I know that we've all been disappointed in Sega's Sonic the Hedgehog productions over the past few years (or console generations, depending on your pain and tolerance thresholds), but maybe we've been focusing our malcontent notions on the wrong department. All this time I assumed that it was Sonic Team that has somehow dropped the ball time after time on what makes a proper Sonic game work when, if this story over at Kombo about some now-deleted blog entries from a former Sega employee is to be believed, the development team has been trapped in its own personal Hell in which it cranks out profitable Sonic game after Sonic game over and over in a never-ending cycle of extreme attitude as the publisher's go-to cash cow.
Now that we seem to know the strife with which Sonic Team seems to be forced to deal with, one is left to wonder if there is anything that we, as consumers and fans alike, can do to make SEGA loosen their reigns on the struggling developers. Like others, I've become rather annoyed, even frustrated by things done by Sonic Team. Now, it's become more of a sympathy, even pity.
Of late, Sonic Team has managed to make some competent Sonic games, but there has been this factor or that which has seemingly sabotaged the titles from being as good as they could be. One is left to wonder now if perhaps these measures are more deliberate; could this be Sonic Team's way of trying to set the Blue Blur up for failure, so that maybe SEGA will ease up?
So, apparently somewhere between trying to make the best of a bad situation and active sabotage lies the unfortunate truth. What could fill the dour Sonic Team with a little fresh hope and joy? Maybe allowing them to work on a non-Sonic project for a while would help. Put the hedgehog in some other team's hands for a while and let Sonic Team run free with their own ideas that don't involve collecting rings and and emeralds. Let 'em bring back an old Sega property (Ristar, Vectorman, etc.) on their own terms or, if the inspiration is still there after all this time, conjure up something completely new.
