Sonic X Shadow generations is actually a genius idea from Sega from a business perspective, you not only entice those who like generations and the boost games, but also people who already own the game (like me) because of the new campaign, you introduce new fans with an old game which seems like a safe bet, and you tie it in with the new movie. Genius.
Truly genius, very unlike Super Mario 3D world + Bowser's fury. Let's face it, Iizuka always copies ideas from elsewhere very transparently, Sure something is always inspired from elsewhere, it's just way more blatant when it's Sonic. If only this speed platformer, took ideas from y'know..other speed platformers.... *coughbreathofthewildcough*
@@mechashadow I mean yeah, I never denied any of that. Also, note that 3D world never tied into anything, this game is directly related to the movie and for good reason.
you can tell sega is also allowing sonic team to have access to a higher budget with games now too. those cutscenes from the shadow campaign are legit the best looking in engine cutscenes we’ve ever seen in a sonic game.
This is the era I Sonic games I came up in and what a *depressing* time it was to be a Sonic fan! I had played several games from the 2000's but the Boom era is when I first started following the new releases and it felt so empty and disappointing. Empty because there were so few releases and disappointing because the majority of those releases weren't that good at all.
And then the good ones are the likes of Mania and Frontiers. Where they got a fan game maker and writer for the comics respectively on board to make at least a significant chunk of the good stuff. And then from just Sega we then got…Forces…and Superstars (still need to play that one so withholding real judgement, but expectations aren’t high). As if they get people who actually care in for a single game to get the fans off their back before going back to the crap.
I swear, while the Dark "Age" did more damage, the Meta era was absolutely nothing and it was a waste for the franchise, a pointless direction for the series
The 2010s was never a Renaissance Era for the series. Because while it got Sonic on the right track in terms of reception... It had to sacrifice a lot in terms of characters, story, etc for that to happen. Which is why Colors & Generations give me such a bittersweet feeling nowadays... despite being objectively solid games. But when you look at the rest of the Era... I cannot fathom how folks defended it. Yeah like the "Dark Era", it wasn't all bad. Games like Mania & Sonic All Stars Racing Transformed were good highlights. But then everything fell apart because of 3 major things. A. Sega basically trapping Sonic to the Wii U and 3DS for most of it for profit. B. Sonic Boom..... I'm not gonna get into it more lol. C. The team behind Colors & Generations evaporating and moving to other studios. All that basically made Sonic so frustrating the whole decade, and its why it took the series so long to even get another big game with Frontiers in the 2020s.
Im kinda sad how Sega Handled Boom, if the game Sonic Synergy wasn't shafted to the Wii U late in development and was on modern consoles I think we would've had a way stronger decade. Now I say today that it's good that we have different development groups throughout Sega making Sonic content like Hardlight with Dream Team, Sonic Speed Simulator, but if we had more of the smaller games like what Dimps did this could let Sonic Team focus on the main projects and not have to focus on side things like Superstars, Sonic X Shadow Generations, it slows down what can be to make a big game like Frontiers.
As someone who's grown up with these games between the 2000' and 2010's, it's honestly crazy just how empty the latter felt for me. I only ever got to play Colors but even as a kid, I always preferred the vibes of Secret Rings and 06...honestly still do despite their overall lack of quality- Great video, genuinely surprised you don't have more subscribers!
@@GamerJP30 I getcha! Most of the games past consoles were on consoles I simply didn't own. Forces was probably the first true game to get a negative response outta me to where I completely skipped it, even after I got a Switch. Frontiers was the first game in awhile where I started to care about the characters again but even it has some issues-
The 2017-2022 era is what I consider the TRUE dark age for the Franchise. The games may have overall been more solid, Forces's release took the wind out of the sails of most longtime fans. I remember Johnny's video. I remember how deflated he was in that end bit, where he had stood tall even on games he didn't like such as Shadow, '06, Rise of Lyric and Secret Rings.
They had talented game devs until 2012 when they all left to work for Nintendo and we got whatever the leftover team and Newbies could muster up. Unlike the 2000s we don’t have a Mainline 3D Sonic Game from Sonic Team every 1-2 Years so time is no longer the issue, it’s lack of Direction, Manpower, Experience, and Budget.
@@banjo9158 Current Mario is basically the good timeline-version of how Sega really SHOULD treat Sonic. Nintendo has no issues rushing other IPs like Xenoblade by a year or two depending on what would be a convenient schedule, but Mario games seemingly always get enough time to prevent a second janky mess like Sunshine happening ever again, to the point we were specifically told Wonder moreso had suggestions rather than any deadlines, and we were basically lucky it released this decade. The times with Sonic when I said "this could have been something great if they pushed it back even one more year" is staggering. And if they simply did so from the start, Sonic Teams development competencies probably would not have crumbled apart over the years and going by the butterfly effect, Frontiers likely would have been in a better state, even without the extra year it already somehow got.
@@lpfan4491 Like, Mario spin-offs have been lackluster since the wii, and are starting to get back on track on the switch era. and Mario haven't had as much multi-media stuff, marketing collabs, toys, etc... till much recently too. and it's still relatively shy in the mobile space compared to Sonic. Mario could be even bigger than what he is right now. Sonic could definetly have been that big if not bigger, considering he is multi-plataform. although Sonic does have that lack of popularity in Japan, which would not have been a problem if Sega kept the good momentum they had with Japan till Sonic Heroes. and you know... actually cared for that market back in the day. too much focus on the west killed Sonic there.
@@lpfan4491 that is half correct sega only had rushing development issue in the past only with sonic like take a look at yakuza,hatsune miku,super monkey ball(get revived recently) and specially persona!(Really known for having such good games!!) These are the ips of sega and they are consistently good but sonic in the past didn't get the same treatment infact they do know how to run other franchises from what I've seen from their other ips i just don't understand why this wasn't the same thing for sonic in the past i swear if it wasn't because of the movies sonic would've just fall in the eyes of sega let's be real.. sonic as a franchise would've died if it wasn't because of the movies and would've been the end for sonic As for frontiers' development we don't know for sure that if some newbies developed this game or not but...from the looks of it it really doesn't look like it a bunch of incompetent people made sonic frontiers in my opinion i think alot of talented people worked on this game and it really shows it it really depends on the execution aswell well idk how exactly this game was developed despite 5 years and we likely will never know but overall they still did a good job with sonic frontiers it just needed abit more time but overall the game is already good and to be fair..this was sonic team's first time and attempt making a sonic open-world game or rather open-zone so i can see there was some struggle to how to make a open-wolrd game..which it's kinda understandable and I'm glad the game didn't flopped and they successfully pulled it off.
@@user-vt6dd4kz5t "that is half correct sega only had rushing development issue in the past only with sonic" What is half incorrect then? That is literally what I said. Sonic is equivalent to Mario interms of company importance, yet they have opposite priority states where Mario is the one thing Nintendo essencially gives infinite time, while Sonic is the only thing Sega seems willing to rush.
Good chance I’m wrong but I think it’s been said that Forces sold 1-2 million copies, however most of those “sales” were from when it was Free on PS Plus.
From someone who's a casual fan of the series, the thing I've noticed is how inconsistent it is. And this is from the gameplay to the tone the stories have. You'll have games that stick to a formula, then youll have these games that try something new, but are half baked so it underdelivers. The story can be goofy meta humor, or try to tell something more serious. Maybe this is just an observers perspective, but the series seems to have been going through some sort of identity crisis the last few years.
Had no idea Sega layed off so many people after Sonic Boom crashed and burned. I knew Forces and Frontiers had smaller staff, but I didn't know exactly why. Something important to note is that in 2010 Akinori Nishiyama stepped down as the head of Sonic Team and Takashi Iizuka took over. This change in leadership might've contributed to the 2010s being a confusing, directionless decade.
I am still thankful for sonic mania. I know some people discredit as being a "best hits album" But I always disagree. I always enjoyed playing the remade zones in mania than in the original games. So many improvements to the graphics and level design where made to make them awesome levels with S3K style act 2s. Alot of love and care was put into it and it was what got me into sonic in an otherwise dead era for sonic.
I'll never understand the appeal of Sonic Colors. It took the gameplay of the Sonic Unleashed day stages and made it less fun along with adding the Wisps which turned it into something completely different. Generations was great though.
I agree with what you said about Forces. I personally think the 2000's were excellent for Sonic especially on side consoles. Sonic Riders and even ZG were excellent games. Sonic Unleashed was debateable but still very good. The DS and GBA games are unironically some of the best in the series. Sonic Battle ironically has what I believe to be the best Sonic story (minus some character inconsistencies for the sake of padding; random Amy temper tantrums). Even as a kid I could get myself to like 06. Shadow was just horrendous for me though. The 10's era was just bland and uninspired.
