>>536787287
This undersells that Sonic had already been shit since 1995. Sonic Crackers got turned into Knuckles Chaotix which sucked, then Sonic 3D Blast sucked even worse, and then Sonic X-Treme development went nowhere and Sonic R was a poor replacement for an actual game.
You could say Adventure 1/2 made up for all that to SOME extent...but they're flash in the pan games held up mostly by good soundtracks and the more serious stories resulting from Sega trying to chase FF7's success. Mechanically they're overhyped because the stuff that came later was so ass. And the stuff that came later was worse because Yuji Naka ran Sonic Team into the ground which has very little to do with any economic fallout from 9/11.
Ultimately two "macro level" things happened that were NOT specifically Naka's fault:
1. Culture pivoted hard towards children preferring realism and ultraviolence, Sonic could not survive being considered lame and "childish" compared to games like GTA, Shadow 05 was a bad attempt to catch up to that.
2. Lost decade, global financial crisis and simultaneous slow hollowing of both the American and Japanese middle classes. You feel this especially in the obvious budget cuts Sonic games had after Unleashed. The core audience is gone. People haven't felt economically stable enough to reproduce for the past 20+ years, past 30+ years in Japan. The kids we DO have in America prefer f2p games on overpriced phones Apple has convinced even poor people they need...I have no idea what Japanese kids are playing, probably Splatoon.
