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[Your Vest Friend]

Copy-pasta because I've got a theory again. At least this time it'd be an unpopular one for people who want the scrapped characters to come back; I theorised the date and cause of their scraps.

When and Why The Scrapped Characters Were Scapped: The Theory

So Take Me Back In Time

So a couple of weeks back, I made my timeline of Chaotix creation and sort of put the time the scrapped cast was…well, scrapped as 1998 because I didn’t know where else to put them so eh. But then that Japanese book came to my door, and signs that Bean and Bark had been resigned to the scrapheap showed as early as the time of Fighters Megamix, in December 1996. I was curious, so I went back and tried to mull over what happened in 1996 that might have prompted this. So, with that in mind, I’m going back to an infamous time many people know the story of…but with a different perspective in mind. Hold on tight, because this theory is quite extensive.

Between 1993 (when the first of the scrappees showed up) and early 1996, the character scene was pretty much a free-for-all. Whenever other companies got a hold of Sonic, they’d make their own characters with their own designers and then just let them loose to do whatever. While many stayed in the one game they were designed for, it meant that non-Sonic Team characters could turn up whenever developers felt they could use them. So AM3’s Mighty was free to be carried over to SEGA Enterprise’s Chaotix where Kusonoki was put on the project, and Touma’s Fang the Sniper was passed from Aspect to their different later games to AM2 to even SEGA Technical Institute. Yep, things were pretty chill back then. The only thing none of those characters ever did was cross over to an actual Sonic Team game, but they still kicked around. And then SEGA Technical Institute got into a spot of bother.

Things Go Extremely South

You probably know this bit by now, but bear with me.

After the success of Sonic and Knuckles, different teams of SEGA were put onto different projects. SEGA Enterprise (aka the half of Sonic Team that stayed in Japan back in 1992) were assigned to making a title for the 32X, which eventually resulted in Chaotix in March 1995. The half of Sonic Team that had moved over to America to work in SEGA Technical Institute in 1992 moved back to Japan and got to work on a project of their own imagination, this resulting in NiGHTS into Dreams. The remaining American part of STI were assigned the biggest project; develop a game for the MegaDrive/32X/Saturn, one that would follow in Sonic & Knuckles wake (and one that could stand up to Super Mario 64 and Crash Bandicoot, in the later stages).

To say that it went completely balls up for STI would be an understatement. From the start it was plagued with internal disagreements and development hell, and even Naka wasn’t impressed by the initial game pitch they decided on. To sum it up, every stage had some sort of issue with it, from deciding the platform to making the story to even porting it (especially porting it). Staff were rotated in and out of roles, builds were scrapped over and over again…and this is all without Sonic Team even entering the story.

It all came to a head in April 1996. A month before, a progress presentation to SEGA had gone so disastrously wrong that they were left basically at square one again. The story goes that, at some point in that April, Naka’s NiGHTS engine was borrowed by STI after this due to the team not having the development tools to make the Christmas deadline. Whether a straight rip, or using it to develop their own stuff, or doing something that was merely similar to it, Naka was apparently none too pleased about his hard work being effectively nicked. So much so that he threatened to quit if they didn’t stop using it. That was enough to get them to leave that engine out of it, wasting two weeks of development.

But the point is that Sonic Team’s trust of STI and SoA in general would have been severely hurt by this (especially when everyone was there working on NiGHTS before its release in February 1996, including Ohshima and Hoshino being pulled off Chaotix for this, Iizuka having a key role, and Nobuhiko Honda popping up years before his notable contribution to Sonic in Heroes), compounding the existing rivalry between the Japanese and American parts of SEGA.

To note, Sonic the Fighters came out not long after this in May 1995. Bean and Bark were the last characters of the classic era not made by a Sonic Team designer, the person responsible being Masahiro Sugiyama. In fact, only two Sonic games after this would have non-ST designed characters; Sonic Shuffle and Sonic Chronicles. Both are not referenced in the present day even when other post-Adventure games are.