I think the 2000s were treated a bit more harshly than was really deserved at the time, and there were absolutely some gems in there. The Advance Trilogy, the Riders series, and the Rush Series are all great highlights of this decade.
@@anoobdissects it's weird because most of the 2000's games sold well, particularly 06. Critical failure but commercial darling. I'd rather play a bad game with potential (06) instead of extreme mediocrity (Forces).
This era for me is characterized by a lack of ambition and emphasis on nostalgic pandering. Nearly every succesful game was extremeley safe, Colors, generations and mania. And any game with a somewhat ambitious concept failed, Sonic Boom and Sonic forces. I really hope sega didnt learn the wrong lessons and breaks out of their comfort zone in the future. Frontiers still re using greenhill and chemical plant assets and Sonic x Shadow generations being the big new linear 3d sonic release dont give me much hope tho 😔 On the brightside games like Penny's big breakaway and Rollin Rascal show there is indeed a bright future for Sonic-esque games atleast!
@@vividcolorandrichaudio6134Doesn't mean they had to massively over correct with the Meta Era like they did. And even if 06 turned out badly,Sega learned the wrong lessons:instead of maybe thinking 'let's not rush a big games development which will inevitably lead to a bad release',they chose to throw out the baby with the bathwater and just abandoned the adventure formula,even though it had plenty of room to improve. And with what we know of Frontiers development,Sega still hadn't learned that lesson with Sonic,with Takashi having to fight tooth and nail to even get an extra years worth of dev time.
@@infinitedreamer9359 Sonic 2006 had a LOT more issues than just being rushed. Empty hubworlds, botched mocap animation, ugly "realistic" character designs, convoluted plot, Sonic being
@olorandrichaudio6134 Right,so the the rushed and troubled development that 06 had wasn't a huge factor in most of those? I think if the game had proper time to develop with minimal issues, 06 could've been polished with better gameplay and tighter script for the plot. If nothing else,P-06 with the general positive reception its gotten has proven the former to be true. 06 wasn't a good game,but it's ideas were solid,the devs just weren't given time or resources to execute on it. Colors did do well at the time,but a lot of what it established had underlying issues( signs of the Boost not being substantial enough as a gameplay style and having to use gimmicks& the characters and plot being overly simplified and comedic) that eventually caught up with them by Forces.
In the 2000s Sega took risks and put effort into the games while the 2010s they were playing it safe by simplifying the f*ck out of everything and butchering the characters we knew and loved as kids that I almost stopped being a Sonic fan
As bad as it may be, the meta era will always be my favorite era, sonic colours is my favorite video game ever, and gens and mania are fucking amazing imo, and while both painfully average, i wont say if didn't enjoy a buncha levels in lost world and forces, would i want more playable characters? Yeah, darker stories? I don't care at all, but despite all that, a majority of this era was positive imo, again colours, gens and mania are my top 3 sonic games, all 3 are fantastic video games, and i enjoyed the stories, nothing outstanding, but for what they are, i enjoyed these Saturday morning cartoon ahahah stories reminded me alot of aosth, tho i know I'm in the smallest minority ever
Can you really blame Sega for playing it safe with Sonic for most of the 2010's? Just about every Sonic game with ambition during the 2000's was torn apart by fans and critics alike. Me, I just want good games. Safe or ambitious, it doesn't matter to me, as long as it's good.
Agreed. Frontiers was AVERAGE, Superstars was ALRIGHT, and Dream Team was GOOD but held back by being a Mobile Game. Still waiting for that truly GREAT or even AMAZING Sonic Game of this Era.
dont get why we think 7/10 is a bad score lmao also all of that is completely subjective, maybe you think 7/10 but other people will feel differently personally i think the franchise is in a great spot
isn't "average" a five out of ten tho? Seven out of ten is good but I don't think there's a single 3D sonic game besides gens that I could confidently say is great even if I like them a lot.
Yh great vid the 10s was more consistent then the 00s but sonic felt more relevant in the 00s then he did in the 10s so as a whole decade id still say 00s was better in that sense not perfect tho
Honestly, there are so many issues with both the 2000s and 2010s that I think it's down to personal preference in regards to which one was worse. I will say that I enjoyed the 2000s games more than I did the 2010s haha.
Really good video, I really liked that you talked about things that almost nobody says on CZcams, or Sonic videos as whole like the fact that most of Sonic Forces development was butchered by making Hedgehog Engine 2, which didn't even ended up being that good or necessary to exist. or that Mania wasn't a smash hit like people think it was. stuff that I already knew and get annoyed because no one bring it up. and in my opinion, it's important for the conversation. I still feel like we are in the Meta Era, we didn't leave it yet, we might next year, maybe, but I feel like the Meta Era is still here, a lot of the mentality and philosfy with the brand that was in the Meta Era is still here. so I think talking about Frontiers, it's dlc, Superstars and the upcoming Sonic x Shadow Generations would have been good. but I understand that the intent of the video is more to look like to the 2010's of Sonic, more than the Meta Era as a whole, the whole thing of the eras and when they start and end is a weird discussion overall and it's subjective. so there's that too.
I actually just watched a video on sonic riders and apparently they released a patch or something a few months ago where you can use a controller also the quality on this video for just over 100 subs is actually insane
Sonic's problems have been the same since Sonic 1: not enough dev time and fixed deadlines, leading into cut corners. Only a few outliers such as SA2 didn't have problems stemming from rushed development.
Sonic Free Riders was truly a tragedy. I almost forgot how much I liked the constant bickering and cheap shots the characters are taking at each other in this subseries. It’s really fitting for a game about extreme racing. Maybe we’ll get a remaster of Sonic Riders and Sonic Riders Zero Gravity. It’s been a few years since I played the first game on PC. I still have the game disc, despite not owning a PC with a disc drive for some years now. And I never got to play Zero Gravity.
The 2010s were truly insufferable for the series. It made me become disillusioned with series completely. Even with Frontiers I can't bring myself to care that much anymore for a mostly mediocre series.
ngl i put this on because me and my friends like watching stupid "meta era" videos since they're usually really bad but this one was surprisingly well-researched and reasonable. didn't feel petty at all even if i really can't get behind some of the points here. good job man, it's kinda crazy that a small youtuber like you can do a much better job with this topic than the big boys. 👍
The New Sonic X Shadow Generations is probably one of the most decent ideas for a game since Sonic Generations, Shadow has just as much importance as Sonic and the other characters
My biggest problem with the meta era compared to the dark era is the dark era at least they were trying different things at least they were attempting new interesting things and trying to push the franchise forward whereas with the meta era it doesn't feel like they tried at all it felt like they were trying to do the bare minimum not only with the scripts and characters but also with the gameplay since Sonic Colors is minimalistic platforming trying to appeal to Mario fans but even Mario has more interesting platforming and level design than this, Generations is literally just Nostalgia pandering with next to no story and I'm sick of that game getting a free pass because it's an anniversary title Adventure 2 was a fucking anniversary title and that game push the franchise forward with a new interesting story introduced one of the most fan favorite characters in the entire franchise had arguably the best soundtrack in its era personally I think Adventure 1 has the better soundtrack but that's just me and it had something for everyone. Generations on the other hand just has reused levels the quality of the actual level design is very hit or miss with the classic era being really good for classic Sonic the Dreamcast era being really good for modern Sonic and the modern era being crap for both characters. I would take the dark era games any day because at the very least they were trying as bad as Sonic the Hedgehog 2006 was at least it was trying to do cool things.
Can we stop with the "meta era " hate. It wasn't rhat bad, neither was the " dark age" i love games like the black knight, secret rings, shadow and especially 06 as well as lost world, colors, even forces to some extent. Hell some are in my top 10. There isn't a single sonic game i dislike except for boom and chronicles. I swear some of you supposed fans do more hating and bitching then anything. We as sonic fans need to learn to enjoy stuff for what they are instead of always whining and making 30 minutes videos about how " this sonic game sucks" or " this era was bad" etc etc. Anyway see you for sonic x shadow.
Aside from Tails and Knuckles his friends don't interest me. Mario on the other hand has awesome friends - Yoshi, Toad, Peach, Rosalina - love them all!
