Up to 4 characters fight it out in 3D arena. This isn't a fighting game per se, instead being a Sonic version of classic beat-em-ups like Double Dragon. Then there was Sonic Battle for the Game Boy Advance. Sonic the Fighters was a poor version of the Virtua Fighter games and didn't really get a wide release until the GameCube and PlayStation 2 release in 2005.
Virtua Fighter creator and designer Yu Suzuki saw it, took it to Sonic boss Yuji Naka, and the rest is history. Sonic the Fighters only exists because AM2 character designer Masahiro Sugiyama threw Sonic and Tails into another Sega fighter, Fighting Vipers, out of boredom. Caty The Deeply Flawedįirst up was Sonic the Fighters, an arcade fighting game. There is nothing redeemable about Shadow the Hedgehog. Alas, Shadow the Hedgehog exists, like an executive at Sega saw the trend of guns in games, and urged developers against their will to shoehorn weapons into the hands of an Erinaceinae with no qualms.
Shadow the Hedgehog doubles back on the good nature the Sonic series has put forth over its lifespan, and does a 180 with it.
That feels so out of place alongside others in the Sonic catalogue. I can't think of any other game in existence that's more unnecessary. Not the character, but his very own game. I think life would be better if I never had to think about Shadow the Hedgehog ever again. It's awful, broken, and deserves to be thrown down the memory hole, but nevertheless lives on in ironic Let's Plays, because who doesn't like watching someone play a broken piece of junk? Sonic the Hedgehog was so bad that it became synoymous with the decline of the entire series. Oh god, why are there vehicles in a Sonic game? -Kat And if that's not enough, the franchise Poochie, Shadow the Hedgehog, is there as well.Īnd vehicles. It mixes the traditional twitchy, Sonic Adventure-style platforming with an awful camera and many, many glitches. It's hard to know where to start with Sonic the Hedgehog-a game so bad that it reportedly forced Sega to completely rethink the direction of the franchise (though it certainly had its hiccups in the years that followed: see Sonic Unleashed).Įveryone likes to fixate on oddities like Sonic kissing a human woman, but the pure fact of the matter is that this game is bad. It was the odd one out, standing as a poor man's version of Marble Madness, taking the worst of that game and the worst of Sonic and cramming it into one title. Sonic Labyrinth launched on Sega Game Gear around the same time as Sonic Blast on Game Gear and Sonic 3D Blast on Sega Genesis and Sega Saturn. Otherwise, it's Puyo Puyo, meaning it was quite good. So the entire game was retrofitted with Sonic characters instead. The original game featured characters depicted in Japanese anime and manga style, so Sega executives felt that Western audiences wouldn't pick it up. The game is actually the Western release of a Japanese title Puyo Puyo, developer by Compile and Sega AM1. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine stands as one of the few puzzle games based on the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise. So sit back, enjoy this look at Sonic's past, and figure out how you'd personally rank all the Sonic titles. If you're behind on your Sonic history, we also cover the titles that live in other genres and tangents. The team at USgamer sat down and ranked most of the mainline and spinoff Sonic games.
Now that Sonic Mania has shown us how to correctly present the essence of the hedgehog, it's time to take look at that long history. Sega hasn't always put out the best games for Sonic and his pals. One of the things that popped up in many reviews of Sonic Mania is a look back at the troubled history of the franchise.