Meanwhile in Crumpetland SSMBland in this Edition

Sonic X-Treme isn’t the only side of coin that we can look at. After all, NiGHTS was released in February 1996. What were Sonic Team doing after that, twiddling their thumbs until Iizuka proposed the idea of a Sonic RPG which would eventually become Sonic Adventure over two years later? Actually, they were pretty busy. For that year, they worked with NiGHTS again to create Christmas NiGHTS, a special version of the game which changed based on the time of year (and had a Sonic in NiGHTS mode, ironically enough). Burning Rangers was also becoming an idea during 1996.

But perhaps the weirdest part of all is what they did with Sonic that year before Adventure work started. You may have heard of Sonic 3D: Flickies’ Island (or 3D Blast for some parts). In the end, this game acted as the back-up when Sonic X-Treme fell through. At first this seems entirely off the point since everyone knows it was developed by Traveller’s Tales. However, that statement doesn’t entirely paint the reality; the game was actually conceived in its initial stages by Sonic Team! This actually makes sense when you consider that the entire premise of the game is a love letter to a 1984 game designed by Yoji Ishii (a producer on Flickies’ Island and Sonic R as well…hmm), something which Traveller’s Tales were likely not privy to. They were there to make the game itself, and make it quick. In fact, it’s been noted that Sonic Team were impressed by how they proved they could fully port a game to the SEGA Saturn in just seven weeks (remember that X-Treme could barely do this in two years), which was a bonus since that meant there was at least somethingSonic-related for that Christmas on the Saturn.

The point is, the turnaround was fast on this one, and likely started after it became obvious that Sonic X-Treme was never going to make the deadline. However, Flickies’ Island is also significant in another way; this marked the first Sonic game where the named developer actually had very little control over the initial ideas process, which was instead handled by Sonic Team themselves. This continued with the other game Traveller’s Tales developed, Sonic R. Despite the fact that Sonic Adventure was well under way at this point (as proven by the Sonic Jam overworld, which was a work in progress sandbox for development ideas), they still found the time to conceptualise the basic groundwork for that very small racing game. Once again, Traveller’s Tale didn’t really have much creative control aside from making the actual game. Instead, Sonic Team handled the process of ideas, and Traveller’s Tales just made the game. So, when it comes to the development of the classic games, Traveller’s Tales’ output was unique compared to everything prior.

The Aftermath

Things definitely changed once Sonic Adventure hit the market. In the classic era, Sonic Team staff actually only had a direct hand in making about seven games out of twenty eight released. After that, only a handful of games weren’t made without their input, and those are never referenced in the games regardless of circumstances (which doesn’t matter too much for the likes of the SEGA All-Stars series or the mobile games, but noticeable for Sonic Shuffle and Sonic Chronicles). It also means that while there are plenty of games leased out to other companies to develop, none of them have that much control over the big ideas nowadays. To wit, games that come under this umbrella are the Sonic Advance series, the Sonic Rush series, the Sonic Rivals series, the Sonic Riders series, Sonic 4, and even the Sonic Boom side series (because Sticks was designed by Yuji Uekawa as well. That’s why she fits in better with the Sonic characters better than most of the generically designed characters).

This streamlining means that a lot more games are likely to get referenced in newer games. Whether through the costumes of the Mario and Sonic series, through off-hand comments by other characters in later games or even through playable cameos in mainline games for the promotion of their currently on-going side branch. That said, Sonic Boom having a character designed by a Sonic Team person seems more like a recent streamlining effort; no such thing happened for Sonic X, despite them creating the concept and even having some producer roles on it. Like the Western cartoons that came before it, Sonic X is now no longer recognised as part of the series image and has its own share of legal bugs (unique to it alone since none of the games have this) that  prevents new material being made of it or the tie-in comic being allowed to be reprinted. All that said, there are some assets from games they won’t use characters from that are used in other places, most prominently music from non-Sonic Team games being used in games like Sonic Generations. Of course, it helps that the music is often made by SEGA mainstays as well (as an example Howard Drossin, Toxic Caves music composer, also did some incidental music in Sonic and Knuckles, and got thanks in Sonic 3).

