Why?:Does Everyone Hate Sonic the Hedgehog?

“We take a lot of our inspiration from filmmaker M. Night Shamalamadingdong. After starting out each project by making a game really fun we try to see how we can add in totally gamechanging (a.k.a. stupid) twist to make it different”

~ SEGA on Making Sonic games

Recently (or more likely not so recently), you may have noticed that there has been a lot of hate going around for the once beloved blue hedgehog. So far, no one has been able to determine an exact reason this fiery hatred that seems to fill the hearts of disgruntled fans. After researching for countless years, and wasting my life away studying a fictional, anthropomorphic mammal, I have come compiled a series of facts that I believe contribute to the cause of this mass hating.

Brief Overview

During this time Sonic developed a ketchup addiction which caused his weight to balloon to gianormous heights, as seen in this 1991 photo.

The year was 1991; Serial killer Aileen Wuornos had just confessed to the murder of six men, 55 tornadoes appeared over a duration of 19 hours, killing 17, and injuring 225 more, and the Red Hot Chilli Peppers released their album, Blood Sugar Sex Magik. Over all, it was a pretty crappy year.

However, one good thing did happen that year; Sonic the Hedgehog was born. Originally released on June 23 in America, it became an instant hit. Most likely because Sonic was really radical! (This was during a time when MTV actually stood for Music Television, and likewise, it played these things called "music videos" which you can now see on this thing called "Youtube".)

Everyone thought Sonic was really cool, 'cause he was all like totally waving his finger at your face, and that's like seriously badbutt, dude! Also, he was very fast, which was cool, 'cause no one wanted to play as a slow, fat plumber who spends his time walking down the street, smashing little defenseless turtles on his way to buy mushrooms.

Sonic had ads on TV all the time where he screamed at parents to buy their kids his game. The ads seemed to work, because by 1992 when the sequel rolled around, it made even more money than the original. It also introduced Tails, who if I remember correctly is a mutant squirrel. These games were followed by Sonic CD, and Sonic the Hedgehog 3.

The 2D games were all well received, and the hatred didn't start to build up until after the release of Sonic Adventure for the Sega Dreamcast. The game was well received at the time, but years after people began to hate it. Sonic Adventure 2 followed it, and it is largely considered the best 3D Sonic game of all time.

These two games were followed by, Sonic Heroes, Shadow the Hedgehog, Sonic the Hedgehog (2006), and Sonic Unleashed, all which have been universally hated. If we look closely, we notice something strange here. The games are increasingly well received, until a moment when each one becomes more and more hated. I have developed a theory regarding this. I call it the Pokémon Cycle.

The Pokémon Cycle

During the late nineties, a video game franchise was released that changed the world. Its two first games were known as Pokémon Red and Blue. These two games launched a phenomenon dubbed Pokémon Fever. (Completely unrelated to the Pokemono fever, which is a rare, and disgusting form of mononucleosis. The less said about it the better.)

The Pokémon series launched numerous, video games, card games, animes, movies, toys, and tons of other stupid crap. However, during the early to mid 2000s, people noticed a change. Pokémon suddenly became despised, and hated. Scientists studied this for years, but could not determine why. This is because scientists are idiots. They don't know what they're talking about; with their Global Warming, and the monkey thing. Only I have the real answers.

During one of my late night study sessions, I stumbled upon an interesting Pokémon cartoon, and I began to think to myself, "How can anyone not like this?" I began to research, and I made a shocking discovery. Every child who enjoyed Pokémon in its prime were between eight and 12 years of age. I did some careful math, and came to a shocking conclusion:

• 1998 + 6 = 2004!

• 10 + 6 = 16!

This stunning (and extremely difficult) math problem, has lead me to the conclusion that all the Pokémon hate began during the children's teenage years! During this time Pokémon was considered lame, and uncool. Dildos were the hot, fun thing to play with during these years. However, I did a few extra mathmatical matheries, and came up with another stunning discovery:

• 2004 + 6 = 2010!

• 16 + 6 = 22!

Adding another six years to the passage of time and the child who had once played Pokémon has now reached adulthood! During this time nostalgia would set in; a yearning for the simpler times of kidnapping monsters, and forcing them to fight other monsters. The adult now realizes that Pokémon is actually "cool", and the whole series becomes super popular once again. This continues when the parents introduce their own children to Pokémon, where the cycle begins again.

