What happened to you, Sonic?
Most of the critical discussion onSonic Dreams Collectionup until this point has been largely focused on it as an unexpectedly odd curio, and with good reason. An unusual mix ofSonicfan fiction crossed with Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared, the quartet of mock lost DreamcastSonictitles lays mundane and amusing foundations before veering off into the unexpected and strange.
However, behind the vast floods of surface-level criticism, to which I certainly contributed at launch, there is a much bigger conversation to be had aboutSonic the Hedgehog. We live in a world right now where a once industry-swaying mascot is most often discussed either because of a surreal parody of aspects of its fanbase, or for its self-aware Twitter account that openly acknowledges many of the same perception issues the fanbase is tackling. How did Sonic reach a point where this is his legacy? What happened to give us a world whereSonic Dreams Collectioncould exist, and the things it parodies could be widely understood.
I think where this all stems from is Sega’s seeming inability to give its best-known mascot even the most basic form of consistency and permanence over the past decade, and theSonicfandom’s devotion to maintaining its own consistency to its interpretation of a beloved brand.
So, let’s get the basics out of the way. Back in 1991,Sonic the Hedgehogwas first released on the Sega Genesis. A side-scrolling platforming mascot, Sonic was Sega’s distinct answer to the overwhelming success of Mario as a system-selling mascot character. Where Mario was a middle-aged plumber, Sonic was a young, trendy, high-speed anthropomorphized hedgehog. Sonic was emblematic of ’90s youth-focused marketing: he was totally rad to the max. Sonic was a character who would run fast, spin through pipes, kick evil ass, and give you a wink and a thumbs up when you were done. He was your badass buddy, and that presentation of the character remained consistent throughout the first half of the decade.
In the mid to late ’90s, we began to see the first signs of Sega’s difficulty moving its mascot into the third dimension while retaining tonal consistency. We began to see a number of different 3D explorationSonicgames released, none of which truly maintained the tone the character had initially been given. This would become a running theme for Sega, throwingSonicgame concepts repeatedly at the wall hoping one of the reinventions would stick. Thankfully, the first time around, Sega fairly quickly found an iteration ofSonicthe world was willing to latch onto:Sonic Adventure.
While mechanically disparate from earlySonicgames,Sonic Adventuresolidified a vision of theSoniccast that would linger with fans for years to come. Sonic was trendy, wise-cracking, confident, and a little wacky. He was everything he needed to be in order to appeal to kids in the 9-13 age bracket in the late nineties, and that appeal ran deep for those who got invested in him at the right time in their lives. If you thought Sonic was cool around the launch ofAdventure, his appeal likely stuck with you for years to come. Sonic and his friends were entirely marketed to this same target audience.
This edgy late ’90s cool kid marketing design sensibility stuck with many of the voiced 3D sonic games for much of the first half of the 2000s, perhaps best epitomized by the release ofShadow the Hedgehog. Originally intended to simply be a side character inSonic Adventure 2, demand for an even edgier and cooler mascot within theSonicfandom lead to him inevitably being spun off as the protagonist for a standalone game.
Marketed directly at angsty preteens,Shadowcontinued the trend of universe investment by capitalizing on yet further relatable character traits for those coming up on their teens and wanting to empathize with the edgiest, accessible kids mascot available. This era was the peak ofSonicfandom investment; Sega knew exactly how to market the brand to a fandom ready to lap it right up.
So, when did this character consistency begin to fall apart? Well, the cracks in wider reception of theSonicseries began as the series started losing its mechanical and tonal consistency in the mid to late 2000s, during theSonicgimmick era.
As the core market of disenfranchised late ’90s teens began to dwindle, with more and more of the fanbase outgrowing the initial appeal of the characters and sales dropping as a result, Sega began to experiment with adding gimmicks to games to freshen them up and retain their edgy sense of cool.
Sonicgot motion controls, became a knight, transformed into a werewolf, and took part in the Olympics over just a few short years. Attempts to revive him as a 2D platforming mascot fell flat sales-wise without the appeal of late-’90s cool to power him and Sonic spent the better part of a decade in an inconsistent limbo.
