Just What The Hell Is Going On With Sonic The Hedgehog?
I’m old enough to remember a time when there was a stiff competition between Nintendo’s Mario and Sega’s Sonic. If you ask anyone who follows video games they’ll tell you that Mario has remained a beloved icon not only in Nintendo fandom, but in gaming culture in general.
If you ask folks about Sonic, the reaction may be mixed, but one thing is for certain: it’s gotten fucking weird.
What is that? Why does Sonic have a bandanna around his neck and his arms, and legs taped up like a prize fighter? Why is Knuckles so strangely, muscularly disproportionate from the rest of them? Just who the hell OK’ed this?
The above image is from the more recent Sonic Boom incarnation of the character. Like many copyrighted properties throughout history, Sonic the Hedgehog has gone through changes but there’s more to it.
At some point Sonic stopped being just a video game character. Sonic became a meme.
Anyone who has spent enough time on the internet has encountered several Sonic memes. A lot of this is due to a fandom that became increasingly bizarre, culminating in what can only be known as Bad Sonic Fan Art.
So if you’re wondering:
(1) how the hell did the fan art get so strange?
(2) why are officially licensed properties like Sonic Boom also strange?
There came a point where Sega kept attempting to change Sonic to keep up with times, and it didn’t always work. The combination of Sega tweaking the Sonic series and the amorphous blob that is internet weirdos, is why we have stuff like this.
Like I said earlier, there was a time when Sonic was just as an endearing character as Mario. Many observers have cited that what started Sonic’s decline was when the game series moved from 2D side-scrolling platformers to 3D action-driven games.
Sonic Adventure 2, one of the early 3D Sonic games for the Sega Dreamcast released in 2001 and then later to the Nintendo Gamecube in 2002, introduced two new characters to the series: Shadow the Hedgehog and Rouge the Bat — also known as Goth Sonic and the Sexy Cartoon Bat?
The weirdness and cringe continued for the Sonic series for years. Shadow the Hedgehog got his own video game in 2005 where he actually shoots humans to death. But the badness and weirdness of Sonic games would hit a tipping point the following year when Sonic the Hedgehog, colloquially known as Sonic 06 was released.
Sonic 06 is a great story of what-could-have-been. Released for the new PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in 2006, Sonic 06 was such an unfinished, unplayable mess that it still receives scorn today.
It took several years for Sonic games to come around — Sonic Colors and Sonic Generations received positive reception in 2010 and 2011 respectively. But by then it was too late: internet weirdos got a hold of crappy Sonic games and made weird stuff out of the characters with it.
The fandom and fan art would continue to be intolerable — and to make matters worse in 2014 the Sonic Boom games would come out to abysmal reviews. Ouch.
Look — there are a few things that make Sonic good:
(1) he has to go fast
(2) he can’t be lame
(3) the games have to be playable
When I think of Sonic in his prime — the best examples are the Sonic CD cutscenes.
This is the type of Sonic who looks like he would crush Robotnik, tell Mario to get lost, and be home in time for chili dogs — all in a days work.
Thankfully folks behind Sonic have recognized that many Sonic fans have felt this way for too damn long.
Sonic Mania was introduced at Sonic’s 25th Anniversary Party. It actually looks awesome:
Heavily inspired by the 1990’s 2D sidescrolling classics — Sonic Mania is the game Sonic fans have been looking forward to for a very, very long time. Developed by Christian Whitehead, who had worked on porting versions of Sonic 2 and Sonic CD to Android and iOS, Sonic Mania is total fan service nostalgia for a series which, lets face it, has had it’s ups and downs.
Don’t expect the release of Sonic Mania to stop the crappy weirdness that is Sonic Boom or the bizarre Sonic memes that get shared and go viral. There’s another Sonic Boom game scheduled to come out for Nintendo 3DS in September 2016 and I wouldn’t be surprised if a horrific Sonic meme goes viral for some reason during the election, Super Bowl, or other major event. There will always be a place for that in the Sonic legacy: you have to remember the good, bad, and fucking weird.
