"The pair of Sonic rivals tumble over each other, fighting over a topic that doesn't deserve to be fought over."
Perhaps a more accurate descriptor would be Atomically Fissioned Base. Each faction hates all of the others and often complain about even the most miniscule of details. It's a major reason why the franchise as a whole has been generally seen in a negative light over the years. This article best sums up the fandom's splintered state
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For Base Breaking Characters, go here.
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General
- The most common base breaker in the Sonic the Hedgehog fanbase centers around the quality of the products. General consensus is that Sonic is a franchise with many ups as well as many downs. And that's about as "agreed on" as that consensus gets, as everyone has different ideas of what exactly are the "ups" and "downs" of the franchise, and many get very vehement about said ideas. The most usual claims for the "ups" include the Classic Genesis Trilogy, Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM), the Sonic Adventure Duology, Sonic Colors, Sonic Generations, and Sonic Mania. Meanwhile, the most usual claims for the "downs" are Shadow the Hedgehog, Sonic '06, Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric, Sonic Forces, and Sonic's old movie design before the revamp. And even those are not universally agreed upon, as there's always someone with differing opinions about these examples, especially if they feel that the "ups" are "overhyped" and/or the "downs" are "overhated". Even people who don't care much for or have any interest in the franchise have their own beliefs on what's "good" and "bad" about the franchise, adding more fuel to the fire.
Games
- The Sonic the Hedgehog series is usually divided into three distinct eras which are each defined by distinct characteristics of the series "main" games; the classic era (1991-1998, Sonic the Hedgehog to Sonic R), the Adventure era (1998-2006, Sonic Adventure to Sonic the Hedgehog (2006)), and the modern era (2007-present, Sonic and the Secret Rings onwards).note The handheld entries generally aren't discussed, but can loosely be divided into the classic era (1991-1999, Sonic the Hedgehog for Game Gear to Sonic Pocket Adventure) and the modern era (2001-present, Sonic Advance onwards). Certain fans of the classic era dislike everything from the Adventure era and onward, while certain fans of the Adventure era dislike the games of both the classic and modern eras, a situation that Sega has actually become aware about. Funny enough, most people from the modern era tend to like all Sonic games. This doesn't even include the cartoons, comics, and other media released over the years, all of which have also broken the fanbase.
- The notion of whether or not games like Sonic 3D: Flickies' Island, Shadow the Hedgehog, and the Sonic Storybook Series are main series games or spin-offs have also caused some conflict. Aside from the fact that all of these games are platformers with a major degree of speed involved, this is often mistaken for being due to the continuity of the games. Shadow The Hedgehog is justified, as it tries to conclude many of the plot points found in both Sonic Adventure 2 and Sonic Heroes, while the plot of Sonic and the Secret Rings was directly referenced by Sonic himself in Sonic Generations.
- There are some fans who consider at least one of the pre-'06 Adventure era games (Sonic Adventure, Sonic Adventure 2, or Sonic Heroes) to be the last good Sonic game before the Audience-Alienating Era, while others consider at least one of them the beginning of it.
- Fans are split on whether it was the Nintendo-exclusive Sonic Colors or the multiplatform Sonic Generations that brought the series out of the Audience-Alienating Era, and again on whether or not the series entered another one immediately after (with divisive titles like Sonic Lost World and Sonic Forces directly following up on acclaimed ones like Generations and Sonic Mania to jarring effect).
- In Sonic the Hedgehog 4, one of the loudest (if not, the loudest) points of contention over the game's reveal was the game's use of "green-eyed Sonic": in particular, the use of the character designs from Sonic Adventure and onwards, instead of the original character designs for the Genesis and Saturn era of Sonic titles. Some in favor of it argued that the game was supposed to be a sequel to the Genesis games, and thus it should be supported with the designs used for those titles; they also noted that the PR team for the game leading up to the reveal had tons of callbacks to the original designs. Others who argued in favor of the new design that Sonic 4 was not only a new title (hence it should use the designs used for the newer games), but the original designs hadn't been used in a new game over a decade. The debate faded away, though, with the release of Sonic Generations, which had both the original "Classic" Sonic and the current "Modern" Sonic designs as playable characters; and was entirely absent come Sonic Mania, which became the first game in years to exclusively use the original designs.
