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Discussion The first official "Sonic The Hedgehog is a Great Franchise" thread

Doug Bowser Jr said:
Are we mature enough to admit that Sonic Lost Worlds had a LOT of good stuff? Granted, some of the levels were atrocious and the bosses were ridiculous, but that game wasn't far from greatness!
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I feel like that can describe a lot of Sonic. The ideas are great, even if the execution needed to be refined.
 
My thesis about Sonic is that all his bad games do is reinforce how much we like him.

Crash and Spyro were dropped within a minute of their decline, but Sonic keeps on trucking because Sonic is innately cool.
 
Weiss said:
My thesis about Sonic is that all his bad games do is reinforce how much we like him.

Crash and Spyro were dropped within a minute of their decline, but Sonic keeps on trucking because Sonic is innately cool.
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Yeah it's like the subpar games only make us root for him more. We want him to succeed.
 
JazzPotatoes said:
Master System Sonic > Mega Drive Sonic

Mega Drive Sonic is great for the first few acts, then rapidly diminishes in quality as the game goes on. Master System Sonic is a solid, momentum-based platformer that does a much better job of balancing speed with interesting platforming challenges. You can go fast while still taking time in levels to enjoy collecting rings and finding collectibles.
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I'll agree with this. Sonic 1 8-bit is a legit classic, and the difficulty curve is much fairer than the weird progression of Sonic 1 MD, which also has wonky level designs in half of the zones which don't work well with the physics.

Sonic 2 8-bit, OTOH, is the devil's own child, especially the Game Gear version.
 
chocolate_supra said:
Truths
great music though
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I want to speak to the manager of the person who thought this level design was okay.

S2_8bit_ghz3_map.png
 
Branduil said:
I want to speak to the manager of the person who thought this level design was okay.

S2_8bit_ghz3_map.png
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Didn't you read what @Branduil said? About whose child Sonic 2 Game Gear is?

That's who designed that level.

Also I took one look at that background and I could hear that music immediately. Obviously this game affected me.

Edit: Shit, you are Branduil. 😅 It's late, I wasn't paying enough attention. But I'm not gonna go back and fix it, that was a glorious mistake and I'm gonna own it.
 
I would like to take this chance to say that Sky High Zone at least gave us one good thing:

yall don't even know how badly I want Tee Lopes redo the whole Genesis trilogy for Sonic Origins. I hope someone big at Sega follows Famiboards. Or is, ya know, just smart and gives Lopes all the 2D Sonic OSTs from now on.
 
Okay since we were talking on the last page about that "leak" that appeared to be an official screenshot with a Sonic and some UI pasted on top, I just had to share this:



In the beginning I was wondering if it was the same person but then when I saw how much effort they put into the UI in this video, I figured it couldn't be. What's sad is this UI looks so good that it makes the one from the other day look... more plausibly official. 😅

Also stay till the end of the video for a chuckle.
 
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Doug Bowser Jr said:
Are we mature enough to admit that Sonic Lost Worlds had a LOT of good stuff? Granted, some of the levels were atrocious and the bosses were ridiculous, but that game wasn't far from greatness!
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We're at least mature enough to discuss that SEGA should port it to Switch. The bonus Zelda and Yoshi levels are still locked to the Wii U!



I figured the PC Modding community would have figured out how to port it over by now, but no.
 


This game looks really rad. Came out today. Launch discount takes it down to $12. Looks like it went way under the radar with zero outlet reviews on metacritic. Seems very Sonic-y. Has 92% positive reviews with 350 reviews on Steam. I have no time to play it at the moment but I'll be eager to read Switch reviews and impressions for sure. In the meantime here's a Steam review that caught my eye:

Crumble is a platformer that lets you feel an awesome sense of speed and momentum after only a short time of getting used to the controls. I would recommend it to anyone who likes platformers with grappling hook mechanics (such as A Story About My Uncle or The Free Ones) or who just wants to play a game where you can solve platforming challenges in creative ways (Tiny and Big comes to mind here).
The game really embraces the chaos and freedom that comes with its breakable platforms and wild grappling hook physics. Instead of awkwardly balancing along narrow ledges and precisely jumping from platform to platform, the player speeds through the levels while everything crumbles behind them. I really wish there were more platformers like this, which emphasize a creative navigation through an environment instead of forcing the player to be as precise as possible while moving.
All in all I want to say that I enjoyed the game very much and it is basically everything I ever wanted from a 3D Sonic the Hedgehog title.
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Sonic isn't just a great franchise, it's an excellent one!

