Sonic The Hedgehog is Bad

*This is a reupload of my original article from BoneRobotGames.com May 29, 2020

We all want him to be cool.  We all desperately want the games to be good.  The unfortunate truth is they aren't.  Each time a new Sonic game comes out, it's like a bait and switch from whoever developed it.  Our ears perk up, and we collectively think "This is the one. They've done it. Look everyone, a new Sonic game.  This one has GOT to be good."  All of us Sonic fans are waiting, eager, frothing at the mouth for the feeling the original trilogy back on the Sega Genesis tricked us into having.  Even though every installment before was garbage.  We never learn our lesson.  We're all in an abusive relationship with Sonic, and I'm here to give us all an intervention.  It's time we accepted the truth.  Sonic the Hedgehog sucks. 

This feeling was brought on when I recently replayed Sonic Mania.  As I neared the end of the game, I was still having trouble with certain methods of traversal.  There are segments where you are running right-to-left.  If you go up a wall, and are running on the ceiling, you switch back to moving left-to-right, and your momentum shifts.  Every time this would happen I would press right, as I'm going right.  This would halt my momentum entirely and I would fall from the ceiling.  What does work, though, is pressing nothing at all when you get enough speed.  Which is also what Sonic Mania wants you to do for most of it.  During the entire last level, I felt like I was watching a demo play a Sonic level.  Sonic would run through a loop, bounce off of a spring, and land in some device, which would shoot him across the stage.  This went on for forever, while I sat there, not pressing any buttons.  Every once in a while I would have to run a little to build speed, or jump over an obstacle, but for the most part I was an observer as the game ran its course.  When I encountered a downhill section, I pressed down to turn into a ball, and the game did the rest.  With all this extra time to think as the game was playing out without my input, I was finally slapped in the face with the fact that Sonic is not good, and it nearly never has been.  

Every mechanic in a Sonic game besides the base platforming was designed to play the game for you.  The idea of Sonic's speed has never been mastered.  Spindash moves entirely too fast to know what's coming.  Next time you are playing a retro Sonic or Sonic Mania, find a ramp that you need to spindash up and tell me what happens next.  It either ends the ramp and you have to land and start running again, or it sends you through a series of design segments that require no input from the player whatsoever.  You are carried through hills and valleys, waterways and roundabouts, loop-de-loops and cannons; all mechanics that send you flying with no control.   You can't backtrack on the steep inclines, and there would be no point in doing that.  If you wanted to take a different route, you have to play the level again, memorizing specific pathways.  There are many design choices that make you memorize what is happening in order to succeed.  You are running down a pathway, and suddenly the floor drops away beneath you, and you are sent down a different path.  There is no way to know this was happening until it happens to you.  It's not so bad when it's just a few missed coins or a power-up.  I don't agree with the choice, but I understand using some elements for players who want to go back and try it again.  What I cannot excuse is when this leads to damage or death to the character.  Spike traps being placed in unavoidable spots or popping up from out of sight.  Springs that plunge you into enemies before you can see them.  Enemies with a weakness only on their far side, forcing you to take damage if you're moving too fast to react to their placement.  Not only are you spending most of the game flying around speedy segments without any control, if you aren't actively trying to avoid things you can't see or know about, you're going to get your momentum halted anyway.  This is entirely by design, by virtue of rings representing your health.  Since you lose all of your rings when you are hit, but you only need to continue catching a single ring over and over, you can technically be hit indefinitely.  In order to provide challenge to a player, they need to throw enough stuff at you that you lose all of your rings, and you are on the cusp of a final hit death.  This is true for all side-scrolling Sonic games, not just Mania.  Mania was a callback to older Sonic games, and while they really captured a glorious, nostalgic feeling with the look and the music, they also unfortunately captured the essence of older Sonic games with it as well.  The essence of a bad game. 

After having such a terrible revelation with Sonic Mania, I decided to go back to Sonic Generations, as I had fond memories of it.   When it released in 2011 I remember being enthralled.  It felt like a blend of the old and the new; updated,  fresh, fun.  My memories tricked me, however, as I soon found out it belonged in the garbage like all the rest.  It did have the same tendencies, which must be a subconscious trick by every different Sonic developer.  The first level or two feel great.  It's fun and quick and shiny and new.  Before long you realize you aren't having fun and it's actually a mess.  Sonic Generations is the worst of both worlds.  In the classic 2D worlds of Generations you are met with inane obstacles, almost immediately.  You speed through the level and then suddenly stop.  Your progress is blocked entirely by a vertical section.  This wouldn’t be so bad as a concept, as it does a decent job of being a platformer, but Sonic himself kinda controls like garbage when you aren’t moving insanely quickly. He’s not snappy and responsive, and very floaty and weird. The change hits you like a brick as you're forced to tediously find the proper path to the top.  Stop, turn around, jump up, wait for a pendulum platform to swing your way, jump on it, jump to the next one, stop, turn again, jump straight up a few times, bounce off an enemy, hit a spring, then start running again.  The fluidity is removed entirely in lieu of a painfully dull climbing section.  At some point in development, it was decided that Sonic, the fast hedgehog, who we are told the games are entirely built around his speed, should have to stop entirely and even stand still in every single level for extended amounts of time.  Traversing levels is not fun, but monotonous, and downright slow.  However, that makes it an accurate representation of the original Sonic games, unfortunately.  

Then a 3D level comes along with modern Sonic.  Just when you thought Sonic couldn't get stale enough. In the 3D installments, speed is translated to mean “completely on rails.”  You are greeted with a boost mechanic, powered by your ring collection.  You boost through the level, going so fast that nothing can hurt you and almost no obstacles can stop you. Until they decide they want an obstacle to stop you, and you hit a 90 degree angle and a completely vertical wall.  Then you use your homing attack to target enemies or springs automatically by pressing a single button over and over again, then you hit boost as soon as you reach flat ground.  Where is the gameplay? There is no challenge except for the badly designed game, the imprecise movement of Sonic in the air, and the poorly designed levels.  My disappointment was immense. The bonus levels they add in Generations, for extra unlocks and sometimes progress, are embarrassing and disrespectful.  You are dropped into a slightly modified section of one of the same levels and zones, only it's a smaller segment and there are quirky challenges you must do to complete it.  Things like a time trial against Knuckles or having to navigate through a spike section without running out of invincibility.  They would be more interesting as actual levels, but here I’m already bored of playing it once, and they make me do it again.  

There was a time when Sonic was considered Mario's rival. Now let’s take a look at Mario games.  Every one a classic.  Every on outstanding.  It's hard to find a bad Mario game among the lot of them, and each new main installment on a system was groundbreaking and incredible.  All of them hold up very well from NES days, and are still viable and playable today.  I can't even play my favorite Sonic games without hating them.

All of us Sonic fans are blindly pretending there is substance to these games.  I chose the pinnacle of Sonic games to talk about and there is a plethora of problems with them.  I didn't even touch on the sub-par story, the horrible characterization of Sonic and his friends, and the absolutely abysmal gameplay of the lesser Sonic games, and yes, that includes Sonic Adventure and Sonic 06.  Even the Sonic movie was terrible.  There is this strange phenomenon where Sonic games are being churned out consecutively even though they are never innovating, groundbreaking, or even decent games.  The fandom alone is somehow keeping Sonic alive through each psychotic iteration.  I'm here to please beg Sonic fans to understand me.  Let's put him out of his misery.  It's okay, it'll be better for all of us.  Sonic The Hedgehog is bad.