Sonic The Hedgehog Games

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Which game do you play the most in Sonic Mega Collection?

  • Sonic 1

    Votes: 28 4.5%
  • Sonic 2

    Votes: 112 18.1%
  • Sonic 3 and Knuckles

    Votes: 245 39.6%
  • Sonic 3D Blast

    Votes: 23 3.7%
  • Sonic Spinball

    Votes: 24 3.9%
  • Dr. Robotnik's Meanbean Machine

    Votes: 89 14.4%
  • they're all good in my opinion

    Votes: 98 15.8%

  • Total voters
    619
Are the characters in the game supposed to be dead-silent during races? I've found that the banter between characters triggers very infrequently, even with the rival characters.
 
You mean the Sonic Cycle meme?
I forgot it was specifically about the Sonic and Mario movies. For the life of me I cannot find a clean version of the pic.

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>something is delayed, therefore it will be bad
Do sonic fans really?
Their collective memory is like that of a goldfish. Paramount had to delay the first Sonic movie and redo the CG work after the disaster that was their initial Sonic design.

On the other hand, this is a comic making fun of Sonic fans and probably isn't true. If there's one thing people want for Sonic games, it's for them to be delayed so that they can at least be 70% finished upon release.
 
Mario Kart isn't even a mainline game. It can be argued that the series gets treated as an honorary mainline game because all the hype around it, but it's still a side game when the next real Mario game is announced. Sonic winning one over on the side isn't much the grand scheme of things.
You know we're in topsy-turvy world when a new Mario Kart cannot compete with a Sega kart racer. Nintendo is losing their touch.
 
>More faithful
The plot isn't evolved around Mario saving Peach from Bowser doe.
The plot of the film is revolved around Mario saving Luigi from Bowser. Which is just Mario is missing but with Mario and Luigi's roles swapped. Plus Mario does save Peach from Bowser in the third act.
 
As the story goes, Sega of Japan and Sega of America were at war. How much that war has been exaggerated by books like “Console Wars” is not currently known, but there was at least some amount of real tension between the two branches and it sounds like Sega of America started to overstep their boundaries by some amount.

So from day one there’s kind of been this in-built notion of “Sega of Japan knows best.” You go back to something like Segagaga on the Dreamcast, and that game puts forth the idea that their stand-in for Sega of America’s Tom Kalinske nearly killed Sega. Even Console Wars paints Sonic Team as sick and tired of Sega of America’s demands.

The real eras of Sonic, from the way I see them:

  • Genesis Era: Sega of Japan realizes they need a mascot on the same level of popularity as Mario. They ditch Alex Kidd, run an internal competition, and Naoto Ohshima of Sega AM8 wins. AM8 explores several concepts and lands on Sonic the Hedgehog, a bad boy rockstar. The newly restructured Sega of America has some feedback to file down Sonic’s roughest edges, but it’s not what AM8 (now called Sonic Team) really wants. Unfortunately, the retooled Sonic catches fire in America (and later the UK), dealing a major blow to Sonic Team’s agency over the character. In every game, every request from Sega of America makes Sonic a bigger and bigger star in everywhere but Japan. Sonic sells just okay in Japan, but is nowhere near the wildfire success of English speaking territories.
  • Saturn Era: Sega of Japan guts Sega of America from the inside out, and free from Tom Kalinske’s influence, effectively says “Who needs Sonic, anyway?” Another competition is held, this time bringing three games to market: Astal, Bug!, and Clockwork Knight. Whoever sells the most is Sega’s new mascot. All three games fail to make a meaningful dent. Fortunately for Sega of Japan, the Saturn is selling better than the Genesis did, so they double back and launch “Project Sonic”, an effort to re-educate Japan on Sonic the Hedgehog. This leads to the release of Sonic Jam. Sonic R and the Saturn port of Sonic 3D Blast are inducted into Project Sonic later, even though they weren’t originally part of it.
  • Dreamcast Era: Part of the reason for “Project Sonic” was due to the fact Takashi Iizuka had an idea for a “Sonic & Knuckles RPG.” In Japan, the “RPG” genre is slightly different from what most of us think of it, and that leads to Sonic Adventure. The Japanese market still struggles to care about Sonic the Hedgehog. So, “Sonic Team USA” is formed in San Francisco, where Sonic Adventure 2, Sonic Heroes, Billy Hatcher and Shadow the Hedgehog are developed. Despite being in the heart of their biggest consumer base, Sonic Team USA slides deeper into a slump, thanks in part to poor working conditions handed down from Sega of Japan. And remember: this was still in the early days of “global communication,” so things were probably tougher than you may think.
  • Gamecube Era: I sort of feel like this is another attempt to have Sonic break in to Japan. Particularly with the launch of Sonic X, which in retrospect was Sonic Team getting to flex a lot of ideas they planned for the games but had to cut. Of course, it struggled to catch on in Japan, and ended up being ten times more successful in America, where 4Kids funded an entire third season and the show stayed in constant reruns for ten straight years.
  • Xbox 360 Era: The transition to the Xbox 360 was rough on a lot of Japanese developers. This was the era of western dominance in games, and it hit more than just Sega really hard. Namco, Konami, Capcom, everyone struggled. This era not only gave us Sonic 06, but it featured Sega of America taking a bit of a swing again. From what I understand, Sonic 4 started out as a simple little phone game and somebody from Sega of America pushed to make it into a bigger deal. That “bigger deal” became one of the most hated Sonic games in the franchise. Thanks, Sega of America.
  • Wii U Era: Once again, Sega of Japan flounders (Sonic Lost World), tees up Sega of America (Sonic Boom), and once again, Sega of America’s end of the deal is the bigger disaster – though largely due to circumstances thrust upon it from Sega of Japan (and, technically, Nintendo).
  • PS4 Era: Thanks to a long shot twist of fate starting with Sonic 4, we receive Sonic Mania. Sonic Mania is a group of English-speaking Sonic fans showing Sega what they like about Sonic the Hedgehog. It goes on to become the highest rated Sonic game since 1994. Sega of Japan gives us Sonic Forces at the same time.
  • PS5 Era: Talks apparently break down for Sonic Mania 2 (I still say Evening Star knew what they were worth and Sega wouldn’t pay it), so a favor is called in and Naoto Ohshima gets to make another Sonic game for the first time in 20+ years. Like a lot of Sonic output since 1994, it feels undercooked and rushed. Meanwhile, we get Sonic Frontiers, a game that people technically like… but was also clearly built out of rushed, undercooked table scraps.
Throughout all of this, I would say xenophobia is a strong word. Sonic Mania was kind of a miracle. and I doubt we’ll ever see that kind of thing repeated. Sega is pretty fast and loose with the Sonic franchise, but not fast and loose enough to just trust a small indie team to make a new Sonic game whole cloth like that again. Sonic Mania happened because of five or six years of slowly building trust, and the way that door opened to begin with was purely an accident.

Takashi Iizuka does sort of recognize that America is where Sonic matters the most, at least. He moved back to America during the production of Sonic Mania, and he’s still living here as far as I’m aware.

Anyway, I’d never say that Sonic being popular in the west makes Sega angry. Sega likes money, and good business is still money in their pockets. I maintain that Sega of Japan doesn’t (and maybe never) understood what was good about Sonic. Even from the very beginning, what they wanted Sonic to be and what made Sonic a success were slightly different ideas. I fully believe that if Sonic Team got to go ahead with the rockstar Sonic idea they originally pitched, we probably wouldn’t be talking about Sonic like this right now.

And the thing to ultimately keep in mind is that Sega can only do what Sega knows how to do. It’s not even necessarily their fault; they can only be themselves. They are a Japanese company, they are making games from that cultural perspective. It’s just… that’s a company that constantly drops the ball on things they don’t “get.”

It’s been my long standing belief that they drop that ball because Sonic is successful in spite of Sega of Japan’s mishandling of it. Which just confuses Sega even more, because they can’t approximate what people like about Sonic. So they just kind of try their best, keep doing what they’re doing, and hope everything works out.

Because that’s what you do in business. If the goose is laying golden eggs, you don’t mess with it. You don’t have to understand why it’s laying golden eggs, you just have to understand to leave it alone until it’s finished.

So I imagine somebody at Sega of Japan is like “I think your work is bad and I don’t understand it, but whatever you do, don’t stop.”

And, as I understand it, sometime around Sonic Generations, sales began to slump. Those golden eggs started getting smaller. Hence the need for Sonic Boom, right? A refresh. A shot in the arm. A way to bounce back. Shackled to a platform most people didn’t like. Following a game that, according to rumors, bombed worse than any Sonic game has ever bombed.

