"THAT WAS JUST A BUNCH OF CHEAP WALK CYCLES" best summation of Sonic Forces ever

Anyone remember E102-Gamma's story in Sonic Adventure? Genuinely a good story, even if it was simple.

“You're dead if you aim only for kids. Adults are only kids grown up, anyway.“ -Walt Disney That is the main issue with a lot of the 2010’s Sonic stories, they talk down to their audience.

Tails: How did you know it was a fake emerald? Sonic: TAILS! Robotnik: Because you just told me Fox Boy! Admit it, this is the Dr. Robotnik we need nowadays, he was intimidating, and intelligent in Sonic Adventure 2. Cunning, and thinking ahead. Pretty much killed Sonic too, only reason he didn't is because he managed the impossible by using Chaos Control on a fake emerald.

"If the characters don't take the story seriously, how am I supposed to do that" Exactly, right on point!

I think Cadicarious put it best: "That's no excuse at all. There still has to be some sort of quality control with these things. Kids may be very easy to entertain, but they are not stupid, and this is just insulting."

I don't understand why people say Sonic Adventure 1 and 2 stories tried to take itself more seriously than it should. They don't. These games have dramatic moments, but they have funny moments as well.They are "Adventure" stories, not comedy stories, but there's nothing too dark or edgy on them. the only Sonic game that's too dark is the Shadow the Hedgehog game.

One thing Heroes was pretty underrated in was was Team Dark's development. I didn't fully appreciate it as a kid, but the Trio does grow from the whole experience. Shadow and Rouge weren't really "friends" for most of SA2 until the final arc but rather villains with a common goal, with their development being more focused to their growing respect to their in-game hero rivals. In Sonic Heroes, Rouge gives Shadow (and Omega) stars off by giving new purpose which happens to benefit her, and by the end she genuinely seems concerned about shadow when he sees his robo-clones in the train station and the later scene with her and Omega in the Egg Carrier. Shadow and Omega's relationship is equally endearing. In the short cutscenes which kickstart each level in Heroes, it start with Omega threatening Shadow not the distract him and Shadow telling Omega to keep up with him (Basically a more extreme version of Sonic and Knuckles butting buddies relation). Contrast this to how Omega treats him at the end. Now we just don't get Team Dark being friends. Them and everyone else is just Background, with Tails' development having been completelly done away with

The greatest atrocity is what Sonic Forces did to Tails’ character. They made him an absolute weakling who couldn’t defend himself without Sonic’s help, which spits on the character’s legacy

Black Knight wasn’t needlessly edgy. The storybook series as a whole was very interesting as I’ve seen, as it throws sonic into different stories with their own twists. Edgy stories are fine as long as they aren’t botched like forces

"Tails Acted For The Greater Good,Lets Make Sure His Sacrifice Isn't For Nothing" WTF

Sonic Pre-2010: Adventurous, brave, caring and occasionally wisecracking. Sonic now: Bored frat boy.

Not gonna lie, "No copyright law in the universe is going to stop me!" still makes me chuckle.

Is it bad that I want to see more of that scary side to Eggman? I understand why people enjoy him as a goofy villain, but without moments like him threatening the Zetis, he becomes less of a villain and more of a nuisance.

I applaud your honesty with the disappointment surrounding modern sonic stories being dumbed down to the point of absolute boredom. There is no drama or stakes being raised as you go through the gimmick of the game and lose interest in the plot. Sonic adventure series had their issues but god damn were they high stakes. A memorable moment for me in SA2 is when after fighting Shadow on prison island, the cutscene has eggman angrily announce that the island was set to blow up and sonic has this "Oh shit!!! Gotta find amy and tails!!!!" moment Like, you felt for Sonic in that instant of panic and immediate goal of getting the hell out of dodge. Green forest's upbeat soundtrack as you rush through the level with that blaring yellow timer at the top ticking away was absolutely iconic.

"Our main characters crack jokes that aren't even that funny and then explain them in obnoxious detail." So Sonic Color's story is basically Family Guy.

