E-122-Psi

Forces had an interesting idea in actually having Shadow's anti hero persona actually bite him in a ass and chain off the plot (if in a laughably petty way). I think that was an even bigger problem with Free Riders, that they not only exaggerated Shadow and Rouge into class A jerks, but, in spite of the cast acknowledging this, it didn't really have much consequence on the plot in the end. I'm all for showing their more dubious qualities to make their characters and agency stand out, but not just making them Jerky McJerk-face for the sake of it.

Yeah that's WINNIE THE POOH as Robotnik there (for extra humour Kath Soucie voiced Kanga for a long while too).

This is sort of what I mean when I say focusing on the comedic traits or foibles of a character sometimes expands them rather than flanderizes them. Playing on Silver and Omega's quirks and undermining them in a light hearted way makes them feel less like predictable archetypes (now we just need OmegaBlaze canonized :P). This is why I also side with cases like Tails' childlike bungling inventor aspects or Sally's grouchy 'I know better than you' ones, because I think just playing them completely straight as the smart rational characters and having no dents in their armour to undermine makes them more dull and formulaic. I understand the whole 'not wanting them to be purely a gag' complaint, since examples like Knuckles show what happens when you take it too far, but you can make a character quirky while still giving them earnest involvement. There's a difference between a whimsical character and one that is one note comic relief. Truth be told I kinda want SHADOW to have a more comedic side. Not overdone of course, but sort of similar to Archie where he's allowed to make a few funny expressions or trade a few comically petty or grouchy remarks. I feel this limit to breaking his mystique is why cases like Boom dithered over using him at all. It's weird really, since Team Rose were pretty much the 'pair the leftovers' squad, but they had some decent chemistry moments, perhaps because they played on the fact they were the 'misfit team' and were somehow finding a way to pull it together. Stuff like Amy motivating everyone with her high spirits, Cream reigning in her childish moments, or Big being a protective older brother type. There felt more conflict and pathos with them because they were the wide eyed underdogs who just scooped all their resources together, while Team Sonic were kinda just the generic competent team, despite the potential for chemistry being there. The ending between Sonic and Knuckles was about it for demonstrating it. Really the fact Knuckles was dragged in as a second ally to Sonic actually could have been played on WAY more.

The biggest downside is also execution however, since instead of lame jokes Heroes has repetitive exposition and sugary sweet teamwork quips. I do have a soft spot for Team Rose and Team Chaotix regardless, I do agree that they did manage to shine through regardless and had the most character driven approaches. Team Dark worked though I understand people's annoyances with how they handled Shadow and his arc not really being flowed strongly enough through the game. Team Sonic was pretty bland though, just the standard goody goody hero squad. I admit I also might be more forgiving towards Heroes since I got it before I played the Adventure series so I can't rate it as strongly as a sequel perspective wise. I feel I might have considered Omega a bland expy of Gamma if I'd played SA1 first for example, but playing Heroes first, Omega is....there and okay. Could have done more with him but, okay. I feel like the light heartedness isn't the bad part of these games in particular but simply how lethargic and corny a lot of the writers handle light heartedness, that when the mood lightens it's back to just aiming for little kids, though in fairness it's not like a lot of the dark works don't have equally cheesy or bland writing. Another unpopular opinion, but I think if TSR had PROPER CUTSCENES it might have been one of the better cases of light hearted dialogue and interactions in the games, but with just dialogue boxes with no animation or pacing it all just feels like a slog. I liked how they handled Silver and Omega for example, they felt more colourful in that game.

