Fe 26, you know, I think you hit the nail on the head. I just started to realize how hard and how much skill Sonic took after trying to teach my wife how to play Sonic 2 and Sonic 3. She couldn't finish the first act of Chemical Plant zone no matter how hard she tried just because of a few parts where you have to have perfect timing with jumping platforms. This is actually the same reason why we enjoyed the hell out of playing Kirby's Epic Yarn - where you can't really die but it's still a lot of fun to play co-op.
I always looked at Sonic as an easy game series, which I guess played a role in how much fun it was to play. To feel freedom of playing kind of chaotically without worrying about one-hit kills. Thinking about it further... this was years after playing Super Mario Bros.! Which was the first game I've ever owned, and still challenging to this day! I still can't beat it on NES classic, ha. Mario made Sonic look easy back in the day.
I think the part that's misleading about Sonic is that it's easy and free for the most part but it does lob in some pretty hardcore platforming challenges here and there. And when it comes to the end game stages (like Air Fortress in Sonic 2) it can get pretty brutal.
I'm figuring out that my lack of interest for a lot of games these days is because of the dumbing down of the timing/skilled based challenges. The Dark Souls/Bloodborne games have really been the only series to give me dopamine in the same way. Still gravitated towards games like Yakuza and PlatinumGame's titles. Most recent Mario games (outside of New Super Mario Bros) still feed those kinds of urges. I can't stand seeing games that try to cover up their lame gameplay with "RPG mechanics" or crafting systems! haha
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