Every time Sega released aSonicgame that fans thought was interesting but lacking in polish, Sega would scrap the idea and reinvent the character rather than attempting to refine what it had, leading to a decade of interesting but flawed, disparate ideas that left this once-powerful mascot with very little brand identity within the wider gaming market.
Still, an element of consistency to the image of Sonic did remain among the core gaming audience, fueled largely by the actions of a very small section of the fan community.
Sonicremained his consistent edgy aspiration figure online for years in very devoted parts of the Internet, oft mocked by those in the wider gaming scene who came across them. DeviantArt originalSoniccharacters whose names alluded to preteen angst and rebellion, very visible fan-fiction communities and heavy romanticizing of anthropomorphic characters remained a consistent aspect of the mascot’s visible face, only becoming more visible with the increased prevalence of the Internet.
And now here we are in the present day, with the introduction of the officialSonic the HedgehogTwitter account. The aspect of the account that most caught people’s attention was that whoever ran it seemed to be not only aware of the problems withSonicgames over the past decade, but also aware that the world seemed to most consistently see a version of the character connected to a relatively small online community.
The officialSonic the HedgehogTwitter account seemingly opted not to try and appeal to long-time series fans, as much as it attempted to appeal to a wider community that had stopped caring about Sonic, but who knew the series had experienced a lasting life online. With the lack of a consistent canon Sonic, this account told the world it was okay to latch onto the aspects of the character that had kept the online community alive for so long. It may have been in part mockery of those most dedicated to the brand, but it was an attempt to construct a consistentSonicidentity nonetheless.
And now we get toSonic Dreams Collection. In my eyes, it is a game that could only really have come to exist in a world where the officialSonicTwitter openly acknowledges that right now, Sonic’s lasting legacy is a small but visible minority’s engagement with the character in the vacuum left by inconsistent character representation. With the wider gaming community being told it was okay to acknowledge those aspects of the fandom on mass, parody of those aspects of the character and community became a much safer and more appealing proposition.
Sonic Dreams Collection, for better or worse, is a critique of Sonic’s lasting legacy. It starts off relatively tame, presenting theSonicfandom as interacting with the series in a way very much rooted in its early ’90s edgy roots, and builds slowly toward more and more niche aspects of the community that, while ever present in gaming landscape, were rarely discussed.
The includedoriginalSoniccharacter creator serves to parody an aspect of thecommunity long understood by those in the wider gaming scene: that dedicatedSonicfans enjoyed inserting themselves into that universe, but in doing so often displayed that they still possessed many of the traits that made the early 3D series a success. Deliberately dark and edgy character names, a reliance on sticking to the design constraints of the title character, and limited creativity within the confines of recreating the feel of the world. It’s parody at the expense ofSonicfans, but parody that is rooted in an understanding that those parodied are doing what they do out of a love for the source material and its own lack of consistencies.
Sonic Movie Makeris a much more direct parody of the overlap betweenSonicfan fiction and niche sexual interest fan-fiction communities. Starting off fairly mundane, the narrative uses the idea of characters designed to be wholesome and appeal to children, juxtaposing that for comedic effect against the idea of including adult content. It then introduces specific sexual fetish crossovers, as an attempt to use more niche aspects of theSonicfan-fiction community as their own punchline. While effective in drawing from aspects of theSoniccommunity that are fairly common knowledge to the average gamer, it does feel more like an attempt to generalize the fan community than other aspects of the collection.
And finally,My Roomate Sonicpreys primarily on emphasizing the character of Sonic, an anthropomorphized hedgehog, as a target of romantic interest for human fans. While this is rooted in aspects of theSoniccommunity that do exist, they still serve to highlight what is a very small aspect of the online fan community for the series.
I ultimately came away fromSonic Dreams Collectionacutely aware that right now, the game stands as the lasting legacy for one of our industry’s most memorable mascots. In lieu of a consistent, polished vision of the character being presented within the games, this year has encouraged those disillusioned with the series to simply view the character as some of the more fringe aspects of their fan community.
With the primary Twitter account’s blessing and a wildly popular parody reinforcing those consistent aspects of Sonic’s portrayal,Sonic the Hedgehog‘s legacy is staying where it is unless Sega not only produces a goodSonicgame, but produces a series of games that reinforce him as a consistent character once again.
Unfortunately for Sonic, I don’t see that happening any time soon.
