Thank you for proving my point. Mario avoided changing the plot and remains to be a good series. Sonic focuses on plot, the quality takes a nose dive. When it backed off from it so that it no longer took itself seriously, the quality rose up.
Proof enough that Sonic only works best when the story is simplistic, works within its own world and doesn't take itself seriously.
Wrong. The Sonic series has proven that it should either have a good storyline like the one from the Sonic Adventure series OR have pretty much no plot at all, however in order to do the latter it would need good enough gameplay, and unlike Mario, Sonic has never come out with the same quality in a platformer.
Furthermore, whilst I agree that platformers generally work well without a storyline, there are exceptions to every rule, and Sonic Adventure 2 showed how awesome Sonic games can be if you implement a good storyline with good gameplay.
The whole arabian nights, knights, werehog and many other terrible plots in Sonic games show that awful plots can not only make a game bad, but when certain parts of that story are implemented, even the gameplay can be affected (e.g. the werehog being playable).
The storyline can boost how good a game is, and it's one of the factors (one of them) in making Sonic Adventure 2 my favourite 3D Sonic game.
This thread has made it more clear that members and even mods on these forums can't accept the views of one another, and even on a thread which is CLEARLY about what YOU look for in a Sonic game, people take the time out to try and make digs at other people's views, even though the entire debate is not one which can be proven either way because it's all subjective.
Even after the FIRST post, deoxysxx (one of the only people to answer the thread question properly) was challenged on his opinion.
It's things like this that ruin threads and cause pointless debates in which two people are trying to push their opinions on each other.