2022: - Best performing videogame film of all time that made almost half a billion - An immensely successful TV show - Banger short films and web shows - IDW continuing their streak of banger comics - Good year for ongoing games such as Sonic Speed Simulator and Sonic Forces: Speed Battle - Sonic Origins - Sonic Frontiers, most successful mainline Sonic release ever since SA2 and Heroes - General skyrocket of popularity in a good way It was definitely his year this time around.
Well, decades ago, it was normal for Sega to mass release a bunch of Sonic content at once, or within a short period of time. Sega did that less frequently due to quantity over quality concerns. I prefer Sega choosing quality over quantity instead of releasing Sonic games that are worse than other mainstream games out there. Or a proper Sonic Origins.
@@deanmoriarty6015 Go ahead, explain why, name one of the reaches. Cause all of them are basically objective reality that can be proven by literal undisputable data. The Mario movie hadn't been out when I wrote this so Sonic 2 WAS the best performing videogame movie franchise of all time (which doesn't mean just box office but also critical reception + commercial reception + merchandise + home media and streaming release + legacy). I could have dropped more points here, like calling Sonic Channel one of the healthiest, most active and most consistent official sites in gaming that releases great content on the regular, the fact that Sonic the Hedgehog has been the most Googled videogame character of the past few years, the almost unparalleled transparency of Sonic Team and people involved with Sonic on social media (prime examples Morio Kishimoto and Ian Flynn) that constantly engage with fans whether it's discussions, Q&As, lore dumps, criticism etc, I could have mentioned Sonic Official and the BumbleKast, the franchise's 2 podcasts that are hosted by, once again, people involved with the creative process of Sonic media and take time to promote content, answer questions regarding cast, lore, future projects etc, those 2 podcasts also skyrocketing in relevance in 2022. Some of these right here you could call *reaches", *SOME*, not all, but I intentionally didn't name em in the OG comment cause I knew there would have been haters and moody pessimists preying around calling them, even tho they undeniably all stack up to create a massive W for Sonic Team.
Clearly, Sega needs to teach the younger generations what they missed (if only they remade the Adventure games or made a proper 3D game with more characters)
If there was one company that would milk the "year of _____" marketing strategy, I'm not surprised it's SEGA. I'm glad that the most recent use of this was well recieved both financially and critically.
2022 had a remastered collection, a Hollywood film, a new mainline entry and a new cartoon series. It made a lot of sense regardless of the differing quality of each product
@@sunlitsonata6853 Except 2022 was never called the “Year of Sonic” by Sega themselves, it was the fans. Sega called 2020 or 2021 the next “Year of Sonic” I believe which they absolutely weren’t.
@@Rediscool9 Well you could still say 2022 was the ACTUAL Year of Sonic SEGA was aiming for but I do wonder what the fuck were they thinking when they called the most empty years of Sonic "the Year of Sonic". Year of Sonic? More like, the Year of ____.
I feel like it should be mentioned that in 2022 the IDW comics went hard. Imposter syndrome and issue 50 were really good with issue 50 having some of my favourite moments. Not to mention scrapnik island which bypassed some of the dreaded mandates and brought back mecha sonic mk 2. Personally I prefer metal sonic but I am so happy with how they treated mecha sonic mk 2. The comics did not need to go that hard and should be acknowledged with the other sonic successes of 2022. Edit: while the mandates aren't as bad as everyone says they are. That doesn't change the fact this is the first time in a while sonic was allowed to be so expressive. Even if it was technically mecha sonic mk 2's tears. And I just think its nice writers are getting more creative freedom with these characters than they had before.
Oh my lord, stop treating the mandates like the boogy man. Mandates are part of every series and most are reasonable, we don't know the exact process in there so stop assuming how bad yhe mandates are
to this day i find kinda funny that the european release of sonic heroes has a speed bug because when they optimized it for pal framerates they accidentally used both types of optimization which were "speeding up everything by 20%" and "making sure the game doesn't slow down"
Doesn't "making sure it doesn't slow down" apply to any region? That's separate from the games running at the wrong frequencies, which is just embarassing to have to deal with post PS1.
