WARNING!!!

This is an actual artistic and practical analysis of Sonic the Hedgehog to formulate what is wrong with the series, how to make it right, and how to make the series more profitable but at the same time more artistic and involving.

If you are one of those people who says "The old games were great and anything that is in any way different is bad," YOU WILL BE FLAMED!

(You have been warned)


My official artistic and Literary analysis of Sonic is a deep one. Sonic, in my view, is the capitalist/ pro-western answer to Tetris. I'm sure we've all heard how Tetris is Communist propaganda. Well consider Sonic. His character design is Red, White, and Blue, the colors of the American flag as well as many of the Western Allies of the Cold War. He gains momentum and eventually becomes an unstoppable force, exactly how Western and capitalist economies work: a business starts slow and then grows into an international behemoth. Sonic collects gold rings and as long as he has at least one, he can survive and any damage makes him have to scramble for rings again. This is how economy is in capitalist societies: a problem arises that puts unexpected expenses in your way, and you must scramble to get the money to overcome them. As long as you have money in the bank, you're fine and can keep going. The major sources of power are the Chaos Emeralds, gigantic gemstones which are a symbol of wealth and status. Gold rings and gemstones were signs of wealth and were thus illegal in the Soviet Union.

"Robotnik" is the Polish word meaning "worker," so you are fighting the working class in a sense. Robotnik is red, yellow, and black, the colors of the Soviet Union. Red and yellow are the colors of the flag, and the military uniforms are black and brown. The designers chose to go with the more threatening black. He tries to make all the citizens of the area into robots with no concept of class, status, or hierarchy and obey Robotnik without question or hesitation, just like communist countries.

Sonic (at the time of original release) was supposed to be the tough but kind-hearted rebel, valuing freedom second only to his friends. The music (when well-done) gave an audio expression of freedom; high-energy sound that made you want to go out and do something active. The instrumentals in the current franchise are doing that, the biggest problem is lyrics. Most of the songs are performed by by western names but written by Japanese names. This means the lyrics are are going to be cheesy translations that seem unnatural to English-speaking people (I ran into this problem with a large number of foreign films. The dialogue would sound completely natural in the original language, but loses believability in the translation). I don't mean to sound racist, but sentence structure and content of the Asian languages just sounds cheesy when made into Enlish.

The old games had problems too. Example: filler levels. There were levels that just felt rushed, like they weren't supposed to be there. The music for these levels tended to be slower and MUCH less memorable (Marble Garden, Hydro City, and in a way Launch Base). I count Sonic 3 and Sonic and Knuckles as one game (I think technological limitations stood in the way of the two being on one unit). All the levels fit one formula: They were all either natural parts of Angel Island, the remnants of the ancient Echidna civilization, or constructed by Robotnik to help him take over. Every level followed this... except ONE... Carnival Night Zone... This is a difficult-to-reach FLYING island that has seen few outsiders and even fewer commercial developers. Why is there a gargantuan Carnival / Theme Park the size of a city?

Sonic 3 and S&K just felt like the end; like nothing could come after this. I look at the entire franchise (as I do with most) in terms of smaller series. The original 4 Genesis games form the Original Series. The final battle in the Doomsday Zone ended in a way that simply could not be topped. In beating the game I felt like I was saying goodbye to an old friend (as any good story tends to do).

Sonic 2006 had, in my opinion, one of the best endings I've ever seen for a video game. The problem was getting there:

The full 3D Sonic games had many problems, some of them superficial, some of them huge. Shadow the Hedgehog started an idea where you only lost some (not all) your rings from taking a hit. I liked this concept which would make the games much less frustrating. Sonic 2006 both developed this idea and screwed it up massively. Smaller bullet-based weapons only knocked out one ring at a time, which was saying some weapons do more damage than others. HOWEVER... rather than a plethora of differing damage amounts, an attack either knocks one ring out or ALL OF THEM, there is no in-between. That said, you can only regain a maximum of twenty lost rings. Annoying as hell when you just had 200.

I agree speed does make any game more intense, but there is a right way and a wrong way. Sonic 2006 used rails way too much, often times horribly-constructed ones at that. If you hit any loop dead-center, the track is just off-center so that when you reach the end you will be to the left or right. I can't tell you how many times I went careening off to my death partway through a loop. The hardcore, All-speed sections of Sonic's levels were just annoying. Steering was loose and abhorrently difficult to control and jumps were completely linear. This is a VERY bad thing at that kind of speed where if you jump just wrong you slam into a wall and/or fly off to your death.

There is one section where Sonic hits a zip pad and runs along a cropping of rock that curves up and becomes the wall. You are supposed to run on said wall now... if it weren't a problem. There is a monstrous section of the wall without the coding for you to be able to run on it. Collision with this section results in Sonic losing all horizontal motion and plummeting into the lava.

The video sequences in 2006 had some difficulties wherein the sound go as normal, but the video would suddenly become jerky and slow. The programmers must have had a software glitch, too much sake, weed or something.

In the old days, characters had believable abilities (for the most part) with reasonable explanations. Sonic was fast, but more like a track-runner than a bullet. Tails could fly with his helicopter-like tails (hey, it's a game). Knuckles was strong and could dig because of his claws but could only knock down walls that were already weakened. Now we have this horrid infection of Japanese Anime where characters make as little sense as possible. While I like the character of Blaze, her power over fire just reeks of the Anime contamination. Silver got infinitely worse with his Psychokinesis. Each new character is unlike ANY other being in the universe; why? Could we please have someone with a learned skill as opposed to a blessing or mutation. I hate to say it, but Shadow's power over Chaos Energy is actually much more acceptable than Silver's PK. Shadow learned how to use Chaos Energy, made evident by the fact that other characters have used the same abilities. There's nothing wrong with new characters, but another one every game? Come on! Work with what you've got!

The current trend with villains is a truly annoying one. In the full 3D games, Eggman is NOT the final boss. I like Eggman/Robotnik. I always have. To see him reduced to a plot device is just annoying. And to do it for EVERY game is just monotonous and unoriginal. It's like Inuyasha. The writers tried to make something good and failed miserably when they couldn't come up with anything new.

Final bosses are annoyingly simple. We have a massively large system devoted to playing this game and we can't get anything more complex than this? The fights consist of a stationary boss. You must cross a large space and deliver a hit. When the boss takes damage, either it moves or your position resets so you must do it again. It's not a boss, it's an obstacle course!

I couldn't care less about character model for body design. Personally, I like the 2006 design just because it looks more like something you might actually find in nature. The round torso looks kind of dorky. The argument that the round body looks more like a hedgehog is useless because the presence of a clearly-visible neck negates the entire argument. And Sonic is blue, so there's obviously going to be some level departure from reality.

MY FINAL VERDICT:

Sonic games need more player participation in the levels. Rails are just a stupid use for a video game system. The levels should have more of a branching system where your performance at specific points determines the path(s) you will take.

Final bosses need to be more than just a giant, immobile target. Give me something I have to chase down! Preferably with phases for the fight that require you to approach the boss differently each time.

Have the lyrics be written by a person who speaks the language of the market country. No more of this cheesy "lost in translation" crap.

These are my views of the series and are only my opinions and observations