It did control really well. I'll give you that. But it felt like it wanted to be Mario Galaxy so bad...It lacked the spark of "Sonic," and just felt like an obligation title for a Nintendo console with no originality.
Colors was trying to be like Galaxy too, but that's honestly such a small takeaway from the games considering how different they are to Mario on a fundamental level. Both games are definitely flawed but they were both fun, polished, and a return to form in their own ways, while both being completely unique experiences that didn't rely on nostalgia, which Sonic seems to be all about these days.
As for Lost World, I thought it was a solid experience and a great break from the tired boost gameplay, and despite the level design being obviously inspired by Mario Galaxy, it honestly worked for Sonic. The classic games always had various paths you can take to complete levels, meaning no 2 playthroughs were the same and that's exactly what the cylindrical level design achieved. So while it copied Mario, it was still very Sonic and very refreshing for the time. I still think the game is underrated and overlooked, and I'd honestly rather see this style of Sonic revisited and expanded on instead of the mindless hold dash and do homing attacks gameplay.
Colors was supremely fun, but I don't remember ANY of the story aside from...Aliens? Like, I know Sonic has never been a series about story telling Masterpieces, but if I can't remember any of the story, I'd say there's somewhat of an issue.
Sonic 1 and 2 don't really have stories either and when it comes to Sonic, I'm not really here for the story, I want that Sonic gameplay first and foremost and I think that was exactly the point of Sonic Colors. It was kind of the start of a new era for Sonic where they weren't going to focus so much on convoluted stories, other characters, and different playstyles. It was doing away with all the conventions that were introduced in the Adventure games, because ultimately, that's where Sonic's downfall started.
As for Generations, I love Generations, but it's a glorified "Greatest Hits" album. When talking about The Beatles best album, we're gonna say things like "Meet the Beatles," "Abbey Road," or "The White Album." No one's gonna say "Greatest Hits." So that one, at least for me, kind of exists in it's own world. It was fan service done right, but fan service nonetheless.
Likening Generations to a Greatest Hits album doesn't really work for me. Greatest Hits albums usually consist of already existing tracks, and if Sonic Generations was simply ripping levels from each game in the series and letting you play them as they were, then I could agree, but that's not exactly what they did. It's still a totally unique game and let's be honest, nobody is ever gonna say Heroes, '06, Unleashed, or Forces before they say Generations.
Here's a lot of where we are probably going to disagree. I know the Adventure series is divisive among fans...and I'm firmly on the "Stand with Adventure Games" team. I mean, my favorite video game of all time is the original Dreamcast version of Sonic Adventure. And you're totally right. THe level design was Sonic through and through. Yeah, the camera was a little wonky at times, but it was 98. This was uncharted territory. And it never stopped me from beating the games even as a child.
I grew up on the classic Genesis Sonic games but I also got to experience the Adventure games on Gamecube and I really enjoyed them. But specifically, I enjoyed the Sonic/Shadow levels. Those were always the levels I kept going back to and I honestly wish we'd see a return to this kind of gameplay with a modern polish and without all the unnecessary sh*t that plagued this era of Sonic games. Just back to basics 3D Sonic gameplay.
Here's where the disagreement starts. I love the "cringey" stories. I actually think Sonic worked well with the more serious tone. You can make anything sound dumb with a sentence like "The super serious stories about these anthropomorphic animals." Watch, I'll do One Piece. Show about a pirate made of rubber who can also turn into a gorilla trying to find a huge treasure. In that context the show sounds stupid. But there's a lot more to it than that.
There's a huge difference between those 2 things though, and that's its execution. I could describe Ninja Turtles to someone and make it sound awful, but then I could show them the comics, 1990 film, or the 2003 cartoon and they'll see the charm of it because it's being executed well. Sonic Adventure on the other hand... those awful animations, terrible dialogue, awkward pauses, and terrible music... It's awful and such a far cry from the Genesis days.
However, I should elaborate on what I mean. There's nothing wrong with Sonic taking itself seriously. It's how serious, convoluted, and dark it was trying to be, what made it cringey and is also probably why the fanbase is so cringey too. Though admittedly, as a kid, there was some charm to it, but through adult eyes, holy hell it is terrible.
Rather than understand that the industry has far outgrew Sonic and Sonic was no longer the edgiest game in town, Sega kept trying to hold onto Sonic because it was their biggest IP, and foolishly tried to grow Sonic with the times, so that he can keep up with all the dark, realistic, and mature games that were coming onto the scene, and now that that has failed miserably, they've gone back to their roots and made things simple again. But it ain't exactly following Mario's universal appeal either...
