With
this year marking the release of both Sonic Mania and Sonic Forces, a worrying
trend seems to have stuck itself to new Sonic games; that of leveraging
‘classic’ imagery and sentiment as a crutch to stay relevant. This isn’t
entirely new, but it is an unsustainable method that will only yield returns
for so long before we get tired.
Sonic
Mania looks like a wonderful throwback to a time gone past, and looks well
worth playing – the reviews of the game agree with this point. But the problem
is in the game’s premise rather than its execution. It is part of a growing
number of ‘flashback’ titles that leverage a desire for Sonic to ‘go back to
his roots’ (a cliché phrasing of modern Sonic criticism if ever there was one).
How
sustainable is this idea, really? Between Sonic 4 episodes 1 and 2, Sonic
Generations, Sonic Mania, Classic Sonic’s return in Sonic Forces, not to
mention a huge number of re-releases on virtual console systems, how much
longer can SEGA milk what’s left of gamer’s nostalgia before gamers get bored
of this trend? We can only see remakes and re-releases of Green Hill Zone so
many times before it will inevitably lose its charm.
The
unfortunate fact is that despite major positive steps forward in the form of
Sonic Colours and Generations, the series still evokes an image of Bambi on
ice, with shaky foundations that look so horribly precarious it’s almost hard
to watch as the series goes on.
In its
struggle for an identity in modern times, Sonic’s leveraging of its classics
may have been a successful experiment, with the appearance of Classic Sonic in
Generations and Forces, but now the trend is quickly becoming a tired trope.
It’s time for gamers’ favourite hedgehog to drop these crutches and run – after
all, isn’t this what Sonic is best known for?
More
than anything, SEGA needs to reinvent Sonic’s identity, perhaps by looking at
current Sonic conventions and throwing them out of the window. The transition
wouldn’t be painless; many fans cling dearly to their nostalgic love of the
‘classic’ Sonic series that ended in the 90’s. But it won’t be long before this
love runs out and instead we groan every time we see SEGA march out Classic
Sonic only to expose him to further indignity. Let Classic Sonic rest now, and
perhaps nail the final coffin in Modern Sonic’s grave, and give us a true
reinvention of the character and his conventions before he winds up stuck in
that grave permanently.
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