FINAL CHAPTER: A BRIGHT AND COLORFUL FUTURE?
When we last left our heroic hedgehog he was left battered, broken and humiliated after several years of missteps and misfires from the very company that created him. Once the king of the mountain of the videogame industry, all it took was a decade of destruction to ruin him almost beyond repair. Despite a few well meaning handheld titles that in all honestly weren’t too bad it simply wasn’t enough to save the tidal wave of shit stinking up the consoles during the first decade of the millennium. Many people were predicting the end of Sonic as his only decent appearances were shameless plugs for his character appearing in various games with his arch rival Mario in what essentially amounted to a washed up celebrity appearing on Dancing with the Stars in the hopes of retaining whatever shred of credibility they have left. Yet however in 2010, Sega announced both Sonic 4 and Sonic Colors. Most of us fans at this point rolled our eyes and wanted to kick someone at Sega in the nuts. Leave Sonic alone for fuck’s sake. Haven’t you assholes done enough damage? Let him die off in obscurity, in a lesson learned that anyone, no matter how popular, will someday meet their end if you put product quantity over product quality. However, Sonic 4 would be a promise to return to the series roots. Early E3 video seemed to suggest as much. Was Sega finally getting it? I wasn’t firmly convinced but I figured I’d give them a shot this one last time. It was put up or shut up time for Sonic. This game had to deliver. The question is, did it? Yes and no.
On one hand Sonic 4 mercifully ignores just about everything that’s happened with the series over the course of 10 years and really is a reboot of the series of sorts. A proper reboot, unlike that other pile of garbage that shall not ever be mentioned again. This game was an attempt to begin the slow healing process of the damage Sega had done for several years. And for the most part the game did just that. However, the main problem of the game was that Sonic didn’t seem to have any future. Sonic would forever be stuck in the 90s, perhaps a product of its time. There was no fresh new Sonic on the horizon. Everything smacked of a “Here we go again!” feel and no meaningful change was made. The two Mario Galaxy games took everything of the past 20 years of Mario history and expanded on it and created two of the finest videogames ever made. The Mario franchise was evolving and changing while Sonic seemed to be stuck in the past. Sonic 4 was a game that should have been made in 1995 but here in 2010 it just seems dated. While Sonic did manage to finally get his head above water, there was really nothing here to make me feel comfortable that Sonic had indeed made a return. This was hopefully a small step in things to come. Sega still had one more release for Sonic in 2010 and it was going to be a Wii exclusive. What on Earth did Wii owners do to deserve a 3D Sonic game the industry wondered. Finally in November Sega foisted Sonic Colors upon us.
Yes, amazingly enough Sonic Colors wasn’t just good, it was great! I had to slap myself silly several times to remind myself that this actually was a Sonic game. After 15 years, 15 fucking years Sega FINALLY got it. This is the natural progression of Sonic and is the game they should have made back in 1999. Sonic Colors takes all of the bad things about the 3D games prior and throws them out saving the one or two good ideas they had from each of those games and combines them to make easily the best modern Sonic to date. By the time I hit the fourth area of the game I knew that Sonic had finally made his triumphant return legit this time. For the first time like ever water stages in a Sonic game were actually fun and as I happily waded through the water every bad mistimed pitfall, every badly acted cutscene, every unnecessary character, every last bit of aural trash that permeated my ears in the past 10 Sonic games was whisked clean away from my mind and I for the first time in a lifetime felt like a kid again playing Sonic. It was that magic feeling I hadn’t gotten since Sonic 3 and I loved it.
For the first time I felt
that this was the natural progression of Sonic. Colors takes the best of both worlds. It combines the 2D games with the best of the 3D ones while adding fresh new power ups that utilize the Wiimote to enhance the experience. Basically, it’s what these guys should have been doing with Sonic for ages now. This is all we ever wanted Sega! We didn’t want or need all of these stupid, wholly unnecessary characters. We needed change yes, but we needed meaningful change. Not crap piled on top of crap. Don’t bother creating vehicle driving stages or fetch quest stages with your myriad of supporting jackass characters if you can’t even get the basic Sonic stages right. Don’t make your game multiplatform if you can’t even produce a quality game on at least one of them and for the love of God don’t ever...again...try to take Sonic and make him more “mature”. Now that you guys have pretty much chased off every last Sonic fan for the past 10 years with your bullshit save for us diehards who are still crazy enough to actually have given you this last final chance, here’s your opportunity to try and build a new fan base. The key to remember here, mature does not equal dark or complicated. Look at Mario, Mario still maintains a childish light hearted atmosphere yet people of all ages continue to play them. Why is that? Well for starters the games don’t suck, but also and this is equally important, the Mario games don’t patronize it’s audience. When you take anthropomorphic animals and try to present some Final Fantasy plot it only serves to alienate older gamers, confuse younger gamers and generally piss off everyone involved. Now read carefully anytime you guys get a bug up your ass and try to take Sonic in that awful direction again, hell you might even want to take a deep breath and repeat it to yourself several times. Hell, say it everyday before you guys go to work in the morning...whatever. So long as you have this engrained into your fucking skulls….THEY’RE FUCKING CARTOON ANIMALS
Got that? Happy. Lighthearted. Fun. Vibrant. Exciting. This is what Sonic was, and what Sonic should be. This is what Sonic Colors was. Thank you for finally taking the stones you’ve had cast your way to heart and actually addressing the issues we’ve had with Sonic for over a decade now. I don’t ever want to have to come on here again and type Diary of a Mad Sonic Fanboy ever again. Please I implore you to take these lessons to heart because I’ll probably end up typing Diary of a Former Sonic Fanboy if you don’t.
Sonic your 20th anniversary is coming up. It’s been a rocky road for most of it but it’s ended on a high note. Please, when you finally reach your 25th anniversary I want it to be on a high note. Continue this success and do not falter. I was a Sonic fan before I became a Mario fan. Sonic Colors wasn’t perfect and by no means a Mario Galaxy game, but it was a huge step in the right direction and maybe with time and effort someday you can take that top spot again. I’ll be pullin’ for ya.
THE END
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