Sonic 1-3&K on the Mega Drive are top tier, as is Sonic Mania. Sonic Adventure, one and two, might be a little uneven viewed through the lens of 2022, but they've got a lot of quality, heart and ambition.

Generations is such a joyous game - I genuinely believe it deserved far better reviews. And while I wasn't too impressed by Colours, it was decent. There's been some good, so so and bad spin offs, but the franchise has delivered some classic entertainment.

Sonic's catalogue has it's ups and downs, but the highs are so high.

I can't help but roll my eyes when when I boot up YouTube and see a 'Was Sonic ever good?' video narrated by a 19-year-old kid. It's like mate, let me stop you right there. I was there. It wasn't just good, it was top class. End of story.
 
Krvavi Abadas said:
We're at least mature enough to discuss that SEGA should port it to Switch. The bonus Zelda and Yoshi levels are still locked to the Wii U!



I figured the PC Modding community would have figured out how to port it over by now, but no.
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Crazy faithful HD version of the Yoshi's Story aesthetic. Cool stuff.
 
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Mr.Fletcher said:
Sonic isn't just a great franchise, it's an excellent one!

Sonic 1-3&K on the Mega Drive are top tier, as is Sonic Mania. Sonic Adventure, one and two, might be a little uneven viewed through the lens of 2022, but they've got a lot of quality, heart and ambition.

Generations is such a joyous game - I genuinely believe it deserved far better reviews. And while I wasn't too impressed by Colours, it was decent. There's been some good, so so and bad spin offs, but the franchise has delivered some classic entertainment.

Sonic's catalogue has it's ups and downs, but the highs are so high.

I can't help but roll my eyes when when I boot up YouTube and see a 'Was Sonic ever good?' video narrated by a 19-year-old kid. It's like mate, let me stop you right there. I was there. It wasn't just good, it was top class. End of story.
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The biggest issue I have with this kind of rhetoric is that, at the end of the day, it is entirely unproductive for any kind of discussion. Yes, millions of people obviously thought it was good at some point otherwise it wouldn't still be here making hundreds of millions over 30 years later. It's that Youtube clickbait discussion style that doesn't contribute anything to the conversation surrounding the franchise. Yeah, we all know it's been in a rut for about ten years again barring some fantastic exceptions (Sonic IDW comic line, Generations, Mania, Sonic live action, etc), so what needs to change to fix that? Well, certainly not the 500000th discussion of "Wuz it ever gud?"
 
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The thing that is still crazy to me is that SEGA didn't immediately contract Whitehead's studio for another new 2D Sonic after Mania. Just absolute malpractice to not hire them full-time to make new 2D Sonic games.
 
Branduil said:
The thing that is still crazy to me is that SEGA didn't immediately contract Whitehead's studio for another new 2D Sonic after Mania. Just absolute malpractice to not hire them full-time to make new 2D Sonic games.
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If I had to guess, the idea is that Classic Sonic is supposed to be a big deal for celebrations and anniversaries. He's not really supposed to be Another Ongoing Sonic, he's the fine china you bust out for a special occasion.

Sonic Mania is a big deal, Sonic Mania 2, 3 and 4 within the spam of a decade, probably less. The problem there, though, is that Sonic Mania ended up being the game Sonic boomers were extremely insistent needed to exist and then they were proven completely correct; a 2D Sonic with just the good old characters would be the most beloved Sonic game of the last decade, and the last most beloved Sonic game also had copious Classic Sonic.

