Sonic really isn't having a good Homecoming, is he?

 When will you learn? That you actions- have CONSEQUNECES!

Wow. Sega you really know how to turn a party into a funeral, don't you? One of your most beloved and long-lifed mascots is about to celebrate his anniversary, a grand event that should be dripping with nostalgia, fond memories and the over powering attitude of a little blue hedgehog from the Green Hill zone. This should be a time of happiness! But into the party-hall stumbles uncle Sega, kicking over the coffee table, plastered out of his mind, trying to demand door fees off all the attendees whilst pilfering the gift-table and calling it 'just dues'. It really isn't hard to celebrate one's anniversary, it truly isn't. Most games companies just settle with a plain discount, get people playing the game. Sega have done... pretty much the celestial, intergalactic, opposite of a discount; and in their greed to capitalize off the temporary place of strength that the franchise is currently in, (Which, reminder; is in no way due to their own efforts or talents) they threaten to turn this battered and beleaguered franchise into a laughing stock once again.

When it comes to anniversaries, the classic 're-release your old games with a lick of new paint' is a well-tested successful tactic to score easy points with your fans and the wider gaming community. It plays into the fond memories of the faithful and presents and accessible 'in' to potential newcomers: the best of all worlds. And when the series in question is Sonic, well, then this process becomes even easier thanks to the diligent and excitable fanbase. Just reach out to some of creatives out there and commission them to slap together a remaster of your games and- oh wait, Sega already did that with Sonic Mania, didn't they? Oh, and then Sega management got into some sort of a dispute with the Mania team, causing them to leave the project and costing the creative force behind a potential Mania 2. Is that why we're getting Sonic Origins this year? Is this a hastily slapped together replacement piece to try and fill the void left behind by a proper celebration game? I invented that as idle speculation but now thinking about it, that doesn't actually sound like a total impossibility at all.

What I'm trying to say is that this was an easy 'win'. Making a great anniversary celebration that everyone loves should have been an automatic cakewalk. But then Sega has to turn around and start nickel-and-diming for their re-releases of Classic Sonic games. Really, Sega? Is this how far you've fallen? I've said is before but I can't belabour the point harder, they're literally trying to make us pay for animations in the main menu! So what, does that mean when we start the game Sonic is going to flop out of the logo sash and stare at us dead-eyed, one finger primed for a wagging that never comes? Unless you pre-order, of course! Then you the full disapproving finger wag that we've come to know and confusingly accept as it doesn't really match up with Sonic's core personality in the slightest! And what's more, this little collection is apparently coming in at around the $45 range, just shy of a brand new release. That's not the deluxe version, that's the basic! These games are 30 years old: chill out, Sega!

But what if I told you that this gets worse? What if I revealed that in their infinite lack-of-wisdom; Sega have decided to adopt the lessons of that most cursed of remasters, the 'Grand Theft Auto Definitive Edition'? You remember, the single most embarrassing moment in the past ten years for Rockstar; the moment they flogged 'remasters' of their incredibly classic series which were so bad that Rockstar Proper had to dedicate the next 3 months fixing the mess into something of a passable state; within which the games now still reside? Yeah, that's Sega's rolemodel. And we can see this highly insidious inspiration written on the face of their attempt to brute-force interest into this questionable remaster collection with, you guessed it: a full delisting of previously released standalone versions of each game so that they can be flogged in this collection that is, even in its base price, slightly more expensive than the sum of its parts. Oh capitalism, ain't you a peach?

Now on it's face this isn't quite as dire as the GTA Definitive Edition debacle because those games were frankly butchered in their remasters to such a point where they looked like products cooked up for a 'game design' class' group project. Sonic, on the otherhand, is pretty hard to fundamentally screw up like that. Plus, it looks as though some, if not all, of the games in this pack are based on the Christian Whitehead remakes which are, as I've said before, damn near perfect. The only changes from the original to those remakes are HD textures, improvements to world design in order to accommodate cross-character play between games, and the addition of a new, remade, cut level from Sonic 2. So these games in the Origin collection are still fundamentally leagues ahead of the 'Definitive trash' from Rockstar's Grove Street Games; but are they improved enough to warrant the price of a totally new released game just to play. (Ahem, I should say: Just to play with menu animations. Because we all obviously need to pre-order for those animations, that goes without saying...)

The excuses write themselves, because there has actually never been a release of these remade Sonic 1, 2 and CD ports on consoles or PC. Up until now they've only been accessible on the mobile storefront, an oasis of genuine game content stranded in a dead sea of greed-driven time sink abominations of game design. Now they've coming to the PC and that apparently warrants their right to completely replace the Genesis ROMs we've enjoyed up until now. Although is that really necessary? I mean, what makes the Remakes so impressive is their faithfulness to the original Genesis version of the game, with scaled up textures making themselves the cherry topping the trifle, which inherently demonstrates that these iterations of the game offer nothing transformative to the base package. Once again it very much seems like the publishers here are just trying to take away the more cost-effective and easily comparable alternative to try and force buyers their direction, and do I really need to line out why that's wrong?

I'm going to anyway. As a consumer the most powerful tool we have at our disposal to influence the development of the video game market is our ability to choose, with our wallets, what we want to support. Thus it's only fair that to maintain a respectful relationship, developers and publishers need to allow us the right to choose and win over our money through performance and results. Make a better game and I'm going to want to buy it over the inferior game, it's a very simple equation that we're dealing with here. Try to get in the way of that, kill off the competition to funnel attention one way, and suddenly you come across as manipulative and tyrannical. Why am I not allowed to pick up the ROM version of Sonic 3 in order to compare against their remake? If Sega are confident in the product they put together, 20 years after the original, then why do they need to force the hand of the market to make it the only legitimately purchasable product?

Another small cut in this 'Dorian Grey' portrait that represents '30 years of Sonic', and another way that Sega appear to be trying their darn-est to scupper this release. Sonic's brand is enjoying it's recent movie run, not handled by Sega, a recent influx of love for the original games thanks to Mania, not helmed by Sega, and is going to be enjoying a brand new TV show called Sonic Prime at somepoint in the future, not a Sega production. But the brand's name is struggling under the weight of an equal number of screw ups such as the spotty Sonic Forces, a Sega-made game, the near unplayable 'Sonic Colours: Ultimate', another Sega-built product, and now this debacle filled venture, all Sega's making. Why is Sega the worst thing for the Sonic brand right now, and how do we file for legitimate emancipation? Sega really does do what Ninten-don't; because Nintendo couldn't screw up an anniversary this badly in their wildest dreams!