2000s Sonic was an Era

Now, reading that title might make you think that the 2000s for Sonic wasn't great. And, well, while it wasn't exactly "peak" there was something special about this era. After all, there was a lot of ideas and characters introduced to this franchise around this time. Some good, some bad, but all of it interesting. So to celebrate the 35th anniversary of the Sonic franchise, I figured that I would talk about the era of the franchise that I happen to be the most nostalgic for.

Just thinking about some of the games that came out around that time, the 2000s was definitely the most ambitious era up until recently. This is when we got the Adventure games, with Sonic Adventure first releasing in 1999, but I mean, most people consider this a 2000s era game. This was the starting point when it came to the franchise having more ambitious story telling, which outside of comics and shows, was kind of a first. But that would be nothing compared to the bigger, more high stakes story of Sonic Adventure 2, which newcomers Rouge The Bat and Shadow The Hedgehog. The latter of which became such a popular character that ended up getting his own game (or games if you want to count Shadow Generations as its own game rather than a side story) later on.

The 2000s actually gave us a lot of new characters, such as Big, Blaze, Silver, The Babylon Rogues, ect. This is also when the Chaotix made their return to the series. Up until Sonic heroes, the last time they were in a game was actually their debut game, Knuckles Chaotix, on the Sega 32 X (well, except for Espio, where his last game was actually Sonic The Fighters for Arcade). This was also the era when Sonic games were starting to introduce a new gimmick for every game. Examples include Heroes having the team mechanic, Shadow The Hedgehog having gunplay, the Wii titles having a heavy use of motion controls, and Unleased introducing God of War esc gameplay with the Werehog. This was also when boost-style gameplay started with the Rush trilogy on the DS. A gameplay style that stuck with the series and is still being used as recently as Shadow Generations.

Looking back on it, the 2000s was arguably the most influential era for the Sonic franchise. It may not have been the best, or even the most consistent era, but it was definitely unique era in just how much it introduced to the series, from characters to mechanics. some of which were only one off character, sure, but most of whom would end up becoming mainstays to the series. And while a lot of us yearn for this era of the franchise to make some kind of return, I'd imagine it would be pretty difficult to replicate the impact that the 2000s had on the franchise as a whole. Still, its nice to see fans hold this era of Sonic games in such high regard, despite the many ups and downs.