Sonic the Hedgehog
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Currently playing Sonic Generations again. Best modern game, in my opinion. Yes, I even rank it higher than Mania!
I said I might muse a bit about Dreamcast Sonic so here we go.
As stated before, I grew up on classic Sonic, and I remember 98/99 being a very exciting time, when I first saw this teaser ad in a SEGA magazine:
You can imagine how excited I got as a kid, at what was clearly Sonic but with green eyes: Something big was on the way.
Then the screenshots and trailers started coming in, along with that hard rock opening of “Open Your Heart.” Multiple playable characters with their own story modes, and a full 3D environment which seemed to offer going anywhere you wanted. I was practically giddy. Of course, the final product didn’t quite live up to my expectations, but at the age of ten I could hardly care. I still thought Sonic Adventure was an amazing realization of the characters I spent innumerable hours playing as; better than any of the cartoons I had been watching. Sonic Adventure 2 excited me even more: It’s kinda weird to think about now, but there was a time a certain black hedgehog was new. It was inevitable that Sonic Team would eventually create a “Dark Sonic,” though, given that villainous versions of heroic characters are often popular and easily marketable (like Venom to Spider-Man, or NegaDuck to Darkwing Duck (I’m not the only one to remember that show, right?)).
Few people would know about Sonic Shuffle: A party spin-off game released between the Adventure games. It’s in much the same vein as the Mario party games (even made by the same developer), but with cards to move around the board instead of dice. Much like Sonic R, Shuffle is something of an oddball in the franchise with a love/hate divide amongst the fandom: A clumsy, inelegant spin-off where, if you don’t know what you’re doing, prepare to get ass-blasted by the cheating bastard AI which will smack you five times to Sunday. But if you can get past the insane difficulty curve, you can get some fun out of it. The main game requires some strategic planning and the mini-games are frantic. I’ve honestly enjoyed it playing with friends and having a good laugh even if we lose badly (and using the Dreamcast’s VMU screens (little memory cards with an LCDs screen that plug into the controller) to see your own cards is a nice touch).
Oh, and who could get forget these guys? Sonic Team should bring back the Chao Garden one day. Everyone wants it.
The Adventure games can be products of their time, yet there’s something about them which still make them my favorite era of Sonic. They don’t just represent the transition from the classic to the modern era: They had good storylines that were akin to shounen manga/anime and defined who these characters were. Most people love Adventure 2, but I’m more fond of the first one: Tails and Amy had good character arcs of building self-confidence and becoming self-sufficient. Gamma’s story is still heart-breaking. Sonic was a bit of a jerk, but with a heart of gold and never obnoxious. Knuckles could be naive, but he was headstrong, not stupid. And I liked Big; he provided a perspective of the story from outside of the main cast. Sonic’s world keeps changing with each game, and I found the world of Adventure 1 mysterious and intriguing. I honestly miss all of it (but don’t get me wrong, I’m not put off by anything that came after).
I don’t dislike the characters as they are now: I think their characteristics are just more exaggerated and less subtle, and it’s kind of a shame their character arcs were derailed in favor of preserving a status quo. That’s part of the reason why this series feels a bit stagnant right now. I’d happily have the writers of the Adventure duology come back. I liked Sonic Colours for what it was, but after Forces, I feel like we could do with a new team.
Feel like posting my own classic Sonic collection.
First, here’s my little SEGA shrine:
And here are my games of the SEGA hardware era:
I might post my modern Sonic collection later. But here are some additional bonuses: The 10th anniversary edition of Sonic Adventure 2, released exclusively in Japan (I remember seeing this in a Dreamcast magazine and begging my parents for it. They of course said no. Had to wait at least ten whole years before importing this little beauty myself). I also got the Sonic Adventure soundtrack in vinyl last year, to celebrate the game’s 20th anniversary (and picked up the Japanese soundtrack for Sonic CD while I was at it).
Getting around to finally posting my 2000’s/2010’s Sonic collection (I had a few other games, actually, including the GC ports of SA2: Battle and SA:DX. But I traded them in years ago).
And the 20th Anniversary edition of Sonic Generations, naturally.
As an added bonus, I have two great anniversary books I bought years ago: A 20th anniversary retrospective which covers the series up until Generations with interviews, character profiles an overview of every game in the series. A fantastic, high-quality piece which complemented the franchise until that point (and still a good reference book). And a 25th anniversary artbook which features almost all the official artwork and its evolution over the years.
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