Emerald Chaos

I just want to say that I think the whole "team" and defined "Speed", "Power" etc roles thing is even dumber in a racing game where the characters aren't using their own abilities. There should be even less reasons for those restrictions. 15 characters is a bit disappointing, it wouldn't surprise me if they wanted to add more but SEGA said no. Wisps are meh. The visuals don't look great. Sad to say, but I'm not super interested in this one. If I have to say something positive, vehicle customization is something new for these games, so that could potentially be interesting.

It's a bit of a shame some of these teams didn't happen on the grounds that now the characters are apparently locked behind some pointless mandates which force them to be usable in limited context. Some of them sound pretty crack-y tho. Specifically the SA1 team and the Metal Sonic + Mighty and Ray team. I heard the story for Sonic Heroes was written up at the last minute and the writer had to work around the game that had pretty much already been made. It sure would've been fun to see scenarios they came up with for these teams

My question is, why does Amy "need" a sidekick character? What does it add? What incentives would a hypothetical sidekick character have for being Amy's sidekick, so on so forth. As you said, Amy is not the main character. Her primary motivation in the games is attempting to get Sonic's attention, it isn't exactly the kind of thing which calls for a sidekick, nor is it the kind of thing that from an outside perspective is admirable in the sense of "I want to follow in this person's footsteps" ala Sonic and Tails.

It was Shaymay's Sonic Spitball series where I first heard the suggestion that a rewrite for Shadow's backstory to simplify it and make him a clone of Sonic would be a good thing and he does a good job of making an argument for it. I personally like the idea because it explains a lot about the character without precluding any depth, even though the concept is cliched, I don't really feel that his backstory as it is now ISN'T cliched. It's just a lot less understandable due to being a large pile of cliches. From my perspective it's more about having a simple base to work from. To address the OPs comment that "Scourge is not Shadow". I'm not saying that he should be. For one, if I'm going to argue specifics, Scourge isn't a literal "clone" of Sonic except in a meta sense, but if it's a meta sense that you're arguing that point from, then Shadow IS like Scourge. For another, there are countless variations in which a character can be a foil to Sonic's traits. As the series is, most characters, especially those who have been designated rivals to him are foils in one way or another. Making Shadow's backstory accurately describe his "function" in the series does not limit the possibilities of his presentation.

I haven't played Colours DS, but I kinda like the way they used the characters in this. It feels oddly out of place in this game for EVERYONE to be at the amusement park though. I always felt like that kind of usage where all the characters are there and active, if not directly involved with what Sonic/the player is doing, would have made much more sense for a game like Sonic Unleashed.

I think this is an unpopular opinion, not sure. I actually prefer Sonic's mouth in his 3D models to be centered. It makes more sense in a 3D space and historically it tends to lend itself to more expressive models. Whenever I think of models that have the side mouth I tend to think of him having a dull, static smile on his face. Compare his model in Brawl to Smash 4 for an idea of what I'm talking about. Also my mind often gets stuck on the fact that it shows up on both sides of his mouth, like he has two holes on either side that seal up when you're not looking at one. I know the side smile is iconic of the character, but I feel like it doesn't work as well in 3D My preference is a more centered mouth and maybe have it move slightly to the side if he's grinning or something

I think Larry is only staying because he finds the irony that someone no one knew was on the site is the last person there to be funny

I really really love Tyson Hesse's style of Sonic where he imitates some of the classic art and Sonic's head isn't a separate "bubble" from his body. I feel like it really emphasizes Sonic's "hedgehoginess" It's such a breath of fresh air for the character

Anyone else remember that Sonic X episode where Sonic was the only person on the entire world who remembered how the moon orbiting around the Earth worked? Ugh.

What more is there to say? I loved it. It reminded me of something like Animaniacs. But with more of a coolness that Sonic should have. Eagerly anticipating more. It's off to a great start and it has soooo much potential.

I don't come to these games for meta commentary. Sonic Mania speaks well enough for the difference in quality for games made by people who understand the series vs people that don't. The difference in quality between the core classic games and modern games has absolutely nothing to do with Sonic's design. Besides the metaphor falls flat when Sonic Team themselves fail miserably at implementing the fundamentals which make classic Sonic gameplay what it is.

The idea left a bad taste in my mouth from the reveal trailer because it involved a dramatic cinematic with Sonic heroically and determinedly charging down a path. Some debris falls and then... he's saved by himself? Sonic should be the hero of his own story. Not a past version of himself. It was fine in Generations because being retrospective was the entire theme of the game. But Classic Sonic had absolutely no business being here. It's pointless dilution.

Well, "Character VS" topics are a little bit lame but I'll use this to address my personal headcanon for the balance between Sonic and Shadow. To use a DnD analogy, I consider Sonic and Shadow to be of the same "type" of character so they have the same base stats and the same growth potential. But that Sonic puts his points into "dexterity" and Shadow puts his points into "intelligence" or whatever the equivalent stat for magic is. Evidence for that is stuff like Sonic typically tending to have a greater variety of physical attacks, obviously it's not true in every instance, but as a general rule I find it to be the best way to consider why they're even as opposed to Shadow just being Sonic + extra abilities. Sonic has a greater variety of physical moves that Shadow "could" learn and use if he wanted to. Shadow has a greater variety of chaos themed attacks that Sonic "could" learn and use if he wanted to

Really highlights how much better the hand drawn animation is for emoting over the 3D model. Those gifs are worlds apart in terms of character

Can't wait to see Infinite in a car driving around "I'm not slow! I'm NOT slow! I'M NOT SLOW!!!! RAAAAAAAGHHH"