No, I'm fine with people calling out Sonic and it being clear cut. Hell in Boom he got so bad that some of his friends INSTIGATED COMEUPPANCES onto him sometimes. My problem is when it reverts into a flanderized formula where the characters are streamlined into just sane and stupid herds, which I find kinda bland. Sonic doesn't need to be always right, but at the same time having someone on that perpetual pedestal instead just moves the problem. That's why I like setups where all the cast have these foibles and parables and the sane man role switches around according to circumstances. This is the issue I have with the aforementioned concept of having Sonic rebel against authorities for example. X and Archie did actually try this sometimes, but the problem is that for each individual adversity at least, they had trouble resolving it while keeping the grey morality. Either one side was completely in the right with the other strawmaned into a wrong imbecile, or the conflict just sort of withered into nothing and they tried to hide it under the rug. It didn't help that most of the time Sonic was portrayed as a rebel to the point of being having outright naked contempt to anyone criticising him or telling him what to do, even on just the stance of 'think of the consequences for OTHER PEOPLE', meaning he either came off as an asshole the audience would HAVE to root for getting put in his place, or was a designated hero treated in the right despite being just as unlikeable as his opposition. We get characters like Sally who so effectively and one sidedly oppose Sonic's fundamental flaws to the point of making his whole ethical approach seem like something that needs to be corrected and repressed in the future arcs, or we get characters like Hamlin or Sonic X Knuckles, who are so blatantly just meant to be petty butt monkeys talking out of their ass and not meant to be effective in calling out Sonic's misgivings. There's rarely a good balance, an equal. Most times they try to go for a 'both sides have a point' there isn't really an outcome, the plot is just kinda cut off and it doesn't feel like either side has made a remote compromise.

It's kinda why I feel if you put games together you get a good balanced Sonic. Black Knight alongside Lost Worlds (at least on paper) shows a three dimensional Sonic that is insightful and chill but also still capable of being arrogant and reckless. It maybe helps that while Sonic is more flawed in cases like Lost Worlds, they make clear it's not just a case of him being the 'team screw up' and the rest of the team just being the well behaved straight man (something I sometimes feel is the case with continuities like SatAm and the two comics). Everyone is fallible. The 'X' direction where Sonic was on a constant pedestal and everyone who challenged him was inept and wrong was monotonous and I think left him kinda bland, but I like we haven't just gone into a full on role reversal and that things work more complex and fun when a large bulk of the cast are flawed and silly but still competent in their own way and take turns being the blundering fool or voice of reason. It's why I enjoyed Boom as well, a lot of the characters bounced off each other well there, even if some of the gags were pretty poor and forced. We just need to get it running in stories that aren't completely and utterly lethargic. I kinda like the concept of TSR's silly story for example, where everyone (except Big of all people) is super suspicious of this weirdo. Too bad the cutscenes are.....well are they even cutscenes?

But there is not a SINGLE thread on here that has nothing but positive opinions. That is not how a idea discussion works. People can't criticise the franchise in excess and then forbid anyone from raining on their parade when it's something THEY have personal preference towards. There is NO sacred cow in Sonic. NONE. It's about Sally Acorn, one of the most divisive characters in the franchise, and that's saying A LOT. What do fans expect? For everyone else to just sit here nodding and saying 'happy thoughts, happy thoughts'? If Kuzu's gonna bring up snide allusions, I find it even more amusing that this discussion is pretty much between two very opposite opinions, yet both are as bull headed about it as the other. One however is totally and unironically convinced they are the perfectly reasonable one and acts like a contemptuous hypocrite while complaining about the insensitivity the other is doing the same to THEM. How very Sally of them. They can NEVER be wrong it seems. I'll admit okay it, I am wary of Sally being put in, it's an opinion, it's not universal and I am damn well aggressive about it, but I have never seen such hypocrisy. That they can literally stand there flat out saying 'well the games suck and who gives a shit about the people who like them' and then complain how completely unfair and heartless the people are that slam SatAm, right down to venting the exact same personal and demeaning insults they accuse THEM of doing. The simple fact is if I really am an elitist (and admittedly I likely am) I certainly don't think I'm alone here.

