I hate how the only part of the Sonic series that's cool to like is the classic games
The title is gonna say a lot, here, but I'll elaborate.
Just for the record, my first Sonic game was Sonic Riders (fun game, but a weird place to start), and my first mainline game was Sonic Adventure. To this day, the Adventure games are still my fondest memories of the series. You... might already understand where I'm coming from now that I've explained that.
It used to be that SA1 and SA2 were perfectly well-liked games, but nowadays... I don't know, public opinion seems to have soured on them outside the Sonic fandom. I saw someone say "But weren't the Sonic Adventure games awful and so bad that nobody not even Sonic fans want another one?" I don't remember the exact phrasing on it, or who said it, or anything, but I remember the sentiment because **what?!** No! People asking for Sonic Adventure 3 is basically a meme at this point! It's like our own, smaller, homegrown Kingdom Hearts 3 or Half-Life 3 request. How do you even **get** that impression?!
But I digress. I don't want to make this just about this one random person who said something on Twitter like three years ago. I've been getting the impression this... anti-Adventure sentiment from all sorts of places. Or... maybe what's more likely is that I've gotten it from just enough places to make me start seeing it where it's not there. I know there are some YouTubers I really like whose Sonic videos I've been avoiding 'cause I'm worried it'll just devolve into bashing the Adventure games and "Sonic's shitty friends". And I *know* that's an overreaction, and I probably will check those out soon because they're not the type of people who'll be like "let's play this game 'cause it's bad", but it's a sign how this stuff really got into my head.
It's just disheartening because it seems like the things that I really like about the Sonic series - its large cast and fun plots - are somehow now the least popular thing about the series, and that... just doesn't feel good, y'know?
And, yes, I know we have Sonic '06. And Forces. And Boom. And *whatever*. But, like... shut up about 'em. They're not good. I *get* it. But, like, Sonic isn't the only longrunning series that went through a large patch of bad games. Mega Man doesn't get this type of shit over X6 and Battle Network 4 and X-Over.
What *really* gets me down about this is, like... I was tempted to title this something like "I hate classic Sonic", but... I *don't*. I liked Sonic 3&K, and Mania was really good. But **it's the only part of the series that's cool to like**, and it has fewer characters, and less plot, and people are saying that's *good*... so, like, I'm starting to conflate the classic games and the Adventure hate... and it's making me like the classic games *less*. And that just feels bad because I know I'm not being reasonable about it.
In conclusion... I don't want to say that people *shouldn't* dislike the Adventure games. But, like... the widespread dislike for it has gotten to me, and now I'm seeing it where it's not there, feeling like I have to defend my like of it, and starting to resent games I like in the series purely due to association. And that makes me feel bad.