If Zelda started making 2D entries again it wouldn't get the same reception but that's because the flagship 3D entries aren't dealing with the same reception as 3D Sonic.
 
Weiss said:
If I had to guess, the idea is that Classic Sonic is supposed to be a big deal for celebrations and anniversaries. He's not really supposed to be Another Ongoing Sonic, he's the fine china you bust out for a special occasion.

Sonic Mania is a big deal, Sonic Mania 2, 3 and 4 within the spam of a decade, probably less. The problem there, though, is that Sonic Mania ended up being the game Sonic boomers were extremely insistent needed to exist and then they were proven completely correct; a 2D Sonic with just the good old characters would be the most beloved Sonic game of the last decade, and the last most beloved Sonic game also had copious Classic Sonic.

If Zelda started making 2D entries again it wouldn't get the same reception but that's because the flagship 3D entries aren't dealing with the same reception as 3D Sonic.
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When Mania came out, I thought to myself, "You know, I don't need this all the time, I'd like to see the Mania devs do their own thing and not just make Sonic games. But, like, every five years or so? I'd be cool with that."

And now we're nearing that five year mark, and nothing. And yeah, that's kinda disappointing.

But you're absolutely right in that the wider state of the franchise is to blame more than anything. If we were consistently getting good 3D entries (or solid modern style 2D entries like in the 2000s), I think the demand for more Mania wouldn't be as heavy. But Mania drops and it's the best thing this franchise has gotten in a long time when 3D Sonic was going into another slump, and then SEGA does nothing to follow up with it games wise, and yeah, of course people are gonna be disappointed. We want good games. Mania was a good game. Lost World was an experiment that didn't quite work out. The Boom games were average at best and mismanaged disasters at worst. Runners on mobile is dead and unplayable. Forces was mediocre. Team Sonic Racing was considered a step down from Transformed. Even the remaster of Colors had its issues, whether or not one thinks that the non-Switch issues were exaggerated or not.

It's really cool that the multimedia surrounding Sonic has been well received. The recent animations for each new release have been great. People like the IDW comics (still gotta read them) and it's great to see Ian Flynn finally involved with Sonic Frontiers. Heck, the movie that could have been a disaster is warmly loved by the fans - and I own a copy waiting to be watched. But Sonic is also a video game franchise. And to keep the analogy up, if all your other dinnerware has chips and cracks and you're not going to fix them, then either get more dinnerware or keep breaking out the fine china.

I am truly hoping that Frontiers is a good game. Classic, Modern, something completely new, it doesn't matter the direction the franchise goes so long as the games are good.
 
I'm starting to think of the Mania hunger differently after Metroid Dread. A lot was said when Dread was coming about how the market has so many metroidvania search-action games now thanks to indies, that Dread might not match up (or even be necessary). I disagree, but I started applying that same logic to Sonic lately. Yes, if the 3D games were more consistently good we probably wouldn't beg for more 2D Sonic, but what about people like me who actually just prefer the 2D Sonic gameplay? Where are the indies striving to scratch that itch, like they have been with Metroid-style and Zelda-style gameplay? Aside from Freedom Planet I can't think of any indies making Sonic-inspired games, so even if Frontiers is the awesome modern Sonic Adventure I hope it will be, I'm still gonna wish there were 2D options. Even if Mania doesn't continue, I'd hope for some more games like it, with or without Sonic branding.
 
chocolate_supra said:
I'm starting to think of the Mania hunger differently after Metroid Dread. A lot was said when Dread was coming about how the market has so many metroidvania search-action games now thanks to indies, that Dread might not match up (or even be necessary). I disagree, but I started applying that same logic to Sonic lately. Yes, if the 3D games were more consistently good we probably wouldn't beg for more 2D Sonic, but what about people like me who actually just prefer the 2D Sonic gameplay? Where are the indies striving to scratch that itch, like they have been with Metroid-style and Zelda-style gameplay? Aside from Freedom Planet I can't think of any indies making Sonic-inspired games, so even if Frontiers is the awesome modern Sonic Adventure I hope it will be, I'm still gonna wish there were 2D options. Even if Mania doesn't continue, I'd hope for some more games like it, with or without Sonic branding.
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I'd guess indie devs have a harder time making a speed-based platformer meaningfully stand out from Sonic vs. making an exploration-based platformer stand out from Metroid. Sonic's gameplay style is so specific that indie attempts to emulate it will just come off as knock-off Sonic games.
 