If we're going to use spurious comparisons, we can ask how a series about a free spirited character works being regimented into a premise where everyone is restricted to war games, and his primarily foil exists to point how being free spirited is actually reckless and thoughtless (with him usually getting a cosmic punishment whenever he doesn't accept she's right). I think when the idealised future between these two characters was Sonic being TIED DOWN AS A KING people have a right to be a little skeptical. There is a blatant case there of trying to skew Sonic into something he isn't to make this different concept work in the case it comes down to being connected to the actual games rather than just a loose adaptation. People are entitled to think the SatAm and games premises work differently from each other, that isn't just close minded opinion, there are BLATANT differences. Showing concern that two rather contrasting portrayals can mesh badly isn't just 'not giving it a fair chance'. I could argue your apathy towards the games canon and dismissing any potential side effects with 'well the games suck anyway, so who cares?' is 'not giving THAT a fair chance', the duration in bizarre directions isn't that much greater than that of the comics two decades.

I admit to not minding the idea of a conflict here. I think that was what left me underwhelmed by the Genesis arc trying to reinvent a potential meet up in the games, Sonic and the Freedom Fighters just instantly got on cozy and he and Sally just felt like they were meant to be together. Again I feel like there's a struggle to convey Sally's ugly side in the comics, when if anything that makes her interesting and complex. Sally likely WOULDN'T get along with Sonic at first glance. Hell they might even have a big childish fall out and go separate ways. I think a key here however is I'd want a case where the story would cosmically punish BOTH characters, where both Sonic's impulsiveness and Sally's by the book-ness (and their equal bull headedness about it) would backfire equally horribly and they would both suffer the same ephihany because neither extreme is fool proof. They might even play with the idea of them being not-so-different, maybe Sonic would become overprotective or Sally would do something reckless to save her team. The very key area here however is that they would have to make BOTH characters acknowledge it in-universe. I think one being 'the reasonable one' would just be a one-note way of handling it. It would be way too easy to either just make Sally the sitcom wife that was right the whole time and Sonic just being reckless, or alternative do the 'don't question Sonic' formula that was in some earlier games stories. That they somehow have an inability with this for over two decades that just leaves me uneasy about it. It looks even less likely in this era of 'strong serious heroine' archetypes being all the rage who don't 'do' humility moments or having moments of outright bungling or pratfalling. That's what the boneheaded boys who don't listen to them do. Truthfully maybe this is why I think Tangle is more what we need at this point. There's a draught of wacky goofy female characters in fiction right now. Sally would just be playing to trends.

I am going to say that I feel like most of the Satam/Archie continuity (at least early on) felt written and conceived by people who didn't really care much at all about games and likely never even touched one. You can say that the games barely had any story but let's be frank, turning it into that for better or worse wasn't the only way of developing it to a cohesive plot. Early SatAm concepts did feel like they made light but appreciative links to how the games worked, but it was still very much its own thing. Would it be wrong to say I don't find Big the Cat or Chris 'pointless'? I mean I completely get why people don't like them but I think they also demonstrate how differently the games system usually works. The games universe does not have everyone hiding in units to oppose the dictator that is Robotnik. Eggman is pretty much the local goofball villain. Threatening sometimes sure, but still usually a standard cartoon bad guy who comes up with wacky schemes. Forces based itself closer to the SatAm approach but the thing there was that Forces was a ONE OFF, it was Eggman's big 'Team Rocket Wins' moment, similar to the Shaolin Showdown instance where the bungling Jack Spicer actually took over the world in one timeline. It shows Eggman can be creditable as a villain when the heroes get too complacent but it doesn't make him interchangeable with how his SatAm incarnation worked. I don't want the Forces approach to be permanent, I actually feel like IDW used it just to keep things streamlined. Light hearted storytelling isn't necessarily EASIER. If anything I'd argue everyone not being just soldiers of all the same motives and being individuals having to be led into the plot in some character driven way is a tougher way about it, hence why the Adventure-Next Gen era is so divisive in its handling. I like guys like Big exist, that there are characters who are just minding their own business and only come into the story based on their own personality infused motives. Making him soldier 123444 whose family was murdered by Eggman would just dilute what makes him unique. Now to say the SatAm story couldn't get a light adaptation in some way with some translations isn't particularly true. I could see Eggman using Mobotropolis as a starting point to make Eggmanland, he could even adapt robotocization as his next big breakthrough (though likely have some wackier take on it like making Robians into theme park vendors in place of his Egg Pawns, again this is Eggman, not Julian Robotnik) and Sonic could meet up with Freedom Fighters and so forth. But right now straight after Forces, would it be bad to say I want them to first have a return to what made the earlier games stories unique, colourful character driven stories where everyone comes in based on their own unique motive, no matter how petty.

