I wanted your thoughts on a portion of KingK's new Sonic 06 video, as someone who was there at the time. He argues that most of the discontent for early 3D Sonic games came from disgruntled fans, "the type that would spend most of their free time browsing Sonic Retro," until Sonic 06 came out. In other words, early 3D Sonic was well-regarded /except/ among fans. His script is in the description of his video if you want to read it.
I mean, no. I think I've mentioned this recently but I have distinct memories of going back to school in late 1999/early 2000 and hearing people talk about Sonic Adventure, after having gotten the game for Christmas.
I was the defender. At least in my neck of the woods, people hated how Sonic was getting crowded out of the spotlight by his supporting cast. They hated playing as Big the Cat, they hated playing as Amy Rose, and they hated playing as Knuckles.
These were not Sonic fans. I was the Sonic fan. I was the one being like, "um actually, the Genesis games added a new playable character after every game, so this is normal for the series."
Those complaints did not go away. They only got louder. For Sonic Adventure 2, Penny-Arcade gave the game a backhanded award: "Best Sonic game where you do not play as Sonic." This was also after they ran a comic two days after SA2 launched where Gabe is visibly trying to get his money back.
And again: not Sonic fans.
Terms like "Sonic's shitty friends" were not invented by Sonic fans. That one came from snarky mid-2000's podcasts like 1up Yours and GFW Radio, which delighted in punching down at Sonic fans.
There were Sonic fans that did not like the direction of Sonic Adventure, sure. But to suggest Sonic fans are the ones who invented a false narrative that 3D Sonic games were bad is insane to me. That's strawman talk.