In good faith, that was mostly because of character underdevelopment and/or being memorable but in a bad way. Amy being an egotistical psychopath who only cares about marrying Sonic? Not gonna cut it. Her more mature, strong, little-to-no Sonic craziness in recent appearances has gotten more praise from fans. In bad faith, so-called "reviewers" and "journalists" wanted to find excuses to make games look even worse than what it already it is even if it's not justified. Silver is one of them after his debut in 06. Besides, there was also the trend of hating Sonic because it was cool many years ago even though civil wars in the fandom break out almost daily back in those years. Characters need to have development whenever they appear. You can sort of get away with it if they're supposed to be static and charismatic enough but it has to be a one-time thing. Otherwise, it ends up recycled and can soil a piece of media. They're a side order of a meal, not the meal itself. Mario has this but, from an outsider's perspective, they only appear because they're charismatic but can also just be fan service because of some franchise significance with no proper development. It'll take a special kind of fuck-up to have fans turn on it since it's nearly unbreakable. SEGA should just not bother with those dumb "reviewers" and "journalists" and go their own way by developing more and have more chemistry because at the end of the day, it's just commentary, not the Ten Commandments. It's one thing to not like it but it's another to slander it and be paid for it to continue to be wrong.
In my opinion, Sonic hasn't had a game that's THAT game, you know? The masterpiece of the series, the ideal Sonic game, Frontiers comes the closest but, it's not exceptional, still, why do we love this little guy?
I think the problem is that every single game in the series has at least one problem that stops it from being the ideal Sonic experience moving forward. Everything about the Sonic gameplay in the Adventure games is good, but the other playstyles just bog it down. The boost formula has led to some of the best games in the series, but it isn't sustainable as a long-term gameplay formula. Even with classic Sonic, people are much less impressed by 2D these days than they used to be, which is one of the reasons Frontiers managed to outsell Superstars. Frontiers definitely comes the closet as you said, but it still needs a lot of work to get there.
@@anoobdissects agreed, but Frontiers managed to make me look forward to future games, that's more than enough for me, if they build upon and put effort, maybe the ideal Sonic is visible in the Horizon
Mania comes close but 2 thirds of the levels being older ones knocks it down despite the great level design Generations is my favourite but the fact Sega never capitalised on making dlc was a huge missed opportunity
I'm not a big sonic fan, but I played most of the saga main titles and I really don't understand the appeal of frontiers, it's very bland and uninspired as it lacks a direction in everything and its even more clear after the 1st world. It's not bad like forces because it's a decent/mediocre game, but if any other saga released that, it would be seen as a bad. Also, the reason people like sonic is that fast and fluid movement in games is one of the must fun things you can do (also why boost is a bad idea because it removes all the fun in moving around)
I still hate SEGAs decision to release a cryengine game on the weakest console at the moment (yeah, I know they had a deal with Nintendo, but still). I've tried Rise of Lyric and while the realization was awful, the game itself was really good, filled with funny interactions and realistic (you hear that, Sonic Adventure, *realistic* ) dialogues, well-done levels composition and more "open world-platforming" type instead of just "press ф to boost". I heard some enthusiasts ported this game to PC, so I think it wouldn't be a crime to recommend it. It's really fun in general, I mean, "-look, ramps. -we can use them as ramps"
I genuinely find Rise of Lyric worse then 06 and Shadow. At least those games had some interesting ideas and were at least endearing and funny in how bad they were
Honestly, ROL is very easily one of my least favorite games of the entire franchise. It isn't even a Forces situation where I enjoy 06 more but acknowledge that Forces is the better put together game, Rise of Lyric is actually worse than 06 in certain areas.
Gosh are the 2010's a mess. Archie's peak was 2006-2013, so we lost that this decade. 4 Episode 1 was awful, and Episode 2 was better, but not good. Free Riders was terrible. Colors was more 2D than 3D and was just okay. Generations was amazing and had few flaws. Lost World was a rip-off mess. The Boom game was terrible, but the show was amazing. Mania was bland and overrated, even if well made. Forces was awful. IDW is the worst thing from the franchise in my opinion.
I have said this many times before but I think that it bares repeating. Many Sonic fans want to see a brand new and ambitious Sonic game; one that has a decent story that treats it's world and characters with respect, and one with gameplay that not only pushes the latest hardware but is also just a fun experience. The sad truth though is that Sega could listen to these fans and give us a game like that, one that could potentially be one of the best Sonic experiences in years, but that unfortunately wouldn't stop overly critical critics and/or Sonic purists from whining about it. "Urgh I don't wanna play as Sonic's stinky friends! I don't wanna sit through boring cutscenes with Sonic making yucky mouth noises! Nobody plays Sonic games for the story unless you're some cringey furry! Sonic doesn't belong in 3D, he only works in 2D! Sonic games should be nothing more than just Classic Sonic running through loops, collecting rings, jumping on Badniks and fighting Robotnik! And YES! Sonic having black eyes and the bad guy being called Robotnik (NOT EGGMAN) are more vital to making this series good than any other world building or character development! Urgh, Sega never listens to us TRUE Sonic fans! They better give us Sonic Mania 2 or I'm never playing another Sonic game ever again!" The way that I see it, this is the reason why Sega are the way that they are today. They seem to care more about appeasing whiney fan brats who have no idea what they're talking about than actual fair, positive and constructive criticisms. I can almost imagine them working on Sonic Frontiers. "But there's not enough for the Classic fans!" "Dude, we've been shoehorning Classic Sonic and Classic elements into every Sonic game since Sonic 4! A lot of fans are getting sick of them!" "Yeah, but we've got to keep the Classic fans happy! Haven't you seen these reviews? They're always saying that Classic is the only way that Sonic can ever be good, remember? And critics always know what they're talking about! After all, remember when they tried to boycott Sonic 4 for not bringing back Sonic's older design, and all the threats that we got? Can't we just have Classic Sonic in this game too? He's from another dimension now, so it would totally make sense in the lore!" *Sigh* "Fine, we'll just put in Green Hill, Chemical Plant and Sky Sanctuary into it! Even though fans will probably hate it!" "But the Classic fans will love it, and that's all that matters! Gotta keep everyone happy!" "If that's the case, then how about for the next 2D game we use the Modern character designs. So that way we can include characters like Shadow, Rouge, Cream, Blaze, Silv...." "NO! SONIC'S STUPID FRIENDS, REMEMBER? CLASSIC FANS WILL HATE IT!!!!" JUST GIVE CLASSIC SONIC A SHADOW COSTUME!" *Facepalm*
Sonic is sure a series. Storywise, it's basically mangled at this point because they stopped subscribing to proper writingcontinuity ages ago, now it's just "anything goes" and it is nebulous who even puts what into what anymore, so whatever by that. It ends up being better to just treat it as a gameplay-franchise. And in that, we are kinda all over the place. While I have a more positive outlook on it than bad(I basically like most gameplaystyles I have played thus far), it is not a secret that some games are dramatically undercooked and some are overcooked(Major example being...Did you know Sonic Frontiers was originally going to feature more complex combat inspired by DMC that they cut to not overwhelm players? Ironic considering people post-release gave critique that they would have liked to see actually complex combat. That's overcooked, losing devtime they desperately needed, redoing something to argubly make it less good. And then they made update 3 where they undercooked some Kaizo-gamedesign and most people hated it because it understandably overwhelmed them. Ironic stuff). It is hard not to get regular intervals of being tired thinking about it. The topic of the video basically shows that er...well, it was all lies, kinda. The general vibe surrounding the series in the 2010s was that they were going to "normie-fy" the games and cut their budget dramatically, in favor of concentrating on providing polished gaming experiences and bringing back a positive reputation. A good idea after they messed up publishingwise in 2006/2007 and the world wanted the hedgehog's head. However, then everything kinda went wrong until it didn't and then it did again: -They delisted everything that had a somewhat low score. Everything. Unleashed and Unwiished were still making a good amount of cash a few years later, yet these fools banished them to the shadow realm. Amazing. -Basically the first thing they did was release a Kinect game that did not even work right and had to be saved by a fanmade controller-patch over a decade later. So much for "improving series standards" with the delisting-spree. Lmaoooo -Colors...was actually successful. I personally never really understood why because the game feels very mismatched(like they worked on the player character and the leveldesign independently, instead of one in responce to the other), but I guess they can luck out once in a while. -Sonic Generations was actually a pretty great game that did what the era tried to do. Props for that, lmao. -Lost world actually too, even tho it was unpopular with the masses(Kinda the inverse of Colors where I cannot really get behind popular opinion tbh). Well, looks like they got the curve towards the end there in actually making decent choices, surely nothing bad can happen at this stage. -They want to expand the brand with a subseries catered towards the west, who are their target audience at this point anyways. They get the work commissioned and underway for multiple potential continuities of the subseries. More serious loredriven games and a comedic TV series to coexist side-by-side. Looks great