The Sonic series problem seems to be that Sega just doesn't give a shit anymore. The Sonic games sell regardless of quality so there's no incentive to put forth the effort into making good ones--Sonic Team attempted to do something interesting with 06, but Sega rushed it out for the 15th Anniversary and consequently it was an unfinished mess. Sonic Boom's concept art shows that BRB initially had a very ambitious and potentially solid game on paper, but then Sega forced them to develop it exclusively for Wii U when Cryengine wasn't supported on that system, and the results a disaster. Colors and generations have a good gameplay loop but they're just empty and/or annoying as stories. It's like Sega never lets the developer have enough time to make a sonic game polished all around, save for Sonic Mania. Can you imagine if Nintendo was as careless with Mario as Sega is which Sonic?

The deadly six look like they're from a completely different franchise.

"Tails acted for the greater good. Let's make sure that his sacrifice isn't for nothing." LMAO

I also don't like how they shove green hill zone up our faces.

i find sad that, nowadays, memes are mainly being used as a scapegoat to the series' status. "What's this? Fans are losing hope on the franchise? Let's just throw another Big The Cat meme!". It used to be cute, at first, but now it's plain desperate. No wonder most outsiders look to the franchise as a joke. People like to blame stuff like IGN, Game Grumps or Projared for this, but barely ever pay attention to the circus that is Sonic's social media.

It seems SEGA took all the wrong lessons from 06. They thought the reason people hated the story was it was too dark not because it was riddled with plot holes and Shadow was the only character with a brain and in character. They thought the reason we hated the multiple gameplay styles was because we hated the characters so they reduced everybody except Sonic to a cheerleader when the real problem is none of the styles were fleshed our or fun. They went too far in the other direction They thought people didn’t like 06’s gameplay because of the exploration factor when we hated it for being a buggy, piss poor controlling mess. I’m not exaggerating I recall a Nintendo Power interview with Izuka around the release of Sonic Colors where he said Sonic Team regretted the Wearhog and Swordplay: but with the way he worded it he seemed to under the impression the very concept was the problem not the execution. And they missed the biggest lesson of all. Don’t release a game before it’s ready. They forced big red button to rebuild Rise of Lyric from scratch on the Wii U and refused the change the release date. On top of that if reports are true 2.5 years of Sonic Forces 3.5-4 year development was spent on the new lighting engine rather than making the actual game. And to add insult to injury the lighting engine makes the game look worse than Sonic Unleashed a game released NINE YEARS AGO on weaker hardware!

Heck. If the movie has proven anything you can do a lighthearted story that people enjoy without being meta

I think sonic 06 was the make or break, if that game worked and wasn't rushed it'd be considered the best sonic game and the whole franchise would be completely different

SA2's ending was the pinnacle of sonic games for me, a very original style to it and story that felt like no other, combined with fun gameplay and interesting characters

i legit would rather have the tryhard story of 06 instead of any story from the recent games

Trying to tell a joke every five seconds is one problem.

I genuinely believe Sonic & The Black Knight was the last sonic game with a great story, writing, and villain. Sonic stories has always been one of the main things I’ve loved about the games and I feel like great stories has been missing from the series since that game. Forces seemed promising at first but it ended up being the biggest disappointment in sonic history. Hell, even if 06’s story had issues, it still wasn’t terrible like the games today. I actually feel like 06 was the game that perfectly nailed Shadow’s character development after the events of Shadow The Hedgehog. It seemed like a natural evolution of his character unlike the whole “Arrogant Rival” personality they’re giving him now that makes him feel like a discount Vegeta. I feel like if the whole Elise romance thing was removed, 06’s story would’ve been better received and just overall greater. I feel like the best thing to do is to hire Ian Flynn, the writer of the IDW comics, to write the story for the games. I’ve read the IDW comics up to now and they have everything that sonic stories now are lacking. High stakes, great characters (no more beta male tails who’s scared of chaos 0 like in forces), great dialogue, and overall great writing that’s much superior to the games now. Even if they don’t hire him, maybe there is a glimmer of hope for sonic stories, since they got rid of the old writers responsible for writing Forces. I’ll try to stay optimistic but I’m seriously hoping we don’t get trash like Forces. EDIT: This aged well. Ian Flynn was confirmed as the writer for Sonic Frontiers.

Sonic Battle for crying out loud a good dramatic story with both light hearted elements and serious moments. And tied them together perfectly. And this was a GAME BOY game. The characters acted very much like themselves too.

It's refreshing at this point to hear someone criticize modern Sonic from a place of love, and without using Sonic Mania as a platform to bash anything that came out after Sonic 3.

If I was a head writer at Sega I'd write off the 2010s era of Sonic as non canon and return to the kind of storytelling seen in the Adventure games and Black Knight.