You don't have to worry about it as of Sonic Froniters, Sticks is given a mainline counterpart. The bigger question is, How would she act around the mainline cast, including ones that weren't in the Sonic Boom brand?
@@LoliconSamalik I still don’t get that. You can’t just introduce a character from an entirely different universe/canon into the mainline canon completely offscreen via a throwaway line like as if that character has always been there from the start.
YES! Sonic Boom IS 100% my favourite Sonic show! Top tier content as always king. Also I am noticing your accent is starting to skew a little more American. Looks like your travels are starting to show!
22:56 It's less about understanding it and more about coming to terms with it. Genral opinions on a certain piece of media change with time. It could be because a new thing comes out that does something differently from the other thing before it so now the thing from before gets panned. Or people become more preceptive to certain flaws overtime and then proceed to blow them out of proportion. Even positive opinions can come with time with nostalgia allowing people to raise up something that was panned in the past, leading to over usage of the word "underrated". The consensus always seems to shift drastically for something after a couple of years for both good and bad reasons.
*“Or people become more perceptive to certain flaws overtime and then proceed to blow them out of proportion.”* Oh, so you mean like with how people treated Mario Odyssey!
The Year of Luigi was actually pretty good. Luigi's Mansion 2 was a nice return to the franchise, Mario and Luigi Dream Team was a solid entry, New Luigi U was fantastic and one of the best New Super Mario Bros games, and Dr. Luigi is just Dr. Mario, so it was automatically good.
@@Rediscool9 I know he didn't say it was bad. I was just giving my opinion since I don't think he played any of these games. Also, Nintendo did lose a shit ton of money, but it wasn't the Year of Luigi's fault, just the horrible sales of the Wii U.
I think what Sonic is really learning in Prime is not to take his friends for granted. He always expected them to be fighting right beside him but now they aren't and he has to figure out how to work with that.
Great topic, I never knew 2003 was considered such a big year for Sonic. But I guess it's really true, both X and Heroes were my first exposures to the franchise as well and I've been a fan ever since!
I think its pretty funny that the Boom cartoon and comics found mild success. It shows western children weren't even opposed to this iteration of the character but SEGA just screwed the main game so badly.
I realise that this video is more about the big companies marketing pushing for the whole "Year of Sonic" campaigning, but I also see a lot of similar hype being generated naturally on the consumer end as well. In all my time with this franchise, the fans have always been super quick to jump on whatever new content is coming out and claim that it's gonna be Sonic's "big return to form." Although the franchise is rather plentiful in content output, the fanbase is unusually hungry for new material despite the Sonic series being alive and well (as opposed to, say, Metroid or NiGHTS. Those fandoms get nowhere near as much attention from their franchises) Every time I hear a fan in specific say that a new product is gonna be the start of "Sonic's comeback", I just flash back to Sonic Forces and how almost EVERYBODY was coming off the Mania high and claiming the game to be Sonic's return to more serious storytelling. I mean, they weren't _wrong_, but we ended up with Sonic Forces. I dunno. It's just a weird thing I've noticed. 25:12 - For a moment I thought I had just witnessed the start of the official SplashDash ARG lmao
It's why I've personally held off on being like "Sonic is finally getting back on his feet again". I've seen the series stumble over so many times after he got back up I don't really hold my breath anymore. I *want* Sonic to stay on his feet but I'm not gonna hold my breath again and say he *will.*
@@castform7 Same. While I do think Frontiers is a great step in the right direction, are we _reeally_ just gonna have consistent quality from now on? I understand not every game will be a banger, but Sonic is a wildly inconsistent franchise, and I'm here for it, but I'm not gonna pretend it's going to be sunshine and rainbows from now on.
I think 2006 was also named a year of sonic but I could be wrong. I remember Sega really prepping up sonic 06 as a massive event for sonics 15th anniversary and sonic riders as another big thing. But I faintly recall hearing and remembering 06 being a “year of sonic” event
I'm glad splash dash commented on the mario movie vs sonic movies debate. It really is just 2 fanbases fighting over which movie has more references instead which movie is actually good. The mario movie isn't even out yet so we don't know how it'll turn out but it really goes to show that when it comes to adaptations all people really care about is how much of the source material is referenced whether it's relevant to the story or not. Seeing somebody try to justify that the original live action mario is better than the first sonic movie because it has more game elements just shows how much people really care about that stuff over getting an actually solid film.
Someone actually said the 1993 Mario movie is better than the Sonic movies? That’s ridiculous, the 1993 film was terrible. And it didn’t even use the game elements well, in comparison to the Sonic movies.
@@justinc.5591 exactly. The movie is terrible no matter how many game elements it had. Just goes to show some people would prefer a crap movie with more references than a good movie with less references. I really hope somebody's spreads what splash dash said around the internet because people need to hear it.
@@jskywalker58 it didn't. It had bowser that looked nothing like bowser. Yoshi that looked nothing like yoshi. Goombas that looked nothing like Goombas. Luigi didn't even look like luigi. Nothing about that movie is mario outside of the name.
25:13 to 25:15 has some weird audio glitch where it cuts out for 2 seconds and the screen glitches a tiny bit. But overall its a great video. Keep up the good work
2003: best year of sonic in my opinion i think heroes is one of the best games in the series and i loved sonic x 2014: yeah its the weakest one however a played some of rise of lyric and didn't think it was that bad but i think that because 06 is my favorite sonic game and that show i can handle a few glitches i used to hate the boom tv show but i grown to like though its nowhere near my favorite sonic show. 2022: i really loved what the year had to offer i loved frontiers and i enjoyed the sonic movie 2 and prime i'm looking forward to see what the series has in store for the future.
I don’t think the Mario movie will be better than the first Sonic movie and maybe even the second Sonic movie because of “LOL REFERENCES”, I think it’ll be better because it doesn’t just look like a generic glorified buddy cop film or have constant unnecessary pop-culture references and shitty pop songs like most Hollywood schlock and actually utilizes more characters from the Mario franchise outside of just Mario and Bowser like how the first Sonic movie only uses Sonic and Robotnik as the only pre-existing Sonic characters. The Mario movie also looks like an actual epic adventure while the first two Sonic movies (ESPECIALLY the first Sonic movie) don’t feel nearly as epic in terms of scope or adventure. I’m just saying most people who are saying that they already like the Mario movie more than the Sonic movies most likely have way more reasons for liking it more than just “MUH REFERENCES”. I especially hate how you make the Mario fans look like the bad guys when Sonic fans almost ALWAYS start it. I still remember back near the end of 2021 when Sonic fans were being extremely obnoxious and gloating about how “amazing” the Sonic Movie 2 was going to be and how “awful” and “soulless” the Mario Movie was going to be even though we hadn’t even seen a fucking SCREENSHOT of the Mario Movie yet. I’m just saying that Sonic fans are not always the innocent ones and you shouldn’t act like they’re always the victim.
He didn't really make sonic fans look like the victim, he actually criticizes them quite a bit. Also you didn't really disprove that references aren't going to be what carriers the Mario movie.
I played Sonic Heroes and I ended up not liking the game because of the controls. The controls were very frustrating which made the game more difficult to control the characters properly. It seemed like they didn't have time to work on it anymore.
2022 was definitely a good year for Sonic with a successful movie, a good video game that gave character rerailment, and a decent TV series on Netflix.
I think Sega also at one point said 2021 was gonna be the Year of Sonic and if that was gonna be the case then they didn’t even try, all we got for actual content was Colors Ultimate which I was able to enjoy enough since I hadn’t played the original but it was still hated, aside from that we only had the Sonic Symphony which was great but still
I feel like 2003 would have made a much more appropriate "Year of Sonic" if Sonic Mega Collection was released that year. Unfortunately, the GC version came out in late 2002, while the Plus version came out in late 2004. The MC was the best Sonic game of the 6th generation. Prove me wrong.
