Sonic the Hedgehog is Raping my Childhood Pt. 2

This is the second part of my three part analysis of Sonic the Hedgehog. Part 1 discussed my favorable childhood with the character, which was filled with whimsy and nostalgia. This part will explain exactly how Sonic completely fucked everything up, and started its long continuous shit all over my memories. If you like pissed off rants and curse words, you will like this post.

We start this part with the Dreamcast game, Sonic Adventure. Remember, the last Sonic game before this time was Sonic and Knuckles five years earlier. I was a wide-eyed 9 year old when Sonic and Knuckles came out. By Sonic Adventure's release, I was 14, and my childhood memories effectively end here and my adult cynicism starts.

1999: Sonic Adventure

This was the first Sonic game to break into 3D, just as Mario did with Mario 64. It's also important to note that Mario 64 came out 3 years before Sonic Adventure. You'd think with that 3 extra years, Sega would have made a better game.

Most people think this is a Dreamcast classic, which insults the fuck out of me, because I love the Dreamcast and, at the time, Sonic, and expected a whole lot more than this mess. I don't care what anyone tells you, this game was total ass. After the first level, which showcased the impressive graphical effects of the Dreamcast, I started seeing cracks in the seams of this game. The game had complete voiceovers, which produced some of the most grating sounds I have ever heard in my life. I found out that in between levels, you had to navigate through a fucking city overworld, which was tedious as all hell. The controls were balls, the camera was worse, and the game just felt broken.

All of the above could have been forgiven a LITTLE bit, If it weren't for one last thing. As soon as I finally got my bearings in this game, I suddenly get a message that the Sonic campaign was over. Apparently the game forces you to play as 6 FUCKING CHARACTERS. Each of them have their own storylines, abilities, and so forth. Now this works in certain games, but when I want to play a Sonic game, I want to play as the little fucking blue hedgehog, not the scary as all hell cat or the pink girl hedgehog or the robot that comes from fucking nowhere. Other than Tails and Knuckles, these other characters have never been seen in another Sonic game ever. Why the fuck would I want to play as them?

All this is wrapped up in Sonic Adventure's disgusting story. Now Sonic didn't have a great story to begin with, but it didn't matter, since it was all about running and jumping. Sonic Adventure decides this shouldn't be the case anymore. They make the story unavoidable, and it is bad. But other than being bad, it is incredibly gay. I mean it's really really gay. I have a gay friend, and even he admits that Sonic Adventure took it way too far with the gayness. I mean, I thought Sonic was the supposed badass mother fucker with an attitude, who would kick the shit out of Mario upon meeting him. What the shit happened?

Here's an example of how gay this story is. Amy, the pink girl hedgehog, is being attacked by Doctor Eggman (previously Doctor Robotnik from the 2D games. What the fuck was wrong with the name Doctor Robotnik?) Eggman sends his robot to kill her or something. But Amy, using her cuteness and sweetness, allows the robot to discover his inner heart and turn on his master. This is the exact moment I turned the game off, declared it bullshit, and never played it again. Even if I was a 9 year old kid at the time, I would probably have been disgusted by this crap. I was positive that Sonic Adventure was some fucked up experiment, and that they would make a true successor to Sonic the Hedgehog and dump this stupid Adventure shit.

2001: Sonic Adventure 2

If you read the title correctly, then you know that they, in fact, didn't dump the stupid adventure bullshit. Hell, they made it worse. On top of being the same stupid shit, they introduce 2 new characters nobody cares about, Shadow the Hedgehog and Rouge the Bat. While most people seem to think that Sonic Adventure 2 was an improvement, they're fucking wrong. It's an improvement in the completely wrong direction, and it made it clear to me that Sega was hellbent on making Sonic totally fucked.

2004: Sonic Heroes

3 years after the Dreamcast bit the dust, Sega decided to release a Sonic game for all systems. While it backpedalled on the whole adventure thing, there were still serious problems with the game. The gameplay was still boring, the camera still doesn't work, characters clip through the geometry, the graphics barely changed since the Dreamcast days, the dialog managed to get worse, and the overall style is still really gay. It's a terrible game, which is made even more terrible considering it had 12 FUCKING PLAYABLE CHARACTERS. 6 was too many, but fuck, 12?! and on top of that, out of the 12 characters, 7 of them are brand fucking new. It's hard enough caring about only a couple anthropomorphic animals, but holy Jesus, who came up with this idea. It's as if Sega was stealing aborted fetuses out of Disney's dumpsters.