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chocolate_supra said:
I'm starting to think of the Mania hunger differently after Metroid Dread. A lot was said when Dread was coming about how the market has so many metroidvania search-action games now thanks to indies, that Dread might not match up (or even be necessary). I disagree, but I started applying that same logic to Sonic lately. Yes, if the 3D games were more consistently good we probably wouldn't beg for more 2D Sonic, but what about people like me who actually just prefer the 2D Sonic gameplay? Where are the indies striving to scratch that itch, like they have been with Metroid-style and Zelda-style gameplay? Aside from Freedom Planet I can't think of any indies making Sonic-inspired games, so even if Frontiers is the awesome modern Sonic Adventure I hope it will be, I'm still gonna wish there were 2D options. Even if Mania doesn't continue, I'd hope for some more games like it, with or without Sonic branding.
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Ideally we'd get both, like in the 2000s, but if we could only have one Sonic game, I want it to be good before I choose a preference between 2D and 3D, ya know? Like, I miss 2D Zelda, but if we keep getting Breath of the Wild level quality, I'll be sated for a while.
 
srb2-title.png

I've always found Sonic more miss than hit, but its fan community bring the goods and then some. I love SRB2. I love that if you replace its character models with polygonal ones the game feels like a long lost (impossible) Saturn Sonic. I love that the special stages are just Nights levels. I love that it has a fully fleshed out Kart racer spinoff where I can play as Kiryu Kazuma and Sakura Shinguji. It's a really special thing.
 
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maebe said:
srb2-title.png

I've always found Sonic more miss than hit, but it's fan community bring the goods and then some. I love SRB2. I love that if you replace its character models with polygonal ones the game feels like a long lost (impossible) Saturn Sonic. I love that the special stages are just Nights levels. I love that it has a fully fleshed out Kart racer spinoff where I can play as Kiryu Kazuma and Sakura Shinguji. It's a really special thing.
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I agree. I love the Sonic Jam styled 3d models. And the game is really fun and challenging.
 
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Does anyone else get bittersweet melancholic feelings from listening to Sonic 3's Endless Mine music? Ever since I was a kid that song did things to my heart and now I'm browsing the OST on YouTube and can confirm it still does.
 
chocolate_supra said:
Does anyone else get bittersweet melancholic feelings from listening to Sonic 3's Endless Mine music? Ever since I was a kid that song did things to my heart and now I'm browsing the OST on YouTube and can confirm it still does.
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Yes! And it’s such an under appreciated misic track. Brilliant.

Also Tails theme in Sonic Adventure makes me very emotional. I was born with cerebral palsy, so the lyrics hit me right in the heart as a teenager.
 
I don't think it's a great franchise at all, but the hate it gets is waaayy overblown. Games like Sonic 4 (especially Episode 2), Lost World and Sonic Unleashed do not deserve the crazy amount of hate they get even if they still aren't that great.

That said, I do not think Sonic Adventure 1 and 2 are good. At all. In fact, I think they are not much better than Sonic 06.

Still, when Sonic is good, I can never get enough of it. Sonic 2, the Sonic Advance trilogy, Sonic Generations (including the underrated 3DS version) and Sonic Mania are sooooo good.
 
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Doug Bowser Jr said:
Are we mature enough to admit that Sonic Lost Worlds had a LOT of good stuff? Granted, some of the levels were atrocious and the bosses were ridiculous, but that game wasn't far from greatness!
Click to expand...

Yes. For the first world I thought it would be the best 3D Sonic game ever.

By the end I was like "did the level designers retire after world 2 and they hired the janitor to do the rest of it?"