The fear set in. Sonic Forces could not be a money pit they threw cash into. They had to turn things around. Some way. Some how.

Sonic Mania was a surprise. They rushed to get Sonic Mania Plus out to squeeze more blood from the stone. They tried to get those guys back to do a sequel, but talks broke down. They had to try something new… and on a budget.

Running a business and what to approve and disapprove involves a lot more consideration than you’d think and a lot more fear of messing up a good thing. That’s not to say Sega did the right thing and didn’t mess a lot of things up, but it’s easy to see how they could get confused about what people want and how to best serve them.
 
Saturn Era: Sega of Japan guts Sega of America from the inside out, and free from Tom Kalinske’s influence, effectively says “Who needs Sonic, anyway?” Another competition is held, this time bringing three games to market: Astal, Bug!, and Clockwork Knight. Whoever sells the most is Sega’s new mascot. All three games fail to make a meaningful dent. Fortunately for Sega of Japan, the Saturn is selling better than the Genesis did, so they double back and launch “Project Sonic”, an effort to re-educate Japan on Sonic the Hedgehog. This leads to the release of Sonic Jam. Sonic R and the Saturn port of Sonic 3D Blast are inducted into Project Sonic later, even though they weren’t originally part of it.
>Sega of Japan guts Sega of America from the inside out, and free from Tom Kalinske’s influence, effectively says “Who needs Sonic, anyway?”
>"Who needs Sonic, anyway?"

What the fuck is this asshole talking about? This is the first time I'm hearing about this, and if that was really true, then why would they go through the trouble of Sonic MARS, or even Xtreme? Which, btw, I noticed is never mentioned once in that word vomit of an article.

>so they double back and launch “Project Sonic”, an effort to re-educate Japan on Sonic the Hedgehog
I refuse to believe this. I know Sonic was loved more in America, but Japan couldn't have been THAT stupid that they needed a "re-educating" about sonic the fucking hedgehog.

>Sonic R and the Saturn port of Sonic 3D Blast are inducted into Project Sonic later, even though they weren’t originally part of it.
Yea, but not for the reason you listed. It's because Sonic Xtreme was such a disaster behind-the-scenes that Sega went into panic mode and had to release a sonic SOMETHING to their new console that didn't have anything sonic related, especially anything NEW sonic related.

I get the Saturn wasn't as popular as Sega's other consoles, but for fuck sakes, if you're going to talk about it, at least get your history and research correct.
 
>so they double back and launch “Project Sonic”, an effort to re-educate Japan on Sonic the Hedgehog
I refuse to believe this. I know Sonic was loved more in America, but Japan couldn't have been THAT stupid that they needed a "re-educating" about sonic the fucking hedgehog.
This seems to be true. Sonic wiki has a page on it.
The purpose of the company project that would become known as Project Sonic was to increase the awareness of the Sonic the Hedgehog series among the people of Japan.[1] Despite the commercial successes of the Sonic the Hedgehog series' first couple of main titles in Western territories, the series was given less attention in Japan. Sega's then 32-bit console, the Sega Saturn, proved to be popular in Japan, but suffered in America and Europe due to a poor launch. As such, Project Sonic was established to increase the number of Sonic titles on this system.[citation needed]
(July 1997). Saturn Power. "Saturn Power: What can you tell us about Project Sonic? / Yuji Naka/Naoto Oshima: Initially this project started as a company project. One of the games which the Sonic Team did was Jam. This game's been written for people who've never played a Sonic game before. When we made NiGHTS we received a lot of letters asking us what the Sonic Team was and who Sonic was. That's why we started this project; we wanted to introduce those people to Sonic.
It's not exactly far-fetched. The Mega Drive did really poorly in Japan, so Sonic didn't sell that well in absolute terms despite selling well for a Mega Drive game. For reference, Super Mario World was the 2nd best selling Super Famicom game in Japan at 3,550,000 copies sold. Sonic the Hedgehog was the 3rd best selling mega Drive game in Japan at 230,000 copies sold.
 
I forgot it was specifically about the Sonic and Mario movies. For the life of me I cannot find a clean version of the pic.

View attachment 7982216
Going to write some ideas on some of my thoughts on the Mario Movie, Mario fanbase and Nintendo as a whole.

