Isn't it funny that whenever someone wishes that Sonic games should have a higher standard of quality they receive a torrent of "It's for kids, shut up" replies but you don't see the same kind vitriol when people ask for the same from Nintendo games?

Paper Mario is a lot like Sonic right now. People want better from Nintendo than what the past 3 games have been. Hell, they're even mimicking Sonic Team's approach of "pushing in a single direction despite said direction failing to resonate with the fanbase"

Sonic always has this huge double standard. Nobody bats an eye when people complain about the 2 billionth NSMB game being near identical to all the previous entries. Complain about Green Hill being in basically every Sonic game this past decade and you're crucified.

Realistic humans in Mario? A-OK!
Realistic humans in Sonic? NO YOU CAN'T DO THAT, THAT'S BAD TERRIBLE ELISE KISSES SONIC 06!!

Kirby fights literal world ending demons? Sure!
Sonic fights ancient water god? BAD WRONG TERRIBLE TOO EDGY!

Nintendo games are allowed to be dark and twisted and are praised for it, yet it's automatically seen as a bad thing for Sonic games to take themselves more seriously.

A lot of defenses as to why Sonic shouldn't try to be any of these things boils down to "Well the failed to do it in the past". Yeah, the Sonic series regularly fails to ship functioning games. Should they just give up on making games entirely just because they often fail?

If other game series can pull these things off, so can Sonic. They just need competent people in charge of things and a reasonable deadline to get it done.

There's a lot of good ideas that have been thrown out over the years due to this "If at first you don't succeed, give up and do something else" mindset. Poor execution doesn't make an idea bad.

I should also remind people that the IDW Sonic comics have a far more serious tone than the games, and yet they're extremely well received and liked by a good majority of the fandom. The IDW comics are proof enough that Sonic can do serious stories and do it well.

It's all about having a competent team and a reasonable deadline. Without these things, even the silliest, least serious, and simplistic Sonic stories would fail, and they have been.