Current Feelings About Sonic

After being able to check out a rant journal entry posted by my good friend TheDogwhitaTail just recently, I've decided to do the same thing involving something similar that was on my mind. As everyone may already know, the last couple of Sonic games that have come out were the ones based on the "Sonic Boom" cartoon series on Cartoon Network - "Sonic Boom: The Rise Of Lyric" on the Nintendo Wii U, and "Sonic Boom: Shattered Crystal" on the Nintendo 3DS - and everyone claims that they suck because of them being poorly designed and full of glitches almost like that of the infamous "Sonic The Hedgehog" on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 (AKA "Sonic '06"). In case anybody is wondering, I've never been able to play either of those games despite how big of a Sonic fan I am, so I haven't been able to see them for myself except from a couple of video game reviews that I remember checking out on YouTube. But even so, it seems that everyone can't shut up about it, especially to the point where they claim that Sonic isn't a great video game hero anymore just because of these two particular games that have come out not too long ago.

Now, I'm not trying to defend Sonic just like I did eight years ago when trying to prove that the games he appeared in are still awesome to play (Heck, I even tried to defend "Sonic '06" until I actually played it for myself), but there's a reason why I can't stand hearing negative opinions about things that I truly enjoy... Those kind of opinions always tend to be hurtful towards those who are optimistic such as myself, and I end up believing that I can no longer enjoy what is being critized just because everyone else says so. This sort of thing also applies with how the Sonic games are being released today; Even though 2006 was kind of a lousy year for Sonic fans with most of the games being let-downs for anyone expecting something fun and/or enjoyable, it seems that Sega and Sonic Team were able to learn from their mistakes and make newer games that are a lot better to play, starting with "Sonic Unleashed" back in 2008 (which was kind of a slow start, but it's still a great game nonetheless). But then the "Sonic Boom" games come out a year ago, and what I hear from everyone who play them is something like "Oh, look! This new Sonic game is full of bugs and glitches! I guess that means Sonic is a terrible video game series now, AND NO ONE SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO LIKE SONIC ANYMORE!!!"

See what I mean? I know it's kind of a drastic exaggeration, but I just wanted to prove a point about how such an negative attitude towards anyone can be both hurtful and unnecessary. I can understand there are quite a few bad games that the Blue Blur had appeared in over the years, even since the days of the Sega Saturn (which was also a lousy time for Sonic due to the cancellation of the promising title "Sonic X-Treme"), but that doesn't exactly mean that there weren't any good Sonic games that had come out over the years because there actually were, and it all depended on the people who developed each game as well. In this dude's case, the game companies that developed the Sonic games worth playing were usually Sega and/or Sonic Team, who were resposible for making the series quite appealing over the years. As for both "Sonic Boom" games, I recently found out that neither game were actually developed by Sega or Sonic Team, even though they were both published by Sega; For that reason, I wouldn't exactly consider either of the games to be classified as true Sonic games because they were developed by the wrong company, and they're also played rather differently as well (so I've heard, anyway).

Speaking of which, if there's two Sonic games that I think everyone should hate that are a lot worse to play than any of the other games I mentioned in my joural entry, it would have to be these following two titles that not many people even talk about for some odd reason: "Sonic Spinball" on the Sega Game Gear, and "Sonic The Hedgehog Genesis" on the Game Boy Advance. Without a doubt, both of these games are truly terrible to play because they were poorly-designed ports of existing games that were already fun and enjoyable, and they ended up being butchered in terms of quality - "Sonic Spinball" was a tad slower than its Genesis counterpart with sluggish controls, buggy graphics, and terrible sound; "Sonic The Hedgehog Genesis" was just a GBA port of the original Genesis game that suffered from a lot of slowdown and loose controls that made the game practically unplayable, even to die-hard Sonic fans who grew up with the series from the beginning.

I'm sorry if I'm able to upset anyone who was able to take their time when reading this journal entry, but I just felt like getting this sort of thing off my chest after hearing all kinds of negative opinions about one of my most favorite video game heroes some time ago, especially after being able to play "Sonic Lost World" on my Nintendo Wii U recently, which actually turned out to be an awesome game despite some of the gameplay changes to make it more original such as holding down one of the buttons to make Sonic run faster. Anyway, the point is that people shouldn't be able to judge certain things so harshly or even use bad games as an excuse to get everyone to stop liking video game series that everyone else still enjoy for whatever reason. And since next year will officially mark the 25th Anniversary of the Blue Blur, I decided to post my current thoughts about the franchise, and I certainly hope that Sega and Sonic Team will be able to make a really good game in time for Sonic's 25th birthday on June 23, which will definitely be a huge celebration for all Sonic fans for sure. I haven't heard any news about such a game, but one can only hope that it would be something like "Sonic Generations", which was a truly awesome game to play, and they seriously need to make more games just like that if they want to keep the series going till the end of time. 'Nuff said.