thus far, I'm excited to see there this goes. -They ruin the games, partially in a drive to connect them to the show(y?) and partially because they couldn't be bothered to yeet out a quick fillergame to satisfy their exclusivity deal with Nintendo. The entire subseries dies on arrival and TV series only lasts 2 seasons by a pure miracle. Bruh. We just couldn't leave the good upcoming thing stay good, could we? And this is seriously funny, had Sega not gotten involved at all after pushing the concept, Boom most likely would have survived to this day as a seperate branch, similar to how the Movies are viewed currently. And that is really where it ends because after this point, it just repeats a few times. They made some good choices, then made the absolute worst possible choices in existance that put them back to square -1. The modern/meta/meme era failed to deliver on its premise and did more harm than good. At that point, why did they even change gears? I am not convinced that they could not have just kept going as before because delisting the funny Werehog games and the Boom-disaster combined surely must have lost them more total money than they gained from the short burst of popularity during Colors and Gens. Forces ended up selling itself more on the meme than on actually being popular and that's all she wrote for the era because TSR was basically deserted by the playerbase in a month. And the current era is...er. A failed remaster of Colors, a roblox game most people already forgot, possibly the most devisive mainline game ever(especially after Update 3, which still made some people vow to quit completely new games forever. Your's truly, lel), and a Classic Sonic game that had the most "meh"-reaction from the playerbase imaginable because it was designed around both single and multiplayer and ended up satisfying neither correctly(nice). When a generationsport to Switch generates more confidence than the majority of the rest of the era thus far combined...then we kinda have a problem, guys. I guess at least the finances are looking up because Frontiers made stonks despite everything. 2:23 So for that...that's certainly a thing. Firstly being that Sonic 4 was never actually promising to be something amazing. Dimps just wanted to make a little throwaway fillergame for mobile, to increase the profitability of the series and all that. Normal stuff. But then Sega being Sega lied to us(Not making horrifically poor choices every 5 minutes challenge, impossible) and threw Dimps under the bus for it. And secondly, Critics actually rated it amazingly at first, the more middling reviews came in later when people were off the "Colors saved us and our children"-nonsense where they automatically liked stuff simply for not being in the style of the 90s or 2000s games. I personally actually really like Sonic 4 for what it is and just wish there was a version that actually had good physics and proper homing detection.(how the homing attack in this game, or at least EP1, works is that it homes in by pure proximity, rather than actual sensical aiming. It leads to nonsense like missing mid-air chains that were clear as day, aswell as...targets being locked-on to through solid walls. Yeah, very helpful. Thank you, Dimps) It's nothing amazing, but it is a neat little game you can play one afternoon if you feel that 2D modernsonic itch. 9:27 Yeah, imagine actually admitting that Maekawa was obviously is not at fault for not getting enough time to solidify the story because the entire gamedevelopment was a mess. It's not even clear what people are talking about when it comes to the story being too much, it would have literally just been a standard Jrpg story if it was solidified and that could have easily been a age 12+-type thing not standing out on the family friendly Wii. And I know that because Xenoblade was darker and way more violent and that was an age 12+ JRPG on the Wii. 10:11 I still think they were just tired after pushing out so many boost games in a row and wanted to do something fun and new inbetween. I genuinely don't even see why not, but appearently it is a sin to have a pallet cleanser, even when the game itself is not even bad("Evidently it was not very good"...based on what? Reviewscores? By that, Sonic Pocket Adventure is the best Sonic game ever made and Sonic Origins was not a janky mess on release. Not to mention Colors better than Gens and even most Colors fans disagree with that. I have never heard particularly convincing argument for why its not a good game. Or at least no arguments that cannot just be shoved against games people actively protect from similar accusations. e. g. Final boss not creative enough? Neither is Colors, the boss-template was always taken from Secret Rings boss 1 and they just added some ok-ish attacks to it.). Sure, the runbutton, but people were not being constructive here in the slightest. They did not like...request them to invert the button or make the slow speed faster in a gamepatch(Unlike the later constructive issue-reports with Frontiers, which led to some concerns actually being addressed. Who knew?), they went straight for the head. Even if it turns out they never wanted to make LW and it was mandated by Sega or sth, the masses were absolutely mad and it clearly sent the negative message that they cannot make anything out of line anymore, even when it ends up actually solid. No wonder that one of the thematics surrounding Frontiers ended up being "the game they want to make vs the game people demand they make". 20:16 Yeah, it was mostly the deadlines. While the leveldesign is not particularly amazing or anything, it is evident that they could have made something of it with more time...because they quite literally already had better content in the beta and in day1-episode Shadow DLC than they had in the maingame. They were clearly told to simplify and hack up what they had into smaller pieces to get the maingame out to production faster. And I will never not hate Sega's management for this since not only was the leveldesign team under major strain already(it was like 3 people reportedly, only one returning from LW and the other two some random new guys), but the need to rush the game was *Sega's own fault for ruining Boom* .
Which is why they pushed for an entirely new giant branch of the series, then killed the tree without making sure it was not going to land on them on its fall.
Colors and Generations were great for critics and general audiences, which made general perception much more appealing. The problem, like the previous era, is that there were a lot of bad/mediocre content. I don't think the dark era had many good games, but this one just made Sonic feel like an aimless gimmick.
honestly, this new era of sonic that's shaping up is looking pretty bad as well, Sonic Origins can be summarized as a disgraceful nostalgia cash grab, Superstars is a broken mess with pointless collectables, Sonic X Shadow is just a fucking re-release but with Shadow in it, Frontiers is.. well it's ok i guess, and Dream Team is locked behind Apple (it's honestly mediocre at best), also there's this like point and click story game where sonic is dead, must be a fan game or some shit but it's pretty good, i think it's called "The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog"
Sonic X Shadow generations is actually a genius idea from Sega from a business perspective, you not only entice those who like generations and the boost games, but also people who already own the game (like me) because of the new campaign, you introduce new fans with an old game which seems like a safe bet, and you tie it in with the new movie. Genius.
Oh yeah! I'm overall very happy with the direction Sonic seems to be taking in the 2020s
Not to mention the shippers who come to see their fantasies, only to be met with actual content worth talking about.
i think the only reason they chose generations was because it was the last game to be received highly critically, besides frontiers
Truly genius, very unlike Super Mario 3D world + Bowser's fury.
Let's face it, Iizuka always copies ideas from elsewhere very transparently,
Sure something is always inspired from elsewhere, it's just way more blatant when it's Sonic.
If only this speed platformer, took ideas from y'know..other speed platformers....
*coughbreathofthewildcough*
@@mechashadow I mean yeah, I never denied any of that.
Also, note that 3D world never tied into anything, this game is directly related to the movie and for good reason.
you can tell sega is also allowing sonic team to have access to a higher budget with games now too. those cutscenes from the shadow campaign are legit the best looking in engine cutscenes we’ve ever seen in a sonic game.
This is the era I Sonic games I came up in and what a *depressing* time it was to be a Sonic fan! I had played several games from the 2000's but the Boom era is when I first started following the new releases and it felt so empty and disappointing. Empty because there were so few releases and disappointing because the majority of those releases weren't that good at all.
And then the good ones are the likes of Mania and Frontiers. Where they got a fan game maker and writer for the comics respectively on board to make at least a significant chunk of the good stuff. And then from just Sega we then got…Forces…and Superstars (still need to play that one so withholding real judgement, but expectations aren’t high).
As if they get people who actually care in for a single game to get the fans off their back before going back to the crap.
I swear, while the Dark "Age" did more damage, the Meta era was absolutely nothing and it was a waste for the franchise, a pointless direction for the series
Nah the dark age ruined sonic and turned it into the video gaming biggest laughing stock
@@jeannesery9936 while this is true, the series never died, not even after a shitty game and a "reboot". Sonic still sells and people keep enjoying it
Yeah it's strange because they could have repaired it, I think the apathy was more damaging than the actual damage itself
@@miadatenshi9903franchises like kirby sell better nowdays lol
@@jasonblack2477 no shit the nintendo property with a better trackr record sells better
The 2010s was never a Renaissance Era for the series. Because while it got Sonic on the right track in terms of reception... It had to sacrifice a lot in terms of characters, story, etc for that to happen. Which is why Colors & Generations give me such a bittersweet feeling nowadays... despite being objectively solid games.
But when you look at the rest of the Era... I cannot fathom how folks defended it. Yeah like the "Dark Era", it wasn't all bad. Games like Mania & Sonic All Stars Racing Transformed were good highlights.
But then everything fell apart because of 3 major things.