In my opinion the last sonic game with a good ending and story was black knight it had a good moral of living life to the fullest also it had a good story in between

Modern Sonic stories can work. They just need to be handled better.

I am so sick of Sega's self-deprecation. Making self aware jokes in an attempt to poke fun instead of actually focusing on improving on storytelling, worldbuilding and gameplay does not fix Sonic's problems. Just like how making Sonic be the end all be all solution and having him save the day alone vs. a guardian of a powerful gem, government spies, a detective team, other superpowered characters, and normal people who can keep up with Sonic being shoved to the side and not contributing to the plot in any way, shape or form. Fans kept complaining about "Sonikku's Dumb Friends" and Sega takes this too seriously to the point no one else gets to have their moment to shine or be developed; now they are useless because they can't even be active or morons start complaining about their existence. Even Tails gets shafted now (Chaos 0 in Sonic Forces ring a bell?) It's become a vicious cycle that needs to stop ASAP.

13:36 After the "That was cool" joke, Tails' expression perfectly describes what everyone is thinking while watching it.

sonic lost worlds makes the story of sonic 06 look good💀

I miss what Sonic was like before Roger Craig Smith took over, SEGA removed Sonic's good things about himself--he may be cocky, silly, and a smartass, but knows when to be serious, acted nice towards others, especially Tails--who's been a little brother to him since Sonic 2. I want the writers to give Sonic's true blue personality back.

I like how during SA2's final boss, Super Sonic asks Shadow if he's okay, hinting that he was losing energy too fast and might not survive. It helps set up Shadow's sacrifice by making you think, "Why does Sonic sound so concerned?"

The line of thinking that Sonic games stories don't matter and that they're an expendable aspect of the games annoys me greatly. There is nothing taboo about the concept of a story in a Sonic game. If you're going to point the finger at something that renders a story stupid in a Sonic game, point it at poor storytelling, plot holes, shallow plots, flanderization and other cases of OoC behavior. Not the basic concept of there being a story in the first place. Stories are the backbone that motivates the characters to do what they do. It gives them direction, it gives them purpose, It can serve to give them depth. And it's just mind boggling to me personally that something that can serve to enhance the overall entertainment factor, emotional connection, and memorability of a game can be considered so expendable. Like how the fuck else do you think Sonic still has such a strong cult following after all of his missteps like the "dark age"? Do you still think it's a mystery of how Shadow the Hedgehog outclassed the likes of even Tails and Eggman in popularity? How does Silver The Hedgehog still has more fans and is generally more liked than the Zetis despite debuting in a bad game?

Alternate title: Why Pontac and Graff are terrible writers for Sonic

Can i just say, Mike Pollock is great, he knows how to deliver even the worst lines in a memorable way, and he is genuinely one of the few things worth watching in sonic stories.

".....I was too slow to save my buddy." Can we get the "You're too slow" taunt after that line?

The darker stories of Sonic can work if they’re executed properly. Sonic Unleashed was proof of that if handled well. I would honestly consider it to be the be one of the most well written Sonic stories that we’ve had to date.

I have an irrationally deep hatred for Lost World. The writing’s terrible, the story’s not great, the characters are either derailed or bland, and from what I’ve heard, the gameplay is mediocre. Also, I just want to point out that Lost World kicked off the trend of writing Tails outrageously out of character. I think everyone can agree that Tails is NOT an arrogant person. His character development in the Adventure games made him confident and independent, but his humility despite his superior intelligence is a core part of his character. That’s why it’s so jarring and frustrating to hear him brag about how smart he is in Lost World. Sorry to rant, but can they just write Tails (and Sonic for that matter) well again? I’m a diehard Sonic fan that’s exhausted of the Meta Era and tired of Sega not making Sonic as great as we know it can be.

I just want Sonic stories that are competently written again, that keep the characters, story, and world internally consistent, and builds onto them in a meaningful way. Whether it's light hearted or dark, that's all I want. (by light hearted I don't mean detached, self-deprecating meta cringe comedy)

This series's plot situation is like a dad laughing while mocking his son that is trying so hard to impress him

The Sonic's "I was supposed to be the fastest" line if delivered in a better situation could've been more soul crushing than Shadow's sacrifice

those lines in Lost World actually made me take out my earbuds because they're on an entirely new, never-before-seen level of ass.

