Sensible Sonic Posts 3

Back on the TSSZ joint, another user came up with some good points:

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blixt
Posted November 22, 2013 at 1:47 AM

The most annoying thing anybody’s ever said about Sonic is that it’s “for kids”. You know, like that’s supposed to mean something…

Sonic isn’t “for kids”. It’s for an everyone audience. Which means it just has to be acceptable for kids. And it always has been. If a person is old enough to even play a video game at all, then they can handle anything Sonic’s ever done.

But even following the logic that Sonic is “for kids”… why are we making games like Colors and Generations? Kids don’t like games like that. People who USED to be kids do.

Kids aren’t too dumb to know that if they get a game called “Sonic: Lost World” for Christmas, they got screwed. Especially when they watch their older siblings unwrapping games like Mass Effect, Halo, or Assassin’s Creed next to them.

Kids also aren’t too stupid to know when something has been dumbed down because the people who made it think they can’t handle anything more than flowers and rainbows.

They also understand the concept of peers. They know if they go to school and say, “I got Sonic Colors”, they’ll be laughed at. The title alone will probably get them punched in the mouth. Especially since most kids 10, 9, or younger are playing Call of Duty.

They know how to follow a storyline. They know how to care about its characters, or if its well-made. And they know that “comedy” is often used as a cop-out to make a situation that calls for seriousness sound like it isn’t a big deal when it really is.

This new fixation with making Sonic more “kid-friendly” isn’t really about kids. It’s about pandering for better review scores.

Except that nobody in the real world (the one off the internet and away from the commenting sections) really cares about the dumb complaints in most of the reviews. Complaints that are usually over-exaggerated, or just plain made up.

They don’t care if they have to adjust the camera. They expect to play the game with a thumb on each control stick. They do in most games, after all.

They don’t care if it takes them a level or two to get used to the controls – they expect it from a character who moves that fast. But, at the same time, they don’t want video games that move so stupidly non-stop fast that it takes miles to get a few minutes of gameplay out of the levels.

They don’t want claustrophobic and narrow levels, either. Or to hassle with annoying and archaic map systems, or to be thrust jarringly right into the next level. They expect large worlds to explore.

And they don’t want those worlds to be depressingly-empty, either. They want it to be inhabbited with people they can interact with. And they don’t care if the inhabitants are humans and the main characters are anthropomorphic animals.

They don’t think about if the main characters are anthroporphic animals when they judge the story or the graphics, either – they still expect a certain amount of darkness in the overtone and realism in the graphics. Because that’s how games are.

They don’t want synthesized music instead of rock, piano, orchestra, etc. And they don’t care if the game has multiple playable characters, each with a different play style. They expect the other members of the cast to get a fair share of the spotlight.

But most importantly, they don’t judge Sonic games by different standards than they judge everything else. When they see a Sonic game on the store shelves, they see it with the same eyes as they see every game around it.

And if they see the word “colors” in the title… or two Sonics, but one of them is fat and short… or ANYTHING that looks even remotely like the “Deadly” Six… they’ll drop it like a hot coal. Because it’s stupid, and the cover art alone shows it, and they wouldn’t want to be seen playing it.

And it doesn’t matter to them how Sonic USED to be back in 1991, either. With each new Sonic title that is released, there’s a constant influx of potential new fans to the series. Potential new fans that won’t ever give the series a chance if it doesn’t stop producing outdated titles like the ones they’re making now.

Heck, not even everyone who’s already IN the Sonic fanbase likes what they’re doing now. They’re not even taking into account all of the fans they already have.

Not because they aren’t trying. But to solve a large part of the series’ problem, SEGA are going to have to put their foot down with the people that want the Sonic series to follow the standards of the caveman days of video gaming.

Sorta like how they had to do with Sonic 4 when people started complaining about Sonic having green eyes. They just need to lessen the boundaries of what they will give in to the fanbase (or, well… it’s more the critics, but still, some of the fanbase) on.