A. Sega basically trapping Sonic to the Wii U and 3DS for most of it for profit.
B. Sonic Boom..... I'm not gonna get into it more lol.
C. The team behind Colors & Generations evaporating and moving to other studios.
All that basically made Sonic so frustrating the whole decade, and its why it took the series so long to even get another big game with Frontiers in the 2020s.
Im kinda sad how Sega Handled Boom, if the game Sonic Synergy wasn't shafted to the Wii U late in development and was on modern consoles I think we would've had a way stronger decade.
Now I say today that it's good that we have different development groups throughout Sega making Sonic content like Hardlight with Dream Team, Sonic Speed Simulator, but if we had more of the smaller games like what Dimps did this could let Sonic Team focus on the main projects and not have to focus on side things like Superstars, Sonic X Shadow Generations, it slows down what can be to make a big game like Frontiers.
As someone who's grown up with these games between the 2000' and 2010's, it's honestly crazy just how empty the latter felt for me.
I only ever got to play Colors but even as a kid, I always preferred the vibes of Secret Rings and 06...honestly still do despite their overall lack of quality-
Great video, genuinely surprised you don't have more subscribers!
Please play Generations, it's really great
I'm with you man, I've recently gotten tired of how Sonic has been for years and have just basically stopped playing any of the new games now...
@@EdgyQueen I really do wanna play it once Sonic × Shadow Generations comes out. I sadly never owned a PS4 or XBox360
@@GamerJP30 I getcha! Most of the games past consoles were on consoles I simply didn't own. Forces was probably the first true game to get a negative response outta me to where I completely skipped it, even after I got a Switch.
Frontiers was the first game in awhile where I started to care about the characters again but even it has some issues-
The 2017-2022 era is what I consider the TRUE dark age for the Franchise. The games may have overall been more solid, Forces's release took the wind out of the sails of most longtime fans. I remember Johnny's video. I remember how deflated he was in that end bit, where he had stood tall even on games he didn't like such as Shadow, '06, Rise of Lyric and Secret Rings.
Well, Sonic Mania is good... right?
right...?
@@DaACTUALLYREALReddie it is but it also wasn't 2017s main release.
@@DaACTUALLYREALReddiebro trying to make it sound like mania wasn't peak sonic
It is not like we are in a much better situration currently.
@@jamainegardner4193 actually it is a mainline game for..soem reason based on the timeline it just wasn't a 3D sonic game
They had talented game devs until 2012 when they all left to work for Nintendo and we got whatever the leftover team and Newbies could muster up. Unlike the 2000s we don’t have a Mainline 3D Sonic Game from Sonic Team every 1-2 Years so time is no longer the issue, it’s lack of Direction, Manpower, Experience, and Budget.
That would explain why Odyssey have a lot of Sonic's philosfy but like, much better in quality than most Sonic games.
@@banjo9158 Current Mario is basically the good timeline-version of how Sega really SHOULD treat Sonic. Nintendo has no issues rushing other IPs like Xenoblade by a year or two depending on what would be a convenient schedule, but Mario games seemingly always get enough time to prevent a second janky mess like Sunshine happening ever again, to the point we were specifically told Wonder moreso had suggestions rather than any deadlines, and we were basically lucky it released this decade.
The times with Sonic when I said "this could have been something great if they pushed it back even one more year" is staggering. And if they simply did so from the start, Sonic Teams development competencies probably would not have crumbled apart over the years and going by the butterfly effect, Frontiers likely would have been in a better state, even without the extra year it already somehow got.
@@lpfan4491 Like, Mario spin-offs have been lackluster since the wii, and are starting to get back on track on the switch era. and Mario haven't had as much multi-media stuff, marketing collabs, toys, etc... till much recently too. and it's still relatively shy in the mobile space compared to Sonic. Mario could be even bigger than what he is right now. Sonic could definetly have been that big if not bigger, considering he is multi-plataform. although Sonic does have that lack of popularity in Japan, which would not have been a problem if Sega kept the good momentum they had with Japan till Sonic Heroes. and you know... actually cared for that market back in the day. too much focus on the west killed Sonic there.
@@lpfan4491 that is half correct sega only had rushing development issue in the past only with sonic like take a look at yakuza,hatsune miku,super monkey ball(get revived recently) and specially persona!(Really known for having such good games!!) These are the ips of sega and they are consistently good but sonic in the past didn't get the same treatment infact they do know how to run other franchises from what I've seen from their other ips i just don't understand why this wasn't the same thing for sonic in the past i swear if it wasn't because of the movies sonic would've just fall in the eyes of sega let's be real.. sonic as a franchise would've died if it wasn't because of the movies and would've been the end for sonic
As for frontiers' development we don't know for sure that if some newbies developed this game or not but...from the looks of it it really doesn't look like it a bunch of incompetent people made sonic frontiers in my opinion i think alot of talented people worked on this game and it really shows it it really depends on the execution aswell well idk how exactly this game was developed despite 5 years and we likely will never know but overall they still did a good job with sonic frontiers it just needed abit more time but overall the game is already good and to be fair..this was sonic team's first time and attempt making a sonic open-world game or rather open-zone so i can see there was some struggle to how to make a open-wolrd game..which it's kinda understandable and I'm glad the game didn't flopped and they successfully pulled it off.
@@user-vt6dd4kz5t "that is half correct sega only had rushing development issue in the past only with sonic"
What is half incorrect then? That is literally what I said. Sonic is equivalent to Mario interms of company importance, yet they have opposite priority states where Mario is the one thing Nintendo essencially gives infinite time, while Sonic is the only thing Sega seems willing to rush.
Good chance I’m wrong but I think it’s been said that Forces sold 1-2 million copies, however most of those “sales” were from when it was Free on PS Plus.
i'm surprised you're not more popular, your channel deserves more attention. great video by the way
Noob is popular, you just gotta look very closely.
From someone who's a casual fan of the series, the thing I've noticed is how inconsistent it is. And this is from the gameplay to the tone the stories have. You'll have games that stick to a formula, then youll have these games that try something new, but are half baked so it underdelivers. The story can be goofy meta humor, or try to tell something more serious. Maybe this is just an observers perspective, but the series seems to have been going through some sort of identity crisis the last few years.
awesome video essay, the meta era damaged the sonic series drastically for sure, sega seems to be heading in a better direction now with frontiers
Had no idea Sega layed off so many people after Sonic Boom crashed and burned. I knew Forces and Frontiers had smaller staff, but I didn't know exactly why.
Something important to note is that in 2010 Akinori Nishiyama stepped down as the head of Sonic Team and Takashi Iizuka took over. This change in leadership might've contributed to the 2010s being a confusing, directionless decade.
Only the American branch did the laying off.
Lost World abandoning the boost formula even though Generations was highly acclaimed made no sense
They wanted to copy Mario Galaxy simple as
@@MILDMONSTER1234 It was because of that exclusivity deal Sega had with Nintendo and they wanted to cater to Mario fans.
I am still thankful for sonic mania. I know some people discredit as being a "best hits album" But I always disagree. I always enjoyed playing the remade zones in mania than in the original games. So many improvements to the graphics and level design where made to make them awesome levels with S3K style act 2s. Alot of love and care was put into it and it was what got me into sonic in an otherwise dead era for sonic.
I'll never understand the appeal of Sonic Colors. It took the gameplay of the Sonic Unleashed day stages and made it less fun along with adding the Wisps which turned it into something completely different. Generations was great though.
Yea its slighty overrated imo
I agree with what you said about Forces. I personally think the 2000's were excellent for Sonic especially on side consoles. Sonic Riders and even ZG were excellent games. Sonic Unleashed was debateable but still very good. The DS and GBA games are unironically some of the best in the series. Sonic Battle ironically has what I believe to be the best Sonic story (minus some character inconsistencies for the sake of padding; random Amy temper tantrums). Even as a kid I could get myself to like 06. Shadow was just horrendous for me though. The 10's era was just bland and uninspired.
I think the 2000s were treated a bit more harshly than was really deserved at the time, and there were absolutely some gems in there. The Advance Trilogy, the Riders series, and the Rush Series are all great highlights of this decade.
@@anoobdissects it's weird because most of the 2000's games sold well, particularly 06. Critical failure but commercial darling. I'd rather play a bad game with potential (06) instead of extreme mediocrity (Forces).
This era for me is characterized by a lack of ambition and emphasis on nostalgic pandering. Nearly every succesful game was extremeley safe, Colors, generations and mania. And any game with a somewhat ambitious concept failed, Sonic Boom and Sonic forces. I really hope sega didnt learn the wrong lessons and breaks out of their comfort zone in the future. Frontiers still re using greenhill and chemical plant assets and Sonic x Shadow generations being the big new linear 3d sonic release dont give me much hope tho 😔 On the brightside games like Penny's big breakaway and Rollin Rascal show there is indeed a bright future for Sonic-esque games atleast!
