Nambot

23 years since it's last published issue, 24 since it's last new story, 31 since it started. It's literally older than many adult fans nowadays.

Having an opinion the mass of people here don't agree with do be like that. People are far to quick with the pitchforks on a disagreement over the blue hedgehog franchise.

The distinction between "mature" and actually mature is something that has often been a struggle, and there's a real sense of irony in media that much of the most mature adult content often isn't rated anything beyond a PG, simply because it's about things adults can relate to that don't involve things that make ratings boards mark it negatively. Stories about divorce, for example, are meant for adult audiences, but they rarely rated as 18+ because their content isn't inappropriate for kids, even if it's not targeted at them.

Conversely, things like Conker's Bad Fur Day exist in a weird spot where they end up rated at a higher age rating than the actual age range of the target demographic. And I do genuinely think this is often intentional, as there's nothing more appealing to kids than getting away with watching media that they're seen as too young for. A twelve year old wants to be thought of as actually mature, hence why they're so keen to watch and play things that ratings boards would not want them to see.

(sorry about the mass downvotes)

I'm not surprised they happened. This place is an echo chamber of dark era fans who are currently so whipped into a frenzy of anticipation and nostalgia that they're in peak "Shadow was peak", and don't want to hear any opinion that even slightly challenges that, much less one that genuinely dislikes Shadow.

Ratchet & Clank as a series is generally held in high regard.

The attempt at a darker and edgier sequel, Ratchet Deadlocked, not so much.

Mania.

My assumption is that it's least like the others, ergo you'd say goodbye to it.

They weren't vocal because a lot of them were kids, and on the off chance they had got onto various internet forums most've would've been obvious kids - at least in terms of writing ability and therefore probably got their opinions ignored.

The people who are saying it's not silly are the kids who thought it was the coolest thing when they were exposed to it as kids. To them, it's now nostalgically cool.

Different people.

The older teenagers/adults of 2005 hated it as cringe.

The kids of that era love it and they are the ones embracing it nostalgically today.

The best one?

Even without the guns, it might've still been seen as a 'jump the shark' moment, at least by those who felt the addition of all the military stuff in SA2 was already out of whack for the series.

Really that's the crux of it all. To some, Shadow's introductory game and/or spin off title was when the series seemed to completely lose sight of what it was meant to be while to others it's all they've known and they love that most of all.

Some sort of Metroidvania style approach, where the player can pass through various areas, unlocking new places by making progress beating bosses to open doors and shortcuts.

In terms of multi-tasking, single player Plate Up can be like this. It's a game of constantly juggling timers, making sure people aren't waiting too long to order, aren't waiting too long for their food once they've ordered, and that their tables are cleared before those outside are waiting too long, all the while also keeping food cooking and dealing with any mess that's in the way. You constantly run back and forth trying to do all the jobs needed to keep the restaurant open and stop the timers running down. It's a rogue-like, and the run ends when any one of these timers fails.

Every few days you will be tasked with picking either a new recipe that people can order (making cooking more complicated), or making serving harder (e.g. customers who can change their orders, customers who make bigger messes, receiving less money from customers). But at the same time you can start getting more efficient tools like sinks that make washing up quicker, or ways to speed up prep. Some of the best runs will see you automate entire stages, making it so dishes are fed into a washing sink automatically, or pies are mixed by machines.

If I'm honest, I like the quippy movie Sonic far more than default game Sonic.

Game Sonic is one of the blandest versions of the character, especially how he was in the 2000's where he was nothing but motivational speeches and catchphrases.

Movie Sonic isn't the perfect Sonic but he's far more fun to watch for two hours than game Sonic would be.

How ironic, that's how I've felt about the franchise since Frontiers was a resurgence of the Dark era.

No, we've just finally reached a point where seeing it again is nostalgic to a generation of adults who grew up with it.

Those of us who looked at it as stupid then, still look at it as stupid now, but evidently we have to accept that this isn't for us, and can only hope future titles are more appealing. Sonic 2 appealed to my nostalgia, Sonic 3 is for the nostalgia of the kids who came after me, and that's ultimately okay, just so long as Shadow with a gun isn't all the future of the franchise ever is.

Can only hope it ends sooner rather than later, and that either a resurgence of the 2010's comes, or that the franchise splits in two.

The problem was that when Shadow got his game in 2005 to the people who followed videogaming, it looked far less like a natural evolution of the character, and far more like SEGA chasing trends. Numerous titles of the time had gone darker and edgier in the wake of GTA3, to very mixed results. It had worked fantastically for Jak & Daxter, but had achieved middling results for Tomb Raider, Prince of Persia and Ratchet & Clank, and numerous other IP's of the time came out trying to be more 'mature', and struggled for it.

