Sonic: The Revival

 Well I'd never...

I've spoken quite a bit about the steady resurgence of Sonic to our screens as the blue blur struggles to earn back some of the respect he lost after years of mediocrity and disappointment. Even after stepping right for once with the simple pleasure of Sonic Generations, our man hit perhaps his lowest point ever after Forces came out as one of the worst money-value propositions imaginable. (The game was 80% cutscene!) But since then things are turning around. Frontiers was good enough to be considered for the 'Game Awards', even if that award itself was stolen away at the last second thanks to supposed 'bots'. Sonic Mania was a return-to-roots better than anyone could have possibly imagined. And the Sonic movie franchise has been strong enough to potentially kickstart a whole animated video game cinematic universe if Nintendo have their way; all of this lays the perfect groundwork for a potential coming revival.

You see you might not believe it, but Sonic is actually one of those franchises where the creators are very overly careful about every single piece of their brand in how it's marketed and who it's shown to. I know, thinking back on the absolute trash the franchise has gone through over the years would make you seriously question if anyone is in charge of Quality Assurance, but I have it on decent authority that there it's not quite a murderous free-for-all up there just yet. SEGA have final word on everything for what characters are shown in promotions, (blocking out any and all characters from products the company deems controversial in any manner) every single accessory worn by every on-screen character, (Sonic need to be wearing the exact brand of shoes to match everytime) and even the wider narrative beats of their titular characters so they stay consistent in every piece of media. (Sonic is not allowed to rizz on anyone. Boss' orders.)

Which is why it's so very surprising in the year of our Satan 2023 to find a complete reversal on a lot of the stringent measures that SEGA have put in place for so long. Knowing them and how they operate, this can't be a slip up of draconian standards, meaning that SEGA are intentionally promoting all of these 'brand risks' that hadn't been touched for perhaps decades beforehand. Most notably for me at least being the acknowledgement, after all this time, that Sonic 06 was real! Of course, being one of the worst received games in the franchise SEGA wouldn't exactly want to draw attention to the title, but for a long time they suppressed nearly everything born out of the game. Only Silver the Hedgehog managed to escape the media purgatory because he was pushed hard enough during the time of it's release that his character didn't seem tied to the game exclusively; but everyone else- forgotten land.

Which is why key villain 'Mephiles' has never once been brought up again in the main story, even during the scene in Forces when Infinite recalled a procession of past Sonic badguys, including people from games that came out before and after Sonic 06. (If it's any consolation, Shadow's unique sludge monster badguys from his game have been totally AWOL as well.) The last time we saw Mephiles was as an Easter egg banner character for Sonic Runners, hardly a glowing endorsement of how seriously SEGA takes him as a character. But then, lo-and-behold, in 2023 SEGA just randomly drops a piece of promotional art featuring a chibi version of Elise ice-skating with Knuckles. You know Elise, the girl who made-out with a dead Hedgehog, breaking two taboos at once, during one of the most controversial, and eye-rolling, moments in all of Sonic 06. (Also, that's canonically Sonic's first and last kiss. Just saying.) Suddenly the past is free reign now?

Of course we also have the news of Sonic Origins Plus, which is going to be reintroducing the world to all the terrible Sonic media that time rightly forgot. With prejudice. That means all of the Tails starring video games, and the bad original series ports, flying towards your common consumer like a spinning pig-skin with a fetish for nasal cavities. I guess there was never really an order within the company to ignore these old games per se, but given their lack of attention until just this point it's pretty safe to say that SEGA wasn't really proud of any of them. Let's put it this way; the announcement of these returning titles elicited more of a confused and half-hearted cheer than Capcom would have gotten if they randomly remastered a Castlevania classic or something. Or ported all those DS Castelvania titles over.

But that's only the side story anyway. The real big news of the Sonic Origins Plus announcement would be the caving in to what must be decades of fan pressure at this point. We're getting Rosey Rascal as a playable character in Sonic, a classic iteration of Amy Rose that SEGA have most definitely refused to acknowledge recently such to the extent that people began to believe she wasn't even canon anymore. (Thanks to the time travel plot of Sonic CD being questionable in it's canonicity in general. Sure, it introduced Metal Sonic- but why has Eggman never time travelled again if he's known how to do so all this time? Kill Sonic as a cub- come on! Or just expose him to pro-deforestation propaganda to brainwash him into being 'on team'.) This Rosey appears to be fully playable, has her own fresh sprite and a slightly improved version of the insta-shield that utilises the classic Amy hammer. (Which I think would be a combination of the old Rosey concept with the 3D era Amy accessories. Exciting!)

And then there's the April fools games. Yep the one that dropped today. What could I possibly have to say about this thing? Apart from the fact it's a whole VN based on the Sonic franchise, but I guess that isn't wildly out of the realm of SEGA's release slate- they allowed Dark Brotherhood to exist afterall. You know what is though; allowing Knuckles to appear with a cowboy hat. A freakin' Cowboy hat? Do you know how insane that is? What, you don't? Okay, let me explain. This isn't the first Cowboy hat our Echidna friend has ever worn, in fact he was famously depicted wearing that hat in the first Sonic movie, the OVA anime. A heavily buried piece of classic Sonic media that featured everything you love from the Sonic franchise including preppy one-liners, a frankly horrific death for Metal Sonic who graphically melts to death inside of an active volcano, and a spunky cat girl princess because this anime is from the 90's.

SEGA have lived their lives so commonly ashamed of their heritage that it's actually quite surprising, and a little bit unnerving, to have them change course so suddenly like this. Is something happening? Are they dying? Am I dying? Someone has to be dying, because otherwise this makes no sense. I know very well how scary it can be to throw everything at the wall and have nothing stick, which means a part of me also finds sympathy with the cold iron grip that SEGA have demanded over their franchise lately. But by that same merit, it feels so nice to have that grip be released and breathe in the diversity and culture of the rich history that Sonic has lived. Embrace all the past lives SEGA, they're what makes Sonic great! Except Lara-Su. You can... you can let Ken Penders keep her... please...