Hmm I wonder why Sega would want to backtrack after the late 2000's. Almost like something went horribly wrong with the series.
@@vividcolorandrichaudio6134Doesn't mean they had to massively over correct with the Meta Era like they did. And even if 06 turned out badly,Sega learned the wrong lessons:instead of maybe thinking 'let's not rush a big games development which will inevitably lead to a bad release',they chose to throw out the baby with the bathwater and just abandoned the adventure formula,even though it had plenty of room to improve.
And with what we know of Frontiers development,Sega still hadn't learned that lesson with Sonic,with Takashi having to fight tooth and nail to even get an extra years worth of dev time.
@@infinitedreamer9359 took the words right out of my head : )
@@infinitedreamer9359
Sonic 2006 had a LOT more issues than just being rushed. Empty hubworlds, botched mocap animation, ugly "realistic" character designs, convoluted plot, Sonic being
@olorandrichaudio6134 Right,so the the rushed and troubled development that 06 had wasn't a huge factor in most of those?
I think if the game had proper time to develop with minimal issues, 06 could've been polished with better gameplay and tighter script for the plot. If nothing else,P-06 with the general positive reception its gotten has proven the former to be true.
06 wasn't a good game,but it's ideas were solid,the devs just weren't given time or resources to execute on it.
Colors did do well at the time,but a lot of what it established had underlying issues( signs of the Boost not being substantial enough as a gameplay style and having to use gimmicks& the characters and plot being overly simplified and comedic) that eventually caught up with them by Forces.
Incredible video quality mate, you’re such a small channel but I felt like I was watching a J’s Reviews of JebTube video
Wow it surprises me that you dont have many views, this is a pretty good video.
There is no era in Sonic. It's just the Sonic series. No dark era, no "meta" era, none of that.
In the 2000s Sega took risks and put effort into the games while the 2010s they were playing it safe by simplifying the f*ck out of everything and butchering the characters we knew and loved as kids that I almost stopped being a Sonic fan
As bad as it may be, the meta era will always be my favorite era, sonic colours is my favorite video game ever, and gens and mania are fucking amazing imo, and while both painfully average, i wont say if didn't enjoy a buncha levels in lost world and forces, would i want more playable characters? Yeah, darker stories? I don't care at all, but despite all that, a majority of this era was positive imo, again colours, gens and mania are my top 3 sonic games, all 3 are fantastic video games, and i enjoyed the stories, nothing outstanding, but for what they are, i enjoyed these Saturday morning cartoon ahahah stories reminded me alot of aosth, tho i know I'm in the smallest minority ever
Man youre video is so GOOD, you deserve more subscribers.
It was cute until Rise of Lyric/Forces.
63 subs????? I expected at least a thousand... Loving the content already, subbed!
This is a very good video essay! Definitely looked at the 2010's era of Sonic with more nuance than I've seen from most Sonictubers.
4:12 yeah there is…
Can you really blame Sega for playing it safe with Sonic for most of the 2010's? Just about every Sonic game with ambition during the 2000's was torn apart by fans and critics alike.
Me, I just want good games. Safe or ambitious, it doesn't matter to me, as long as it's good.
Very good video! Btw I actually loved sonic boom rise of lyric Ik that’s criminal and unpopular but I enjoyed it for what it was
That's totally fine! It's your opinion at the end of the day :)
@@anoobdissects it’s nice when people don’t get hammered for having an opinion
Don't know what reviewers were thinking that colours is a point better than generations. It's a pretty decent game but it's got nothing on gens
The new era is already stagnant with the 7/10s everywhere
To be fair, that's pretty subjective depending on who you ask. I think Superstars is closer to an 8/10 personally.
Agreed. Frontiers was AVERAGE, Superstars was ALRIGHT, and Dream Team was GOOD but held back by being a Mobile Game. Still waiting for that truly GREAT or even AMAZING Sonic Game of this Era.
dont get why we think 7/10 is a bad score lmao
also all of that is completely subjective, maybe you think 7/10 but other people will feel differently
personally i think the franchise is in a great spot
@@kao7143 Like he said, show’s stagnation and acceptance of Average. Especially when people are touting this Era as Sonic’s Great Return.
isn't "average" a five out of ten tho? Seven out of ten is good but I don't think there's a single 3D sonic game besides gens that I could confidently say is great even if I like them a lot.
Excuse me, 63 GOD DAMN SUBSCRIBERS?! LITERALLY HOW?! I'M SUBBING IMMEDIATELY! You deserve far better!
Yh great vid the 10s was more consistent then the 00s but sonic felt more relevant in the 00s then he did in the 10s so as a whole decade id still say 00s was better in that sense not perfect tho
Honestly, there are so many issues with both the 2000s and 2010s that I think it's down to personal preference in regards to which one was worse. I will say that I enjoyed the 2000s games more than I did the 2010s haha.
Frontiers was more meta than any "meta era" game.
Really good video, I really liked that you talked about things that almost nobody says on CZcams, or Sonic videos as whole like the fact that most of Sonic Forces development was butchered by making Hedgehog Engine 2, which didn't even ended up being that good or necessary to exist. or that Mania wasn't a smash hit like people think it was. stuff that I already knew and get annoyed because no one bring it up. and in my opinion, it's important for the conversation.
I still feel like we are in the Meta Era, we didn't leave it yet, we might next year, maybe, but I feel like the Meta Era is still here, a lot of the mentality and philosfy with the brand that was in the Meta Era is still here. so I think talking about Frontiers, it's dlc, Superstars and the upcoming Sonic x Shadow Generations would have been good. but I understand that the intent of the video is more to look like to the 2010's of Sonic, more than the Meta Era as a whole, the whole thing of the eras and when they start and end is a weird discussion overall and it's subjective. so there's that too.
The 2010's era of Sonic is also called the Colors Era.
I actually just watched a video on sonic riders and apparently they released a patch or something a few months ago where you can use a controller also the quality on this video for just over 100 subs is actually insane
Sonic's problems have been the same since Sonic 1: not enough dev time and fixed deadlines, leading into cut corners.
Only a few outliers such as SA2 didn't have problems stemming from rushed development.
Sonic Free Riders was truly a tragedy. I almost forgot how much I liked the constant bickering and cheap shots the characters are taking at each other in this subseries. It’s really fitting for a game about extreme racing. Maybe we’ll get a remaster of Sonic Riders and Sonic Riders Zero Gravity. It’s been a few years since I played the first game on PC. I still have the game disc, despite not owning a PC with a disc drive for some years now. And I never got to play Zero Gravity.
The 2010s were truly insufferable for the series. It made me become disillusioned with series completely. Even with Frontiers I can't bring myself to care that much anymore for a mostly mediocre series.
Cool video, you’re very underrated you should get more subscribers this videos great :D
Overrated*
@@GiovanniKody100 bro how are they overrated if they have 52 subscribers
@@RedemptionPS3 fan favorite reasons. also, subscriber count don’t matter no more. everyone is famous by luck.
I just hope they don't ruin Generations just like they did in Colors Ultimate 😅
The fact that you only have like 53 subscribers while making videos of this quality is honestly surprising
Lost World and Forces were not awful they're were just okay but Frontiers on the other hand...was amazing!
ngl i put this on because me and my friends like watching stupid "meta era" videos since they're usually really bad but this one was surprisingly well-researched and reasonable. didn't feel petty at all even if i really can't get behind some of the points here. good job man, it's kinda crazy that a small youtuber like you can do a much better job with this topic than the big boys. 👍
how do you only have 34 subscribers??
The New Sonic X Shadow Generations is probably one of the most decent ideas for a game since Sonic Generations, Shadow has just as much importance as Sonic and the other characters
My biggest problem with the meta era compared to the dark era is the dark era at least they were trying different things at least they were attempting new interesting things and trying to push the franchise forward whereas with the meta era it doesn't feel like they tried at all it felt like they were trying to do the bare minimum not only with the scripts and characters but also with the gameplay since Sonic Colors is minimalistic platforming trying to appeal to Mario fans but even Mario has more interesting platforming and level design than this, Generations is literally just Nostalgia pandering with next to no story and I'm sick of that game getting a free pass because it's an anniversary title Adventure 2 was a fucking anniversary title and that game push the franchise forward with a new interesting story introduced one of the most fan favorite characters in the entire franchise had arguably the best soundtrack in its era personally I think Adventure 1 has the better soundtrack but that's just me and it had something for everyone.
