are good at- creating fast paced levels and give Sonic fans what they want.

They could also: make sure the game had a consistent frame rate, had a camera that worked well, limited the game to either only Sonic or Sonic + 1 or 2 other characters (Tales/Knuckles), have stages with multiple paths and that emphasized speed and platforming, make sure Sonic has weight to his movement to help with momentum, give it 2D and 3D levels, have several boss fights that are races or involve high speed chases, remove all other characters Sonic characters from the game or limit their amount of exposure, return with bonus stages which make the player have to earn the Chaos Emeralds and make Super Sonic (Super Tales/Super Knuckles) all playable characters in the stages once completed, keep the story simple, remove Hub Worlds or if they are going to do Hub Worlds make them simple to navigate (with a map) with lots of things to do, possibly return with the Chao feature from SA1 and SA2.

I don't think anything I mentioned up there would be that hard to do. Sonic's problems over the last 15 years has had a lot to do with the Sonic Universe becoming too big, Sonic Team has tried to incoporate a ton of gimmicks into the games instead of simply giving fast gameplay and platforming, terrible camera angles at times, buggy gameplay, terrible stories with bad voice acting (really on the last few Sonic games have had good voice acting with most Sonic games prior to Sonic Generations being terrible), and so forth.

I like how Sega realizes that one game can't please all of the (extremely) fractured Sonic fandom and is instead releasing Sonic Mania and Project Sonic 2017 apparently within a few months of each other to make sure everyone is happy.

Personally, I'm a lot more excited for Sonic Mania than 2017 because it seems like the most Genesis-y Sonic game since...well, the actual Genesis games, not just in terms of graphics but also level design. The Sonic Advance/Rush games as well as Colors and Generations were decent, but their levels often felt more like interactive rollercoasters than the more platform-heavy levels of the Genesis games.

...Not to mention we still haven't seen any actual gameplay of 2017. What's up with that?

eneuman96 wrote:...Not to mention we still haven't seen any actual gameplay of 2017. What's up with that?

As far as I know, it's only about a third of the way into its development. I wouldn't expect to see anything until spring at the earliest.