It has my favorite aesthetic design and soundtrack of any 3D Sonic game, and I love the tube idea even if the weird shit like the barely functional parkour element was broken.
 
Schlubotipelto said:
Yes. For the first world I thought it would be the best 3D Sonic game ever.

By the end I was like "did the level designers retire after world 2 and they hired the janitor to do the rest of it?"
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This was his I felt, too. When I saw the trailers and the wacky tube world and camera that spun with Sonic instead of staying locked to the level's perspective, I honestly thought it was gonna be like a revival of Sonic X-Treme, so I was hyped, and then I really only liked that first level that was in all the promo material. It seriously did feel like they threw all their ideas into the first level and then kinda dropped off. 🤷‍♂️
 
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Weiss said:
My thesis about Sonic is that all his bad games do is reinforce how much we like him.

Crash and Spyro were dropped within a minute of their decline, but Sonic keeps on trucking because Sonic is innately cool.
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I enjoy his games, but Crash has always given me bad vibes

Spyro is chill but a baby
 
Sega did a pretty clever April Fool's.

kotaku.com

The Best (And Worst) April Fools’ Jokes In Gaming For 2022

Some pranksters include Sonic, Among Us, and Genshin Impact
kotaku.com kotaku.com

sonic.sega.jp

2022年冬発売の完全新作「ソニックフロンティア」 限定版の特典情報をいち早く公開！

高級風呂桶 ～ソニックチーム手作り～ 冒険の疲れに暖かいお湯のぬくもりを届けるため、風呂桶を開発。スターフォール諸島産の良木をふんだんに使い、夜な夜な秘密の工房で手作りした、こだわりの一品です。 シルク製手ぬぐい 濡れた身体を優しく拭...
sonic.sega.jp
 
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Sonic the Hedgehog is a great franchise, but most of the games this century are crap. I don’t think the two things have to align necessarily.
 
The original Sonic games and Mania are some of the finest platformers still to this day. In my mind they hold up about as well as any of the Mario games.
I love that little blue bugger and going back the games are still heaps of fun.

Now where the heck's the Origin collection honestly? Feels like it's been forever since it was shown off.
 
I've tried to approach this thread several times but, especially the last few posts where there were a bit of hostility towards on other franchises I love, I couldn't bring myself to comment (and I'll be letting that aside.. that's one thing that I personally dislike on the Sonic fandom, especially when comes to younger fans that don't see the flaws on the franchise, being dimissive on other game series, but I digress);

Anyway... I'm a cranky Sonic fan that have been playing the series since its inception (well, technically, since the Master System, which may as well be the actual first game, before the Genesis version), and also is very unsatisfying with the direction the series has gone for the past... two decades or more? I love the 2D games in general, I sparsely like some of the more modern games (Colors, Generations, the Advance games) but I feel the last game I truly loved was Lost World, which as a formula, I thought it was great, since I couldn't stand the Boost games anymore; --too bad Forces had to came out and bring yet again that shallow gameplay, instead of polishing up the LW system;

I obviously loved Mania and I'm looking forward to Origins (with a tad of concern). ... Not particularly confident in Frontiers, and the movies and comics doesn't excite me.

But Sonic is a fundamental part of what I am; Sonic 1 8-Bit was the first video game I ever played, and through Sonic discussions, I've met many of my best friends; so even I know the franchise is going through a path that I disapprove in many different aspects and angles, I guess I'll be forever tied emotionally and even if just to be the party pooper, I have to be at least in the sidelines watching.
 
FluffyPower said:
Every forum needs one, so now this one has it: Sonic the Hedgehog, even in 3D, is great.



Sonic_Adventure.PNG

Sonic_Adventure_2_cover.png

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a5TWBkicGRTBqKfPD6LXaYr6.png

SonicGenerations.jpg





It's fantastic and I look forward to this forum being filled with Sonic
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Is the "such-and-such is a great franchise name-format" in the thread title a long-running, well, name-format or is this the first time I'm seeing it?

Like, is there a "Super Mario is a great franchise" thread somewhere?
 