What This Meant for the Characters

For the characters that came after Sonic X-Treme and Sonic 3D: Flickies’ Island, pretty much every character was either made for a Sonic Team game anyway or made by Sonic Team for games that would be developed by other developers. So this covers such characters as Cream, Emerl, Blaze, Eggman Nega, Marine, the Babylon Rogues and the aforementioned Sticks. In fact, Cream’s an interesting application; she was actually made for Sonic Heroes, a Sonic Team game, but because they had that control over games by other developers they had the freedom to put her in Sonic Advance 2 with ease. It’s also interesting to note that every one of these was designed by Yuji Uekawa, while the Sonic Team games don’t necessarily have him exclusively (so while Uekawa did Adventure, Hoshino handled Shadow in Adventure 2 (although Uekawa is also credited, so he likely handled Rouge), Nobuhiko Honda was responsible for Omega, and a team that didn’t have Uekawa designed Silver, although primary credit probably falls to Yoshinari Amaike).

This idea of Sonic Team handling the character designing for other developers started slightly before Adventure though; Sonic R introduced three playable characters new to the character roster. One was an EggRobo which was an enemy in Sonic and Knuckles, but Metal Knuckles and Tails Doll were developed for the game. Like the games that would follow, Yuji Uekawa was the character designer instead of anyone on the development team. At the time it was the odd one out, but after the classic era it just kickstarted the norm. While they didn’t return formally, it seems their designs and concepts were adapted elsewhere (Tails Doll was used for the dummy dolls Gamma shot in Adventure, and Metal Knuckles likely wasn’t used because they’d later establish that Metal Sonic was unique instead of being yet another robot model in a series. That said, a Mecha Knuckles was made in its wake for Advance, as the Mecha line are more disposable, with at least three Mecha Sonics existing, one cameoing in Adventure).

Any non-Sonic Team character older than that has just been outright dumped. On December 21st  1996, Fighters Megamix was released, which had Bean and Bark as playable characters. And the official material for that game was allowed to make their own stats for the characters, despite the official guides for the “official” Sonic characters having been established at that point (as shown with Sonic Jam’s profiles, the game being released June 1997), which the Megamix ones contradicted in terms of how stats are done. So at that point Sonic Team seem to have completely disinterested in keeping them consistent with their work since they’d made up their minds on not using them. They haven’t stopped old assets of them appearing in games (like Sonic Gems Collection), nor have they stopped fans making fanart of them for competitions or their website section (a picture of Fang made it on Sonic Channel just last month). They even let AM2 keep using the characters they made for Fighters Megamix and Virtua Striker 2, let Honey be re-implemented in the StF 2012 release, let the StF models cameo in Shenmue and Wreck-It Ralph, and let Touma keep using the Fang design as a base for other works he did. But actually having new content for them in the games, or reintroducing the characters into the current continuity? They’re not interested, because of that distrust that peaked with Sonic X-Treme’s failure.

It’s arguably worse for those two examples developed after Adventure, in all honesty. Sonic Shuffle and Sonic Chronicles made their own villains and heroes (notably Lumina and Void for the former, Shade and Ix for the latter). Not only is new content not made for those characters, those characters’ old assets haven’t even appeared in other Sonic games as references. The Nocturne place made a tiny cameo in Mario and Sonic at the Winter Olympic Games as part of the Dream Bobsleigh stage (although most of that stage was the Heroes special stage), but that was likely because Sonic Chronicles had only come out in Japan about two months beforehand so acted as a means of promoting the game there. Otherwise, not a peep from them, even in little art gallery features that cover most of the franchise like Sonic Tweet or the Sonic Rivals card galleries. And while there was a Sonic Chronicles tie-in done way back in Archie’s Sonic #191, the only peep either of these games have made in-continuity is a cameo of Void in Sonic Universe #29, which was also a good while ago. They aren’t integrated into the continuity as regular characters, so they can’t even fall back on alternate media for new appearances. But still, even if Chronicles wasn’t in legal hot water, Sonic Team would not be utilising either games’ characters now.