We encounter a problem when trying to apply this cycle to Sonic however. To understand this we must understand how the series entered the 3D realm. I have created a picture to illustrate my point:

As you can see in the image (which I made myself. Pretty professional, don't you think?), Sonic had a constant release rate through the early nineties. However, during the short life time of the Sega Saturn, there were no true Sonic games released. This disrupted the cycle, something which I fear the franchise may never recover from.

Originally there was Sonic 1, 2, CD, and 3, which were all beloved. It would have been during this time where people started to get older, and would have started to believe that Sonic is "retarded". Unfortunately, due to the hands of Sony, the system never took off, and no Sonic games were released on it.

With the cycle disrupted, gamers had to wait another four years for a new game. When the new game came out, they were unsure how they were supposed to feel. Happy? Angry? Joyous? Sadistic? Aroused? The game got relatively high marks, as did the sequel, but they were no where near as high as the original games.

When further sequels came out, the broken cycle caused the fan community to split, with some still in their childlike phase enjoying the games with wonder, some stuck in their teenage phase, believing the games are stupid and too childish, and some in the adult phase, where they could just enjoy the games for what they were. Unfortunately, the largest majority of gamers got stuck in the whiny, emo teen phase.

Sega is Betrayed - Sega's Betrayal

There are many reasons why the teenage phase has become the largest out of the three, but it can all be traced back to the Saturn. After the failure of their system, Sega decided to give it one last go in the console business. They built a mammoth of a monster, and named it the Dreamcast. They were sure it would sell well, after all, it had everything: State of the art graphics, online play, GD-Rom format, capable of holding 1GB, ports of arcade classics, brilliant new IPs, and best of all a brand new Sonic the Hedgehog game!

Sadly, many people did not buy the Dreamcast. Sega felt betrayed by this, and from that point on began focusing their games on the demographic that still was playing their games: Tweens. The older gamers felt betrayed by this move, feeling that Sonic only belonged to them, and he was never allowed to change, or star in any other genres as long as they lived. Sega couldn't give a shit about them anymore, and released their first game targeted at the new demographic: Sonic Heroes.

A typical fanboy, giving Sega the finger.

This betrayal on Sega's part left the undecided gamers to fall into the teenage phase of hating the games. As that group grew, they pulled in more, and more people who previously enjoyed the games. It seemed no one was immune. They would purposely seek out things they thought were wrong with the games, and tell Sega exactly how they felt, while offering no solutions how to fix them.

It was a lot like being in a relationship with a hot, bitchy girl. You can't do anything right. You take her to the movies, but she gets angry at you, and says she hates these movies. You ask her what kind of movies she likes. She replies, "Just forget it!"

No matter what you do for her, she ends up criticizing everything you do, while never telling you how you can fix what's wrong. It's always "Nothing", or "Never mind". The difference between a hot, bitchy girl, and the fanboys is at least occasionally you can sleep with the girl. Trust me when I say you wouldn't want to sleep with the fanboys (or girls). Don't ask me how I know that.

To make matters more confusing, the tweens who grew up with the 3D Sonic games, did not begin to hate Sonic. Although there are some vocal tweens who are easily influenced with the promise of pornography, and turn their backs on Sonic. Most of them faithfully buy the games, as though it's a religion.

Problems with Sonic

Note: Not all of these nitpickings speak for ALL fans of the franchise. Some to all of them are the opinions of just one person.

We are a bunch of crying bitch ass mother fucking albino trolls to nitpick on every Sonic game to date, please read on. While Sega continued to pump out games for the tween demographic, the "true fans", or rather anti-fans, bought each, and every new game too, but for a more sinister purpose. They would play through the game for ten minutes, hop on the internet and complain about it, while voting down the scores on review websites.

I will now list some of the games, and the problems these "anti-fans" had with it.

• Sonic the Hedgehog - Marble Zone. Fuck that level to hell.

• Sonic the Hedgehog 2 - (Takes place after Sonic the Hedgehog) Tails is introduced and he's kinda annoying when he grabs your bubbles in the water levels, but eh, it's a pretty good game too.

