As soon as 12 year olds/Animu-tards hit the fanbase, you pretty much went for the whole "Goku, Piccolo, and Gohan" shtick. After a few flawed games the fandom became unpleasable from there, and such you'll see mostly female fans who adore the CosmoxTails pairing.
I'm getting ahead of myself here: The fanbase is just too damn unpleaseable. Sega is TRYING to go back to the "retro" that everyone wants and now they want characters playable again so they can have thier little fan pairings/mary sues? Whaatt thhhee ffuucck?
@This amongst all other fanbase related comments:
Most of the Sonic fanbase are noobs that search and dig around for something, ANYTHING, to hate on. They bash Sonic Heroes for it's team system, Shadow for, well, anything, Sonic 06 for that little kiss between Sonic and Elise, Secret Rings for the motion control, Black Knight for.... I dunno.
Point being, sit down, shut up, and enjoy the game.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awR6yj8sAj8[/youtube]
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sK1r6RJTIOw[/youtube]
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U62889MZ_hI[/youtube]
Source
To this, I say, pretty sweet vids.