Sonic-related pet peeves?

[Dr. Crusher]

Speaking of serious threats (?), one thing that has always bothered me are the people who throw a fit over the name "Eggman" because it doesn't sound serious enough, and that Robotnik wasn't a goofball in the original games.

Yeah, that's a serious villain if I ever saw one.

While not always, this is often because these fans were the same ones who know SatAM Robotnik the best and/or hold him in a high regard, ergo, Julian = "Robotnik", whereas the so-called buffoon = "Eggman".

Incidentally, that's another reason why I never liked Julian.

Edited November 19, 2012 by Dr. Crusher

[Mr. Taxi]

Speaking of serious threats (?), one thing that has always bothered me are the people who throw a fit over the name "Eggman" because it doesn't sound serious enough, and that Robotnik wasn't a goofball in the original games.

Yeah, that's a serious villain if I ever saw one.

Oh, I love this argument.

You know, it's not about the way Robotnik/Eggman acts. That hardly matters. He can be goofy and stupid and still make you want to disembowel him. It's about how he affects you, the player/viewer.

No matter how much this running animation may look silly: In-game, no matter how fast you are, you can't reach him. He's escaping. He's one of the most insanely stubborn villains. It's not said, it's not anywhere - it's how you feel about it. Sonic 2's ending sequence is a Xanatos Speedchess and so is Sonic 3 & Knuckles' ending sequence. He always has one extra resource, he'll try to run away no matter what.

This is much more serious than a laser beam that hypnotizes Tails for 30 seconds and then his most recent ultimate cannon of doom explodes before Sonic even gets to know about it. It's not about how Eggman is, but about what he does to you.

Serious or not, just the fact that the classic games can make you hate him just because he laughs when he hits you means much more than any dark or serious plot.

Edited November 19, 2012 by Palas

[Spin Attaxx]

Even wierder: "American" Robotnik has a nose for a head. Did the artist who came up with that design seriously think kids would be retarded enough to think the Robotnik in the games looks exactly like the one in the cartoons and comics?!

Serious or not, just the fact that the classic games can make you hate him just because he laughs when he hits you means much more than any dark or serious plot.

I know - I play a classic Sonic game, I get hit, he laughs, I think "oh you son of a bitch".

Edited November 20, 2012 by Spin Attaxx

[SenEDDtor Missile]

Even weirder: "American" Robotnik has a nose for a head. Did the artist who came up with that design seriously think kids would be retarded enough to think the Robotnik in the games looks exactly like the one in the cartoons and comics?!

Honestly, His body shape in addition to that pointed head makes him look like a giant turd to me. Just saying.

[Dr. Crusher]

Made hilarious when Triple Trouble, a game with your standard Classic Robotnik, features AoStH Robotnik's face on the cover.

[Crackerss]

This is much more serious than a laser beam that hypnotizes Tails for 30 seconds and then his most recent ultimate cannon of doom explodes before Sonic even gets to know about it. It's not about how Eggman is, but about what he does to you.

AAAAH THANK YOU

He's still a threat, but that doesn't mean he's not also silly.

Even wierder: "American" Robotnik has a nose for a head. Did the artist who came up with that design seriously think kids would be redarded enough to think the Robotnik in the games looks exactly like the one in the cartoons and comics?!

MY GOD

[Mr. Taxi]

AAAAH THANK YOU

He's still a threat, but that doesn't mean he's not also silly.

Yes. When people complain about Eggman's newfound silliness, that's what they are most likely talking about. Sure, there is the extreme of people who'd think the villain is ruined forever because of the name, but the majorty probably projected all of the major changes onto the most recognizable and in-your-face change - the name.

It's the same with the green eyes. It has become a common joke to say that complaining about green eyes is hysteric, but once you go deeper into it, you'll see the green eyes are just the scapegoat for something much bigger.

EDIT: Look at Kefka. He's probably the most goofy villain in Final Fantasy and yet, he's by far the most evil.

