Anyways, why Sonic sucks.
Has nothing to do with "the game advertises itself as you have to play it fast but you actually have to play it slow" bullshit. That any Sonic fan (or in my case, former) knows.
1. Rings. Or more specifically, how death is managed. What makes a platformer a great genre is that there are rules. In Mario, if you get hit in small form you die. No exceptions. You essentially have two chances in traditional Mario: big Mario and small Mario. This means two hits. Castlevania, Mega Man, and other action platformers like Rocket Knight Adventures have life bars. A platformer like VVVVVVV or Super Meat Boy have one hit and you die rules. What makes platformers fun is working around this, as life isn't infinite. Sonic eschews this norm by introducing rings. The more rings you have, the more of a buffer you have as rings act as your health. In Sonic, if you get hit when you have rings as long as you hit a ring you always have another chance. This is problematic because unlike other (read: good) platformers which have limitations, Sonic has no such limitation. You can play as half assed as you want to and it doesn't matter so long as you get that one last ring. You potentially have infinite chances depending on your luck. Sonic Mania exacarbates this flaw even further by introducing big rings which accumulate more rings in less space.
Test: Play Sonic mindlessly. If you run into something, shake it off and just gather dem rings. See how far you get by playing like this. Does the game force you to play conservatively and mind your actions? Or is it designed where anyone can play it and have fun as long as they get dat ring? Does this make a no death run in Sonic satisfying? In a Mega Man game you can't get away with that shit. Rings are a shit mechanic and make Sonic unnecessarily mindless. And if it's mindless, my actions don't matter. If my actions don't matter then it's not fun. Sonic would be far better with a health bar.
2. Exploration. Sonic is billed as an exploration focused platformer. It's definitely a large part of its focus because it has hidden routes, hidden knick knacks and warp points. Problem is that I think other platformers handle this better. Mario 3, Super Mario World, and Yoshi's Island have plenty of exploration. In Castlevania III you pick which levels you want to go in whatever order you want which changes the game to get different endings and alters the difficulty depending on what stages you pick. In Rondo of Blood, you can pick different paths to go in. The problem with Sonic's exploration is a lot of the times it feels like finding things is accidental. That's not inherently bad as finding things by accident is fun. But exploring in a Sonic game just always feels so haphazard and tedious not only due to Sonic's cumbersome controls when not running, but the way the levels are structured like giant mazes.
3. The platforming. It's okay. The appeal in Sonic as a platformer, as Positive Touch said, is free flowing through stages. When you're running through a stage and everything goes right Sonic can
feel good to play. I understand the appeal in it as I used to love Sonic for that very reason. But the older I got, the less I enjoy that aspect as it doesn't challenge me and we return to point one above. The platforming is passable depending on the stage but it's not even reaching the heights of the best the genre has to offer. This ties into point two. The level designs themselves are just lacking for a platforming. Sonic is great with gimmicks but not applying those gimmicks in a skillful manner. The levels feel like mazes with little cohesion. You can be knocked down from a different plane in Sonic and it doesn't fucking matter a lot of the times. I can't think of any other platformer where falling will normally mean landing on some ground so you can keep chugging. This ties into the autopilot and mindlessness pointed out above.
Speedy platforming, exploration, and replay value are what Sonic has to offer yet it's not a master of any of these things. If I want to play a fast platformer, I could play Shinobi III, Dynamite Headdy, Ristar. If I wanted to play a platformer with an exploration focus, there are far better choices than Sonic. Fuck, one came out this year and was a remake of a classic: Wonder Boy and the Dragon's Trap. It shits on Sonic's exploration from a great height. There are even games on the same system as Sonic's Genesis games that outclass it in exploration such as Ecco The Dolphin. Replay value is another thing Sonic is famous for but isn't as good as its competitors. Castlevania III has multiple endings, different characters, different stage orders. It kicks Sonic's ass. Playing Mega Man in itself is full of replay value and can be played in infinite manners of ways. P shooter only run. No hit run. Beat Heat Man's stage without Rush Jet. Beat Quick Man's stage without Flash Man's weapon. You can pick and customize your boss order according to how you see fit. In X games, no upgrades run.
This is without mentioning how bad the bonus stages in Sonic are, the premise of chaos emeralds and Super Sonic and making the games even
more mindless (again highlighting the flaws of the rings mechanic), and more.
Sonic is a master of none. What does it do better than other platformers (besides style)? I can't think of a single thing. Sonic does not deserve the fame that it has and Sega lucked out.
I played the shit out of Sonic 1-3 and Knuckles as a kid and I know them like the back of my hand but they're so dull and easy and mindless despite knowing them like this. I had hoped that I felt this way about Soinic because of my familiarity with those games. Maybe I think they're boring and mindless because I'm so good at and familiar with the old games? But no. Mania is new and I still feel similar.
Conclusion:
I understand why people like Sonic. At the same time, I can't help but think they're shit from the very core of their most basic game design. Even the games health system is flawed and shit. The games are C-tier at best.
Sonic?
