Something occurred to me last night.
I think I've actually realized a reason Sonic the Hedgehog lost popularity - and the answer isn't just "Uh, 'cause every Sega console post-Genesis was garbage." Basically, it all comes down to the fact that people just can't cope with change - and this change was specifically brought about by the unavoidable switch to 3D. No matter the difficulty of any level in a standard 2D Sonic game, the strategy was always dead simple: always head to the right and you'll get out.
While some very rare occasions changed this (Scrap Brain 3 in "Sonic 1" requires you to exit upwards, but given that you're presented with about seven springs in a row, if you can't figure that out, you don't deserve to be playing the game in the first place), the exit has ALWAYS been located at the rightmost point of the level. Some levels were linear and kept pushing you in the right direction, but in levels that made you go to the left or up or down, your first instinct was always to get to a place where you could go right again. There weren't even secret exits off the beaten path - there was *one* signpost (or boss), and it was always at the far right of the area.
But when did this simplistic design all start to go downhill? "Sonic 3D Blast." The comfortable, 2D view of the right side of Sonic was replaced by an awkward 3/4 view (ooh, Graphic Design term!), and the exit was SOMEWHERE in this polygonal, blocky area... but where exactly it was wasn't at all clear, because *it wasn't to the right*. Not only that, but most exits weren't even exits - most just took you elsewhere in the level, thus rendering our handy, lone signpost obsolete. Oh, and you couldn't just happily prance your little blue self through these exits - you went through when you were *allowed* to go through. Unless you made buddies with a bunch of little annoying birds, the exit was useless.
It shouldn't come as a surprise that the most popular Sonic games nowadays aren't fancy 3D ones where Sonic turns into a werewolf (oh, I'm sorry, "werehog"), or those dark, emo Shadow the Hedgehog things... they're games like "Sonic Advance" and "Sonic Rush". Why? Because *those* are the types of games we're used to! Sonic runs in a straight line and the exit is at the far right! They throw as many gimmicks in there as possible (one of the "Sonic Advance" games has a level made of musical instruments that play when you touch them, for instance), but no matter how many gimmicks they throw in, the exit is at the far right. You can *never* say that you're permanently lost, because you know how to get out before you even see the level!
OK, case in point - the one Sonic level that the most people claim to get lost in is Sandopolis 2, in "Sonic and Knuckles." It's dark, it's vast, it's frustrating - and there's incredibly irritating ghosts. And what part of that level do people complain about the most? The section where you have to jump from one sand slide to the other. People don't know what to do. But look closely, because the answer is obvious: the slide you start out on takes you nowhere, because it's taking you *to the left*. The slide that actually advances you in the level takes you *to the right*. Don't slide back and forth for ten minutes and get frustrated (which happens) - get on the one that's going to the right! You should know by now that no matter what obstacles lie beyond the end of that slide, the exit will be obvious at some point if you just keep going in that direction. It's not going to change - even the upside down level (Death Egg 2), despite often making you go to the left, ends to the right.
So in a nutshell, a reason so many post-"Sonic and Knuckles" games are just considered crap on ice are because they frustrate us, all because they break one very simple convention. We want to go right, not 160 degrees to the left, over a building, through a loop, 75 degrees right, over a tree, etcetera, etcetera. Keep Sonic's blue ass out of view and keep him facing sideways!
That's my two cents.
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