Edited November 19, 2012 by Palas

[Dr. Homem]

Robotnik is a complicated character, with aspects of good to accent his blatantly evil status as a villain. Well, Eggman was always goofy. From his blackened face as his Eggmobile explodes to his comedy run from Sonic or stomping up and down in a huff when you get all the Emeralds.

However I don't see why a character can't have a duality of goofyness and seriousness. Eggman has no qualms against rampant destruction if it proves to be beneficial to his world conquest. Does that make him any less goofy? No. Robotnik still managed to put together giant armadas, build deadly space stations, split the entire planet into multiple pieces, chain multiple planets, suck the energy of a race of aliens and even launch a giant missile in a heavily populated city.

Yet he's as comical as ever.

[Crackerss]

As far as I'm concerned, it's better that way. Remember how boring Black Doom was?

[Dr. Crusher]

And Mephiles.

I don't care how hammy he was, half-assed discussions about humans comes second to gleeful alien genocide.

[Kuzu]

And Mephiles.

I don't care how hammy he was, half-assed discussions about humans comes second to gleeful alien genocide.

Look, overly complicated plans and shadow recolor aside, I don't see much wrong with a villain like Mephiles.

I mean I get he is, like everything in 06, is terribly written but I get the feeling people just hate him simply because he's not Eggman.

[Blue Blood]

Look, overly complicated plans and shadow recolor aside, I don't see much wrong with a villain like Mephiles.

I mean I get he is, like everything in 06, is terribly written but I get the feeling people just hate him simply because he's not Eggman.

Eh, as a villain he doesn't even have any sort of motivation. Black Doom wanted to secure Earth for his own, Eggman wants world domination, Erazor was trying to escape the storybook, Merlina was doing it for the greater good. Mephiles wanted to become Solaris so he could... well, the only explanation is so he could have a dimension of breakfast.

[Semi-colon e]

I loved the way he acted and how he tried to corrupt Shadow to do evil (which would have worked better in the Shadow game!) but yeah the lack of motivation was a killer. It was also never explained why Solaris is evil or why he existed.

Mephiles I guess is meant to be pretty close to Agent Smith from the Matrix.

[Multikaris]

Eh, as a villain he doesn't even have any sort of motivation. Black Doom wanted to secure Earth for his own, Eggman wants world domination, Erazor was trying to escape the storybook, Merlina was doing it for the greater good. Mephiles wanted to become Solaris so he could... well, the only explanation is so he could have a dimension of breakfast.

Fang wanted money, Jet wanted money...

[Kuzu]

Eh, as a villain he doesn't even have any sort of motivation. Black Doom wanted to secure Earth for his own, Eggman wants world domination, Erazor was trying to escape the storybook, Merlina was doing it for the greater good. Mephiles wanted to become Solaris so he could... well, the only explanation is so he could have a dimension of breakfast.

Destroying time and space itself sounds like a pretty reasonable goal........well for someone like him anyway. Who's to say that being the consciousness of Solaris, he wasn't pissed in how humanity experimented on him, and wanted revenge because of it.

I dunno, that's just off the top of my head.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Doing it for the evulz isn't always the best way to make a villain's goal. Not saying it can't be done, but Mephilies is one of the very characters where this doesn't benefit him.

[Dr. Homem]

Maybe he just wanted complete oblivion; he wanted a void beyond life and death where he could be alone. I'm not defending 2006's writing but that wouldn't be too unreasonable for a being like him.

[Dr. Crusher]

Look, overly complicated plans and shadow recolor aside, I don't see much wrong with a villain like Mephiles.

I mean I get he is, like everything in 06, is terribly written but I get the feeling people just hate him simply because he's not Eggman.

First off, when it comes to my own viewpoint, that would only be true if Robotnik was the only Sonic villain I liked. And while I do go on and on about him, I've said many times before that I like Erazor, Merlina, and even Imperator Ix. And on top of that, I like Black Doom for how hilariously bad he is, as opposed to Mephiles, who is just bad full stop.

His design annoys me of course, because with a design like that in an official game, you're essentially giving the thumbs up to rubbish fancharacters, and it really upsets me on how the few good ones I've seen are constantly overshadowed by many a "Mephiles 2" or "Mephiles' girlfriend" or some shit like that. He's to the games what Scourge is to the comics, but even worse, which is an astonishing feat.

