Sonic and Addition

What the hell happened to Sonic?

 

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One word: addition. Sonic is the victim of reckless addition, a franchise killed by it's own enthusiasm. There comes a point when adding something to a series is detrimental, and Sonic has long passed that point. It's like they listened to people asking for innovation in the industry, yet never realized innovation by itself is worthless.

It's a true shame, because the first 3 Genesis games got it so right. They added things like characters, enemies, levels, music, but did not ever add a crazy new direction for the series to take. The core gameplay was iterated upon, improved, but never truly altered. This is how you do a sequel.

You see, if you don't get a sequel right, you did one of three things wrong. You could have simply made a bad game, something that does happen. But more relevant to this article, you either changed nothing, or you added too much. If you add too little, you don't make much progress and your game feels samey and pointless. If you add too much, usually the game changes dramatically and you've left yourself no solid base anymore. Basically, a good sequel either needs to magically have that new base be amazing, or more likely, it needs to add just the right amount of stuff, and more importantly the right things.

Let's compare the first 3 Sonic games to the ones after. Between Sonic 1 and Sonic 2, what was added?

• Tails the Fox, a new character
• New zones
• New enemies
• New boss who is not Eggman
• A new gameplay mechanic, the spin dash
• Super Sonic, powered up version of base Sonic

I'm likely forgetting some stuff, but the point is that: a) Nothing major was changed and b) all the additions supplement the gameplay of Sonic 1. As for Sonic 2 to 3?

• A new character, Knuckles
• More enemies
• More bosses
• More zones
• Hyper Sonic, powered up version of Super Sonic
• Super forms for Tails and Knuckles

Again, they didn't change anything major per se. They simply added onto what was already there. Building a new character off the base mechanics and giving more tools like super forms do not change the core very much.

After that, it's a whole different story. Almost no game after Sonic 3 gets a pass from me in the sequel department. You want a list?

Sonic Adventure 1 added 3D gameplay, 5 more styles of gameplay, voice acting, a hub world, minigames,the chao garden, and a new villain.

Sonic Adventure 2 might be the only game that tried to stick with a nice sequel philosophy, not adding much new besides a villain.

Sonic Heroes changed the 3D mechanics, added team play, 4 different teams, wallrunning, block breaking, flying, pole ascension, take your pick.

Shadow the Hedgehog added gunplay, swearing, vehicles, and the ability to chose your own story.

Sonic the Hedgehog 2006 changed the 3D mechanics, added 12 character playstyles, brought the hubworld back, added high speed segments, 3 separate stories, and last but not least upgrades for characters.

I could go on, but I think you're getting the point. Every single game after the 3^rd Gensis one adds stuff for the sake of adding stuff. Whether it be to ride a trend, trying to innovate, for whatever reason they keep adding things rather than expanding. There are good ideas here at their core. 3D sonic. Team gameplay. Things like that sound like they'd make for fun games, if they had more time. But the issue is that it seems like if they don't strike gold on their first shot (something that rarely happens) they assume it's bad and toss it aside, adding more stuff to try to find that new amazing idea.

Sonic the Hedgehog is a franchise often maligned for just being bad, and Sonic Team are accused of being bad game designers just as much. But I'm not sure that's the issue. We got great games like Sonic Generations after that had 3 games of that fun, arcadey style. I think they have a good grasp of what they want to to, and their ideas are good. Their issue is time, and perception. They really don't know how to make a show-stopper on their first try, and that's fine, but they refuse to refine it. They just add and add and add.

Many people have no hope left for Sonic. I disagree. I say that if Sega stop trying to add mindlessly, we may have hope left.