I really wish Sega would bring back Shiro Maekawa as their guy in charge of story, its clear they stopped having him work on Sonic when they changed directions, alongside Sega having Crush 40 make music for the series far less now, and focused heavily on pandering to nostalgia. I honestly feel like if they want to continue to go down the route they're going they might as well just reboot the series, since there's a strong disconnect with Modern Sonic and the Classic + Dreamcast era of Sonic now.

This video brought a tear to my eye, not gonna lie. The whole video went over my exact thoughts on the stories and what made them special before and why they’re so bad now. I’m sincerely hoping SEGA and Sonic Team gets a new team on the story, writing, cutscene animation, and voice acting to make a story that at least makes you care and make’s Sonic cool again.

When i watch JebTube's video called "farewell Sonic", i started to realize that this franchise is on a worse state that i ever thought back then, how the hell does Sega approves this? How in the fucking hell can you degrade your own mascot like this? And yes, you can bring to the table what Capcom and Namco made to Megaman and Pac-Man respectively with Megaman being dead and almost forgotten by the company and Pac-Man turning into an unfunny kids show but at least they were trying, Sega with Sonic is just terrible. Sonic is more annoying than ever, Tails is a fucking pussy, Knuckles has lost 99% of his braincells, Shadow has become the "ow the edge" character, Amy turned into a freaking feminist, Eggman is a joke, literally the whole cast has been flanderized to the limit, the world building has stopped and now it's just random things happening, the level design is more and more mediocre, and let's not talk about the writing. The memes and nostalgia this franchise now relies have been elevated to an unhealthy level, every time i see Green Hill i want to cut my balls, every time i see classic Sonic i want to know who thought this was a good idea, every time i see the Wisps it's a pain in the ass, and the memes? We literally got a Forces DLC for a Sanic t-shirt and because of the memes, the writing is just pathetic with jokes like "BaldiMcNoseHair". Seriously, i want the games to be good again, i want the writing to not just be unfunny jokes. Give us the Sonic we love, the Sonic who loves adventure and wants to save the world while staying cool. Give us the Tails who is an inventor but he also wants to be like Sonic but not live under his shadow. Give us the Knuckles who is the last of his species and questions why he was destined to guard the Master Emerald. Give us the Shadow who wanted to accomplish the wishes of his fallen friend Maria of protecting humanity. Give us the Amy who was tired of her normal life and just wanted the respect of Sonic. Give us the Eggman who was actually threating to the point of blowing up the moon, separating a whole world in pieces and making weapons of mass destruction but also was able to team up with Sonic when something goes out of his control. And for god's sake, kill classic Sonic and never touch it again, the best thing about the past is the hability of remember it and learn from it, not cash from it just because you think that's the only good thing about this series, stop looking towards the past and better start looking towards the future in order to save Sonic from the hole he is in. Make Sonic good again, nothing else, Sega (and bring back Jet Set Radio).

I feel like i'm the only one who liked shadow the hedgehog. don't change my mind... please.

What also helps is that Dreamcast Era Robotnik had some geniunely sinister moments, and you could actually take him sertiously as a threat. You mentioned the dramatic tension of Crazy Gadget, one of my favourite touches in that level is that he constantly taunts Sonic over the P.A. system. "If you don't hurry, [Amy] *will* die!" Seriously, screw Evil Ham, give me Fox Mincemeat any day!

Title correction *How Sega F*cked up Modern Sonic

I genuinely think the "meta" era (the one starting with Colors) is the actual dark age of Sonic. If people call the modern era (from Shadow and Sonic 06 until Unleashed and Black Knight) the dark age, then I believe the meta era is in something even more abysmal and darker than modern. The modern era has its lowest points on many subjects, like Shadow and 06, but the meta era goes even lower than that with Boom, Lost World and Forces.

In my opinion, Sonic Mania was the only 2010s Sonic game with actual heart and effort put into it, with Generations following suit. Sega has essentially become Illumination. They’ll release above average game after above average game, and people will buy it because it’s Sonic. As much as I loved growing up with the 2010s era, I have to admit that Sega hasn’t really tried in this era. Team Sonic Racing was pretty okay in my opinion, but the broken online was a bit of a downer. Colours Ultimate was good too, but the glitches at launch were really disappointing. I just hope with the next Sonic game, they actually put effort into the story and gameplay.

I love a Sonic plot that sincerely takes itself seriously, because I always used to take the characters seriously.

I find it hilarious that mania, a game with barely any story, has a better story than forces. That’s just sad Sega and not only is mania overall better than forces, MANIA WASNT EVEN MADE BY SEGA! IT WAS MADE BY FANS!

I prefer the more light-hearted Sonic games, but that doesn't mean that I could not appreciate a more serious tone. It kind worked well in SA2, for example. Just look at Mario & Luigi. Those games are still very light-hearted and fun, but they also have rather well written and interesting stories and usually even really awesome final boss battles, complete with great music and an overall very epic tone. Why does it work with Mario but not with Sonic? Let's take a look at M&L3 for example: Sure, the game is bright and colorful and has a very light-hearted overall tone, but it also has great characters. Fawful is actually a very memorable villain. He's fun to watch and kinda quirky (kinda like Kefka, now that I think of it), but some of the stuff he does is actually quite mean and outright cruel, in a very comedic and Pegi7 context of course. However, you could easily take the character of Fawful out of the light-hearted, child-friendly context and put him into a little more serous setting and you wouldn't even have to change his personality all that much. That's because he's a well written character. Most Sonic villains aren't and that's the real problem. Whenever Sonic takes a more serious route, the games either feel overly dramatic, edgy, or just unmemorable. Let's face it: Eggman is the most intersting Sonic villain, because, well, he's actually entertaining to watch, while also being quite capable if he has to.

I guess another similarity would be how Josstice League took the wrong lessons, and made it too self aware, while the Snyder Cut actually paid attention to feedback and maintained the course.

This video perfectly captures how i feel about the series as a whole. I miss those epic moments, those story arcs, the interesting characters and locations. If i had to describe it, it's as if the Sonic series lost its soul, as if it lost what made us fall in love with it all the way back in the "Genesis Era", or the "Dreamcast Era", or the ""Dark" Era". Bless Mania for coming out in the middle of this identity crisis. Anyway, great job with the video.

You're the hero we need, not the hero we deserve. Even though I'm personally fine with Sonic's Twitter being one with the memes and occasional self-deprecation, but the stories don't deserve that. No matter how well or poorly the Dreamcast/Dark Age games aged, I can understand that all of those have that passion and magic that most of the 2010s games lack.

This is what happens when you put a couple of guys who, by their own admission, knew nothing about Sonic before, to write the stories of the games. I wish Shiro maekawa to write the original scripts and Ian Flynn to do the localization, that would be perfect

Am I the only one who enjoyed the story and deepness of the Sonic Adventure series, specifically Sonic Adventure 2?

Shadow: *dies* 6 year old me: *quaking in my seat crying*

No one ever mentioned this, but seriously someone should tell SEGA to STOP putting Warren and Graff on anything involving Sonic stories. I see their names and see them as THE people responsible for making modern stories absolute garbage, along with making poor scripts for the cast who were perfectly fine in their cartoon.

19:15 - I get chills down my spine every time I hear Crush 40’s Open your Heart, it’s a great song, not to mention that it stars in the best sonic intro in my opinion that played every time you boot of the game.

Man, Forces and Frontiers are polar opposites in how to write a serious Sonic story and characterization

Games like Forces seem to try and forget certain characters or events from the series. The Chaos Emeralds never appear, and it contradicts a lot of what happened in past games.

Let me focus on just my favorite although there are others who are also wasted. Knuckles is: A Martial Artist While not Sonic level in speed, is very agile. Has Super Strength Has hands strong enough to break stone Can climb, dig and glide Can sense and control the Master Emerald Which can cancel out the power of the Chaos Emeralds And this character has been reduced to a total joke and for some reason they just focus on him being gullible and now nearly outright stupid. You can never convince me that he would just sit there and wait for Sonic, not even trying to save him. Horrid

The ambition is what i miss from this franchise part of the reason why sonic became famous was because it was more than just a simple platformer, it was ambitious it had a deep lore and story and sa1 andn sa2 just proved how much this series has potential and just proved us that sonic told fuck you to the standards of the simple platformer gaming and went on it's own path and even it doesn't matter theme just foreshadows that sonic is living by his own feelings and not following anyone and doesn't afraid to take risks and doesn't give a shit about what others think of his attitude but nowdays sonic is just a hedgehog version of Mickey mouse and this series just now bowed to the standards of platforming and just playing it safe and doesn't have any amount oft that edge that he used to have and that makes me hate game critics even more because they just kept saying that sonic shouldn't be serious or its just a cartoony hedgehog and made sega to make sonic a Mickey mouse and i miss the 2000 era even though not all of it games were good sega still had ball to go crazy and take risk and do something new.

Related: I'd love to show the Japanese Sonic 3 manual to someone who thinks Adventure is too serious and not in the spirit of Sonic. The Japanese manual literally describes the Tikal backstory that was adapted in Adventure as Sonic recalls the Legend of Angel Island before he and Tails set off for the island.

“I’m not a rat, I’m a hedgehog” blows on lamp banishing enemy. That writing was so good I always replayed it when I was little.These new stories are meh

Thank You! I always liked Sonic Adventure 2 more than the others, because the game was fun AND THEY ACTUALLY TRIED WITH THE STORY!

"As sonic transforms into super sonic for the first time in 3D graphics" Sonic R: Am I a joke to you?

THOSE R O T T E N S N E A K Y

Bring back the chao garden from Sonic Adventure 2.

Thank god someone actually acknowledged this, because I've had this same opinion for so long.

I always find the *"We went from a Funny hedgehog stoping Egg shaped doctor to fighting gods"* or *"Humans shouldn't be in Sonic games, we want to return to simple times Sega!"* Argument Stupid cuz like, The classic games weren't just about *"Eggman capture animals Sonic go save",* it was more then that if you read the Japanese manuels which describes that Sonic DOES live in humans world, Green hill was just an Island located at earth which is called "South Island". Since limitations of the Genesis era, they were forced to tell a story with high stakes by Level selection and manuels, They were even more complex then say Colors or Lost world despite being a 16 bit game imo. And the Adventure games follows the EXACT story that Classic games *(Especially Sonic 3)* tried to tell by Gameplay and manuels by mentioning various things from the Classic era like: the Echidna tribe that was mentioned in the manuels of Sonic 3 which was explored more on Adventure 1, Sonic Battle and chronicals. The mention of Sonic saving the Little planet from Sonic Cd in Sa1 The Green Hill stage of Sonic adventure 2 is located at an Island in the level select screen which is clearly a nod to Sonic 1 manuel mentioning South Island/Green Hill being located at an Island. Shadow's design being based on The Super Sonic mural from Sonic 3 and Gerald actually going there to investigate it and then making the EXACT copy of it in The last stage of Sa2 etc. I can go on more, The stakes were there, it was ALL there from the beginning. Sonic fighting a God of destruction, A giant Lizard, Aliens, Sun gods, time eating gods, and Sonic living on earth were all explained but people just overlook them by just *"Funny hedgehog stoping a Egg shaped doctor to fighting gods, why?"* Even tho those were the games that set the bars for those battles.

a lot of people love memes with a passion, but in all honesty I think they've done more damage than good.

I agree. Sonic Team needs to grow a pair. We're not asking to make Sonic into some gloomy and depressing character, we just want to see moments of tension. I still think they should hire Ian Flynn

J, the stuff in Forces about torture and Tails going crazy wasn't even in the Japnese version. It was like the localizers went full anime fansub.

I'm actually still wondering why they predominantly restrict the playable characters to Sonic only (sort of)

The way J says "pun entirely intended" somehow sounds so similar to the real thing even though it's (probably) supposed to be exaggerated. Just shows how much the voice actors cared.

Before anyone else says in the comment section: "why is a grown arse man complaining about stories in kid's games?", let me explain why: He's complaining about the stories from 2010 to today because they rely too heavily on the cheesy side of the humour, are generally unmemorable, the characters don't act like themselves, and to top it all, they're written and/or translated by writers Pontac and Graff, who, by their own admission, knew NOTHING about Sonic's history beforehand.

