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After playing the Sonic Generations demo for the 40th time, I began to think about the Sonic franchise and it’s meteoric rise and epic fall from grace in the industry.
I credit Sonic, Sega, and the Genesis system for making me the hardcore gamer I am today. Of course, I had game systems before the Genesis but they weren’t exactly mine. I played the family Atari and my older brother's Nintendo. The Genesis though, that was all mine. It came packed with Sonic the Hedgehog and when I first popped in the cartridge, I remember thinking – no – knowing that this was something altogether different. The Badniks felt almost life-size, the cacophony of sound that came out of my television was surreal; and how about that “waiting” animation Sonic performed when I let the controller sit for too long? All were, at the time, utterly mind blowing.
What made Sonic such a compelling game back in the 16-bit era was not just the speed the game moved at. Sonic games were great because the amount of exploration the levels offered for a platformer were at the time, rivaled only by Super Mario World. Sure, running through them like a hedgehog out of hell was fun; but the option to stop, let Sonic catch a breath, and explore or backtrack in the world for a hidden Special Ring or Goal Post for bonuses was half the fun.
That exploration is what’s been missing from Sonic games since Sonic Adventure came out for the Dreamcast. Don’t get me wrong, Sonic Adventure was well received, but that probably had more to do with the the shiny new Dreamcast than the actual game. Ever since Sonic travelled into the 3D realm, the Sonic Team has thought it wise to remove exploration from the franchise. I’m not entirely sure who thinks the racetrack levels are good, but they’re not; they’re actually sort of terrible. For reasons, the Sonic Team seems to think that improving Sonic simply means "make him go faster". The poor guy has been running for the last ten years at top speed with no where to go.
Let’s pretend the first ten years were like the last, where all you did was simply press forward until you hit the finish line. Forget about finding hidden Special Rings, forget about branching paths within levels, and forget about the excitement of finding just enough rings to turn into Super Sonic. It would be transformed into the monotonous activity of running forward until you turned gold, only to then fly forward even faster. If that sounds exciting to you, then you’re in luck; Sega has a catalog of recent Sonic games you're going to love. For everyone else that grew up on 16-Bit Sonic; Sonic Generation might just redeem the franchise.
From what I've played, the game looks like it will finally give the blue dude with a ‘tude (sorry, before I wrote this up, I bet myself I couldn’t work that into a sentence; I won) somewhere to go. I can ignore the contrived reasoning behind two Sonics in my game because Sega looks like they finally have the level designs right. They go up, they go down, they let you backtrack a bit for hidden rings and power ups. This is literally the most excited I’ve been in years about collecting rings. That is as sad as it sounds, but I don’t care because as a Sonic fan I’ve been put through the wringer for the Blue Blur (yup, again) and it looks like I can finally hold my head high.
Keep in mind, the disclaimer here is that the demo showed off only the 2D side of Sonic; but contrary to popular belief those same "press forward pitfalls" have tainted the last portable 2D Sonic games also. This is still a marked improvement over those; and in my opinion, I can forgive some bland 3D level design if the rest of the 2D gameplay is solid (I’m all about baby steps).
If you’re wondering, I’m purposely avoiding anything about Werehogs, Excalibur swords and Evil Hedgehogs with guns. As bad as those ideas are, they’re not the most egregious offense Sonic Team has made with the franchise. Of course, I haven’t played the full game yet and knowing how Sonic Team likes to throw dirt in a perfectly good martini, there is always reason to worry. This is just my opinion from playing the demo over, and over again, but it seems like Sonic Team finally got it right.