And it really doesn’t seem to be something that’s based on targeting individuals, and certainly nothing to do with creator’s copyrights barring Sonic Team from using them. Manabu Kusonoki, designer for Mighty and Ray, worked pretty closely with Hoshino and Ohshima on Chaotix, so there wouldn’t have been bad blood there. And the Battle Kukku Empire from Tails Adventure were designed by either Shinichi Higashi or Nobuhiko Honda, both of whom would become Sonic Team staff after that game released (Honda being mentioned before as Omega’s character designer). So it really does seem that it was more about Sonic Team wanting to “keep it in the family” due to the utter failure of SEGA Technical Institute in making the Saturn’s killer app, rather than any ill will towards those who worked on those non-Sonic Team games. Oh yeah, and if they do want to keep it within Sonic Team, there’s no way they’d bring in characters from other media that weren’t designed by themselves (so yeah, Archie characters have literally no hope if even the Battle Kukku crew don’t).

Essentially, according to this theory, the scrapped characters “died” when Sonic X-Treme did. Chris Coffin came down with pneumonia in August 1996, which cancelled the game for good as there was no-one left to work on the project. So they were scrapped 20 years to this month.

Happy anniversary, guys.

[Agie]

I'm definitely looking forward to Sonic Mania, don't get me wrong...but for me, the announcement could not have come at a more inconvinient time if it tried.

Admittedly, the thing that got me mostly soured on Sega was unrelated to Sonic, and even now, I'm still much more protective of my cash than I was before it.

So needless to say, Sonic Mania, for me, is a victim of circumstance where it came at the absolute worst time it could have, and that alone makes me kinda sad, since it really does look like the team behind it actually knows what they're doing.

This isn't a jab against the game itself, and perhaps if it weren't for that blunder, I'd say they picked a great time. But given in my (admittedly demented) bitterness, I guess my judgement is clouded.

I merely speak for myself when posting this. And most others seem to disagree, so hey.

[Shadowlax]

On 8/24/2016 at 3:59 AM, E-122-Psi said:

I think Ian is a bit too intent on 'redeeming' characters he thought were seen as jerks by the fan base. Amy suffers in chemistries in particular, treating her as super happy girlfriends with Sally and normally pleasant with Knuckles (probably to debunk her being a jealous maniac to Sally or a domineering bully to Knuckles like she was in X). The problem is that no conflict means no funny chemistry or personality can seep through. They could have just made it a more vitriolic friendship where Amy butted heads while still having caring moments, thus Amy keeps her slightly bratty, argumentative side without looking like a perpetual bitch about it.

Eh I think you can develop interesting relationships just with  characters not hating eachother for dumb reasons.

[Tailsthebadass]

ray and mighty should come back

[Multikaris]

On 8/29/2016 at 3:19 PM, VEDJ-F said:

Copy-pasta because I've got a theory again. At least this time it'd be an unpopular one for people who want the scrapped characters to come back; I theorised the date and cause of their scraps.

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

When and Why The Scrapped Characters Were Scapped: The Theory

So Take Me Back In Time

So a couple of weeks back, I made my timeline of Chaotix creation and sort of put the time the scrapped cast was…well, scrapped as 1998 because I didn’t know where else to put them so eh. But then that Japanese book came to my door, and signs that Bean and Bark had been resigned to the scrapheap showed as early as the time of Fighters Megamix, in December 1996. I was curious, so I went back and tried to mull over what happened in 1996 that might have prompted this. So, with that in mind, I’m going back to an infamous time many people know the story of…but with a different perspective in mind. Hold on tight, because this theory is quite extensive.

Between 1993 (when the first of the scrappees showed up) and early 1996, the character scene was pretty much a free-for-all. Whenever other companies got a hold of Sonic, they’d make their own characters with their own designers and then just let them loose to do whatever. While many stayed in the one game they were designed for, it meant that non-Sonic Team characters could turn up whenever developers felt they could use them. So AM3’s Mighty was free to be carried over to SEGA Enterprise’s Chaotix where Kusonoki was put on the project, and Touma’s Fang the Sniper was passed from Aspect to their different later games to AM2 to even SEGA Technical Institute. Yep, things were pretty chill back then. The only thing none of those characters ever did was cross over to an actual Sonic Team game, but they still kicked around. And then SEGA Technical Institute got into a spot of bother.

