I wanted to save this image for a more elaborate topic in the future, but to hell with it.
This is why Sonic games are no longer good Sonic games.
The "legacy" diagram is what made Sonic games what they were. It's what set them not just apart, but ABOVE every other platformer. Without that, you don't have a Sonic game, you just have a platformer; no matter how many slope-looking things and rings and animal characters you cram into it.
The games have been gradually reducing more and more to the "modern" diagram on this chart, and Lost World finally achieved it along with making more bad design choices on top of it.
This is not about "purity". The Advance games lost some of the gameplay depth, Rush even more so, but they were still good Sonic games. It doesn't have to be perfect, even though ideally it should be very close or the same as the Genesis games. Or hell, find ways to improve that formula.
But, not only have they not been improving the formula, they've been making it worse, and worse, and worse. We're not afraid of "change" or them "trying something new". We're pissed off that their "trying something new" always comes with more compromises and once again fails to address the glaring flaws that were left behind by their previous attempt to reboot the gameplay. And of course, they continue to avoid the two big formulas that were really good and did phenomenally well; the Genesis formula and the Adventure formula. Trying a new formula won't work if they only use 10% of the ingredients they used to have. Generations was moving in the right direction, then they promptly discard all of that as if they had no idea what they were onto. The jump from Generations to Lost World shows they really have no idea what they're doing.
Don't even get me started on Sonic 4.
I'll go into this in the future with a more thorough explanation, I'm hoping to make a video on it as well.
The problem with Sonic is not the fans.
It's not some obscure detail.
It's not one isolated issue like too many unused characters.
The real split in the fanbase are those who can see the difference illustrated above, and those who can't.
Those who can are either awaiting, or have given up on, Sonic's return to form as a game series, preferably with the same rich and beautiful aesthetics that walked hand in hand with it.
Those who can't are squabbling over the more stupid features irrelevant to what makes a Sonic game, such as whether or not Silver should be canon or why Black Knight didn't get a sequel. They're engrossed more in the lore or the themes than the games themselves, because they can't recognize what a Sonic game is. To them, Sonic games are just a container for all the ridiculous ideas Sega craps out, and they're only fans of those ideas. This is why they're quick to refute the difference in quality between old and new games, accuse 90s fans of being "blinded by nostalgia", and will blame any problems the franchise has on the fanbase, voice actors, and other such nonsense.