The more they keep making these games, the more apparent it's becoming that we're no longer the demographic. Sega is truly stupid when it comes to this franchise because they know the series has the interest of people of all ages, yet they keep targeting children, specifically with how cringey the humor is, but the final nail in the coffin was Sonic Forces. For some stupid reason, they thought it was necessary to simplify the already simple gameplay for children, and with the whole gimmick being to create your own original character to have some psuedo love story fantasy about holding hands with Sonic, and the game being a budget title retailing at 40 dollars, yeah, this is a child's game. Sega has officially given up on Sonic.
Also, I love the music. The Crush 40 rock music at this point is a STAPLE in a Sonic game for me. Not that other artists are bad. I loved Endless Possibility by Jaret Reddick, and Fist Bump is probably the best part of Sonic Forces (Which says a lot, but Crush 40 is still the perfect band to encapsulate Sonic in my opinion. And even the songs that aren't Crush 40, just the game background music, complitments their accompanying levels so well.
I'm okay with Crush 40's music in the Adventure games. Anything after from them was meh aside from maybe All Hail Shadow and Sonic Heroes. I even enjoyed Zebrahead's His World in Sonic '06, but anything else with lyrics from the Adventure games and beyond... awful. I swear, it's so cringey and embarrassing to be caught listening to any of that garbage.
As for unnecessary characters and playstyles. I agree and disagree. The only one really unnecessary to me in the original was Big the Cat. But...That was done mostly to show of the Dreamcasts water physics. Still dumb to include in a Sonic game, but I get why they did it. Everyone else I feel fit right in, and made a whole complete and unique Sonic experience. SA2 is the same. There's only one thing unnecessary, and that's Tails being in the f*cking mech the whole game. It completely takes away of what makes Tails TAILS.
Knuckles being turned into a treasure hunter was awful, and not because the playstyle itself was terrible, but because it just doesn't belong in a Sonic game and it made playing as Knuckles uncool. And getting a double dose of that in the next game with Rouge was even more painful.
And that's basically how I feel about the rest of the characters and playstyles. It just doesn't belong in a Sonic game and it makes playing as certain characters lame. The Genesis games made alternate characters cool. You're still getting the core gameplay with each character, but they each have their own unique abilities that change how you progress through the levels. That's how it should be, or at the very least, they should have levels designed with their abilities in mind without the core gameplay changing so drastically.
And here we agree/disagree. You say the quality of the games hasn't been too bad these days. Hmm...That's debatable. Depends what you consider "These Days," and also what you mean when you talk about quality. Graphically? Gorgeous. Hell, even Sonic 06 is beautiful. Gameplay? Very hit or miss. Story? Almost always a miss. (Also, I agree, Sonic Mania is a HELLA exception). The quality may not be BAD. But it's definitely inconsistent. Which we can't say for other classic franchises like Mario, Zelda, or hell, even Resident Evil is more consistent than Sonic. And...That says something. In fact...The most "Sonic" feeling game nowadays?...Playing as Sonic in Smash Bros. Which is sad. IDK. Sonic Games have gotten too gimicky for me, with them always trying something new instead of going back to basics, and that's a problem. We don't need a werehog. We don't need to create our own characters. We don't need...um...whatever the malignant tumor on the Gamestop shelves called "Sonic Boom" was. Hell, if Sonic 06 was an actual finished product, it would have been great. Exactly what I still want from Sonic.
I mean post Sonic Unleashed. Sonic '06 and Unleashed were really the last triple A Sonic games despite how terrible they were and it shows. Every game after has been significantly shorter and quite honestly, graphically worse. But the games have actually maintained a consistent quality and have been a drastic improvement from the days of poor design, clunky gameplay, dumb stories, gimmick playstyles, and buggy messes. Even for as bad as Forces was, it wasn't exactly terrible, just extremely mediocre. I also don't count crap like the Boom series because that's not part of the main Sonic series, it's its own entirely new and separate thing.
Sonic being gimmicky isn't a new thing though, and it's why I've started to like the Adventure games less and less. There was no reason to tack on so many different playstyles in Sonic's first 3D outing. Get Sonic right first before you go experimenting. Sega has never understood this and this is why the Sonic games started to get progressively worse after the Adventure games. Rather than focus their efforts on improving Sonic's gameplay and adapting it well in 3D, they kept making new playstyles and adding more characters in each game and the entire product would suffer as a result.
Even with Sonic Unleashed, they reinvent Sonic in a new and interesting way that really showcases his speed, and rather than getting that down and making sure it's perfect, there's a Werehog now. I don't know why, but it seems like they've always had a hard time developing levels for Sonic that they always resort to filler content to add padding to the game, because ever since they removed all that crap and have focused solely on Sonic's gameplay, the games have been significantly shorter. Which isn't really a bad thing considering the games have been better since the change, but for some reason they wanted to regress with Sonic Forces. Sonic is just f*cked.