I think they would have worked well as alternate skins like the SA2B ones, though I don't mind the standard designs being playable too. I have to say, while it's more an Americanized concept, I kinda liked the idea in the US bible of the small animal characters being sapient and serving as Sonic's oldest friends who taught him to master a lot of his powers. It added a more personal touch to Eggman turning them all into badniks. Stay Sonic/STC played on this aspect a bit but dropped them quickly, though of course SatAm adapted it in its own way.

I notice Penders and Bollers' this annoying habit of having Sally shoot outbursts to other characters and then....not resolve it, usually because they place it just before a big arc or breakthrough. Sally disowning Antoine and Knuckles over keeping her family secret in one of his final comics from what I remember was also pretty much forgotten about (to compare they got the point to mend Sonic and Chuck's relationship over a similar issue previously). The slap is ironically one of the moderated cases just because it at least got SOME resolve over it, even if that resolve was at least forty issues later when another writer took over (and after fans made pointedly clear that was the line for them). Sonic and Sally wouldn't even interact AT ALL for about twenty issues following this case, such an overhaul of plot points happen keeping them separate, Sonic supposedly spends the whole time thinking Sally still hates his guts. I get this is how it sometimes happens in real life, that sometimes people just cool down and return to normal instead of making this big fanfared apology and make-up, but I feel this might have played into people thinking Penders/Bollers era Sally was a "bitch", since her conflicts were so badly done.

Pretty much. Having a simplistic approach to storytelling isn't a bad thing, so long as you are able to flesh it out. A lot of iconic characters are known for some key defining traits or quirks for example, it's just that the writers know how to branch those out into all sorts of different sub traits and deliver circumstances that express them in different ways. Sonic's 'attitude' for example can be depicted in multiple different ways. The SOJ depictions tend to favour depicting that as making him the cool headed free spirit who takes things as they go and delivers wisdom as he goes along, while the SOA depictions tend to depict it as a more impetuous overconfident rebel who can sometimes be reckless and arrogant. We've seen glimpses of BOTH in the games really (compare the Storybooks Sonic to Lost Worlds for example) and I think because of that, in spite of questionable writing, I can't consider the main depiction of Sonic one note, they have to some level shown the many facets his seemingly simplistic set of traits can embody, both in terms of fundamental strengths and flaws, even if they maybe could do a better job making that feel like one consistent character sometimes. I think this is something to consider in terms of fleshing out the cast, that one trait can actually represent many depending on storytelling and circumstance.

I get that. There are many times I've seen a character used in a way I didn't expect and thought it was impressively done. The thing though, I didn't feel that was what happened with Sally. She was in fact in many ways the same character with the same issues, worsened in fact. Spark of Life was a key case of them being ignorant to the same writing flaws with her, to the point that even her current foil getting developed into her role properly didn't click them what was off with her. It wasn't Sally not having those traits anymore, they were still in denial that she still DID. Sally was still the perennial 'designated' straight man and enabled pontificating hypocrite, just now even worse. Reboot Sally to me didn't really feel like a new direction for the character as much as the same jumbled jigsaw with even more pieces messed up. If this writing issue is just forever stuck to her with even more cohesive writers and story tellers, imagine how it could end up in the games. Imagine Sally's designated hero status being translated in an even more slapdash story. Hell take away the aforementioned nuance and you risk having a snide sanctimonious ass who always wins every argument undeserved and makes every other character look dumb.