Sonic In Decline

Sonic In Decline

Once upon a time, there was a character created by Sega. His name was Sonic, or if you will, Sonic the Hedgehog. New and old gamers can agree that this title has had a long and hardy life, but recently, it has been shaken%u2026
On January 6th, 2004, the game Sonic Heroes was released. In this title, characters such as E-123 Omega, Cream the Rabbit, and the entire Chaotix Team was added with little to no background. Though this is a little thing, and it%u2019s arguable that this wasn%u2019t really a big deal, it was very prevalent in this more-so than in some past titles. But even so, several other things happened in the course of this game. Gameplay had changed since some of the past few titles. When playing, instead of every character having his/her own original course, each was confined to an almost identical level with few to no changes. On top of it, the levels themselves contained some glitches, and often didn%u2019t in any way at all link. And instead of having original robots, they appear to be modeled after a 5-year-old%u2019s concept art, and the ships just take from sea creatures (yet another amazing leap in originality). This was almost made up for in the end boss, but as you beat him, he screams out, in almost a more powerful voice than before, %u201CI am the Metal Overlord, Metal Sonic. I AM THE REAL SONIC!%u201D And as I heard this, I%u2019m thinking, %u201CYes, one more battle.%u201D Instead, I%u2019m greeted with an end game scene. And as I watched the end movie, never being more disappointed with the end of a game in my life. But I could deal with it. It was one failure, and hopefully they would make up for it in a future game%u2026
Upon the arrival of Shadow the Hedgehog, I was eager to find how Sega had conveyed this %u201CSonic%u201D title. Maybe this new turn wouldn%u2019t be bad, and maybe it would add something to the whole story. I watched the opening movie, which only furthered to surprise me with one of my favorite opening movies (the movie immediately following turning the game on) I%u2019ve seen in a while. As I played the game, it only served to bring more interest to this game, but with a few minor problems. What I noticed is that there was an abundance of seemingly worthless items and vehicles. But they usually didn%u2019t draw from the games, so it wasn%u2019t really a problem. Then as I noticed, whenever you fight a boss, the various guns made almost any boss to easy, but this was easily fixed by not using them. Then, as I finished the various paths, I started wondering, %u201CWhere exactly do these characters and enemies come into play?%u201D My annoyance finally drew to its climax when after playing the whole game without seeing him, Eggman appeared for no apparent reason at the end of a various path. Even though it was annoying, it was overlookable since it was so stupid that it was actually a little funny. As I finished the last path and continued to the ending, I enjoyed a decently thought out last level, minus a pitiful cutscene preceding it. And once I beat it, and continued to prepare to fight the final boss, I was met with a past experience. I watched as the same final boss from Sonic Heroes appeared and killed any positive opinion I had for the game. As I beat this sad rip from an older game, I was disgusted by how little effort had been put into the ending of the game. And once I beat it, I was even more angered as I listened to the not-so-great ending credit. And if Sega had just put a little effort into making a worthwhile and new boss, I would have considered this a decent game, maybe even above average.
And as I watch E3 this year, I see the newly announced Sonic Wildfire for the Nintendo Wii. And I watch the movies with undecided opinions of it. But then I read the description of the plot. As quoted from IGN, %u201CIn Wild Fire, pages from the classic tale Arabian Nights go missing and Sonic must re-create the story.%u201D Now, I%u2019m not saying for sure that this game will be a disaster; I%u2019m just saying it most likely will. This plot doesn%u2019t even almost fit a Sonic title; it just plain steals from another idea. There%u2019s no creativity, no originality, nothing in this plot. I don%u2019t play Sonic to play Arabian Knights; I play Sonic so I can play Sonic. I know that you shouldn%u2019t judge a game before playing it, but come on, why not something different, how about adding to the %u201CSonic%u201D storyline? And I%u2019m not even an old-school Sonic fan, I can only imagine how much this might piss some of them off. Sega, Sonic Team, and anyone else who helps with these games, please stop raping Sonic, we%u2019ve already seen what it did to Mario. I don%u2019t want to see his long line of games die.