Sonic the Hedgehog.

I remember fondly the day I purchased my copy of Sonic the Hedgehog from my local mall’s Babbages store. A 10 year-old me sat down in the Sees Candy store while I waited on my Mom to finish buying a box of chocolates as a gift for Grandma. I couldn’t wait until I got home to pull apart the plastic wrap (this is a trait I still exhibit to this very day, ask my wife’¦she hates it) to view the cart and manual inside. I flipped through the pages, learning about Dr. Robotnik and his dastardly plan to enslave the helpless animals and steal the 6 Chaos Emeralds. When I got home I remember playing Sonic for hours; grabbing rings, racing through loops rolling into a ball of blue fury and into spikes followed by the mad dash to recapture as many rings as humanly possible.

Looking back, I don’t think I ever finished the game. I think I got frustrated with and subsequently quit playing during the Labyrinth zone. I can recall seeing Sonic reaching out in all four directions for air one too many times followed by me switching the black and red striped On/Off switch on the Genesis.

When Sonic 2 came out, I loved the 3D pipe races and playing as Tails. Again, I don’t recall playing the game all the way through. This is something I will have to rectify soon with a quick purchase of the latest Sonic compilation, but I digress.

All of this brings us to where we stand today.

Project Needlemouse teases that we should ignore the past 17 years of Sonic disappointments (Sonic 3), re-imaginings (Sonic Adventure) and complete flops ([Next-Gen] Sonic the Hedgehog) and hope; dare to hope, really that THIS time Sonic will be done right. A 2D, HD Sonic the Hedgehog title sounds promising.

I will hold off passing any form of pre-judgment on the title, since at this point everything is rumor and speculation. However, I submit to you, kind and gentle reader, my fond memories of the Blue Blur can only withstand one more dud, one more absolute abomination of the franchise before that small, helpless inner child, dies a horrible and painful death. For me, there is no good will left for this franchise. I entreat SEGA to give it their all, go for broke and make the game that hundreds of thousands, nay millions of us former fans would love to play and rejoice.

With that mess out of the way, I’d like to offer up a point and counter-point for your consideration. My personal taste in games is wide-spread and agnostic. I play anything that has merit and sometimes games that have none whatsoever just for the experience of knowing that within crap games there are lessons to be learned. However, I don’t think I represent a majority of the Madden-loving, Modern Warfare/Gears of War/Wii Sports crowd (see: mainstream).

Will anyone, outside of the diehard Sonic and ‘˜core gamer crowds buy a high quality 2D platformer? Little Big Planet has been selling under expectations as did Mario Galaxy, despite the almost universal praise of the gaming criticism press.

Has the gaming world moved on? Is there an audience for a good Sonic game if SEGA can actually deliver on a decades-old promise? It would be a bittersweet triumph if a AAA 2D masterpiece Sonic title sells fewer copies than the horrible abortion of a title that was Sonic Unleashed. If Bioware couldn’t make a Sonic RPG that captured the gaming public’s collective imagination I have little confidence in SEGA ability given their track record of say, oh, the last 15 years.

["Sonic 2 HD" Image Source: racketboy via Flickr]