Now before I go too far in this, I should go ahead and say that I am a huge Sonic Fan. I'm excited about each game when they are released and I've played a very very good chunk of them all. We did grow up with both a Nintendo and a Genesis in the house, but only the Genesis had over 5 games (probably close to 30), and the Nintendo always collected dust. Mario games have always been popular, but they instill a bit of boredom to me, as mario levels only did so much back then. Of course, you could say the same thing about Sonic levels, but I always felt Sonic levels were more "flavorful".
But this does not mean all the games are good. And by "good" I always mean how enjoyable it is to play. "Good" doesn't have to have the best story in the world, or the greatest graphics, or the most intuitive controls, or the hottest new gimmick, voice acting, multiplayer, unlockables or anything else. When I say a game is good(to mean) I'm talking strictly in enjoyability. Yes, a game can be less enjoyable because of gameplay issues or difficulty, but only the most extreme cases lose enjoyability because the developers made the game poorly.
A good example of this is Sonic The Hedgehog 2006. If you look at videos of people SS-ranking levels, you would think that it is one of the best Sonic games around. But the game is borderline unplayable for a couple reasons.
1) The horrid amount of glitches because the game was poorly made. And I don't mean things like hanging upside down inside a loop-the-loop or falling to your death because you wanted to show a glitch which is actually a player just being bad at the game. Sonic the Hedgehog 2006 has things like infitie jumps that could get you to areas of the level Reserved for other characters and 0 Substance in most of the environment so you can fly and run through walls as if you are supposed to.
2) A lack of....what's a good word...I guess I can use "substance" again. There's not much friction in the game, Sonic weighs about 500 pounds and moves accordingly, Enemies rarely try to defend themselves. It is almost as if the entire game is caught in a cut-scene that you aren't supposed to be able to play in, because 90% of the physics in the game are completely off.
Sonic Unleashed, however, doesn't fall prey to these issues. Instead, Unleashed has 3 main things that(imo) gave it such terrible reviews.
1) Stigma against Sonic Games since Sonic Adventure 1.
2) Internet.
3) Xbox.
Now to be serious.
Sonic Unleashed, however, doesn't fall prey to these issues. Instead, Unleashed has 3 main things that(imo) gave it such terrible reviews.
1) A terrible, terrible frame rate that should have been priority to upgrade in such as fast-paced game. On sunlight levels, Sonic can blow through several hundred meters of level space in mere seconds, and dropping the frame rate would instantly kill unskilled players. On moonlight levels, Sonic the Werehog has to navigate through levels with much caution. Dropping the frame rate on such low-speed, low-key levels destroy the fun in a beat-em-up platformer.
2) Unleashed has a decent story that gets exponentially worse towards the end. If you've ever watched the show or read the manga, you would know what to expect in dialogue between Sonic characters. Sega doesn't forget this, but I think a lot of players did. So for the most part, if a game wants a story, it needs to be a little more serious and up-to-date. Most Mario games gave up on story, and the recent ones that do have a story, sell less.
3) Unleashed can be a little unreasonable at times. Especially trying to platinum it, which is one of the most difficult platinums I have every attempted, and still don't have.
And why is that? Well, the game is HARD to platinum. It is about 85% skill and 15% luck, and that luck is based on the frame rate the game gives you. Racing through these levels are a lot of fun, but the game is very unforgiving.
This is an example of S-rank gameplay that I did this morning. As you can see, the game goes very very very fast, and its easy to let yourself get lost in the speed and kill yourself. Obviously, I've played this level many times before, but even my first run throughs of most levels in Sonic games are good ones.
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