• Sonic CD - This is the most overrated Sonic game of all time! The level design is ass, it wants you to speed up to travel through time, but it keeps slowing you down by having one million obstacles around.

• Sonic the Hedgehog 3 - (Takes place after Sonic the Hedgehog 2) Still good, new power-ups, a cool story and all, but the game is too short.

• Sonic & Knuckles - This is just the conclusion to Sonic the Hedgehog 3, nothing really new in terms of gameplay except you can play as Knuckles now and unlock a awesome final level where you play as Hyper Sonic with the Chaos Emeralds.

• Sonic the Fighters - Metal Sonic is too hard! Super Sonic is too awesome! Why the hell are there so many unused characters?

• Sonic Adventure - Too many characters! There are too many genres! Big is boring, and so is Amy! Did I mention Knuckles is boring, too? 'Cause he is! Sonic's controls are godawful, the camera will kill you more times than you can count and there are glitches everywhere. Also, the music sucks!

• Sonic Adventure 2 - (Takes place after Sonic Adventure) Shadow is in this game! He's the worst character ever! Rouge is in this game! She's a slut! Also, when the moon is blown up it doesn't look like how the moon would look after being blown up in real life!

• Sonic Adventure 3 - Why doesn't this game exist? This game shouldn't exist!

• Sonic Heroes - This game is for kids! There's no story! The dialogue sucks corned beef! The levels are all the same! The story is too light-hearted!

• Sonic Battle -

• Sonic Rush -

• Sonic X - The 4Kids version of this sucks! Everybody loves the comic book more than the cartoon! This is where Sega got the idea for G.U.N.! And P.S. It was revealed in episode 59 that Cream wears Diapers! *sigh* no wonder idiots on DeviantART want to see Cream wearing just a diaper!

• Shadow the Hedgehog - It doesn't star Sonic as the main character! The story is too confusing! The story is too simplistic! There are guns! There are cars! The voices suck; they sound like a gay, emo, Nazi, Yu-Gi-Oh penis did them all! Shadow is too powerful! Shadow is not powerful enough! Aliens don't belong in a Sonic game! The camera is horrible! The controls are horrible! The graphics are horrible! The art style is horrible! The lighting is horrible! The horribleness is horrible!

• Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) - (Takes place after Shadow the Hedgehog) There are humans in this game! Sonic can't have a friendly relationship; that's gross! The story doesn't make sense! The story is too dark! The story is too stupid! The game has a story! Everyone is too slow! Sonic is too slow! Sonic is too fast! The game came out after Shadow the Hedgehog, so it sucks! This game is called Sonic the Hedgehog; that's a mockery! More like, Sonic the SUCKSBALLShog, ha! The loading is horrible! The non-loading is horrible! The CGI looks too good! It plays just like Sonic Adventure! Silver is a Dragon Ball Z rip off! Time travel should not be in a Sonic game (except for Sonic CD, 'cause we actually like that one)!

• Sonic Unleashed - Sonic can transform into a Werehog! Werehogs are retarded! The Werehog has gameplay! There isn't enough 2D gameplay! This game came out after Sonic and the Secret Rings!, so it sucks! The Werehog sounds stupid! Chip is a retarded character! Knuckles isn't in the game! The game sometimes plays like God of War which is fun; a Sonic game can't be fun! The Werehog is too cartoonish!

• Sonic the Hedgehog 4 - (Takes place after Sonic the Hedgehog 3) Sonic has green eyes! Sonic's legs are too long! The game has 3D graphics! The game has a story! It's downloadable; download games suck! It's episodic! It has the word "Sonic" in the title! It's a sequel to the "good games"; they're trying to ruin our classics! It's too different from the old Sonic games! It's too much the same, like the old Sonic games!

• Sonic Colors - The title sucks! They changed Sonic's voice... again! The guy who voiced Ezio is in it! Sonic is in space! Sonic isn't in space! Sonic is on Sweet Mountain! Sonic isn't on Doughnut Island! Eggman isn't evil enough! He's too evil! The game is too colorful! The game isn't colorful enough! The music is too annoying! And change Tails voice actor to a boy!

