you're too big to be a slug, just get lost.

It’s that the people making the games fucking suck at making Sonic games, in almost every respect. The writers don’t know who the hell Sonic and Eggman (the driving forces in Sonic stories overall) actually are, nor do they understand ANY of the rest of the cast.

The artists are fairly competent but they miss the entire point of Sonic. He’s not a pixar character, his world isn’t JUST colorful and video game-y, the settings have or had a purpose or context in universe. Sonic levels range from temples to chemical plants to open grassy fields, to factories, to oil refineries. Stylistically, Modern Sonic was designed to resemble graffiti, with flowing lines, thick black outlines, edge lighting, and gradient coloring/shading.

Look at that pose. Look at how much character is in this one drawing. This image perfectly encapsulates who Sonic is at first impression. There is some nuance and subtlety to his character but for someone seeing the character for the first time? This image tells you everything you need to know. He’s cocky, he’s full of himself, he’s a show off, he’s completely unironically cool, he’s stylish and he’s having a good time.

The designers are capable of making good games but can they make good SONIC games? Generations and Forces tell me FUCK NO. Generations classic Sonic is a slightly passable facsimile for the classic games but Forces…isn’t. And the boost gameplay isn’t anything LIKE the gameplay that defines what Sonic was in the first place. Momentum physics utilised for expressive movement via terrain interaction. The boost games are auto runners with platforming elements. They sell the spectacle of going fast visually without selling it mechanically. You never really FEEL like YOU’RE going fast in the boost games, the game takes away so much of your input that they’re not even really 3d games on a mechanical level. You move left, right, up, and down for most of these games and little else. And that’s BESIDES the fact that these games don’t have the same, or even SIMILAR goals to the Sonic games that are true to the series’ origins. They’re NOT Sonic games, not mechanically. SA2 was a spectacle platformer, but even that arrived at that using the same methods as the classics did for exploration. Momentum and terrain interaction.

THIS IS NOT A DRILL

I REPEAT