As far as the fandom goes, I think the issue is, the Sonic fans that made up the fanbase initially during the Genesis and partly the Saturn/GG era have dropped off and the newer crowd took over sometime after SA2. And that's where I think the fandom took a huge turn for the worse. This is why I don't consider myself a sonic "fan" because deep down in that fandom it's toxic and cringe filled.
As far as why I try to stay on top of Sonic and keep my interest in him, I just feel he isn't done yet and I'm waiting for his franchise to recover. There's so much ground Sonic has yet to successfully cover and it's making me sick that ideas that Sega only tried once, were never really fleshed out. And those were some of the best ideas for the series and would help keep up interest and do away with the monotony of the series. I'm talking a foot racing sonic game, a real good Sonic RPG with the quality of a Dragon Quest style look, a Sonic Shuffle 2, Sonic Fighters 2, these are ideas that I think Sega should revisit and would revitalize the series in that it'll break the monotony of waiting a few years for another boost formula sonic that might be hit or miss.
Sonic Mania was a glimmer of hope for me. But Forces...it's just shows that Sega, for me, hasn't learned yet. My brother bought the game a little earlier in the day and we played through it. It's not a...terrible game but it's hardly a step forward for the series. Their fetish with including every sonic character they can just for the heck of it and not giving them any more necessity than to push the story forward hurts more than it helps imo. It's like they're saying "look, we didn't forget about Charmy or Chaos!" and then it stays at that. It does nothing for me.
But yeah that's my answer, I stick with Sonic because I know the series can and needs to improve. Or at least branch out a bit more. For a series that once stood toe to toe with Mario, I find it sad that he's come so far only to be mediocre and fall into the middleware category. It makes me uneasy because I'm in the camp that considers Sonic 3 and Knuckles to be the best 2D Platformer ever created by man and I want to see that era of zaniness, attitude, and suavity put into a Sonic game that rivals that of Mario Odyssey or Ratchet and Clank, Crash Bandicoot, etc. because Sonic has a whole lot to offer that these series don't. It just seems like Sonic team doesn't know how to exploit it. I'd like to think Yuji Naka could revitalize the series somehow but that man is way past his prime, much like Miyamoto. Who will come aboard and be that Yoshiaki Koizumi for Sega? That's what they need.
Last edited by Ljink96 - on 07 November 2017