The Mario Movie is like the Avatar Movie series, aka a significant success despite leaving no impact.​

  • The movie does financially well but has no cultural impact (unless you consider that horrid DK redesign as impact).
  • No one would say this movie is their favorite or that it is memorable
  • The plot is generic and an amalgam of ideas around its time of production.
    • Avatar: Produced and written during the height of Climate/Environmentalist movies like the Inconvient Truth, The Day after Tomorrow, The Happening, etc... where Western society is killing the world and we have to learn from noble savages and live with the land in peace thus he splashed Running with Wolves into it.
    • (I had to look up if it was a 2010s movie because it feels like it, with some of the major plot elements drawing from that age. Like girl-boss Peach that solos Bowser, loser Mario/Male lead, subverting expectations by taking one of the Mario Bros. Lugi and not making him a part of the plot at all, etc...).
  • The movie on release was considered a "Theme park ride" and the advice was the turn off your brain and watch pretty colors. While this would be an insult to normal patrons and customers, Nintendo does have a fan base that regularly consumes this type of content.
  • They are unironically given the adivce to be pic related and this was NOT seen as an insult to Nintendo/Mario fans.
sped-light-cubes.gif



Mario and Nintendo Fans issues (Toxic Positivity, Arrested development, docile nature, and a hate of competition)​

Mario fans​

  • Mario "fans" seemly do not care for his degradation from a character (with emotional range, flaws, edge, spunk, likes and dislikes) into a brand mascot (look at Wonderunironic BING BING WAHOO! being his core character trait front and center).
    • The Fans of Mario do not care about Mario, the world, the characters, story, etc... They are fine with the removal of all personality from all media, games, rpgs, movies, etc... as that is not what they see when they engage with Mario.
    • What his fans see when engaging with Mario is their Childhood and escapism and arrested development to the extreme.
  • Every NEW game is the best game.
    • Mario Oddessy being a forgettable experience with an overload on unremarkable copy paste moons.
    • Mario Sunshine's
    • Mario Rpg's nee


Nintendo fans​

Toxic positivity / Arrested Development​

  • Every game needs to be spammed everywhere like Deltatroons they MUST spread the gospel about the newest Nintendo game.
    • Usually this tamps down after release when they are inevitably disappointed, but with buyer's remorse and no refund method they'll still defend their purchase with fanfictions how "DLC that MIGHT HAPPEN that are IN MY HEAD will save this game!!!"
  • From Defending
    • NSO and lies about using dedicated servers for games like Smash/Splatoon etc...
    • Multi-tier subscriptions
    • DLC practices that cut content from release to resell day 1 or 1 month later. (BOTW and Pokemon for example)
    • Online expierence behind contemporaries. No real party chat, invite system, achievements, etc...
    • Removal of Nintendo Gold rewards for buying games.
    • Nintendo's Phone app being their solution to voice chat.
    • INTRODUCING $80 GAMES!
  • I know that many of you will say, "Oh but they did hate that and critic it!" That is what they do but because of the below point none of that matters.

Docile Nature (Rolling over and taking it).​

  • Every time you see Nintendo fans get up in arms about how their favorite Company is Evil, removing value, selling re-releases at full prices, removing fan games, rom sites, emulators, etc...
    • They are late to the party: With the issues and alarm bells being sounded by people long ago for many of their current issues, Nintendo fans have no foresight, no context besides the present moment. They simply do not care until it affects them and refuse to look at actions taken by Nintendo to their logical conclusion.
    • They can be fairly vocal on the issue.....for a very short period of time. They very quickly accept the current bad situation of things and say that they are "hopeful" for things to get better because like children they had a tantrum for a moment and expect things to change once they calm down.
  • They never once follow up in their actions. Boycotts, call to cancel subs, get into non-Nintendo properties, try other games, etc...
  • Unlike Sonic fans Nintendo fans will NEVER let a game they are disatified with fail.
    • For example lets use Sonic vs Pokemon
      • Sonic Forces, Lost World, Team Sonic Racing and Superstars (Also everything about the real Sonic dark age. "The Meta Age":
        • Were seen as subpar to bad experiences.
        • These issues were pointed out early and re-examined to be true or worse upon release of the games.
        • Sonic fans held onto their money and made their dissatisfaction with the state of things clear.
        • They did not buy the game/media due to it being "Sonic"
        • This caused Sega to reconsider the state of the franchise once they were rewarded with doing good with the movies and making REAL changes to the state of things. (Like firing that Sonic Twitter guy that constantly shitted on Sonic's own franchise and Egoraptor for funny examples).
        • Now Sonic fans reward Sega with purchasing and spreading good word of mouth about their recent releases while still critiquing what doesn't work.
      • Pokemon
        • Has had constant embarrassments like:
          • Graphics
          • National Dex Cut
          • Home subscriptions
          • Less content in their remakes
          • Completely BROKEN games.
          • Trans/unisex/Woke redesigns of the Pokemon humans to look uglier across the series, (Pokemon Go, Scarlet and Violet, etc...)
          • And a clear hatred of their own fanbase by the developers.
          • Clear removal of launch day content to resell as DLC soon after launch.
          • Pay-to-win DLC.
          • Suing Palworld and Patent abuse.
          • The clear injection of DEI with gender neutral clothing, gay/trans characters, etc...
        • Despite this each Pokemon game sets new records with each release out performing the last. They refuse to let their games fail and teach Gamefreak/Nintendo that they are not going to eat the slop (they will).

