I'm a Nintendo guy. I always will be. Even as the Xbox 360 in my house receives more and more attention from me, I find that if I want a good, solid fun time, Nintendo is always there for me. Halo and Gears of War are both fantastic, and I'll continue to be fans of each, but Super Mario, The Legend of Zelda, and Metroid have a certain uniqueness, style, and way about them that isn't just great game design, it's also fun game design.
Sonic the Hedgehog used to have that. In ways, Sonic did some of those things better than Nintendo did them. I'm scared to actually type some of these things, but they must be typed. Sonic games have a way of presenting themselves that is just plain polished in ways that some Nintendo games, or any game actually, are not.
Sonic the Hedgehog was always about running really fast and looking really cool doing it. The environments, music, and baddies all added to that. The worlds had depth, even though the games were 2 dimensional. As Sonic raced through each act of each zone, the backgrounds moved in layers, creating a sense of a third dimension that isn't there. When the player made Sonic do an about face, he didn't just reverse his sprite. Sega had animation frames of him actually turning around, but did so in way that it didn't break up that feeling of speed. Enemies would come from the background and foreground to attack. There were story telling elements form one act to another. In fact, Sonic 2 ends right into the beginning of Sonic 3, which ends right into the beginning of Sonic and Knuckles. There was a sense of continuity. These were all things that, up until recently, Nintendo was not doing. Nintendo was and still is making phenomenal games that are beautiful to look at, listen to, and play in ways that Sonic the Hedgehog never has been. But likewise, Sonic the Hedgehog is great in ways Nintendo games are not.
Then, weird stuff started to happen. Well, it was already happening, it just hadn't really affected anything yet. You see, with Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Sega introduced Tails, Sonic's two-tailed fox friend. Tails could inexplicably run just as fast as Sonic (the fastest thing alive?). He really only existed to make Sonic the Hedgehog 2 a co-op game where player 1 played as Sonic and player 2 was your little brother who your mother forced you to include. If there was no input form controller 2, Tails was controlled by the CPU. Tails was often left behind, as the camera focused only on Sonic. However, Tails would fly back into frame, using his two tails as a helicopter propeller of sorts, as long as Sonic stood still long enough. Tails could be played by player 1 as a single player alternative (Sonic could also be played by player 1 with no presence of Tails), and this literally changed nothing about the game except for the sprite swap.
Sega expanded on this idea in Sonic the Hedgehog 3, making Tails an infinitely more useful character. Sonic could actually grab onto Tails while Tails was in flight, gaining access to otherwise inaccessible areas in each act. Tails could also be played as player 1, with access to those same areas that are inaccessible to someone playing as Sonic alone. It was a nice touch that encouraged cooperation between two players. There were even areas that were completely inaccessible by both characters, which wouldn't be revealed until the follow-up to Sonic the Hedgehog 3.
Sonic and Knuckles expanded on the alternate character idea even more. Originally planned as part of Sonic 3, Sonic and Knuckles picks up right where Sonic 3 left off and allows you to play as Sonic's enemy from the previous game, Knuckles. The game reveals that Dr. Robotnik is using Knuckles as a pawn, and Sonic and Knuckles eventually team up against their common enemy. The cartridge was designed to allow you to piggyback other Genesis cartridges on top of it, more specifically Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and 3. Adding Sonic 2 merely added the ability to pay through the game as Knuckles, which really made the game awkward, as Knuckles doesn't jump as high as Sonic or Tails, making some ledges nearly impossible to get over. Knuckles' ability to climb walls helped, but it was still weird. Sonic 3 is where this feature shines, as playing as Knuckles reveals portions of the story not previously revealed in Sonic 3 and grants you access to those aforementioned inaccessible areas of Sonic 3.
Then, Sonic kind of disappeared for a while. He had some spin off games such as Sonic R(acing) and Sonic 3-D Blast, but none of them were really Sonic games. He was just in them. Sort of like how Star Fox Dinosaur Planet for GameCube is a fine game, it's just not StarFox. Anyway, Sonic had been laying low while Mario was making his gorgeous transition into the third dimension. Then, three years after Super Mario 64 wrote the book on 3D gaming, Sega revealed the Sega Dreamcast and Sonic Adventure. Sonic had made the jump to 3D. It was fast. The music was rocking. The graphics were beautiful. The game was only 1/6 Sonic running around a looking cool while the other 5/6's were dedicated to weird friends they made up not running around looking cool. The levels were varied and lush just like before. Wait... friends not running fast? What's this all about?
The parts of Sonic Adventure that were all Sonic were great. The transition to 3D wasn't as easy for Sonic as it was for Mario. Controlling something moving that fast in all 360 degrees is difficult and a little clumsy the first time around. But, overall, it was satisfying. The problem with Sonic Adventure was that there were 5 other characters who's stories must be played out before Sonic can become Super Sonic and challenge Perfect Chaos, this game's main enemy. They were boring and incredibly out of place. And the overworld that Sega had created (think Princess Peach's Castle in Super Mario 64) was set in a human world and offered zero direction for where each of the new zones were located. It was a mess.
Sonic fans, such as myself, cried foul. Sega listened and gave us Sonic Adventure 2. It had twice the amount of running fast and looking cool doing it that Sonic Adventure had (via a new character Shadow the Hedgehog, who brings nothing to the series and should not exist and his levels should have been set aside as more Sonic levels) plus twice as many crappy characters who do nothing but break up the action. Oh, and they eliminated the overworld hub. So, twice as much of what we wanted out of Sonic Adventure, plus twice as much of what we didn't want out of Sonic Adventure.
Sega tried making it up to us by not making it up to us in the form of Sonic Heroes, Sonic and the Black Knight (really?), Sonic Unleashed (introducing the Warehog!) and the awful reboot, 2006's Sonic the Hedgehog, where Sonic becomes part of a bestialital relationship with a human being. It's so gross I had to make up a word to describe it.
By this point, most of us, myself included really didn't care much anymore. We were happy to see him make various cameos, most notably as a playable character in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, but it's not like we were expecting anything. Then, Sega showed us this:
Suddenly, we were willing to explore the idea of forgiving all of Sega's previous sins. Sonic was returning to his side scrolling roots and it looked beautiful. Even better, when it finally released on XBLA, PSN, WiiWare, and iOS, it managed to deliver what was promised. A lot of fans found things to complain about, such as the inclusion of 3D Sonic's homing attack, but the flaws were incredibly minor. It wasn't perfect, but it made the last decade of stupid Sonic games that don't follow Sonic running fast and looking cool doing it begin to fade into obscurity.
Sometime afterward, this was dropped on us.
Remember, 3D Sonic wasn't what was wrong with Sonic Adventure or Sonic Adventure 2. It was everything else. Sonic Generations promised to use weird plot lines to combine the goodness of Classic Sonic with Modern Sonic, while improving on each. Having played through all of this game, I can assure you it did just that. It's far from perfect, but if you want to run fast and look cool doing it, you should definitely look into Sonic Generations for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Nintendo 3DS.
My relationship with Sonic the Hedgehog has been a rocky one. If you've liked video games for as long as I have, you probably know exactly how I feel. But I am happy to say that the Hedgehog is back in all his Blue Blur glory. The release of Sonic CD in HD this past week is helping restore that former glory. Go and bask in what you once knew.
Toot Toot Sonic Warrior!
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