Sometimes, it's better not to hit the reset button…

Sometimes, I look at how developers and publishers dip into the wells of tired, washed up franchises to bring them back in unending rows of lacklustre sequels, and wonder to myself whether it wouldn't a better idea to just leave them be.

Take Sonic the Hedgehog, who's pretty much become the poster boy for "failed attempted comebacks" in the gaming world. This week, Sega announced he will be back on the Wii sometime in 2009, carrying a huge sword which looks to be straight out of a Japanese anime, in a game called Sonic and the Black Knight.

It's not that I don't think it's safe for franchises to branch out in new directions. In fact, I find the most successful long-running series of video games are successful precisely, because they are unafraid to try new things.

The trouble begins when these long-time series just can't seem to get out of a creative lull. It starts with one game that fails to have proper game design, good controls, or something else. Then developers try to make their fans forget about that last dud by utterly changing the franchise's next entry around. The last four existing Sonic games have promised to take the hedgehog back to his roots: in other words, make the gameplay primarily revolve around Sonic zooming past crazy levels at insane speeds while he fights enemies and performs acrobatics through obstacle-laden courses. Each of them has been a failure.

Besides the upcoming Black Knight game, another one, Sonic Unleashed, is also due for release with the same empty promise, except that some sort of day/night system turns the spiky hero into a werewolf (werehog?) at night, who prefers to methodically dispatch his enemies with claws and rubbery, long arms that look straight out of a Fantastic Four movie.

Several fans are already in an uproar.

Sonic, of course, isn't the only struggling mascot trying to regain his former glory. Over at Capcom, that eternal icon of 80s cool, Mega Man, has not been in a critically acclaimed game that actually resembles the action shooter formula he was known for in about a decade.

In terms of sheer numbers, it's not for lack of trying. Both Mega Man and Sonic games have been multiplying at rates that leave some other long-time competitors, even otherwise prolific franchises like Mario and Final Fantasy, behind in the dust.

Capcom, though, seems to have come to a sudden realization. Mega Man, they recently announced, has not really been much good since the old NES days. So the next entry in the franchise, Mega Man 9, is actually designed to have absolutely horrible, pixelated, 8-bit graphics and cheesy synthesized music on purpose.

That's one lead Sega could take. Or they could observe how other developers handle their long-time series, like the aforementioned Mario and Final Fantasy. Sure, each has generated loads of spin-off titles that don't really have anything to do with their original incarnations, but when a "true" game in each series arrives (an action platformer in case of Mario, or an RPG in case of FF), they're something to be reckoned with. That's because Nintendo and Square recognize the pedigree to which these names are associated. For every needless multiplayer board game-like Mario Party -- and there sure are a lot of them -- we get only one Super Mario platformer about every five years. Likewise, Final Fantasy XIII does not even have a release date yet, and it's been almost two years since the last one came out.

This way, developers have the time to ensure good gameplay ideas come to proper fruition, and bad ones are firmly lifted away from the franchise.

Other developers have a different approach. When the once-brilliant Tomb Raider games began to fade into obscurity, the publisher realized the studio responsible for their creation, Core, had lost its touch. The publisher took the ruthless, but correct decision to take Tomb Raider away from Core. The series has since gained a huge boost in popularity and quality.

There is, of course, one final option. Maybe it's time to just put the hedgehog to sleep. Remember those horrible Army Men games? Neither do I, and that's the point.