- In regards to Lost World, the amount of flak the game had received from some fans over the game's more simple, stylized/cartoonish artstyle (compared to past games' more detailed, semi-realistic artstyle) alone, coupled with the aforementioned light-hearted tone the game is continuing from previous installments, led to some calling Lost World the worst of the Sonic franchise and accusing it of being a Mario clone before it even released. Years after release, fans remain split on whether it was a good entry (citing the multiple paths you can take to complete the levels and its complex mechanics) or a bad entry (criticizing its slower pace and underwhelming story). The two DLC levels that crossover Sonic with Yoshi's Story and The Legend of Zelda further muddy the issue, with opinions ranging from them making the game worse to the DLC possibly being better than the main game.
- With the release of Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric, there are arguments on whether or not this is worse than Sonic '06.
- There's a recurrent argument about whether or not either Sonic Heroes, Shadow the Hedgehog, Sonic the Hedgehog (2006), or Sonic Unleashed is considered to be a "Sonic Adventure 3."
- For the most part, a large number of fans argue that Sonic '06 is the closest thing to an "SA3" due to the similarities of the two adventure games; common defenses for the argument include the gameplay formula, story structure, and adventure fields. Other fans disagree with the assertion and state that '06 was meant to be a reboot of the series.
- One group of fans believe that Sonic Heroes is the closest thing to an "Adventure 3" due to the game taking place after SA2, and was initially planned to be titled "Sonic Adventure 3", but the idea was scrapped as to not lure away or confuse newcomers of the franchise. Other segments of the fandom disagreed because they felt Heroes was closer to a modern imagining of the Genesis titles in terms of gameplay and level design than it was to the Adventure games.
- A few could consider Shadow the Hedgehog to be SA3, as it finishes off Shadow's character arc in the series which started in SA2 and was slightly expanded on in Heroes. Others disagree due to the game being a spin-off title.
- There are people who consider Sonic Unleashed as SA3 since it was, in fact, originally planned to be titled "Sonic Adventure 3" and was actually released in Japan as Sonic World Adventure.
- Lastly, there are some fans who don't consider any of the four games an "Sonic Adventure 3" and probably won't be satisfied unless there is a game clearly titled "Sonic Adventure 3" and to a lesser extent, includes Chao Gardens.
- While professional critics have become generally unfavourable to both Adventure titles in recent years, there are mixed views within the fanbase as to how well the games have held up over the years. This overlaps with the arguments on alternate playstyles.
- When viewed as having aged badly, Sonic Adventure is considered to be overly glitchy (albeit not to Sonic '06 extremes), having unneeded fishing, shooting, and/or chase sections, shoehorning all of the characters into mixes of the same 11 stages making level design less cohesive for all of them, and a badly acted plot; however, the views on the rest of the gameplay are more varied and some people still enjoy the game's attempt at story.
- In Sonic Adventure 2, all the gameplay outside of Sonic/Shadow stages have been met with increasng criticism over the years. The story is viewed by those who dislike it as clichéd and too dark and realistic for a Sonic game, on top of introducing Shadow, whose storyline would take over the plot for the following three installments. Sonic Adventure 2: Battle would also introduce an entire generation of Sonic fans that would eventually conflict with the older fans. However, the improved and expanded Chao Garden is usually seen as a bright spot to the extent where some like to play it just to experience that section, and the stages that were well-liked are favourites among some fans. Others go as far to believe that it makes up for its gameplay by being surprisingly mature and genuinely emotional. And then there's a camp that feels like the Tails/Eggman stages get a bad rap just for not being the Sonic/Shadow stages when they're actually overall well-designed around their playstyles in their own rights, controlling much less awkwardly than throwing Gamma into stages built around more maneuverable characters. However, even fans of Knuckles/Rouge's stages, as well as their predecessors in Knuckles' SA1 levels, will freely admit that they can be more than a little frustrating. This is namely due to the neutered emerald radar, which is either seen as a minor inconvenience to a mostly decent selection of levels, or the reason why some people find them inferior to SA1.
