10 Things Sega Wants You To Forget About Sonic The Hedgehog

2. About 'The Dark Age' Of Sonic

As bad as Sonic 06 was and while the Princess Elise controversy certainly didn't help, Sega didn't seem too focused on correctingtheir mistakes with subsequent Sonic titles. While the games following Sonic 06 were arguably playable, they were still sloppy, poorly designed games that mainly tried to sell units solely based on gimmicks, a poignant example of this is Sonic Unleashed with the infamous were-hog segments of game-play.

For four years or so, each Sonic game that came out would be critically panned whilst struggling to reach any margin of financial success. The themes and settings of Sonic and the Secret Rings and Sonic and the Black Knight were particularly questioned among fans, it's simply a bizarre design choice to send Sonic and friends to the setting of Arabian Nights or the Arthurian legend. With each title that came out, the Sonic reputation became more and more damaged and readily more apparent that Sega doesn't understand it's own mascot or why people like him or the series.

Sega has since tried to mop-up the mess from Sonic's rough years on seventh-gen consoles, by removing those games from digital stores and by toning down their design choices in future games. While Sonic the Hedgehog 4, Sonic Colors and Sonic Generations have all proved far better than previous efforts, fans don't easily forget, there's no doubt Sonic Team have damaged their demographic and overall potential audience for Sonic. Sega will have to establish a very clean track record before anyone forgets about the dark age of Sonic.