Sonic's Busy Year

Give the little guy a break, why don't ya?

It seems to never be a quiet year for the blue blur. Ever since his debut in 1991 (or earlier, with unofficial sprite cameos being what they are) Sonic the Hedgehog has been an indelible aspect of the wider Sega brand year in and year out. Whether or not those have been good or bad years remain up to one's interpretation of events, but the too-cool-for-school radical Hedgie has at least existed during all of that time. For what little existence can be worth. It seems almost laughable, after all that time, to insist that the year past us, 2022, has been the biggest Year that Sonic has had yet, but then I thought about it and honestly I might not be so sure in my derision anymore. It was the franchise producer who made that claim, afterall, and he ought to know a thing or two about the franchise that is helping his rear his grandchildren on gold-leafed stake. So I sat down and thought about it.

In terms of public sentiment I think the Sonic franchise is in a bit of a holding pattern. The public has seen the utter depths this franchise has been willing to sink in terms of quality (There's yet to be a mainline entry seemed in microtransaction hell, so far.) and that paints the slight raised eyebrow that the series' name earns. And yet... there's an optimism in the air. It's something of a dusty optimism, gathered up from the same misused and decrepit basement that nineties kids store the rest of their disabused childhood dreams within; but it's an optimism nonetheless. People still want and kind of expect Sonic to hit the levels of some of the franchises' around it, even if Sonic Team have thrown up their hands and admitted they have no clue where to take the games or wider series in order to appeal to all the fans. Still, they are trying; and this year's slate goes some way to prove that.

Afterall, 2022 saw the premiere of Sonic Prime, the animated series which deftly fired the entire working Sonic cast in order to cast an entire slate of voice actors tasked with sounding exactly like the outgoing actors. (Except for Knuckles. They went a different direction with him and I find it disconcerting.) The show has pretty good, if a bit safe, animation to it and the writing is about on par with what you would expect from a modern children's show. That is, a modern network children's show; I recognise some of the streaming service children's shows of the modern age get really creative and personally driven; Prime doesn't even try to be that. But then, it doesn't need to. It's a completely fine show, I have to admit; with a bit more of a purpose than the slightly sitcom-like stylings of the last Sonic show, Boom. (Can't believe that show dragged itself on for three years.) So yeah, TV Sonic had a solid year in 2022.

 

This year also saw the drop of Sonic Origins; which was decidedly more... contentious. Sonic Origins borrows the same formula that a lot of long-running franchises are cashing in on for a cheap public goodwill bump; but because Sonic Team are run by actual backwards people: they decided to turn it into a PR nightmare instead. Remastering your original games and slapping them in a big package should be a cause for celebration! Callously scouring the internet in order to remove all cheaper alternative ways to play the original Sonics is certainly a less celebratory action. Especially for a collection that released buggy and even after those bugs are fixed lacks the iconic Sonic 3 Michael Jackson tracks because Sega doesn't want to seek a new licencing agreement. (Can you really blame them? Tiny start-up like Sega; who could possibly expect them to front such a bill?)

But Sonic had a strong presence outside of gaming this year. Afterall, we had the Sonic The Hedgehog 2 movie which also released in 2022! God, it really has been a packed year, hasn't it! Another branch of the franchise that slightly reimagines the world of Sonic so it could fit into a 'real person hanging out with animated characters' tropey plot. The second movie wore off some of the novelty of a video game adaptation that perhaps didn't really nail the appeal of the franchise, but found an enjoyable enough middle ground on it's own; but for those that liked the first movie for it's merits as well as the novelty; I'm told that Sonic the Hedgehog 2 was actually a pretty good movie! I know it really left the door open to expand the franchise further and even with the unfortunately loss of Jim Carrey's Eggman (He's not dead, he's retiring) this might just end up being a Fast and Furious style chain of movies that carries on into the distant future. Or at least until the Mario movie sets off and demands a crossover which proves successful enough for Illumination to purchase the rights to the Sonic film franchise so that they can unite these brands together, only to slap more and more properties into these collab movies until the screentime of favoured characters starts to get diluted by more niche films starring nobodies like Alex Kidd and Tingle. Eventually this style of animated movie will become helplessly oversatured to the point where they draw less and less of a crowd and the entire bubble bursts on animated video game adaptations, and given that Illumination dropped most of it's independent franchises to dedicate more fully to Nintendo and Co adaptation, the shock loss of revenue sends the company into a system shock. They scramble to get out a Minions sequel in order to bring back the masses, and it works for the first one. People are draw to the mindless curiosity of it all. But it proves to be little more than an IV drip on a terminal company, bleeding out more in costs than they are taking in. And so Illumination perishes, and is buried to an empty service in an unmarked grave under a wilting apple tree by an orchard in Santa Monica. Huh? Sorry I blacked out for a few minutes there, what were we talking about?

Oh yeah, Sonic Frontiers released. Despite being absolutely snubbed by literally every possible award at the game awards; Sonic Frontiers released to decent reviews from the general world of Sonic fans who had gotten so used to games that literally play themselves, any form of gameplay was like tasting freshly heated and seasoned food for the first time in years. Frontiers did everything it needed to in order to be a passable open world game by modern standards; and that was amazing to see from a franchise that seemed to lose touch with what it even meant to be a game a few years back. (Sonic Forces was seriously, conceptually, bad. I cannot stress that enough.) It wasn't the slam dunk that put Sonic back on the AAA map; but it was a stumble towards success and that is enough for most long suffering and dog-tired Sonic fans that just wanted a fine game. They got a fine game. Which alone would make 2022 a fine Sonic year.

But it wasn't alone. All those Sega Sonic projects coalesced together in the same year to create an almost consistent string of Sonic content throughout the entire year in a manner that I'm sure most didn't even actively realise. From a marketing standpoint it's an actual dream to be able to maintain that level of output, putting out something for literally every sector of the franchise fanbase to flock to whilst gaining enough capital to do even more still. I'm sure the Sonic comic series was still ongoing inbetween all of that but I don't know because I can't find a single person who reads any comic, let alone Sonic comics. (How is the comic industry still trucking along these days? I will never know.) It really does feel like the stars have aligned for Sonic Team, that even when they make slightly strange steps with the franchise there's something new around the corner to smother that mistake with blind franchise fanaticism. It's actually somewhat brilliant!

Which brings us, I suppose to the future and the potential thereon. We already know that Sonic the Hedgehog 3 is tipped to miss next year, so if the franchise wants to top itself like the producer insists it will, they are going to need to subsidise that missed experience somehow. There's literally no word on any upcoming Sonic game to fill next year, but Frontiers was announced the same year as launch so they could be cooking up something. And besides; Sonic Frontiers itself has some potential for DLC support is Sonic Team are willing to go that route. I'm frankly unconvinced that Sonic is going to ride his potential back into the limelight throughout 2023, but the Producer has promised us so I guess we have a person to blame if 2023 falls short of expectations. At the very least we can say this; Sonic is on his way to perhaps regaining some of his industry dignity by his mid thirties; were it we could all be so lucky.