Things Go Extremely South

You probably know this bit by now, but bear with me.

After the success of Sonic and Knuckles, different teams of SEGA were put onto different projects. SEGA Enterprise (aka the half of Sonic Team that stayed in Japan back in 1992) were assigned to making a title for the 32X, which eventually resulted in Chaotix in March 1995. The half of Sonic Team that had moved over to America to work in SEGA Technical Institute in 1992 moved back to Japan and got to work on a project of their own imagination, this resulting in NiGHTS into Dreams. The remaining American part of STI were assigned the biggest project; develop a game for the MegaDrive/32X/Saturn, one that would follow in Sonic & Knuckles wake (and one that could stand up to Super Mario 64 and Crash Bandicoot, in the later stages).

To say that it went completely balls up for STI would be an understatement. From the start it was plagued with internal disagreements and development hell, and even Naka wasn’t impressed by the initial game pitch they decided on. To sum it up, every stage had some sort of issue with it, from deciding the platform to making the story to even porting it (especially porting it). Staff were rotated in and out of roles, builds were scrapped over and over again…and this is all without Sonic Team even entering the story.

It all came to a head in April 1996. A month before, a progress presentation to SEGA had gone so disastrously wrong that they were left basically at square one again. The story goes that, at some point in that April, Naka’s NiGHTS engine was borrowed by STI after this due to the team not having the development tools to make the Christmas deadline. Whether a straight rip, or using it to develop their own stuff, or doing something that was merely similar to it, Naka was apparently none too pleased about his hard work being effectively nicked. So much so that he threatened to quit if they didn’t stop using it. That was enough to get them to leave that engine out of it, wasting two weeks of development.

But the point is that Sonic Team’s trust of STI and SoA in general would have been severely hurt by this (especially when everyone was there working on NiGHTS before its release in February 1996, including Ohshima and Hoshino being pulled off Chaotix for this, Iizuka having a key role, and Nobuhiko Honda popping up years before his notable contribution to Sonic in Heroes), compounding the existing rivalry between the Japanese and American parts of SEGA.

To note, Sonic the Fighters came out not long after this in May 1995. Bean and Bark were the last characters of the classic era not made by a Sonic Team designer, the person responsible being Masahiro Sugiyama. In fact, only two Sonic games after this would have non-ST designed characters; Sonic Shuffle and Sonic Chronicles. Both are not referenced in the present day even when other post-Adventure games are.

Meanwhile in Crumpetland SSMBland in this Edition

Sonic X-Treme isn’t the only side of coin that we can look at. After all, NiGHTS was released in February 1996. What were Sonic Team doing after that, twiddling their thumbs until Iizuka proposed the idea of a Sonic RPG which would eventually become Sonic Adventure over two years later? Actually, they were pretty busy. For that year, they worked with NiGHTS again to create Christmas NiGHTS, a special version of the game which changed based on the time of year (and had a Sonic in NiGHTS mode, ironically enough). Burning Rangers was also becoming an idea during 1996.

But perhaps the weirdest part of all is what they did with Sonic that year before Adventure work started. You may have heard of Sonic 3D: Flickies’ Island (or 3D Blast for some parts). In the end, this game acted as the back-up when Sonic X-Treme fell through. At first this seems entirely off the point since everyone knows it was developed by Traveller’s Tales. However, that statement doesn’t entirely paint the reality; the game was actually conceived in its initial stages by Sonic Team! This actually makes sense when you consider that the entire premise of the game is a love letter to a 1984 game designed by Yoji Ishii (a producer on Flickies’ Island and Sonic R as well…hmm), something which Traveller’s Tales were likely not privy to. They were there to make the game itself, and make it quick. In fact, it’s been noted that Sonic Team were impressed by how they proved they could fully port a game to the SEGA Saturn in just seven weeks (remember that X-Treme could barely do this in two years), which was a bonus since that meant there was at least somethingSonic-related for that Christmas on the Saturn.