- And then there's the DX and Battle ports of both titles, which have increasingly been labeled as the inferior ways to play each game compared to the less accessible Dreamcast originals due to issues with lighting, strange graphical changes and most of the glitches that critics point and laugh at. Despite this, others still enjoy the ports despite their flaws and appreciate the things that the ports added, such as additional emblems, an improved Vs. mode in the second game, and the Chao Garden's SA2 mechanics coming back for the DX version (also the novelty of unlocking old Game Gear titles through collecting emblems in the original GameCube port, which is sadly omitted from future releases). Depending on one's views on these ports, either they're seen as still enjoyable ports of beloved Sonic games with a lot more replay value, or they're the reason the Adventure titles have been receiving more scrutiny in recent years.
- Especially before Unleashed, there was a great deal of argument on whether or not it benefits the series to have a large recurring cast for every game as opposed to focusing primarily on Sonic and Eggman. Naysayers tend to point to the series' mid-2000s Audience-Alienating Era where many of the games were criticized for the other cast members taking too much time away from Sonic and having alternate gameplay styles that differed too much from the traditional Sonic gameplay. Supporters on the other hand feel that having focus on characters besides Sonic helps to add variety to the gameplay and open up story opportunities that wouldn't work with Sonic as the sole main hero.
- With the absence of other playable characters from Unleashed onward, it's nearly universally agreed that there needs to be more playable characters again. However, in the infamous "Alternate Gameplay" debate, fans cannot agree on how they should be implemented.
Many are against "alternate gameplay" due to it taking away focus from the "main" Sonic gameplay and turning many Sonic games into a collection of smaller games. It's often cited that there is next to no backlash against the playable characters in the classic Sonic 3 & Knuckles as well as the Dimps-developed Advance and Rush games, all of which have characters that fit neatly into the same gameplay style as Sonic. People who argue against alternate gameplay feel that it has unfairly sullied the reputation of playable characters at best and that it has been the downfall of the series at worst, or that it's an effect of Sonic Team's pathological need to put some sort of alternate gimmick in every game.
However, many other fans, mainly those of the Adventure games, think that "alternate gameplay" is the superior way to implement playable characters. These people feel that making the other characters have different levels/paths and/or goals make them much more satisfying to play as, since their unique goals actually take advantage of their abilities. As a corollary, many of these fans think that characters like Tails and Knuckles are Game Breakers and that shoehorning them into Sonic's playstyle causes the game to lose challenge. This also makes Sonic, the main character himself, seem underpowered, as his speed doesn't allow the freedom that flying or gliding and climbing do.
- With the absence of other playable characters from Unleashed onward, it's nearly universally agreed that there needs to be more playable characters again. However, in the infamous "Alternate Gameplay" debate, fans cannot agree on how they should be implemented.
- The Hub worlds in a number of games such as Sonic Adventure, Sonic '06, and Sonic Unleashed. Some fans enjoy them for exploration and interacting with people, while others feel they slow the pace of the games and prefer the stage-to-stage formula that the majority of Sonic games always have.
- As if the fanbase couldn't get even more divided, the reveal of the Custom Hero feature in Sonic Forces divided it even further. Some fans are thrilled to be able to make their own Original Characters canon, and think that the gadget weapons bring a lot of variety to the gameplay. Others think it's the worst idea in the whole franchise, noting how Sonic fan characters tend to leave much to be desired and that the Custom Hero's gameplay brings down the two existing playable Sonic characters, or feel that the Custom Heroes are a good idea full of wasted potential. Still others who have wanted established characters other than Sonic playable again for years are absolutely chagrined that Sonic Team chose to make a OC creator playable over the existing cast. As for the game itself... well, it takes Contested Sequel to a level not seen since the original Sonic Adventure. Some fans view it as a flawed, but enjoyable enough game, while others despise it for its sloppy level design and uninspired gameplay or feel that its flaws, although forgivable on their own, are only magnified by the fact that the game is meant to celebrate 25 years of Sonic.
- Sonic Mania, critical acclaim aside, managed to infuriate many Adventure-era fans who are upset that the classic era fans are being pandered to again.
- Some think the games released on the Master System and Game Gear are inferior, poorly-performing, and lackluster, while others consider them underrated gems, a few even going so far as to say they liked them more than their 16-bit counterparts.