His design also makes his tricking of Silver ridiculous. Disregarding the subsequent times, I could at least understand why Knuckles fell for Robotnik since he seems like a fairly eccentric but harmless old man, a Willy Wonka only with robots if you will. But Mephiles? With his dark colours, deep voice, snake-like eyes, lack of mouth, and other features of the card carrying kind? It just makes Silver look like an idiot, with or without his "naivety".

Second, I don't like how he's consistently given a free pass unlike the rest of 06. Even the game's haters usually say something about Mephiles being a decent enough villain, not looking past his admittedly nice evil laughter and "manipulative personality" and realising what a fucking moron he really is. Doubly so when our very own Robotnik - or similar villains like Bowser or Wily - are thrown the usual potshots for their mishaps yet Mephiles is hailed as the next Ganondorf or Sephiroth. Bah.

Thirdly, yes, he's the one who killed Sonic. And no, that didn't annoy me just because "Eggman didn't get to do it" (...although that did contribute to it, ho ho ho). Even if it wasn't him, it should have still been someone we know like Metal Sonic, and not the cool new superpowerful demon, one that barely interacted at all with Sonic no less. Although I'm of the opinion that Sonic shouldn't have died anyways, so whatever.

But the primary thing is mainly that he just doesn't deserve all the credit he gets. Even if he is "a shining moment in a shit game" or whatever else, that's no excuse for a bad character.

Edited November 20, 2012 by Dr. Crusher

[Sega DogTagz]

Mephilies does have some motivation. I think you guys are selling him a little bit short by looking at him as a stand-alone character. In actuality, we all know Mephi is simply a half of a whole. He was clearly incomplete without Iblis, making reuniting with his other half one of his many priorities.

And we all know about the revenge plot against Shadow, so I don't even need to touch that.

He's not quite as flat as you guys are describing. He wasn't dooming the world simply because he was evil. It was more or less a byproduct of his reunion with his other half. With a splash of homicidal paint to go with it. Nothing wrong with enjoying the ride.

But Mephiles? With his dark colours, deep voice, snake-like eyes, lack of mouth, and other features of the card carrying kind? It just makes Silver look like an idiot, with or without his "naivety".

I don't particularly like that look on Silver either... but we do have to remember that SIlver must have been INCREDIBLY desperate. As menacing as Mephi looks, he did have a possible solution to a world filled with Nightmares. If you were forced to grow up in such a world, you might be willing to bend your better judgement in such a situation too.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

So Mephilies killed Sonic. Big whoop. Can he do that to Super Sonic?

Your thoughts Eggman? Eggman: "Nope.avi"

So aside from the Sonic 06 conversations, a pet-peeve of mine is about Chronicles. It's a question of whether people praised the Sonic characters in the game for being well written, or just because Bioware worked on them. I'm not saying that Bioware can't make some good characters considering how they've done Mass Effect, but considering the continuity errors in Chronicles, I'm wondering if people were only saying good things about it at the time was because of Bioware name being involved on the game.

[Vertekins]

So aside from the Sonic 06 conversations, a pet-peeve of mine is about Chronicles. It's a question of whether people praised the Sonic characters in the game for being well written, or just because Bioware worked on them. I'm not saying that Bioware can't make some good characters considering how they've done Mass Effect, but considering the continuity errors in Chronicles, I'm wondering if people were only saying good things about it at the time was because of Bioware name being involved on the game.

I've wondered the exact same thing. But then I've heard rumours that they and/or EA bribed reviewers to give the game shining reviews. It's either that or Bioware-bias, as it's blatantly obvious that Chronicles is far from a competent game in every area.

Heck, I even remember back when it was revealed that Bioware were making a Sonic game on this very site's news page back in about 2007 I believe. I can recall quite a few commenters stating that they had full confidence that they would show-up Sonic Team. Oh how very mistaken they were.