The point is, the turnaround was fast on this one, and likely started after it became obvious that Sonic X-Treme was never going to make the deadline. However, Flickies’ Island is also significant in another way; this marked the first Sonic game where the named developer actually had very little control over the initial ideas process, which was instead handled by Sonic Team themselves. This continued with the other game Traveller’s Tales developed, Sonic R. Despite the fact that Sonic Adventure was well under way at this point (as proven by the Sonic Jam overworld, which was a work in progress sandbox for development ideas), they still found the time to conceptualise the basic groundwork for that very small racing game. Once again, Traveller’s Tale didn’t really have much creative control aside from making the actual game. Instead, Sonic Team handled the process of ideas, and Traveller’s Tales just made the game. So, when it comes to the development of the classic games, Traveller’s Tales’ output was unique compared to everything prior.

The Aftermath

Things definitely changed once Sonic Adventure hit the market. In the classic era, Sonic Team staff actually only had a direct hand in making about seven games out of twenty eight released. After that, only a handful of games weren’t made without their input, and those are never referenced in the games regardless of circumstances (which doesn’t matter too much for the likes of the SEGA All-Stars series or the mobile games, but noticeable for Sonic Shuffle and Sonic Chronicles). It also means that while there are plenty of games leased out to other companies to develop, none of them have that much control over the big ideas nowadays. To wit, games that come under this umbrella are the Sonic Advance series, the Sonic Rush series, the Sonic Rivals series, the Sonic Riders series, Sonic 4, and even the Sonic Boom side series (because Sticks was designed by Yuji Uekawa as well. That’s why she fits in better with the Sonic characters better than most of the generically designed characters).

This streamlining means that a lot more games are likely to get referenced in newer games. Whether through the costumes of the Mario and Sonic series, through off-hand comments by other characters in later games or even through playable cameos in mainline games for the promotion of their currently on-going side branch. That said, Sonic Boom having a character designed by a Sonic Team person seems more like a recent streamlining effort; no such thing happened for Sonic X, despite them creating the concept and even having some producer roles on it. Like the Western cartoons that came before it, Sonic X is now no longer recognised as part of the series image and has its own share of legal bugs (unique to it alone since none of the games have this) that  prevents new material being made of it or the tie-in comic being allowed to be reprinted. All that said, there are some assets from games they won’t use characters from that are used in other places, most prominently music from non-Sonic Team games being used in games like Sonic Generations. Of course, it helps that the music is often made by SEGA mainstays as well (as an example Howard Drossin, Toxic Caves music composer, also did some incidental music in Sonic and Knuckles, and got thanks in Sonic 3).

What This Meant for the Characters

For the characters that came after Sonic X-Treme and Sonic 3D: Flickies’ Island, pretty much every character was either made for a Sonic Team game anyway or made by Sonic Team for games that would be developed by other developers. So this covers such characters as Cream, Emerl, Blaze, Eggman Nega, Marine, the Babylon Rogues and the aforementioned Sticks. In fact, Cream’s an interesting application; she was actually made for Sonic Heroes, a Sonic Team game, but because they had that control over games by other developers they had the freedom to put her in Sonic Advance 2 with ease. It’s also interesting to note that every one of these was designed by Yuji Uekawa, while the Sonic Team games don’t necessarily have him exclusively (so while Uekawa did Adventure, Hoshino handled Shadow in Adventure 2 (although Uekawa is also credited, so he likely handled Rouge), Nobuhiko Honda was responsible for Omega, and a team that didn’t have Uekawa designed Silver, although primary credit probably falls to Yoshinari Amaike).

This idea of Sonic Team handling the character designing for other developers started slightly before Adventure though; Sonic R introduced three playable characters new to the character roster. One was an EggRobo which was an enemy in Sonic and Knuckles, but Metal Knuckles and Tails Doll were developed for the game. Like the games that would follow, Yuji Uekawa was the character designer instead of anyone on the development team. At the time it was the odd one out, but after the classic era it just kickstarted the norm. While they didn’t return formally, it seems their designs and concepts were adapted elsewhere (Tails Doll was used for the dummy dolls Gamma shot in Adventure, and Metal Knuckles likely wasn’t used because they’d later establish that Metal Sonic was unique instead of being yet another robot model in a series. That said, a Mecha Knuckles was made in its wake for Advance, as the Mecha line are more disposable, with at least three Mecha Sonics existing, one cameoing in Adventure).

