#i mean its probably proven somewhere in the game that all the neons from the gang remember each other well

[2021-good-actually-58b-1]

(regular) red from a little while back

i wonder how well do neons remember their faces

[pixelgrotto]

Sega and franchise decay

Sonic Forces, the newest 3D game to star a certain blue hedgehog, is out now and receiving middling reviews. Rather than talk about it, I’d rather discuss the 2D Sonic Mania, which came out a few months ago. I never got the chance to blog about it until now, but you can read my Steam review for what it’s worth. I would’ve preferred that the game be composed of all new levels instead of a few new ones and remixed oldies, and in some ways I do believe that Sonic Generations did the “celebration of past and future” shtick a tad better, but overall, I had a good time with Mania. The most impressive thing about it, in my eyes, is how well it captures that 90s-2000s Sega “magic.” It’s hard to describe this in words, but during those years the company’s output, especially their in-house, exclusive stuff, just radiated coolness and creativity that was a little different from what Nintendo was doing. Whether it was the neon visual smorgasbord that encompassed all of the zones in Sonic’s games or the Moebius-inspired fantasy trappings of the Panzer Dragoon series, Sega’s games often seemed fresher and sexier, with dashes of unexpected punk and sophistication in them that the Big N could never really capture. I mean, the run ‘n jump levels and cheery tunes of the Mushroom Kingdom in the Mario games were wonderful, but hell, Sonic 3 featured snowboarding action and a soundtrack that Michael Jackson worked on.

Unfortunately, while the Nintendo of 2017 is kicking butt with the Switch and has upcoming releases scheduled for most of their classic franchises, the Sega of 2017 is in a much different position, and the changes began after the sad failure of the Dreamcast in 2001, when Sega killed off its hardware unit. In the years since, the company’s slowly morphed from a creative house that bankrolled a franchise of games starring an alien-fighting aquatic mammal (Ecco the Dolphin) into a conservative organization that does NOT want to repeat the monetary losses that were suffered during the Sega Saturn and Dreamcast eras, and is therefore highly selective with what it publishes and develops. And somewhere along the way, most of the older franchises that Sega was known for went by the wayside, because their most recent entries either underperformed or they were considered too risky for today’s gaming environment. If you look at the company’s website, you can see a list of what modern Sega considers to be their top tier franchises, and most of them are Western ones that were acquired fairly recently, like Company of Heroes. As far as notable in-house Japanese stuff is concerned, you’ve really only got the Yakuza and Hatsune Miku games (guaranteed moneymakers in Japan, which is why they keep getting made), and Sonic (a guaranteed moneymaker in the rest of the world).  What happened to all those franchises of the past, then? Sega let them decay. Shinobi got its last release - a pretty good 3DS game - in 2011, and there’s been nary a word since. Anything is possible with ninjas, since Capcom brought Strider back from a 15 year retirement in 2013, but for now, Joe Musashi is AWOL. Ecco the Dolphin died in the Dreamcast era, Shining Force seems to have sputtered out after several PS2 and PSP releases that barely resembled the series’ strategy roots, and Panzer Dragoon vanished after Sega’s short-lived flirtation with the original Xbox in the early 2000s. The Oasis series (Beyond Oasis and Legend of Thor) never survived past the Sega Saturn, despite featuring excellent top-down action RPG gameplay that had the potential to go up against Zelda, if Sega had only invested the resources. While we’re on the topic of RPGs, Phantasy Star *sort of* still lives on as an MMO, but the single player entries in the series have long been dead, and even after five years, Sega has still refused to localize Phantasy Star Online 2 outside of Japan. And then we have two really depressing ones - Streets of Rage has been MIA even though Sega went out of its way to issue a takedown notice for a popular fan remake that was released in 2011, and Virtua Fighter, despite being pretty much the earliest 3D fighting franchise, hasn’t seen a real entry since 2006, and only exists as a cheap mobile game now. (I realize there are plenty of other franchises I’m leaving out here like Jet Set Radio, but I decided to limit my focus to games I’d played.)

In the aftermath of Sonic Mania’s release, there were a number of threads on NeoGAF (before GAF, well, imploded), speculating on what franchises should receive a “Mania” type resurrection. And if you’ve read up to this point, you can guess what my answer will be - damn near all of Sega’s old series could use this treatment. New versions of Shining Force and Panzer Dragoon that respect their legacy by emulating the style of their forefathers while introducing just enough new stuff to appeal to younger fans would absolutely make me lose my mind. But I feel that we’re unlikely to ever get a “Shining Mania” or “Panzer Dragoon Mania,” because the circumstances that brought us Sonic Mania are unique. Sonic has always had a robust fangame and ROM hacking community, and it was Christian Whitehead, one of those fan engineers, whose mobile port of Sonic CD just happened to be good enough to get Sega to hire him to port other Sonic games to phones. One thing led to another, and eventually Christian got tasked to take the lead in making Sonic Mania.  Sega’s other old franchises don’t inspire fans and homebrew projects in quite the same way, and even though Streets of Rage came close with that 2011 remake, Sega swooped in pretty fast to nuke that one from the net, and I don’t think they gave any of the former devs jobs. This is because Sega just doesn’t care about Streets of Rage, Ecco the Dolphin, or even Virtua Fighter as much as Sonic. The blue hedgehog is a long-term mascot who’s managed to survive oodles of so-so 3D games (like the new Sonic Forces) to still be popular 25+ years after his birth. He’s not seen as a risk to the conservative Sega of 2017. A new Oasis game, on the other hand, probably is, and why should Sega stretch their lessened in-house production studios on what might be criticized as a Zelda clone when they can instead make another proven thing - a new Sonic, or perhaps a Yakuza or Hatsune Mika spinoff? No, I think the only way some of these franchises could be resurrected is if the original devs manage to grab hold of the license and take to Kickstarter, as is the case with Shenmue 3, a rare success story in this day in age. (Emphasis on the word RARE…and I’d actually rather not call Shenmue 3 a total “success” until the game is out, to be honest.) Franchise decay isn’t unique to Sega. It’s an affliction present in many other production studios, from Square Enix (I miss you, Parasite Eve) to Capcom (the mobile Breath of Fire 6 does not count) to Konami (Contra, Suikoden, damn near everything). Even Nintendo, who have generally done a fine job at avoiding this by bringing Kid Icarus and 2D Metroid back from the dead, have seemingly gone out of their way to not make a new F-Zero game for an awfully long time. But Sega is definitely the king when it comes to the sheer number of oldies that could stand to be updated for a new generation, but won’t be. And Sega are also the only ones to tempt us with Sonic Mania, a game chock-full of easter eggs to old titles that also offers a template which would be PERFECT for something like Shinobi or Streets of Rage…but one that likely won’t be used. Because the magical Sega of yesteryear, the one that got Michael Jackson to fiddle with Sonic 3 and used to be oh so fresh and oh so cool, is not the Sega of today.  RIP, Shinobi, Ecco, Shining Force, Panzer Dragoon, Oasis, single player Phantasy Star, Streets of Rage and Virtua Fighter. Somewhere, in the same alternate universe that Sonic Mania manifested from, the Dreamcast did super well and all of you are on your tenth respective entries right now. 

It’s a blast processing fever dream, but isn’t it a nice one? (Header Sonic Mania screenshot taken by me. All the other pics I jacked from Mobygames.)