Community Reaction: Project Needlemouse

It’s a matter I’ve spoken about briefly before: the Sonic fandom is probably one of the most segmented videogame fandoms ever created. In its 18 year tenure, Sonic the Hedgehog has been redesigned and reborn an almost countless number of times, and there’s a fandom subculture for each and every incarnation. Please one group, and you undoubtedly offend another. Thus, with the announcement of “Project Needlemouse”, one has to wonder how the fandom in general has taken the announcement…

Starting with Sonic Retro, DimensionWarped sets the tone for things to follow…

“Well, This doesn’t renew my faith just yet. After all, just because it’s 2D and has Sonic in it doesn’t mean it’s really Sonic. But…

Aaaah, what a breath of fresh air. It’s like a burden lifted.“

Considering the questionable quality of recent Sonic games, you can’t blame some fans for being skeptical, such as Joshi, from SonicEatsRings.com…

“The ‘Speed returns’ line is silly.  It was never missing!  If anything recent games have had too much of it :(“

And RobS, also from SonicEatsRings.com…

“Sega hasn’t been too kindly to us oldbies.  And even earlier this year basically said that their target demographic is children of this generation.

(…)

They left us in the dust 15-odd years ago.  They let the entire thing crash and burn, and all the current kiddies who didn’t grow up with our childhood aren’t really going to understand it.  Sonic 360 is their Sonic.

If this is really an honest-to-goodness attempt at retrograde Sonic — even approximately a modernized version of the vision we were left in 1994 — I’ll be amongst the most surprised people on the planet.“

Over at gaming super-forum NeoGAF, many have been trying to steel themselves against any potential excitement:

A Master Ninja wrote:
I can’t let myself believe this will turn out well. I just can’t.

SolidSnakex wrote:
You know you want to. Even if it was just Sonic’s 2D stages from Unleashed turned into a full game it’d be a ton of fun.

Sammybeany of TheGHZ is doing his best, too:

“If you let this game break your heart you deserve to have it broken. At this point, it’s guilty until proven innocent.

Back at NeoGAF, Ghost Leviathan is fed up with all of the negativity:

“What the hell do Sega have to do to please you guys? (…) Sega just announced the exact response to the game that was requested in every Sonic topic on this forum for the last three years; and you wankers respond with the same tired bullshit?“

But not everybody is quite as cautious, as evidenced by Solid SOAP over at The Sonic Stadium forums:

Wow, I was not expecting SEGA to actually listen to classic fans and finally make this game. This game will be big, I swear. I know SEGA have said ‘hurhur 2d unleashed sections wer maed 4 fans of the old gaemz becuz theyr 2d!!’, but this could very well play just like the classics only in HD. Oh man, I’m stoked for this, I really want to see what this looks like in action.

Though, even in Sega’s own forums, the tone is decidedly one of caution, as evidenced by this post by user pirpuu:

“I don’t feel like getting hyped up because they always add those annoying slow gimmicks. It’s guaranteed these days.“

Clearly, all the years of bad publicity and questionable gameplay quality are slowly taking their toll on the Sonic fanbase. Some are convinced that this will be Sonic’s final swan song. What do you think? Check out the poll on the sidebar and be sure to leave any comments you have!