Any non-Sonic Team character older than that has just been outright dumped. On December 21st  1996, Fighters Megamix was released, which had Bean and Bark as playable characters. And the official material for that game was allowed to make their own stats for the characters, despite the official guides for the “official” Sonic characters having been established at that point (as shown with Sonic Jam’s profiles, the game being released June 1997), which the Megamix ones contradicted in terms of how stats are done. So at that point Sonic Team seem to have completely disinterested in keeping them consistent with their work since they’d made up their minds on not using them. They haven’t stopped old assets of them appearing in games (like Sonic Gems Collection), nor have they stopped fans making fanart of them for competitions or their website section (a picture of Fang made it on Sonic Channel just last month). They even let AM2 keep using the characters they made for Fighters Megamix and Virtua Striker 2, let Honey be re-implemented in the StF 2012 release, let the StF models cameo in Shenmue and Wreck-It Ralph, and let Touma keep using the Fang design as a base for other works he did. But actually having new content for them in the games, or reintroducing the characters into the current continuity? They’re not interested, because of that distrust that peaked with Sonic X-Treme’s failure.

It’s arguably worse for those two examples developed after Adventure, in all honesty. Sonic Shuffle and Sonic Chronicles made their own villains and heroes (notably Lumina and Void for the former, Shade and Ix for the latter). Not only is new content not made for those characters, those characters’ old assets haven’t even appeared in other Sonic games as references. The Nocturne place made a tiny cameo in Mario and Sonic at the Winter Olympic Games as part of the Dream Bobsleigh stage (although most of that stage was the Heroes special stage), but that was likely because Sonic Chronicles had only come out in Japan about two months beforehand so acted as a means of promoting the game there. Otherwise, not a peep from them, even in little art gallery features that cover most of the franchise like Sonic Tweet or the Sonic Rivals card galleries. And while there was a Sonic Chronicles tie-in done way back in Archie’s Sonic #191, the only peep either of these games have made in-continuity is a cameo of Void in Sonic Universe #29, which was also a good while ago. They aren’t integrated into the continuity as regular characters, so they can’t even fall back on alternate media for new appearances. But still, even if Chronicles wasn’t in legal hot water, Sonic Team would not be utilising either games’ characters now.

And it really doesn’t seem to be something that’s based on targeting individuals, and certainly nothing to do with creator’s copyrights barring Sonic Team from using them. Manabu Kusonoki, designer for Mighty and Ray, worked pretty closely with Hoshino and Ohshima on Chaotix, so there wouldn’t have been bad blood there. And the Battle Kukku Empire from Tails Adventure were designed by either Shinichi Higashi or Nobuhiko Honda, both of whom would become Sonic Team staff after that game released (Honda being mentioned before as Omega’s character designer). So it really does seem that it was more about Sonic Team wanting to “keep it in the family” due to the utter failure of SEGA Technical Institute in making the Saturn’s killer app, rather than any ill will towards those who worked on those non-Sonic Team games. Oh yeah, and if they do want to keep it within Sonic Team, there’s no way they’d bring in characters from other media that weren’t designed by themselves (so yeah, Archie characters have literally no hope if even the Battle Kukku crew don’t).

Essentially, according to this theory, the scrapped characters “died” when Sonic X-Treme did. Chris Coffin came down with pneumonia in August 1996, which cancelled the game for good as there was no-one left to work on the project. So they were scrapped 20 years to this month.

Happy anniversary, guys.

 

That's an interesting theory! I like it!

 

A few more things:

• Rivals-indigenous content hasn't really been covered by the later games. SEGA even turned down the production of a Metal Sonic 3.0. figure. So far, we've had Ifrit in the comics. This also happened with Perci and the Boom villain roster.
• Shuffle got an adaptation WAY back when. Was it too late in Fleetway's run for them to also do Shuffle? Thankfully, StC-O also adapted Shuffle as a canon filler story with a different ending, so we may see the two again.
• Is Sonic Team involved with later Boom games?
• Why are the newer non-Sonic Team games now lower than the old ones? I can totally understand Chronicles, but Shuffle I can only see because Hudson is dead as a doorknob.
• Would most alternate media characters be even lower than the scrapped characters?