Generations on the other hand just has reused levels the quality of the actual level design is very hit or miss with the classic era being really good for classic Sonic the Dreamcast era being really good for modern Sonic and the modern era being crap for both characters.
I would take the dark era games any day because at the very least they were trying as bad as Sonic the Hedgehog 2006 was at least it was trying to do cool things.
Sega do us a favour and make jumps and movement good again. Why is it so hard?
How this bro got 150 subs you deserved more you should talk about the dark age
The Dark age was better than the Meta age.
Never
@@jeannesery9936The hell are you smoking.?
Facts
I just want a chao garden
17:37 when you are the president of Pakistan at day and a sonic fan at night
Wisps. Wisps are the defining feature of the meta era.
So true lol
Sonic Frontiers its just a 4 or 5 over 10
A Fricking EMPTY UNREAL DEMO and Unoriginal Levels WTF
SEGA WAKE UP MDFK
Can we stop with the "meta era " hate. It wasn't rhat bad, neither was the " dark age" i love games like the black knight, secret rings, shadow and especially 06 as well as lost world, colors, even forces to some extent. Hell some are in my top 10. There isn't a single sonic game i dislike except for boom and chronicles. I swear some of you supposed fans do more hating and bitching then anything. We as sonic fans need to learn to enjoy stuff for what they are instead of always whining and making 30 minutes videos about how " this sonic game sucks" or " this era was bad" etc etc. Anyway see you for sonic x shadow.
Classic era 😎 Adventure era 😎 Dark age 💀 Metal era 😁
I hate the new sonic voices I miss the old ones from sonic x etc
Im surprised that the "sonic's stupid friends" trope didn’t latched over to any franchise yet
Aside from Tails and Knuckles his friends don't interest me. Mario on the other hand has awesome friends - Yoshi, Toad, Peach, Rosalina - love them all!
In good faith, that was mostly because of character underdevelopment and/or being memorable but in a bad way. Amy being an egotistical psychopath who only cares about marrying Sonic? Not gonna cut it. Her more mature, strong, little-to-no Sonic craziness in recent appearances has gotten more praise from fans.
In bad faith, so-called "reviewers" and "journalists" wanted to find excuses to make games look even worse than what it already it is even if it's not justified. Silver is one of them after his debut in 06. Besides, there was also the trend of hating Sonic because it was cool many years ago even though civil wars in the fandom break out almost daily back in those years.
Characters need to have development whenever they appear. You can sort of get away with it if they're supposed to be static and charismatic enough but it has to be a one-time thing. Otherwise, it ends up recycled and can soil a piece of media. They're a side order of a meal, not the meal itself.
Mario has this but, from an outsider's perspective, they only appear because they're charismatic but can also just be fan service because of some franchise significance with no proper development. It'll take a special kind of fuck-up to have fans turn on it since it's nearly unbreakable.
SEGA should just not bother with those dumb "reviewers" and "journalists" and go their own way by developing more and have more chemistry because at the end of the day, it's just commentary, not the Ten Commandments. It's one thing to not like it but it's another to slander it and be paid for it to continue to be wrong.
You both make great points
Underrated creator my God
Sonic x shadow generations looks fun but will it be?
I think that tonysonic was very right with his fanbase rant
LIMBO? LIKE... LIKE...
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what
@@LezSpringfieldIt's a Geometry Dash reference
In my opinion, Sonic hasn't had a game that's THAT game, you know? The masterpiece of the series, the ideal Sonic game, Frontiers comes the closest but, it's not exceptional, still, why do we love this little guy?
I think the problem is that every single game in the series has at least one problem that stops it from being the ideal Sonic experience moving forward. Everything about the Sonic gameplay in the Adventure games is good, but the other playstyles just bog it down. The boost formula has led to some of the best games in the series, but it isn't sustainable as a long-term gameplay formula. Even with classic Sonic, people are much less impressed by 2D these days than they used to be, which is one of the reasons Frontiers managed to outsell Superstars.
Frontiers definitely comes the closet as you said, but it still needs a lot of work to get there.
@@anoobdissects agreed, but Frontiers managed to make me look forward to future games, that's more than enough for me, if they build upon and put effort, maybe the ideal Sonic is visible in the Horizon
Sonic Adventure 2 was that game but it’s been over 20 years since its release so not many people have been exposed to it.
Mania comes close but 2 thirds of the levels being older ones knocks it down despite the great level design
Generations is my favourite but the fact Sega never capitalised on making dlc was a huge missed opportunity
I'm not a big sonic fan, but I played most of the saga main titles and I really don't understand the appeal of frontiers, it's very bland and uninspired as it lacks a direction in everything and its even more clear after the 1st world. It's not bad like forces because it's a decent/mediocre game, but if any other saga released that, it would be seen as a bad. Also, the reason people like sonic is that fast and fluid movement in games is one of the must fun things you can do (also why boost is a bad idea because it removes all the fun in moving around)
Very well made video👍
I still hate SEGAs decision to release a cryengine game on the weakest console at the moment (yeah, I know they had a deal with Nintendo, but still). I've tried Rise of Lyric and while the realization was awful, the game itself was really good, filled with funny interactions and realistic (you hear that, Sonic Adventure, *realistic* ) dialogues, well-done levels composition and more "open world-platforming" type instead of just "press ф to boost". I heard some enthusiasts ported this game to PC, so I think it wouldn't be a crime to recommend it. It's really fun in general, I mean, "-look, ramps. -we can use them as ramps"
I genuinely find Rise of Lyric worse then 06 and Shadow. At least those games had some interesting ideas and were at least endearing and funny in how bad they were
Honestly, ROL is very easily one of my least favorite games of the entire franchise. It isn't even a Forces situation where I enjoy 06 more but acknowledge that Forces is the better put together game, Rise of Lyric is actually worse than 06 in certain areas.
Gosh are the 2010's a mess. Archie's peak was 2006-2013, so we lost that this decade. 4 Episode 1 was awful, and Episode 2 was better, but not good. Free Riders was terrible. Colors was more 2D than 3D and was just okay. Generations was amazing and had few flaws. Lost World was a rip-off mess. The Boom game was terrible, but the show was amazing. Mania was bland and overrated, even if well made. Forces was awful. IDW is the worst thing from the franchise in my opinion.
Ian Phlem
I think sonic x shadow is cool but I feel sonic as a whole really havent made anything captivating or really good since mania
I have said this many times before but I think that it bares repeating. Many Sonic fans want to see a brand new and ambitious Sonic game; one that has a decent story that treats it's world and characters with respect, and one with gameplay that not only pushes the latest hardware but is also just a fun experience.
The sad truth though is that Sega could listen to these fans and give us a game like that, one that could potentially be one of the best Sonic experiences in years, but that unfortunately wouldn't stop overly critical critics and/or Sonic purists from whining about it.
"Urgh I don't wanna play as Sonic's stinky friends! I don't wanna sit through boring cutscenes with Sonic making yucky mouth noises! Nobody plays Sonic games for the story unless you're some cringey furry! Sonic doesn't belong in 3D, he only works in 2D! Sonic games should be nothing more than just Classic Sonic running through loops, collecting rings, jumping on Badniks and fighting Robotnik! And YES! Sonic having black eyes and the bad guy being called Robotnik (NOT EGGMAN) are more vital to making this series good than any other world building or character development! Urgh, Sega never listens to us TRUE Sonic fans! They better give us Sonic Mania 2 or I'm never playing another Sonic game ever again!"
The way that I see it, this is the reason why Sega are the way that they are today. They seem to care more about appeasing whiney fan brats who have no idea what they're talking about than actual fair, positive and constructive criticisms.
I can almost imagine them working on Sonic Frontiers.
"But there's not enough for the Classic fans!"
"Dude, we've been shoehorning Classic Sonic and Classic elements into every Sonic game since Sonic 4! A lot of fans are getting sick of them!"
"Yeah, but we've got to keep the Classic fans happy! Haven't you seen these reviews? They're always saying that Classic is the only way that Sonic can ever be good, remember? And critics always know what they're talking about! After all, remember when they tried to boycott Sonic 4 for not bringing back Sonic's older design, and all the threats that we got? Can't we just have Classic Sonic in this game too? He's from another dimension now, so it would totally make sense in the lore!"
*Sigh* "Fine, we'll just put in Green Hill, Chemical Plant and Sky Sanctuary into it! Even though fans will probably hate it!"
"But the Classic fans will love it, and that's all that matters! Gotta keep everyone happy!"
