#meta era

[cold-fire-yo]

Which game is WORSE to you and why?

Sonic Boom : Rise of Lyric

Sonic Forces

Voting ended onJan 30

Explain why in the notes! 🎶

[blazehedgehog]

So, the way you're framing the "meta era" isn't really quite how I usually hear it told. You're saying the series' promotion, and primarily its Twitter account, WAS self-referential and self-deprecating from 2015-2018ish. And if that's all it was, I could agree. But fans of a certain stripe use the term to refer to the game series AS A WHOLE from Colors onward. IMO, Colors wasn't even meta, and it was Unleashed that had kicked off a new era (boost era? lost redemption era?). What do you think?

I think hashing out all of this “era” stuff is splitting hairs.

And like you said, I can’t even necessarily think of how Sonic Colors was even necessarily meta. I guess Sonic mugs for the camera for a couple jokes? But all cartoons do that. Like, jeeze, there was practically a meta joke per episode in the Sonic Boom TV show. But the show wasn’t about being meta.

And for the games, one meta joke here or there does not make for an entire “era.” They are not games about how they are games. They’re just trying to be funny! Because Pontac and Graff are cartoon writers! And this is cartoon humor!

The real “meta” didn’t come until the social media team ramped up “Sonic himself is running this twitter” and doing tweets dunking on Mighty No. 9 or whatever.

And now, that time is over. Has been for a while. A lot of those people, maybe all of them, have moved on. Sassy Brand the Hedgehog is no more. If you still want that now, you have to go groan at the Wendy’s twitter and deal with all the weird, thirsty goons who think she’s a hot anime girl.

Overall, I just really don’t think this kind of categorization is that important. I know Sonic Generations made everything seem nice and neatly organized but it’s sort of like power levels in Dragon Ball where when push comes to shove none of it ACTUALLY matters. If it DOES matter in any capacity, we do not have the perspective to debate when something from only a couple years ago begins or ends “an era.”

[blazehedgehog]

What do you think of the term "Meta Era" to describe the current era of Sonic?

Being "meta" is usually about fourth-wall-breaking self-commentary, isn't it? Does Sonic really do that nowadays? He spoke directly to the audience (ala Bugs Bunny) a couple times in Sonic Colors, and maybe once in Sonic Lost Word, but I wouldn't say it's a defining enough personality trait. He's not exactly Deadpool. It's mostly the social media account doing that, nothing else.

I'd say we could call it the "failed redemption era" but it's not the first time that's happened, either.

Maybe we could call it the "spaghetti era" for how wildly different Sonic Boom, Sonic Lost World, and Sonic Forces are. You know, as in "throw spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks."

[blazehedgehog]

I heard someone refer to the current era as "Legacy Sonic", not just in the sense of trying to recreate the classics without understanding what made them so great, but also in these sense of this crushing fear Sonic Team seems to have of creating another Sonic '06. Overall there's been less playable characters and simpler stories post-'06, yet the games still seem to be received poorly, with the possible exceptions of Generations, Colors, and more recently Unleashed.

I dunno. My gut reaction there is that “Legacy Sonic” makes me think of Classic Sonic, but I’ll admit, it’s the best suggestion I’ve heard so far. I could get used to it.