Welp, might as well address your question.
jademunky said:
Can I be the one to ask, and maybe this deserves it's own thread, why does anyone like Sonic as a franchise, as a video game or as a character?
1) Seriously, lets look at this for a second: As a character, he is just a cartoon animal mascot combined with the worst, yet some how most family-friendly aspects of 90's 'tude.
2) Even at best, Sonic had the fundamental problem that going all "awesome and fast brah" meant that you needed to memorize every aspect of the level.
3) Then it went 3D and it all turned into poop, just poop.
4) Anyway, as a franchise outside games, this is something I am only passingly aware of because there was so much of it, yet none that seemed to be canonically connected to one-another. You had that cartoon one that was somewhat dark and oppressive where he was a member of the resistance of some kind. There was also a much more little-kid friendly cartoon, then there were a series of comics, none of these seemed great.
I was at the right age during the console wars, yeah I was on team-mario but I still had several friends who owned a Genesis, I played Sonic all the time. So, what am I missing here?
1) Eh, I like his slightly goofy cartoon look, and while I find it falls flat when Sonic tries to be cool/edgy, I do very much enjoy when he's goofy and ADD (see Colors). Plus, there's something about the uncompromising "Hey, I'm just gonna do what I like because why not? I ain't bound by your labels!" personality I just enjoy.
Seriously, I love the series, but SA2's edgedark themes and stuff was pretty awful and stuck the series in a dumb rut for too damn long, to say nothing of the travesty that was the plot/dialogue of Shadow The Hadgehog (Gameplay is salvageable, plot and dialogue are seriously NOT).
Gimme the silly ADD character and plot over that stuff any day.
2) I'll take "you need to memorize the level to do those epic speedy flow runs" over "You need to memorize the level to actually beat it" which is what Mario feels like to me when the levels get even remotely challenging.
Sonic gives you lots of alternate paths (encourages replayability and exploration) and has a frankly ludicrously generous health system (as long as you have even one ring, you're safe), which offers a large enough safety net that getting though the level isn't usually that big a deal, while also encouraging you to some back and keep playing the game to improve.
I enjoy exploring levels and learning how to flow through them. It feels better than the straightforward obstacle course with little room for deviation that 2D mario is.
Seriously, I still keep going back to Sonic 3 and Knuckles to this day (and have cleared it with all emeralds, super modes, characters, etc), wheras I've never managed to get through Super Mario World. The farthest I've gotten was Vanilla Dome, and that's when I just stopped giving a damn because I just wasn't having fun anymore.
It's kind of a shame you appear to have missed Sonic 3 and Knuckles. That, to me, was the highest point of the series. It had large dynamic levels, three characters who had their own specialties, a feeling that every place was connected to each other, entertaining special stages, etc.
3) Yeah, it stumbled pretty hard in 3D. The thing that made Sonic really work in 2D was the sense of "Flow" through the levels, which is harder to recreate in 3D as the information reaching your eyes is harder to understand than if it was in 2D. To say nothing of how much harder it is to make good levels (especially ones with multiple routes and shortcuts) in 3D. At least they've finally started to get that right more recently. Colors and Generations were very solid and Lost World (the 3DS one, at least) was decent enough. (Seriously, if they made another game with Lost World's engine, axed the stupid gimmicky wisps and focused more on the parkour mechanics, I'd be all over that in a heartbeat).
4) I honestly didn't care all that much about all the comics and cartoons and stuff. They were kinda nifty as a kid, but really, my main love was for the games.
Now, if you're more into Mario or whatever, more power to you. I just enjoy the whole "flow-based-game" thing, and find Sonic's laid back personality refreshing compared to Mario's barely existing character.
As a result, I seek out related games with similar feels (Freedom Planet, Mirror's Edge, etc) as well as some of the spinoffs and fangames (I've been following the fangame Sonic Robo Blast 2 for about 8 years now, and every new build/version they put out just keeps getting more fun).