A question no one cares to answer.

Status
Not open for further replies.
As Ritz has said, that edgy/elitist side of the fandom has been mostly relegated to a bygone era.
While it's not as bad as it used to be, the elitism is certainly still there in spades due to Sonic's demographics bringing in a lot of children. The elitism tends to be a knee-jerk reaction to dealing with a lot of immaturity.

High diversity isn't necessarily a bad thing, it's just that as a developer you have to know how to appeal to each subgroup. The 2D Marios, 3D Marios, Mario RPGs, and sports/party games are all pretty clearly defined sets of games, but Sonic games haven't been distinguished in the same manner. With the exception of the sports games, it's just one mainline Sonic game with a different formula right after another. Being able to categorize these games into different lineups would be a huge boon to SEGA, i.e. "Classic, Adventure, Modern"; gamers would know exactly what to expect if the games were appropriately marketed as a part of said lineup, resulting in better player feedback and more consumer confidence, ergo higher long term sales.
I don't think this is the reason as much as the inconsistent quality of the Sonic franchise.

Mario's subgroups have arisen naturally as Nintendo experiments with their franchise. They made games like Super Mario 64 that were radically different; they were popular and they made sequels that maintained the new gameplay style. It's only later that they realized that there was a demographic that really liked the old 2D style that they went back and made new games in that style. We joke about NSMB and its formulaic sequels, but at the time it was really a surprising idea for them to go back to the original design. No matter which flavor of Mario you choose, you're going to get a polished "Mario" experience, and the 2D and 3D games feel surprisingly alike in controls and design. Since they're all solid games, you don't get people raging about how much better Mario was in the "good old days". Mario's just Mario. Choose whichever Mario games you like the best!

Sonic never successfully made the transition to 3D like Mario did, so there's no "3D Sonic" archetype to even point at. There isn't a defined formula to work off of, so they experiment every game, for better or worse (and sometimes WAY worse). Sonic still doesn't have a nice, baseline example of what a 3D Sonic game looks like. I remember way back when Heroes was announced they advertised it as a return to the classics. They've been claiming that ever since.

Basically, Mario succeeded in transitioning to 3D with Super Mario 64. Sonic never did, and this has led to constant experimentation and wildly different games each release.
 
Last edited:
Status
Not open for further replies.

Who is viewing this thread (Total: 1, Members: 0, Guests: 1)

Back
Top