- Fans of the 2D games feel that Sonic the Hedgehog's Video Game 3D Leap fell flat due to the many glitches found throughout, the alternative gameplay styles that give each character their own goals, as opposed to playing the same with a unique ability like the 2D games, and the way in which the 3D games "keep throwing random ideas at the wall to see what sticks" and "constantly experiment" that they argue shows a lack of vision on Sonic Team's part and an inability to give the franchise a concrete identity. Fans of the 3D games feel that this makes each game truly unique instead — especially compared to the series' former competitor, Super Mario Bros., which has often been criticized for doing too much of the same thing — and enjoy them for what they are. These fans also accuse the 2D games of being exercises in Trial-and-Error Gameplay that suffer from many of the same problems that their fans criticize the 3D games for (such as glitches — for a good example of that, go and see the Game-Breaking Bug section of Sonic 3 & Knuckles), arguing that the original Genesis trilogy is undeserving of its Sacred Cow status as a result. However, there is a third camp that feels both gameplay styles have their merits.
- Related to this is the Adventure-era of 3D Sonic gameplay and the Unleashed-onward boost style. Supporters of the former feel that the Adventure style does a great job of transitioning Sonic to 3D and that the boost style is too easy and simplistic. Supporters of the former, on the other hand, prefer the boost style for capturing Sonic's signature Super-Speed very well and feel that the Adventure style is less exciting in comparison. Yes, there are people who are able to enjoy both styles too.
- Various critics and fans feel that 3D Sonic is at its best when the level design emphasizes exploration and isn't "too linear" (with such examples including the Sonic Adventure duology, Sonic Heroes, and Sonic Forces), claiming that these games take away player control for the sake of cool-looking cinematic sequences and play as if they's on auto-pilot. However, others feel that the more linear level design helps these games stand out when compared to the many other platformers saturating the market (especially when the success of exploration-heavy games like Super Mario 64 led to an influx of similar wide-open sandbox collect-a-thons that made many gamers tire of the genre for a while), and feel that this style of play isn't too far off from the pinball-like gameplay present in the classic Genesis titles.
- Crossing over with Fandom Rivalry since separate teams are involved — Who did the Sonic 1 and 2 ports better: The Retro Engine team (Taxman and Stealth), or M2 with their SEGA AGES ports on Switch? Fans of the Retro Engine ports tend to frown upon the SEGA AGES ports, preferring the Retro Engine ports for having more features like extra playable characters, widescreen, the Hidden Palace Zone in Sonic 2, and improved rotation and zooming effects (most notably in the Special Stages). However, the M2 ports have their share of fans, who prefer their emulations over the T&S remakes due to being more faithful to the source material, having their own bonuses like the Drop Dash from Sonic Mania (which was added into the Retro Engine games as of Sonic Origins as well), save states, and Ring Keep mode, as well as the T&S versions introducing additional, undesired glitches (such as the games tending to erroneously detect instant-kill crushes more than the original versions and their emulations, like when the player character moves under a crush trap that is moving away from the opposite surface and has just opened up enough room for the character to slip in). This in turn goes with the general Broken Base amongst retro video game fans over whether modern rereleases of games should be proper ports made natively for their target platforms (which lends better to fixes, quality-of-life modernizations, and extra features) or emulations that aim to replicate the game's hardware (which is seen as being more accurate to the source material).
Story
- Yet another schism was created between those who prefer the more serious, dramatic and plot-heavy storylines that Sonic games used to have between Sonic Adventure and Sonic and the Black Knight (with a few exceptions like the lighthearted Sonic Heroes and Sonic Unleashed), and those who prefer the more lighthearted, comedic approach that became the norm from Colors onwards. Supporters of the former argue that despite the whimsical nature of the series, the dramatic stories can still have iconic moments and memorable Character Development that the comedic stories are severely lacking in, dismissing them as just bland and overly safe with games like Colors and Generations often having little stakes, barebones plots and characterization and constantly mitigating any guarantee there will be any tension, drama or stakes compared to games like Adventure and Adventure 2. Supporters of the latter on the other hand argue that, as a series about Funny Animals fighting a fat man, Sonic is inherently silly, and that many of the games that people praise the dramatic stories for (such as the aforementioned Adventure games) feature many attempts at drama that end up being hilarious due to the nuances of the series, overall seeing them as pretentious melodrama at worst. Some members of the former group argue that there are many other franchises with inherently-silly premises that manage to pull of dramatic moments just fine, but many of the latter group bring up the question about if Sonic should really do the same because of how the series was lighthearted when it started. Lastly, there's the argument that the classic era pulled off more intense moments which leads to debates on whether that proves that Sonic can do serious stories after all, or it proves that Sonic works best with minimal storytelling that lets people draw their own conclusions.
