BaronGrackle

Fair point.

See, I get a different vibe from Tails's ending there. Tails showed that he could save the day himself if Sonic temporarily wasn't around, but it wasn't like Robin becoming Nightwing. As soon as Sonic was back, Tails went back to following his lead. And he was still following Sonic as the end credits roll. With Sonic Forces... they could have written it a lot better, but I absolutely approve of the CONCEPT of Tails shutting down when he thinks Sonic's been horribly killed, especially if he feels it was his fault.

My take on it? Many of Sonic's friends are natural followers. (Tails, Amy, Charmy, Espio, Cream) Some of them prefer to work alone, or show no motivation to lead. (Shadow, Silver) In my mind that leaves rival leader candidates as Rouge, Vector, or Blaze. And take away Blaze if she just arrived from another dimension. I don't think "leader of the rebels" was a coveted position.

Sorry I'm late to the party, but... 1. Knuckles has governed the creatures of Angel Island ever since his first appearance, so he's had experience "leading" a large group people. 2. Being incompetent and rushing into things may be bad in-universe, but it's great for the storyline. Launching a disastrous frontal assault is a common trope in films and narratives, early on. It gives players a reason to replay Metropolis, anyway. 3. Out of all the characters, only Knuckles would be (over)confident enough to believe he is the natural choice for leader. He thinks himself the guardian of just about everything, and he's very loud about it. Shadow is often antisocial and gravitates toward working alone--when part of a team, he's rarely leading it (Robotnik led in SA2, while Rouge led in Sonic Heroes). Espio is similarly softspoken. Vector or Blaze may have been good alternative choices, but again, Knuckles' loud confidence and sense of entitlement is likely what landed him the position over the others.

I'm not sure if I'd count Little Planet as another "world". I think it has more in common with Angel Island than Planet Wisp.

Hmm. I'm asking people at Sonic retro about it, but I want to find out if the current Sonic 3 Japanese manual translation is really from the 1994 manual, or if it's from the 1997 PC collection. Look at the revision history: http://info.sonicretro.org/index.php?title=Sonic_the_Hedgehog_3_manuals&action=history In April 2018, Windii added his own translations. Before then, the page looked like this: http://info.sonicretro.org/index.php?title=Sonic_the_Hedgehog_3_manuals&oldid=224511 On that page, the original Japanese manual never mentioned the Master Emerald (mighty stone) or that the Death Egg crash is what made Floating Island fall. I suspect that lore was developed for 1997 and the leadup to Sonic Adventure! Instead, we see that Knuckles guards 7 Chaos Emerald altars on the island, and those emeralds all disappeared just before Knuckle(s) saw the "dragon egg" and Eggman. The implication being that the Floating Island sank because the Chaos Emeralds were gone - not because of the Death Egg crash. As you can imagine, I'm quite eager to see if Windii's reshuffling is accurate. I'm bracing myself for nostalgic cultureshock! Ahem, who's to say Knuckles didn't build it for his animal friends, such as those hanging out with him in the S&K intro? He knows it well enough to give Sonic trouble two times in a single zone. Who knows. Maybe Eggman had zero interest in carnivals until he saw the one on Angel Island!

. . . so Knuckles isn't the only Angel Island native anthro. He's just the chao who stayed behind. When the echidna civilization attacked the Emerald Shrine, it was a group of evolved chao destroying unevolved chao.

For me personally? Yes, I enjoy the gimmick of fighting with magic tricks, including the Titanic Monarch three-cups battle. Also: 1) Being magical distinguishes her from other Classic characters, and it cements her Phantom Ruby origins more bluntly than the other HBH. (Even if Amy Rose never touches tarot cards again, we could easily see them from Magician.) 2) Shapeshifting opens a whole new world of gameplay possibilities on par with Shang Tsung, Clayface, or Super Skrull. With Super Skrull, he was included in MvC3 as a gameplay substitute for the Fantastic Four characters. If SEGA wanted to, they could similarly wipe out the other robots and have Heavy Magician BECOME the team herself, just as we saw her being Team Hooligan. 3) Doesn't she look like she's enjoying herself in Mirage Saloon? I get a happy-psycho vibe from her. I think it's the jaunty pose and the sound effect used for her magic. I mean, even in the above image it looks like she's pulling the Phantom Ruby out of her hat! 4) Female villain robot. She and Heavy Rider get rarity points for that.

This one:

See, I think Heavy Magician has the most promise. That preview image of her hovering literally above the scrapheap of HBH gives me hope. I fear Heavy King would be too much like preexisting antagonists, including Metal and Robotnik.

When I was young in the mid '90s, it was Knuckles. When I reentered the fanbase a few years ago, it was Tails. Now it's starting to be Knuckles again - because the evolution of Knuckles' character has just been a roller coaster ride! Is he dramatically emotional (Classic and Modern eras) or stoically resigned to duty (Dreamcast era)? Rather, does he in fact chuckle? Does he sound like a Jamaican (S&K guidebook), an excitable rival (Saturn manuals), a quiet warrior (Dreamcast era), or a blustering wannabe hero (Modern era, Boom)? Are he and his island bound to the Chaos Emeralds (S3, Triple Trouble), bound to the Chaos and Master Emeralds (S&K, arguably SA1), bound to only the Master Emerald (arguably SA1, SA2), or is he bound to nothing except adventure or treasure (the OVA, Saturn era, arguably Modern era)? Does he wear a hat because he likes to (the OVA) ,or just while working his day job to pay for electricity (Boom)? But in all his different incarnations, you see trends. SOLID trends. He's always overconfident and naive. He always burrows and packs power. He always sees himself as the natural leader and is doggedly devoted to whatever he guards over - whether it be the denizens of Angel Island or the safety of the world. I've seen him fabricate stories in SA1, in Boom, and in Mania... three totally different incarnations... to the extent that some have speculated whether the Knuckles mode in S2 and S3&K might best be retconned as another grand fabrication! I mean, Operation Big Wave? "I thought up this strategy in about a minute and a half. We're going in hard and fast and we're not going to stop till Eggman's army's destroyed."

In Spider-man Maximum Carnage, there are two levels of fighting off the Fantastic Four's advanced security systems because they were out of town when you needed their sonic gun. It matches events in the comics. Sometimes, the security from your allies just has orders to attack any intruders.

I've never heard a complaint about Press Garden Zone. And it might be the most absurd in the series.

Okay, sure. 1) "Whimsical", I honestly threw in and probably shouldn't have. A lot of Sonic is quite whimsical. Whimsy isn't always positive, either. 2) "Lighthearted" is an antonym for words including troubled, sad, worried, and is linguistically one of the opposites for dark. You asserted that Hidden Palace Zone was very much not dark. That would make it light. 3) "Cutesy" is in the thread title and opening post, used by Yuji Naka to describe Sonic before SA1. So I would direct you to this thread in general

Hmm. Sometimes when I talk to people about the classic games, I asked if they lived through the '90s and played them then. I almost asked Diogenes that just now, talking about Hidden Palace. I did not watch the OVA, I did not jump to the Saturn or Dreamcast, and I was not part of the fanbase during the Adventure Era. I say this because when I look at City Escape from my perspective, I see a swarm of government agents chasing Sonic through San Francisco with a big truck labeled "G.U.N", I hear the commentary of the youtubers playing it, and from that moment on I'm trying to wrap my head around this Tom Clancy world of government conspiracies, president shenanigans, prisons and executions. I'm sure my background is related to the reaction I had. But I'm also sure other people had that reaction PRETTY EARLY ON, or the "two worlds" canon would've never been a thing. And that's been as old as... what, Sonic X?