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DoofTroop said:
The original Sonic games and Mania are some of the finest platformers still to this day. In my mind they hold up about as well as any of the Mario games.
I love that little blue bugger and going back the games are still heaps of fun.

Now where the heck's the Origin collection honestly? Feels like it's been forever since it was shown off.
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I’ve been hungry for news about it too, and at the same time being nostalgic for the great collection on Saturn; Sonic Jam. I hope it has some extra stuff like Jam had.
 
I'm in a weird spot after Sonic The Moviehog 2. When the first one was approaching, there wasn't really anything on the horizon in terms of games. Forces was the most recent entry and that was.. well it was $40 at launch is what it was, so the movie was all we really had to look forward to. And the way it turned out, the attempts the studio made to make it better, the mid- and end-credits scenes with the game-accurate Robotnik and the into of Tails, all I really had afterwards was "I hope it does well enough to get a sequel." That was it, Sonic-wise. Then the sequel was announced. Then the cast was announced. Then the trailer hit with all the references to Sonic 2, 3K, and Adventure.. and I had hope. I had HYPE. Then more trailers (which I tried to avoid but YouTube thumbnails spoiled the reveals) gave me more hype. I was looking forward to this movie like it was gonna single-handedly carry my Sonic fandom.

Now it's been a day since I saw it. Yes, we have Sonic 3 announced, but Fowler said he isn't signed on to direct yet and doesn't know what direction the studio is going. Carrey might be retiring, throwing his epic Robotnik into limbo. The magic of Sonic 2 might've been a one-time thing, but...

...this time, Sonic Origins is in the pipeline. Sonic Frontiers (which looks to be literally the exact Sonic game I've dreamt of for years) is coming. The movie feels like less of a big deal to me now because.. guys I might really love Frontiers. I was so focused on this movie for so long that all I was thinking about was whether or not the third one will continue on in this direction, but now I feel, like, actual hope for this franchise overall?
 
chocolate_supra said:
I'm in a weird spot after Sonic The Moviehog 2. When the first one was approaching, there wasn't really anything on the horizon in terms of games. Forces was the most recent entry and that was.. well it was $40 at launch is what it was, so the movie was all we really had to look forward to. And the way it turned out, the attempts the studio made to make it better, the mid- and end-credits scenes with the game-accurate Robotnik and the into of Tails, all I really had afterwards was "I hope it does well enough to get a sequel." That was it, Sonic-wise. Then the sequel was announced. Then the cast was announced. Then the trailer hit with all the references to Sonic 2, 3K, and Adventure.. and I had hope. I had HYPE. Then more trailers (which I tried to avoid but YouTube thumbnails spoiled the reveals) gave me more hype. I was looking forward to this movie like it was gonna single-handedly carry my Sonic fandom.

Now it's been a day since I saw it. Yes, we have Sonic 3 announced, but Fowler said he isn't signed on to direct yet and doesn't know what direction the studio is going. Carrey might be retiring, throwing his epic Robotnik into limbo. The magic of Sonic 2 might've been a one-time thing, but...

...this time, Sonic Origins is in the pipeline. Sonic Frontiers (which looks to be literally the exact Sonic game I've dreamt of for years) is coming. The movie feels like less of a big deal to me now because.. guys I might really love Frontiers. I was so focused on this movie for so long that all I was thinking about was whether or not the third one will continue on in this direction, but now I feel, like, actual hope for this franchise overall?
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What optimism.. and obviously, I wouldn't ever take that away from you, but seriously, in my case, even after watching the second movie (which, though I admit it was better than the first one [not a hard task], didn't change my apathy for the whole venture), my view on the current status on the series didn't change a bit.

For me, it's hard to stay positive in general.
 
CyberWolfJV said:
What optimism.. and obviously, I wouldn't ever take that away from you, but seriously, in my case, even after watching the second movie (which, though I admit it was better than the first one [not a hard task], didn't change my apathy for the whole venture), my view on the current status on the series didn't change a bit.

For me, it's hard to stay positive in general.
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