This year being both the 25th anniversary of The Legend of Zelda and the 20th anniversary of Sonic The Hedgehog, two franchises with very important significance to the gaming public, and to me, I thought it would be a good idea to do retrospectives on them here.
Then I realized that I could be much lazier and use this as an opportunity to look at why such an idea would be less-than-stellar.
While both Zelda and Sonic started as the cream of the gaming crop, they have diverged quite a bit over the years. Zelda is still recognized by the majority as an amazing series, while Sonic is regarded by the majority as pretty much a dead franchise, as Sonic 4, the most recent release and a return to 2D platforming, was regarded by many as a disappointment.
Now, as of this writing, Sonic Generations has not been released, but if every previous Sonic game since Adventure 2 for the freaking Dreamcast has taught me anything, it's not to get my hopes up. Yes, that's right. The last great Sonic game was on the system that killed Sega's console development. Think about that for a bit. That should tell you how little clout Sonic has anymore.
On the other hand, Zelda is a powerhouse. Look back at messageboards from the time the Wii's launch lineup was announced; odds are, you'll see comment after comment about people who were willing to shell out $200 for a system solely to play Twilight Princess. Which would cost them even more money. It is undeniable that Zelda moved more Wiis than most people would probably like to admit anymore. And yet, the Zelda formula has been relatively unchanged since Ocarina of Time. Admittedly, Ocarina of Time is largely considered the Citizen Kane of videogames, but if a director were to remake Citizen Kane over and over again, that director would probably be ridiculed as a one-trick-pony. Sure, it's a great trick, but it gets old after a while.
Point is, both Sonic and Zelda are examples of franchises that started out quite possibly much better than they are now (a point that even die-hard Sonic fans would probably readily concede). Hell, looking from a purely gameplay design standpoint, I'd say that the original Legend of Zelda is even better than the seminally popular game A Link To The Past. The original was a true adventure game, a game about learning from your mistakes and advancing through the world at your own pace, while later games in the franchise became more and more linear, relying more on dungeon layouts and puzzles than true exploration. Similarly, the older Sonic games were about blinding speed and bright visuals which showcased the power of the Sega Genesis. But as Sonic got older, he's gotten slower, to the point where half of a recent game was a God of War clone at a lethargic pace.
And that's why it's not such a great idea to highlight the past of these two franchises; doing so highlights the growing weakness of the recent games and casts a grim shadow over the future of the series. If the trends continue, we might even end up with a Zelda racing game (no, it would not be a good idea, stop it fanboys!). It's hard to even imagine how Sonic could sink any lower at this point, though...
And that's not a point of nerd rage for me, it's just sad.
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