Other
- Fans have shown to be split on the pronunciation of certain zone/stage names such as Hydrocity Zone (Hydro-City or Hy-dross-ity)note , as well as most of the ones that end with opolis. Polis is used as a combining term that means city, and either it is used in actual words (Metropolis, Acropolis) or accompanies a word that ends with the letter O (Casino, Studio). Sandopolis, however, is the one exception to this. Humorously, the Hydrocity debate would later be acknowledged by one of the Free Comic Book day issues of Sonic the Hedgehog (IDW), one of which has Sonic and Tails briefly debate on the zone's name.
- The official Sonic accounts on Facebook and Twitter: Funny and knows to laugh at the franchise's past mistakes, or an unfunny mess of overused memes that can get outright hostile at times (such as when the Twitter account made jabs at Mighty No. 9's release)?
- Voice acting is another huge point of contention in the entire franchise, at least in the English speaking countries. Over the years, various groups of voice actors have portrayed the characters, each typically named after whoever voiced Sonic at the time, and the divide namely comes over who is the most ideal group for the cast. Sonic's first ever English voiced role came from Jaleel White in the various cartoon shows at the time, and anyone who grew up in that period associated his voice with Sonic. So when Sonic Adventure rolled around and Ryan Drummond took on the role, many felt that Jaleel White should have been called in instead. In 2005, when 4Kids Entertainment took over dubbing, replacing Drummond with Jason Griffith as Sonic's voice, fans of the Drummond-era cast were upset. This happened again when the Studiopolis cast took over in 2010, replacing Griffith with Roger Craig Smith as the voice of Sonic. This caused a three-sided divide as to whether Drummond's group, Griffith's group, or Smith's group is the best, along with some fans that still consider White the definite voice of Sonic. The only exception to this seems to be Mike Pollock as Dr. Eggman, as he has had the longest tenure of any English voice actor to date, having voiced Eggman since Sonic X in 2003 to this very day as of this writing, and as such, has gotten the least amount of contention from the fanbase. This is somewhat of a given considering that his predecessor, Deem Bristow, passed away in 2005, the same year that the 4Kids voice actors started being used in the games.
- This debate can run even deeper than just considering the aforementioned voice actors. Some fans believe that Jun'ichi Kanemaru, Sonic's static Japanese voice actor since Sonic Adventure, should also voice Sonic in English entirely due to giving him Gratuitous English in his otherwise Japanese dialogue (and in general being professionally fluent in the language). There are fans that enjoyed Ben Schwartz's portrayal of Sonic in the 2020 film, and want him to replace Roger Craig Smith as Sonic for the games. And then there are the fans that hate hearing the characters speak at all, preferring Sonic to remain a Heroic Mime as he was in the Sega Genesis games (a notion fueled by Classic Sonic's appearance in Sonic Generations, and Sonic Mania abiding by this trope for all of its characters).
- The "Modern" redesigns used since 1998 are quite controversial. Some utterly despise them, finding them to be unnecessary and trying way too hard to be cool in contrast to the Classic designs and feeling they lack the timeless appeal of the classic designs. Others find the redesigns to be incredibly cool looking and do a great job updating the designs for a 3D space, while still remaining true to the spirit of the classic designs. The debates have died down a bit once the Classic designs were reintroduced starting in 2011, but many still argue over which style is better suited for the series and which one should be more prominent overall.
- Sega of America's edgier redesign of Sonic in the early-to-mid 90s is either seen as charming and nostalgic if not cool, or ugly and dated looking compared to his original Japanese design.