• Sonic Generations - (Takes place after Sonic Colors) There are two Sonics??!! This plot is too confusing!!!

• Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 2 - (Takes place after Episode 1 of Sonic the Hedgehog 4) All we got to see was the logo! They didn't change Sonic's smile! The logo is a rehash!

• Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 3 -(Takes place after Episode 2 of Sonic the Hedgehog 4) Sonic's legs are too damn long! The story is too confusing! The logo is a rehash! Shadow is in this game! He's a asshole! Rouge is in this game! She's a slut! The story makes no sense! Tails' physics suck! Sonic's physics suck! The only good thing about this game is that it doesn't actually exist!

Those are only the problems they had with the individual games though, I will now go through the list of big problems, that they claim plagues every game.

Character Development

Over the years the Sonic characters have gone from being two dimensional beings, to well rounded, interesting characters. Take Shadow for instance, he started out as an anti-Sonic, who was only interested in destroying the world for revenge for the death of his friend. Through the next few games he eventually discovered his origin, and went on to become the series anti-hero, working for the organization G.U.N., a questionable government organization that protects the world.

There is nothing wrong with character development such as that. It's what comes with character development that the anti-fans hate (well, besides story). The dreaded beast known as... the fan fiction! Fan fiction can be fun and enjoyable, but when it gets out of hand and truly messes with the story, like the fan fiction below it annoys fans. Sometimes the content can be outrageously different to the true story line, and as a consequence other fans can get confused between the two stories and take the wrong concept for a character. As you can see, this fan fiction below is completely different from the original stories, Miles "Tails" Prower is only eight years old and is most likely not homosexual. Also it has been well noted that Tails has no family and that Sonic found him. This is exactly why some fan fiction is notorious. (Please note that the below is, in fact, fan fiction and should not be taken as a serious SEGA Sonic story-line.)

"gee really i never would have guessed since your house is in this direction." tails looked shocked and playfully pouted. "what are you some kind of stalker." zack pulled tails closer to him and gently cupped tail's face in his hands. " only if it turns you on." zack leaned down to kiss tails only to be stopped by tails."tails what's wrong baby." tails ringed one of his tails in his hands looking down. "well my parents still don't know about us and well i don't want them to say i can't see you anymore." zack looked away glaring. "god stupid homophobic idiots." zack and tails walked the rest of the way to tails' house in silence with only tails occasional whimper after looking at zack's angry scowl..

As they walked up to tails' porch zack gave a small sigh and placed his face in his hands. "i'm sorry tails i just.... i want to be able to love you without fear of someone telling your parents." tails moved towards him and was about to lean up to kiss him when the door opened smacking zack in the back of the head. "owww oww son of a ....mmmmmmmmmmmm! Zack clutched his head in pain. Tails knelt down beside him blushing at the words being uttered almost too low to hear. "oh sorry zack i didn't see you there." zack clenched his teeth in pain and nodded his head. "mom dad where are you going?" "We're going out for the night." tails gave a small nod..

tails smiled brightly. "Hey mom, dad, could zack stay over tonight while you're gone?" tails' mother smiling nodded. Zack thanked them and tails' parents left. zack sat down on the couch and smiled when tails curled up to him. tails giggled as zack ran his hand along his sides. "well well well look like you're ticklish aren't you tails." tails backed away slightly a pleading look in his eyes. "please zack don't." zack grinned loving the feeling of dominance. "i'm going to show you no mercy tails." zack leapt at tails tickling his sides stopping only to let tails breathe and then continue. after about ten minutes of tickling. zack pinned tails to the ground smirking.

~ An actual Sonic fan fiction. It only gets worse from there. As you can tell the fan fiction is different to all story lines after all, fan fiction is fan fiction and people enjoy doing it. They can do what they want and pretend what they want.

Eggman Isn't Evil Enough

Another common problem the anti-fans have with the games is that Eggman isn't evil enough. Indeed he has become a sympathetic villain over the years, but he hasn't stopped being evil. Let's have a look at his track record:

Eggman is so evil, he ties up people, and forces them to star in his pornos with him! Thank God for the censor pixels!

