Jambone

Neo Metal Sonic is among the worst designs to ever hit this series, alongside Mephiles. He's overdesigned for the sake of looking "XTRA KOOL". Metal Sonic is just that: a metal Sonic. Every feature of his is representative of a feature on Sonic. Even his turbine is a stand-in for Sonic's peachy stomach. All other details are just "he's a robot" stuff. NEO Metal Sonic...what even happened here. His head is now as large as the rest of his body, for some reason, and his ears have been turned red because...yellow wasn't KOOL enough, I guess? He has also applied some lovely white eyeliner because Shadow gave him some makeup tips. His spines are LONGER than his arms and legs. The bolts holding his mouthplate on are now spikes, because SPIKES ARE KOOL. He is now dressed (???) like some kind of wizard, with pointy shoes (XTRA KOOL spikes included) and his simple arms and legs are now large sleeves and pant legs. Best of all, he is wearing a studded belt with a butt cape and what appears to be a...robe tie or loin cloth? There are other weird design choices here that aren't really offensively bad but just confusing like the white stripes on everything or the oversized turbine engine. Opinions are opinions man, but I'm hard pressed to see how anyone could think this looked cool. It looks like someone told me to draw a cool Sonic robot when I was 14.

Maybe this one will be the goofy happy-go-lucky one where Jim Robotnik's plan is to steal a magical jewel from a museum that will let all of his robots run without fuel, and there will be practically zero stakes. Then the sequel will be the hardcore "trying really hard to look cool and mature" one where Shadow is introduced and Jim Robotnik holds guns to peoples' heads and his plan is to literally nuke New York.

...woof.

I'm fairly sure, yes, although it's been awhile since I've played, well, any Sonic game other than Mania. Interesting idea. Didn't Knuckles have some sort of wall-based spindash in Sonic Advance (one of them, not sure which)? Seems like a pretty viable solution to the problem, though. If you can't re-glide after the move, there'd be some strategy to using it since it'll put Knuckles at a bit of a disadvantage without solid ground, but you get to move further upward than Knuckles could by simply climbing. Not to mention making climbing shortcuts more viable for Time Trials and the like. Maybe it could be a move where Knuckles vaults forward with his arms, putting him in the "spring" animation to make it a little more risky (you couldn't sail into enemies with it) and establish that Knuckles can't go back into a glide afterward? Or it could just put him into a running animation so you could still hop backwards off the wall. That'd probably make for some interesting jumps, although that'd remove a bit of risk without a way to prevent the player from turning right around and gliding again. I guess it just goes to show even simple additions add a lot of variables.

Do you think in hypothetical future classic games, Knuckles' climbing should be sped up? I'm not talking a massive speed increase, but I feel like bumping it up a little would make it feel a little less tedious. I really like exploring with Knuckles but his climbing feels incredibly slow. Additionally, after playing Ray, Tails' flight feels like trying to maneuver a greased sausage through molasses.

Well, there isn't a Super Mario comic, and looking at Archie's history with Sonic, I don't really blame Nintendo for not wanting to risk it becoming...whatever the fuck Archie Sonic became for a good half of its run.

Are they just showing off the stuff they have then? Because I swear I just saw a tweet from one of them saying there'd be stuff at SAGE. I'm not complaining, as long as there's something to play at the end of the day I'm fine with that.

At the very least, if we're to get a classic companion comic, it means that those characters will have a greater spotlight in that one. I don't have a lot of hope for Sega to follow Mania's success with anything meaningful (Mania sold well? They must want more Green Hill!), but if they did, a companion series would be pretty likely, I think. Seems silly for them to just let these characters sit and rot while they introduce new ones, especially ones that look like they could be made in Forces' meager DeviantArt machine (Tangle looks unique enough, even if only being a species you can't use). Can't get mad at Ian for not being (visibly) upset, though. He's a professional and is probably working his dream job right now: writing for a series he loves. If I got the chance to write for Metroid, I'd take Nintendo shoving a broom up my ass every morning with a smile.

That new fella was mentioned at SDCC I guess. I still stand by my prediction of who we have now + Chaotix with Charmy switched out + Egg/Metal/New Guy.

I can understand not using them in the Modern games, because there are enough useless characters as is, but comics benefit from having a huge cast. Why take away that option?

I was referring to your second idea, more specifically. Where everyone is killed during the final boss.