Hate of Competition​

  • From Suing Palworld, Patent Abuse, C&D of fan remakes ASMR2, Rom site destruction, emulator C&Ds, etc...
  • Nintendo does not want to compete against anything that may cause people to compare their output with what other companies/fans do.
  • Every time Nintendo fights one of these battles they do not win due to offering a better product, (Oh ASMR2 is good, we should make our remake BETTER to compete) instead they try to destroy the competition using their size and money to remove the available choices for the consumer.
  • Like the Mafia their fans and themselves use imtidation tactics.
    • Think how many times FANS have reported:
      • fan games,
      • charities
      • fan art
      • rom sites
      • decomps
      • etc...
    • And they do with with glee to defend their multi billion dollar corporation.
    • When Pokemon fans saw people boycott their new games you saw many of them buy MULTIPLE COPIES of the same game and consoles to post on social media to show their cult like allegiance to their god company.
  • The latest campaign of MKW fans against Sonic Crossworlds is just another example of this but, this time they are showing misleading statistics, purposely false information on game quality, among other very baltent lies.

TLDR:
Nintendo fans are cultists truly and will straight up lie about the quality of other products to continue eating their deteriorating slop, while calling YOU cultists and deranged.

TLDR 2:
SEGA FANS DOES WHAT NINTENDO FAGGOTS DON'T.

Finally, there is no Sonic Cycle.

Sonic fans are just not cultists that can see past nostalgia, hype, and buyers remorse and can critique their games.

Some retards may see this as a cycle but it is instead a process in which actually good fanbases should do to their franchise to take what they like and critique what didn't work.
 
I forgot it was specifically about the Sonic and Mario movies. For the life of me I cannot find a clean version of the pic.

View attachment 7982216
"two legends can coexist"

Nah this is a self inflicted problem due to Sonic not wanting to move itself as a franchise. The stuff with Crossworld isn't even the first instance of them clearly not having any faith in Sonic not being able to sell on his own.
 
The stuff with Crossworld isn't even the first instance of them clearly not having any faith in Sonic not being able to sell on his own.
Somehow Team Sonic Racing sold better than ASRT despite being a worse racing game and then experienced a spike in sales after the second movie.
 
Somehow Team Sonic Racing sold better than ASRT despite being a worse racing game and then experienced a spike in sales after the second movie.
TSR was the most recent Sonic Kart Racer at the time i don't think the movie is indicative of anything. If it's the relevancy factor i don't think Shadow Gens sold as much as the first game despite being marketed with the 3rd movie (could be wrong).
 
Crossworlds seems like a progression of Sega's 'super game' plans like they had with Hyenas before abortinf it - a game that can support brand collaborations to bring in new audiences and more revenue. They want a slice of that multi-brand collaboration pie.

Just recently as of last month, Gioelli - whose lawsuit with SEGA over Live and Learn's ownership was dismissed - revealed he got a call from Epic Games over using the song in Fortnite (this is after the lawsuit's dismissal). Sonic brand collaborations have been announced for PUBG as well.

This is all assuming SEGA is a rational actor.
 
Mario "fans" seemly do not care for his degradation from a character (with emotional range, flaws, edge, spunk, likes and dislikes) into a brand mascot (look at Wonderunironic BING BING WAHOO! being his core character trait front and center).
When did Mario ever have these things? I would sincerely like to know. Even in Super Mario RPG he was a heroic mime, with all the other characters doing the personality stuff.
 
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