"If that's the case, then how about for the next 2D game we use the Modern character designs. So that way we can include characters like Shadow, Rouge, Cream, Blaze, Silv...."
"NO! SONIC'S STUPID FRIENDS, REMEMBER? CLASSIC FANS WILL HATE IT!!!!" JUST GIVE CLASSIC SONIC A SHADOW COSTUME!"
*Facepalm*
Sonic is sure a series. Storywise, it's basically mangled at this point because they stopped subscribing to proper writingcontinuity ages ago, now it's just "anything goes" and it is nebulous who even puts what into what anymore, so whatever by that.
It ends up being better to just treat it as a gameplay-franchise. And in that, we are kinda all over the place. While I have a more positive outlook on it than bad(I basically like most gameplaystyles I have played thus far), it is not a secret that some games are dramatically undercooked and some are overcooked(Major example being...Did you know Sonic Frontiers was originally going to feature more complex combat inspired by DMC that they cut to not overwhelm players? Ironic considering people post-release gave critique that they would have liked to see actually complex combat. That's overcooked, losing devtime they desperately needed, redoing something to argubly make it less good. And then they made update 3 where they undercooked some Kaizo-gamedesign and most people hated it because it understandably overwhelmed them. Ironic stuff).
It is hard not to get regular intervals of being tired thinking about it. The topic of the video basically shows that er...well, it was all lies, kinda. The general vibe surrounding the series in the 2010s was that they were going to "normie-fy" the games and cut their budget dramatically, in favor of concentrating on providing polished gaming experiences and bringing back a positive reputation. A good idea after they messed up publishingwise in 2006/2007 and the world wanted the hedgehog's head. However, then everything kinda went wrong until it didn't and then it did again:
-They delisted everything that had a somewhat low score. Everything. Unleashed and Unwiished were still making a good amount of cash a few years later, yet these fools banished them to the shadow realm. Amazing.
-Basically the first thing they did was release a Kinect game that did not even work right and had to be saved by a fanmade controller-patch over a decade later. So much for "improving series standards" with the delisting-spree. Lmaoooo
-Colors...was actually successful. I personally never really understood why because the game feels very mismatched(like they worked on the player character and the leveldesign independently, instead of one in responce to the other), but I guess they can luck out once in a while.
-Sonic Generations was actually a pretty great game that did what the era tried to do. Props for that, lmao.
-Lost world actually too, even tho it was unpopular with the masses(Kinda the inverse of Colors where I cannot really get behind popular opinion tbh).
Well, looks like they got the curve towards the end there in actually making decent choices, surely nothing bad can happen at this stage.
-They want to expand the brand with a subseries catered towards the west, who are their target audience at this point anyways. They get the work commissioned and underway for multiple potential continuities of the subseries. More serious loredriven games and a comedic TV series to coexist side-by-side. Looks great thus far, I'm excited to see there this goes.
-They ruin the games, partially in a drive to connect them to the show(y?) and partially because they couldn't be bothered to yeet out a quick fillergame to satisfy their exclusivity deal with Nintendo. The entire subseries dies on arrival and TV series only lasts 2 seasons by a pure miracle.
Bruh. We just couldn't leave the good upcoming thing stay good, could we? And this is seriously funny, had Sega not gotten involved at all after pushing the concept, Boom most likely would have survived to this day as a seperate branch, similar to how the Movies are viewed currently.
And that is really where it ends because after this point, it just repeats a few times. They made some good choices, then made the absolute worst possible choices in existance that put them back to square -1. The modern/meta/meme era failed to deliver on its premise and did more harm than good. At that point, why did they even change gears? I am not convinced that they could not have just kept going as before because delisting the funny Werehog games and the Boom-disaster combined surely must have lost them more total money than they gained from the short burst of popularity during Colors and Gens. Forces ended up selling itself more on the meme than on actually being popular and that's all she wrote for the era because TSR was basically deserted by the playerbase in a month.
And the current era is...er. A failed remaster of Colors, a roblox game most people already forgot, possibly the most devisive mainline game ever(especially after Update 3, which still made some people vow to quit completely new games forever. Your's truly, lel), and a Classic Sonic game that had the most "meh"-reaction from the playerbase imaginable because it was designed around both single and multiplayer and ended up satisfying neither correctly(nice). When a generationsport to Switch generates more confidence than the majority of the rest of the era thus far combined...then we kinda have a problem, guys. I guess at least the finances are looking up because Frontiers made stonks despite everything.
2:23 So for that...that's certainly a thing. Firstly being that Sonic 4 was never actually promising to be something amazing. Dimps just wanted to make a little throwaway fillergame for mobile, to increase the profitability of the series and all that. Normal stuff. But then Sega being Sega lied to us(Not making horrifically poor choices every 5 minutes challenge, impossible) and threw Dimps under the bus for it. And secondly, Critics actually rated it amazingly at first, the more middling reviews came in later when people were off the "Colors saved us and our children"-nonsense where they automatically liked stuff simply for not being in the style of the 90s or 2000s games.
I personally actually really like Sonic 4 for what it is and just wish there was a version that actually had good physics and proper homing detection.(how the homing attack in this game, or at least EP1, works is that it homes in by pure proximity, rather than actual sensical aiming. It leads to nonsense like missing mid-air chains that were clear as day, aswell as...targets being locked-on to through solid walls. Yeah, very helpful. Thank you, Dimps) It's nothing amazing, but it is a neat little game you can play one afternoon if you feel that 2D modernsonic itch.
9:27 Yeah, imagine actually admitting that Maekawa was obviously is not at fault for not getting enough time to solidify the story because the entire gamedevelopment was a mess. It's not even clear what people are talking about when it comes to the story being too much, it would have literally just been a standard Jrpg story if it was solidified and that could have easily been a age 12+-type thing not standing out on the family friendly Wii. And I know that because Xenoblade was darker and way more violent and that was an age 12+ JRPG on the Wii.
10:11 I still think they were just tired after pushing out so many boost games in a row and wanted to do something fun and new inbetween. I genuinely don't even see why not, but appearently it is a sin to have a pallet cleanser, even when the game itself is not even bad("Evidently it was not very good"...based on what? Reviewscores? By that, Sonic Pocket Adventure is the best Sonic game ever made and Sonic Origins was not a janky mess on release. Not to mention Colors better than Gens and even most Colors fans disagree with that. I have never heard particularly convincing argument for why its not a good game. Or at least no arguments that cannot just be shoved against games people actively protect from similar accusations. e. g. Final boss not creative enough? Neither is Colors, the boss-template was always taken from Secret Rings boss 1 and they just added some ok-ish attacks to it.). Sure, the runbutton, but people were not being constructive here in the slightest. They did not like...request them to invert the button or make the slow speed faster in a gamepatch(Unlike the later constructive issue-reports with Frontiers, which led to some concerns actually being addressed. Who knew?), they went straight for the head.
Even if it turns out they never wanted to make LW and it was mandated by Sega or sth, the masses were absolutely mad and it clearly sent the negative message that they cannot make anything out of line anymore, even when it ends up actually solid. No wonder that one of the thematics surrounding Frontiers ended up being "the game they want to make vs the game people demand they make".
20:16 Yeah, it was mostly the deadlines. While the leveldesign is not particularly amazing or anything, it is evident that they could have made something of it with more time...because they quite literally already had better content in the beta and in day1-episode Shadow DLC than they had in the maingame. They were clearly told to simplify and hack up what they had into smaller pieces to get the maingame out to production faster. And I will never not hate Sega's management for this since not only was the leveldesign team under major strain already(it was like 3 people reportedly, only one returning from LW and the other two some random new guys), but the need to rush the game was *Sega's own fault for ruining Boom* .
Never Good The Hedhehog
If I see green hill one more time I will actually rip my eyeballs out
I get the meta era sonic had became gaming biggest laughing stock abd sega dared to never be ambitious
Which is why they pushed for an entirely new giant branch of the series, then killed the tree without making sure it was not going to land on them on its fall.
Colors and Generations were great for critics and general audiences, which made general perception much more appealing. The problem, like the previous era, is that there were a lot of bad/mediocre content. I don't think the dark era had many good games, but this one just made Sonic feel like an aimless gimmick.
honestly, this new era of sonic that's shaping up is looking pretty bad as well, Sonic Origins can be summarized as a disgraceful nostalgia cash grab, Superstars is a broken mess with pointless collectables, Sonic X Shadow is just a fucking re-release but with Shadow in it, Frontiers is.. well it's ok i guess, and Dream Team is locked behind Apple (it's honestly mediocre at best), also there's this like point and click story game where sonic is dead, must be a fan game or some shit but it's pretty good, i think it's called "The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog"