Oh, Sonic. How the mighty have fallen.
This may come as a shock, but I was actually a Genesis gamer during my 16 bit days, so it pains me quite a lot to see how low Sonic has sunk. The recent 3D Sonic games have suffered from some pretty big problems. Most Sonic fans see what’s wrong and believe they know how to fix it, but it’s not quite so simple, according to Sega of America’s Marketing VP, Sean Ratcliffe:
The quality is something that will be fixed over time. It’s not something where you wake up one morning and say, ‘You know what, we’re going to improve our quality on this franchise,’ and it magically happens. A lot of hard work goes into striving for quality. Interestingly, I think Sonic Unleashed was very well received by the kids. There was some talk about the werehog aspect, the slower pacing and more combat-oriented gameplay, but when we go out and test this stuff and sit down with the consumers, kids actually like that. I think older, die-hard Sega fans who grew up with the franchise and the first Sonic the Hedgehog associate Sonic more with 2-D side-scrolling super fast, and they liked the daytime gameplay, but when it came to the slower paced gameplay they were fairly critical of that, and that’s fine – they have their opinions.
I think if they really want to fix Sonic, they should just hand the IP over to Dimps. They made the incredibly fun Sonic Rush and Sonic Rush Adventure for DS, and they were responsible for everything that was good about the Wii version of Sonic Unleashed. It sounds like they’re still just interested in marketing Sonic to children, though, with a complete disregard for older gamers who demand a certain level of quality. I guess that’s the easy way to do things.