With all the problems, this game showed some promise. It toned down the adventure bullshit a little bit, making it seem more like the orginal 2D games. Many gamers thought Sonic could turn for the better, and make a great game soon. Me, being a cynical 18 year old at the time, figured that Sonic was fucked for life. Guess who was right?

2005: Shadow the Hedgehog

If you know what this game is about, than I really don't need to explain why this game is fucking retarded. It is centered around Sonic's dark doppelganger running around shooting people with fucking guns. Ignoring the inherently racist opinion this game takes that darker colored people have a greater affinity to guns, we can see that this game is just total shit. Guns turn out to be useless because of no targeting, the camera and controls have steadily gotten WORSE, and the game still looks like it should be on Dreamcast. In an attempt to make Shadow more extreme and edgy, they get him to say "damn" and "hell" over and over again on the voice overs. This comes off as being like a 12 year old trying to act mature. And yes, I am aware that I use the words "fuck" and "shit" over and over again. Fuck you. What happened to Sonic being edgy? It was over a decade ago when Sonic was being proclaimed as the most extreme video game character ever. Is Sonic not edgy enough now? Clearly he isn't, since Sega decided to neuter him and turn him into a total bitch.

2006: Sonic the Hedgehog

This is it. We come full circle at this game. Released only a year ago, it was meant to be a triumphant return of Sonic, bringing him back as a relevant character in the gaming world. Yet they have failed on every concievable way possible.

I love this game. I honestly do. I love how absolutely fucking terrible this game is. I love how in every possible facet that this game could have succeeded in any little way, it fails on a catastrophic level. I love the banal story, atrocious gameplay, broken camera, and hideous voice overs. I love this game because it shows exactly how Sonic Adventure ruined the franchise. This game took everything they did in Sonic Adventure and multiplied it by 100. There are some crazy fans out there who will defend Sonic Adventure to death, but NOBODY can defend this game.

This game would have just been another terrible Sonic game if it weren't for one thing. It wasn't the gameplay, even though it has managed to get worse than ever, it's still what I expect from this franchise. It's not the camera, graphics, or voice-overs, the game-killing bugs, or even the fact that the game introduces even more God damn worthless characters. What takes this game and brings it over the top of terrible is her.

Her name is Princess Elise, and she is the romantic interest for Sonic the Hedgehog. I'm dead fucking serious. Throughout this game, there is an implied romance between these two characters. Even if the game had the best gameplay ever, even that wouldn't save it from a terrible storyline like that.

Do I even need to explain what's fucking wrong with that? I don't care what culture, what age group, or whatever reason you want, you do not have a serious romantic relationship between a realistic 17 year old girl and a fucking cartoon rodent! Seriously, it's STUPID. The closest thing that comes to this is Roger and Jessica Rabbit, but that was used for comedic effect. Sega isn't trying to make you laugh, even though they can hear you doing so. They want you to seriously care about a storyline that attempts this level of bullshit. Most fanfiction isn't even this bad. Well, with the exception of Sonic fanfiction, which finds a suprising level of bad most people can't imagine.

So that's it. Those are all the Sonic games I can talk about. You can see how a beloved icon of my childhood has been warped and contorted into a disgusting pathetic shell of its former self. What's worse is that it isn't even over. You would think that Sega would be shamed into just fucking killing Sonic out of mercy after their previous debacle, but there are a whole assload of Sonic games waiting to be released. From what I can see from these games, I can safely say that the Sonic series will continue its steady climb up its own asshole.

A sequel to Sonic Riders, which was a terrible spinoff game I didn't bother talking about, is coming out some time next year. An Olympics game is coming out with Mario and Sonic, and most people know how terrible Olympics games are. Adding Sonic seems to be the response to some kind of sick challange to make an Olympics game worse. Even more sickening is the Bioware developed Sonic RPG coming out for the DS. While Bioware is one of the best developers of RPGs, I can't imagine how even they could possibly save this franchise.

So I have discussed how Sonic was awesome in the past, and how it has degraded to complete crap today. Stay tuned for Part 3 of my analysis, where I talk about the reasons this crime has happened (here's a hint. If you disagree with anything I have said, it's your fault).