I loved the sonic 2 movie just cause it’s super cute and wholesome I mean I’d love a more edgy sonic and knuckles- sonic adventure 2 trilogy or something crazy but I’m just happy it’s a wholesome movie Though I get sick of pop songs in movies 😂
22:04 - Opinion: I feel that the Mario movie will be a good if not alright standalone movie. The reason they have to fit so many references into this one movie are because 1, people like watching movies that include callbacks so that it still feels like your watching a movie that takes place in the world you are familiar with and 2, to make a Mario movie is a hard task considering that most Mario games are pretty light on story. Along with the story they have, they fit this pile of references to give the world and movie more layers. With the Sonic movie, there are very few physical references that it didn’t even feel like a Sonic The Hedgehog Movie, but instead a boring stereotypical road trip movie with a supersonic talkative blue hedgehog included to get butts in seats. I do understand where you are coming from and your point is valid, buuuuuuttt I respectfully have a different opinion: The Mario movie will be good without references as they’re not only JUST trying to appeal to one target audience(Mario fans), but to new ones, as I feel that Nintendo is trying to make an legit movie out of the things they have: Mario gets more character(cocky, hotheaded, etc.), old themes such as brotherly love get expanded upon, Bowser gets a heavy metal “I’m going to win” personality, the koopa troop feels like a legit soldier troop now with their spears and armor, and adding more ways to how this world works(Coins have value, power-ups have new effects, the world/map layout,monkey go karting, etc.), and even adding changing up things(how Mario meets donkey Kong, Mario and Luigi’s origin story, etc). I can see Sonic catching up -no pun intended- tho. We got Tails, Knuckles, the chaos emeralds are exposed now, the máster emerald and chaos emeralds are now separate things, project SHADOW, etc. All they need is a good excuse for Rouge, Amy, and Big To be on Earth.
I personally don't buy the fact that Sonic Boom was intended to be nothing more than a side-franchise. I think Sega wanted to go all in and have it be the new look for Sonic. My main reason for this is all the stuff you shown and a little obscure fact I know. Apparently for a while when Sonic Boom was beginning, Sega started to call Mondern Sonic "legacy Sonic" which was a major red flag. Not to mention we barely gotten anything between Sonic Boom and Sonic Forces relating to modern Sonic and (supposedly) Sonic Forces had the same development length as Sonic Frontiers and Forces was significantly inferior in both the quality and quantity department. Sonic Boom has to be one of the biggest failed risks in gaming history.
Yeah, between Lost World and Mania, there was absolutely nothing Sonic to be had that was Boom-free. Even the stuff that wasn't branded as Boom directly had Sticks crammed into it somehow. Mario&Sonic, Sonic Runners, the Japanese Sonic Central comics, the failed attempt to follow up Sonic Dash with a Boom-themed Sonic Dash 2, heck, Archie made a Sonic Boom comic series *literally just* so they could shoehorn Sticks and Freiberger's self insert OC into the big multiverse crossover with Megaman. That's not something you do just for a little side thing.
Also Sonic CD and Sonic Chaos (idk if that counts as mainline or not if not then 3 spinoffs) I think the Archie Comics started in 1993 as well (also looked it up The Fleetway Comics started in 1993 as well)
8:03 Sonic Heroes didn't sell nearly 6 million, but 3.41 million. It's why Frontiers has now been declared the best selling 3D Sonic game as it's hit 3.5 million.
I don't know how unpopular of an opinion this is but I genuinely think that the scrapped songs from the original Sonic 3 sound way better than the ones released and fit the Sonic brand way more. It just feels right
You are right about ‘92 not being “year of sonic” I’m 99% sure people are mistaking it for Sonic 2sday, which is what SEGA was marketing the release date for sonic 2 (which happened to be on a Tuesday) as
6:32 I thought more about how much more repetitive the game would be if they had put more than 4 teams when that is already a main complaint with the base game.
I can think of so many ways to make the Mario movie interesting besides putting references in there, because I really love Mario, but we all know that there is only a small chance that illumination will actually do that
I'm gonna disregard controversies for a moment and bring attention to Sonic Speed Simulator as well. Before crap hit the fan, this was an enjoyable semi-open world Sonic experience as I awaited the release of Frontiers. That too released in 2022, so we Sonic fans truly were eating good last year.
10:56 No immediate difference...? *war flashbacks to blarms* "Don't call anybody!!" *plane bomb noise* Edit: you talk about the chris chan insert but dont bring up blarms?
Not only was origins let down by the price, but sega made the random decision to remove all paid versions of the classic games like on steam (unless already owned) AND for some reason removing all access to sonic games from ps plus or streaming it also on playstation