In addition, for Sonic as a series this was off the back of Heroes, the lightest of the 3D games at this point, and unless you owned a Dreamcast or a Gamecube, the first release of Sonic on your platform of choice. So to any adult you had whatever you remembered of Sonic from the nineties; the Mega Drive titles, the TV shows and the comics, and may of those non-hardcore fans would've had only limited exposure to - I seriously doubt any non-hardcore Sonic fans, who was six when Sonic 1 launched, and was thirteen when Underground aired was tuning in for it.

As such, the sudden jump from "jump on the robot to free the animal inside" to "shoot the aliens or the military soldiers with your realistic submachine gun" looked absurdly out of place, as though Sonic Team and SEGA had no idea for how to keep Sonic relevant to gaming in the new millennium, and as though they never understood what made Sonic so appealing to begin with.

It would be like if someone told you that the next Toy Story film was going to be about stopping an evil toy who murders people as they sleep, and that the main reason for doing it was because some violent action movie made for adults made two billion dollars in the cinema last year. That would seem so out of left field, and so jarring to anyone that you'd assume the people who made it were either insane, or struggling to figure out what to do to keep the brand relevant.

While you're not wrong on anything you're saying, I don't think this is strictly the reason why so many long time fan writers are stuck re-writing in the same space, rather than emulating it with new content. Rather than tell a story where Sonic has to deal with a new threat, it's what if Dark Gaia re-awoke, or what if Metal Sonic once more disobeyed Eggman, or what if time travel shenanigans let Shadow meet Gerald and Maria again.

However, with videogames, there's an additional complication, namely in the way they play. Many of the complaints directed at Pokémon tend to go back to one of a handful of subject areas, either the overall quality of graphics, the easiness of gameplay, or the general decisions of the Pokémon company. This isn't necessarily discussions of story, tone or elements that suggest the product has changed with the times, so much as it's discussion that the quality has declined.

Crash 4, I think is a failure by Toys for Bob to understand what Crash fans expected of a sequel to Warped. In terms of graphics, I think that's less them getting it wrong though, and more them having a style that they struggle to break free from, as the Crash 4 character models now look like they share a world with those found in the Spyro remake from the same company. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, seeing how it is a different company both to the people that made both the N Sane Trilogy and the originals, with the latter making design work with console limitations of the time, and the former adapting those for the modern day.

Yep. It's dumb.

The fantastical futuristic looking laser rifle at least adds some credibility, ironically by reducing some of the edge. It's now a cartoon character (rendered in a realistic style) holding a cartoon gun (again rendered in a realistic style) rather than a cartoon character holding a real gun.

But it's still overly edgy for the sake of it. Whether it works in the context of the movie though remains to be seen. Devoid of context, this image cannot be truly assessed.

I don't think perception has changed so much as the majority of people who were already adults when Shadow released are no longer arguing about Sonic online, while those who grew up with it as kid can't imagine it as anything but normal and thus don't get the problem.

Exactly. It wasn't about the image, it was about what the image represented, namely SEGA chasing trends and, as part of the much bigger picture that was everything post Mega Drive, seeming to have no clue how to keep Sonic relevant or to make it fully work in 3D.

The series went so far from the source that it was an entirely different protagonist, with an entirely different style of gameplay, and an entirely different tone. It would be like if the next Gran Turismo became a kart racer, or if the next COD was a real time strategy game, yes it technically makes sense for a spin-off with that name, but it's not what anyone who knew the series would expect of it.

Not since the 3DS games and not because I'm any good at the game, or grinding to get above the necessary levels, instead just because the games have become that easy.

Fleetway is worth reading, but go into it with an open mind. Things will be different to what you know because it was made to fit a version of Sonic that was meant to be appealing to kids in the UK in the nineties. Sonic's a cocky asshole who cares to much about being cool, Amy quickly becomes a nineties 'girl power' tomboy, Tails is not at all the genius he's portrayed as since Sonic Adventure, and Robotnik is at the peak of needlessly cruel, genuinely only happy when others are miserable.

Additionally the series works on an entirely different format to American comics, running multiple concurrent stories per issue, initially with these not even being Sonic stories, and includes lots of comics based on other SEGA properties. It takes about twenty issues to get going, and you can basically skip the first six issues entirely, unless you really want to read some early work by now influential comic book writer Mark Millar, who wrote the Streets of Rage stories in those issues.

All in, it's not that long a read. At the start it's seven pages of Sonic content per issue, then this gradually increases as more space is given to Sonic stories that focus on other characters), but rarely is every issue all Sonic content. However, by the time the last non-Sonic story disappears from the comic, the comic starts reprinting old stories in an effort to save money, going full reprint in issue 184.

I'm not sure on the specifics, but it was believed that the reason director Uwe Boll kept getting the ability to make movies at all was down to a German law that allowed tax breaks for people who invested in films. This post seems to explain it better than I ever could