The absolute best thing about the SONIC THE HEDGEHOG franchise is the CHARACTERS. Sonic the Hedgehog himself is the cooler version of Mickey Mouse, and this extends to the entire rest of the cast. They are all perfect mascot toon-ifications of very specific tropes, archetypes, concepts and ideas which gives them all a strong inherent appeal. They're all perfectly designed and constructed all over!

HOWEVER

The implementation is beyond awful. Debut may be a home-run, but at some point, the writing and the game mechanics always end up getting botched beyond belief. And then the bad writing, mischaracterization, bad game implementation, lack of proper presence, being shoved in without explanation.... Every single one of these characters gets ruined by something, inevitably. And that's so frustrating because every single one of these characters are perfectly designed and crafted. And even well balanced, theoretically at least, amongst each other.

There's so much untapped potential within every single character, within the entire Sonic canon, that the fact that Sonic Team has been so bad at actually handling it at all is just mind-bogglingly frustrating to no end!!! AAAAAHGGGGGGGGGGTP:GJ(R:PGRPEJGIEO{G*HIK"FEJGT*