• Tried to bomb Station Square - Sonic Adventure

• Put a gun to Amy's head - Sonic Adventure 2

• Bombed a military base - Sonic Adventure 2

• Blew up half the moon - Sonic Adventure 2

• Shot Sonic into space in an explosive capsule- Sonic Adventure 2

• Didn't pay for detective service - Sonic Heroes

• Invaded a peaceful nation and attacked it with force - Sonic the Hedgehog (2006)

• Kidnapped a leader of said peaceful nation - Sonic the Hedgehog (2006)

• Blew up the Earth, ripped the Chaos Emeralds out of Sonic AND shot him into space after deforming him- Sonic Unleashed

As we can see here, the anti-fans are sadists. They can not see how evil these acts are, like blowing up the entire mother fucking planet! I think it's fair to assume that if any of them met Satan in person, they would complain about how he's "not evil anymore", and tell him how much his voice sucks. Speaking of which...

Jason Griffith

Jason Anthony Griffith was the voice of Sonic the Hedgehog, Shadow the Hedgehog, and Jet the Green Bean during this time. He seems to be universally hated, despite not sounding that different from Ryan Drummond. They say he is a terrible actor, and is unsuited to do any Sonic character voices. However, this is all a cleverly constructed ruse, and I have discovered the true reason they hate him.

Jason's not-so-subtle politics.

The truth is, Jason Griffith is a hardcore conservative Republican. He is an outspoken proponent of abstinence until after marriage, as well as the practice of safe sex. For quite a while now, Jason Griffith has been pushing his conservative agenda into the games. It can be noticed in the characters he plays. Like Shadow's anti-government, but pro-military stance. Sonic serves as his liberal foil. Sonic is a goodnatured hippie, who wants to do good, by destroying big business, like those run by Dr. Eggman. Sonic is generally shown to be trying to be good, but only Shadow knows that the ends justify the means. Just like a true conservative! At the very least, Sonic isn't shown to be as stupid as the nomadic, tree hugging, hippie Knuckles.

Jason's ultra conservative nature however, is the cause of the immense hatred anti-fans have for him. While Jason preaches sex after marriage, and safe sex, this by its very nature goes against everything furries believe in. Furries have no need for safe sex. They have sex through their animal costumes. Why use a condom when you can block your juice with fur instead? The bestialiters don't have to worry about this either, for it's impossible to get a animal preggers. Even if it is, condoms only get in the way of a good, dirty time.

And sex after marriage? Pah-lease! Everyone knows animals never get married, they mate when they feel like it, regardless of whether or not their partner is consenting. Jason Griffith's moral guardian attitude gets in the way of their fun. They can't just come out, and say that though. So they invented a cover story to try to destroy his career. It's the perfect plan!

As you can clearly see, Jason has even managed to sneak his propaganda into the show!

Conclusion

Furries are sick inhuman monsters, who should all be shot, burned, and... Oh my, look at that...

With all the research I have done, I have finally discovered why Sonic is so hated. No, it's not because his games suck. It's actually a worldwide conspiracy, formulated by Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft. The agreement was simple. Nintendo would agree to stay in second place with their Nintendo 64, while Sony took the lead in first with it's PlayStation. In exchange, Nintendo would receive exclusive Sonic games, after Sega was beaten, and had no where else to turn to. Microsoft, would help them build their final system, the Dreamcast, and use the experience they gained from that to launch their own system.

Together, the three companies disrupted the Pokémon Cycle, thus throwing the Sonic franchise into chaos. With the introduction of furries into the world, the franchise only fell into more disarray, due to their schemes to destroy Griffith. Recently, a Sonic-hate bandwagon has formed, and is only growing. These combinations spell disaster for the once great franchise. No, it is not Sega that will spell doom for Sonic, try as they might, with their needless Mario Party, and Tony Hawk rip offs. But rather, it is the very people who grew up with Sonic that will ultimately bring him to his end. Like a child smothering their elderly parent in the night, or a doctor shooting a posion dart into his ugly wife, they too will kill Sonic.

R.I.P. Sonic the Hedgehog. Born 1991, laid to rest 2012. May God have mercy on thy soul, for he will certainly not on ours.

References

Featured Why?

Feature Date: 15th of May 2010

This Why? has been featured on the Why? namespace. "Why?" you ask. Why anything?