'Silver Lining' is a column from freelancer Taylor Cocke dedicated to highlighting moments of real potential in less than perfect games. This week he examines the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise.
Oh, Sonic, where did you go wrong? Sega's iconic mascot has become a bit of a running joke in recent years, and for good reason. His games haven't been very good. The best I can say about any of them is that about half of the levels are good in any given release. Sonic Unleashed was only enjoyable during the non-werehog parts, Sonic Generations was fun during the old school sections, and even Sonic Colors had more than its fair share of clunky, slow levels that broke up any ability for me to fully enjoy it. The further Sega seems to stray from the formula of the original Sonic games, the worse things seem to get.

One would think that would mean that the two episodes of Sonic the Hedgehog 4 would be pretty good, then. After all, they're ostensibly the most faithful reproductions of the classic 16-bit platformer. Sonic doesn't talk, he's lacking all the incredibly stupid friends that have cropped up over the years, and he's running through a variety of stages so he can beat up on Robotnik at the end. Right down to the order of the worlds, they're essentially recreations. So why aren't they as celebrated as Sonic's original adventures?