How Sega ruined Sonic

Why was Sonic such a big hit back in the early 90’s? Well, he was cool, and he was blue, and the early 90’s after all was the era of Grunge, being blue back then was sort of hip. Tragically hip. Oh never-mind. Ignore that corny wordplay.

Sonic was a big hit because the Hedgehog’s games featured jaw dropping loops, psychedelic bonus rounds, and impressive boss-battles against insane mechanical creations. The game was hot, action-packed, and was definitely exciting (some are daring enough to say that they felt that it was more exciting than all those Mario Clones)

So how did Sega manage to degrade a great blue hyper-speed franchise? Some of us here at QJ believe that it was when somebody decided to make Sonic open his mouth. Allow us to make this comparison. Play the two YouTube vids below. (Not at the same time of course.)

The one on the left is how Sonic sounds in most English voice-overs. The one on the right is how Sonic sounds in Japanese. See the difference? Despite the sheer insanity of HELLOOOOOO EBURIBODAAAYYYY, Sonic sounds less annoying. Some might think that the slightly deeper voice even makes him sound cool and slightly kooky.

Of course, there are other more legitimate reasons for the Sonic’s decline in quality over the years. For example, racketboy of Retro Gaming has a long and detailed article up regarding the why and how of the degradation. We’ll give you a quick enumeration of his points after the jump!

The full article awaits after the jump!

Why was Sonic such a big hit back in the early 90’s? Well, he was cool, and he was blue, and the early 90’s after all was the era of Grunge, being blue back then was sort of hip. Tragically hip. Oh never-mind. Ignore that corny wordplay.

Sonic was a big hit because the Hedgehog’s games featured jaw dropping loops, psychedelic bonus rounds, and impressive boss-battles against insane mechanical creations. The game was hot, action-packed, and was definitely exciting (some are daring enough to say that they felt that it was more exciting than all those Mario Clones)

So how did Sega manage to degrade a great blue hyper-speed franchise? Some of us here at QJ believe that it was when somebody decided to make Sonic open his mouth. Allow us to make this comparison. Play the two YouTube vids below. (Not at the same time of course.)

The one on the left is how Sonic sounds in most English voice-overs. The one on the right is how Sonic sounds in Japanese. See the difference? Despite the sheer insanity of HELLOOOOOO EBURIBODAAAYYYY, Sonic sounds less annoying. Some might think that the slightly deeper voice even makes him sound cool and slightly kooky.

Of course, there are other more legitimate reasons for the Sonic’s decline in quality over the years. For example, racketboy of Retro Gaming has a long and detailed article up regarding the why and how of the degradation. We’ll give you a quick enumeration of his points:

• The intense sense of speed and the awe-inspiring loops became less important as the franchise aged. With every successive iteration, you were most of the time treated to a temperamental 3D camera instead of adrenaline and fast-paced fun.
• Sonic Adventure ushered in re-branded “Dr. Eggman” and replaced his cool mechanical boss battles with strange creatures and dim-witted schemes to collect Chaos Emeralds.
• SegaÂ’s first original multi-platform Sonic game was Sonic Heroes. Heroes took some of the best aspects of the Sonic Adventure series and put a new spin on them. However, that spin consisted of forcing players to use teams of three characters at a time, it also seemed to focus less on speed and reaction time and brought it more into the league of typical platform games as opposed to the high standards that Sonic was once known for.
• Sega somehow thought that the best way to solve the fact that the Sonic franchise was getting tired was to have a game centered around Shadow the Hedgehog. Shadow was supposed to be the Sonic for the hardcore gamers that needed a rough edge. As soon as everybody laid their eyes on the promotional artwork and screenshots filled with the pistol-packing hedgehog, the gaming community knew Sega was losing it.
• There is no doubt that the new Sonic the Hedgehog for the Xbox 360 looks nice, but as the abysmal reviews indicate, graphics are not everything.
• In order to push its cutting-edge graphics to the limit, Sega, in their infinite wisdom, felt the need to bring Sonic and his friends into a more realistic world, filled with life-like humans. There is something creepy about some giant hedgehogs interacting with humans.
• Sega doesn’t seem to know what it wants to do with Sonic. It seems like Sega assigns various quick-and-dirty development projects in order to see what ideas sticks with consumers.

For more details on racketboy’s points feel free to click on our VIA link below.

Via Retro Gaming