[Blue Blood]

How very mistaken we were indeed. Thing is, Bioware had a solid track record of delivering great gameplay and great stories. Chronicles was nothing short of shocker when it failed miserably on just about every front there was. All that said, the EA buyout of Bioware happened while Chronicles was in production and can't have helped things- the special Chao distribution method was totally scrapped and replaced with passwords for the eventual Japanese release; there's several screenshots showing cut items/objects (same scan also has some questionable plot details) and there's the whole issue regarding the music apparently being changed last minute. The final game uses MIDIs found on vgmusic.com.

Much of Chronicles was a disaster waiting to happen, but I have to wonder about what could have been. And to date I'd still like to see a sequel on some level.

[WarioBone]

What truly doomed Chronicles, though, was the removal of the planned Metal Sonic boss fight mentioned in an early Nintendo Power review.

Edited November 20, 2012 by Wario wants a damn WiiU

[Kuzu]

Holy ass studying is balls.

His design annoys me of course, because with a design like that in an official game, you're essentially giving the thumbs up to rubbish fancharacters, and it really upsets me on how the few good ones I've seen are constantly overshadowed by many a "Mephiles 2" or "Mephiles' girlfriend" or some shit like that. He's to the games what Scourge is to the comics, but even worse, which is an astonishing feat.

First off this is generalizing to the nth degree, not every fancharacter based on an existing character is automatically some shitty caricature or "Mephiles girlfriend". And it's not like Mephiles` form is some arbitrary design choice, it's a story related plot point, and it connects Mephiles to Shadow. Secondly, the entire concept of Mephiles is no more of a "some shitty fancharacter" than Shadow was to Sonic, or Wario is to Mario, or Venom to Spider-man. I did say his execution was poor, but the saying that a fan character based on an existing species is automatically a shitty recolor that deserves to hated is just being petty.

His design also makes his tricking of Silver ridiculous. Disregarding the subsequent times, I could at least understand why Knuckles fell for Robotnik since he seems like a fairly eccentric but harmless old man, a Willy Wonka only with robots if you will. But Mephiles? With his dark colours, deep voice, snake-like eyes, lack of mouth, and other features of the card carrying kind? It just makes Silver look like an idiot, with or without his "naivety".

Who's to say Silver wasn't desperate for a way to fix his future? If some guy came up to me and told me I had a chance to fix my fucked up world, I'd probably ignore appearances too.

Second, I don't like how he's consistently given a free pass unlike the rest of 06.

I did say he's just as shit as everything else in 06, did I not.

Even the game's haters usually say something about Mephiles being a decent enough villain, not looking past his admittedly nice evil laughter and "manipulative personality" and realising what a fucking moron he really is. Doubly so when our very own Robotnik - or similar villains like Bowser or Wily - are thrown the usual potshots for their mishaps yet Mephiles is hailed as the next Ganondorf or Sephiroth. Bah.

Just like how people love Robotnik for his eccentric personality, people are going to love something about a character they like too. Yes, Mephiles is a moron, but that doesn't automatically mean everyone has to hate him with the same amount of passion that you do, just like how Eggman has his faults too. And this really boils down to you getting upset over an opinion that opposes yours.

Thirdly, yes, he's the one who killed Sonic. And no, that didn't annoy me just because "Eggman didn't get to do it" (...although that did contribute to it, ho ho ho). Even if it wasn't him, it should have still been someone we know like Metal Sonic, and not the cool new superpowerful demon, one that barely interacted at all with Sonic no less. Although I'm of the opinion that Sonic shouldn't have died anyways, so whatever.

Yes, Mephiles could have interacted with Sonic more and that made his death feel cheap but, how is a villain supposed to establish himself if he isn't allowed to touch the main hero? Sounds like the setup for a pretty shitty villain if he's barred from even harming Sonic.

But the primary thing is mainly that he just doesn't deserve all the credit he gets

Neither does Metal Sonic, but apparently he's better suited to kill Sonic despite doing less effective villainy than Mephiles.

[Multikaris]

Speaking of Silver, why does nobody but me want him to go back to being a knight Templar again?