Never was one who cared much about Sonic stories, but in all honesty, the main issue with most of the storylines of the newer games comes down to some of these things: -Focus on humor and cheesy lines over world building and plot progression -Repetitive nature where only the start and end of the game really matters, leading to most stages feeling like filler -Poor characterization. Sonic in these games can go a little overboard with how they portray him. He tends to become kind of like Andrew Garfield's Spider-Man, or even Deadpool at times, if that makes any sense -Some characters don't have anything to do in the story of these games. Knuckles and Amy added nothing to the story of Lost World and the Heroes sized cast of Forces had no real depth to them, making them feel like afterthoughts -Shallowness. It feels like the devs just make the game's pitch and start designing stages, and then Pontac and Graff write up excuses for the characters to do certain things. Colors? There's a bunch of generators to destroy, hence why you're there. Oh, and Eggman has some mind control plan going on which doesn't really go anywhere. Generations? Some random monster of the week is ripping through time, therefore, you have to speed through old levels alongside your past self in order to fix it, despite that making no sense. Lost World? Skittles try and take over the world and you have to team up with Eggman because Sonic is a dumbass. Forces speaks for itself, it's just a mess. Those are just a few of the issues though. I'm sure there's more I'm missing.

HANGING ON THE EDGE OF TOMORROW!!! God... Live and Learn still gets me hype.

Sonic had more emotional depth in Shadow the Hedgehog and Sonic 06 than he does today!

THANK YOU. People easily fly away the fact that Sonic Riders and Sonic and the Black Knight actually had good stories that took itself seriously and provided variety and decent scripting. I miss that. I also wish you could have touched on characterization more since that is also a butchered aspect of the story. Sonic isn't even cool anymore. Sonic is more like a trihard who desperately tries to be funny but fails horribly. He also hardly takes anything seriously, and his voice actor paired with the bad vocal direction and bad scripting is just terrible for modern games. I remember a time where this character's translation from 2D to 3D brought along the cool aspects of his character. He was someone who felt experienced, cool, level headed, and someone who could take matters seriously ; like that person in life you could depend on to get the job done with a smile. I have no hope for that Sonic movie coming out. Worse time in history to be releasing a Sonic Movie. Honestly. That thing will flop, and I will not be blindly optimistic just to be disappointed greatly.

Is the meme humour by SEGA bad? Well it depends. For me, I think it brings them closer to us, the fans. However, it’s not okay when it makes its way into the games. Theres a difference between being fun for the fans and forcing that always “funny” attitude into the things you make. That, is where they need to draw the line.

"No copyright laws are going to stop me" Me: Tell that to Archie Sonic.

Is nobody going to talk about how Unleashed has a perfect story, likeable characters, good voice acting and being a generally good game? Edit: Can you guys chill out about Nintendo games? Every company makes good and bad games.

I too wish that Sonic and other companies would stop with the "oh, we're so random" based humor. It's really annoying and doesn't help a series progress much or at all.

Ken Pontac and Warren Graff are the worst writers Sonic has ever had. I hope they NEVER write another Sonic story ever again!

I'd rather get a game like Unleashed than any game from the Meta Era.

THIS is all ON POINT! I really hope the entire Sega company sees this! At this point everyone can see how badly Sega pandered to nostalgia, and I honestly do not like it one bit. I am one of the fan who simply lost all interest when Lost World arrived, to the point where I won't even watch playthrough of that game. I simply MISS the era where storylines were handled with care and heart, and Sega willing to take risks. It almost seemed like Sega noticed the critics praising Colors first for not introducing any new characters, to the point of literally bringing Classic Sonic back into the games. Sega is siding with THAT part of the fan base, and in exchange they lost this side of fans. I really hope Sega can open their eyes to this whole matter.

At first this was gonna be one of those nostalgia videos, but I'm glad that wasn't the case. I agree with the sentiments of this vid. Shadow and 06 were bad, but at least they actually tried to tell a story, and not do nostalgia pandering, meme garbage.

Oh my gosh the Sonic torture thing ticked me off so much. I really wanted to see Sonic beaten and bruised, on the verge of giving up hope that he would be free. But he would still have some shread of hope that one of his friends would save him and he'd get to see everyone again. And then...when he gets saved and he sees his friends, he's happy and grateful to see them again. Maybe he'd grow a bit as a character, realizing how he's not as powerful as he thought he was and that sometimes, he needs to get some help now and then. But NOPE. He's TOTALLY FINE GUYS! Sonic's a beast, he can get tortured for 6 STRAIGHT MONTHS and be COMPLETELY FINE. Heck with you Sega. You missed a PERFECT OPPORTUNITY to give us a neat concept for Sonic's character. YOU BLEW IT. I'm just upset with Sega.

One consistently amazing thing in Sonic is the music. There is virtually no exception. That shtts good. Now I'm going to cry over "His World" Solaris phase 2 instrumental.