Sonic Prime Viewers Aren't Too Fond Of Those Pixelated Flashbacks

Contains spoilers for "Sonic Prime" Season 1, Episode 1 ("Shattered") and Episode 3 ("Escape From New Yoke")

When Netflix announced a new "Sonic" animated series would debut in 2022, fans were excited. Not only do the showrunners of "Sonic Prime" have an animation pedigree that is outstanding, having worked on series like "Generator Rex" and Marvel's "Avengers Assemble," but we're also getting beloved game characters like Amy Rose (Shannon Chan-Kent), Knuckles the Echidna (Adam Nurada), and Rouge the Bat (Kazumi Evans). And with the release of the series on December 15, fans quickly dove in. "I like where it's going," wrote u/Charicole10 on a subreddit. "Sonic's characterization is a bit iffy, but he's still 90% there. I like seeing the other worlds and their characters. Can't wait for the second batch."

The first episode sees Sonic (Deven Christian Mack) fighting with Dr. Eggman (Brian Drummond), and, ignoring Tails' (Ashleigh Ball) assertions that it was a trap, shatters the Paradox Prism and is sent through the Shatterverse, ending up in a parallel dimension of Green Hill in which everything green is replaced by machinery. Sonic believes Dr. Eggman has learned to harness the prism energy, and that's why these alternate dimensions were created, but he slowly realizes that it wasn't Dr. Eggman who caused this.

While fans have been ogling the graphics and enjoying the voice acting, they've also been expressing their annoyance at the old-school Sega pixelated flashbacks.

Beginning with Episode 1, we see Sonic trying to convince Tails that they're friends, and viewers watch a flashback of Tails being bullied and Sonic rushing in to help. For executive producer Logan McPherson, adding the scene, which is pulled from the actual Sega game, was essential. "We wanted to also bring it forward and springboard off the mythology that exists and present something a little different that's unique to our world," he told Animation Scoop. "We're really excited about that element and hope fans enjoy it as well." While the memory itself was a nice addition, fans weren't digging the 1991-inspired pixelated images used to create it.

"I'm sorry but the pixel art in Sonic Prime for the flashback looks pretty damn ugly in my opinion," tweeted @WingedHelix. "Like...that was what you guys went with?" Other fans have pointed out that it's obvious the flashbacks weren't created by actual pixel artists, with @MARQUER09767720 tweeting, "I am begging studios to just hire pixel artists for things like this. The Sonic 2 movie did that for the credits and it looked amazing. It's really not rocket science."

While a Season 2 hasn't been announced yet, it's expected since McPherson has already said they've made more than the eight episodes released for Season 1 (via What's on Netflix). It remains to be seen if we will get more pixelated flashbacks or if they'll heed fans' criticisms.