[Failinhearts]

Honestly, I think not ALL of Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood's music is bad. Don't get me wrong, most of the tracks suck, due to sounding like it's being played from a Tiger handheld, but the battle music actually sounds like it's coming from a DS.

It's like the game had two composers. One who worked on most of the game's soundtrack who didn't understand the audio capabilities of the DS and played it safe, while there's another who knew what he was dealing with and made music accordingly for the battles.

[FriendBot]

Wow and here I thought I was the only one who actually really lied Chronicles' battle music. I mean, yeah most of the music in Chronicles does suck, it's even worse when most of the music is from 3D Blast, both from the Saturn and Genesis versions. (Thanks Steve Sim)

But dem battle music man, they rock!

This one has got to be my favorite, what can I say I love me some guitar fam.

Oh yeah ,and the boss themes for Ix are pretty dope, I like it.

[slovakian]

The Sonic X episodes that focused on some of side characters were the best episodes of the show

I also like most of the characters introduced in X minus Chris, though I honestly don't hate him

I don't Hate Elise, Big or Cream who actually who was one of my favorite characters

The Shadow the Edgehog jokes also need to die

 

[Lucid Dream]

I actually think Big the cat is a nice character

How often do you get characters with an innate disability? Normally, whenever I see a character who has an important disability, there's so much drama or importance put on it. It makes it seem like the disability dictates and control their life. It's nice to see a character like Big who just lives life happily and doesn't care about these things. It was nice to see how nobody treated him any different because of it. 

[SenEDDtor Missile]

7 hours ago, Lucidream said:

I actually think Big the cat is a nice character

How often do you get characters with an innate disability? Normally, whenever I see a character who has an important disability, there's so much drama or importance put on it. It makes it seem like the disability dictates and control their life. It's nice to see a character like Big who just lives life happily and doesn't care about these things. It was nice to see how nobody treated him any different because of it. 

Was it ever said that he had a disability? I just got the impression he was a very simple individual who got caught up in things way outside of his comfort zone (Sonic Adventure).

[Lucid Dream]

12 hours ago, SenEDtor Missile said:

Was it ever said that he had a disability? I just got the impression he was a very simple individual who got caught up in things way outside of his comfort zone (Sonic Adventure).

In Sonic Chronicles it's implied often. Although I'm not sure if that game is canon. 

[Your Vest Friend]

That game has terrible characterisation, and Big is one of the worst offenders because they got rid of his nicer points to make him absolutely brain dead. 

Actually got a different characterisation opinion now, and a really controversial one.

The idea that Knuckles trusts people easily because he assumes the best of people, which was something spouted in Sonic X and people tried to apply it to the games as well?

Bull. Shit.

For one thing, most of the time when he's deceived in both Sonic X and the games, it's being tricked into thinking Sonic's acting as the bad guy and trying to steal the Chaos Emeralds or something. So despite having known him for years and even working with him quite a bit, he's just going to assume the worst of Sonic every single goddamn time? Well that's hardly positive.

Secondly, yeah, games say nothing on why he gets tricked so often aside from him being a "Knucklehead" and gullible, so imposing that ain't really going to fly. 

Thirdly, him being tricked in Sonic Rivals 2 and Sonic Colours DS had nothing to do with "assuming the best of people", in fact in the former he was assuming the worst of Rouge throughout. They may be dubious canon but they're probably closer to what the games see as his personality than Sonic X. 

So yeah, trying to put a positive spin on his gullibility is dishonest. 

[blade57331]

Not to mention that even in comics he sees Shadow and Team Dark at their worst. Even when they had their fair share moments of being heroic.

Assuming the best of people don't fit for someone that suppose to be a guardian. Especially given how hostile he can be.

Edit: Also it's pretty inconsistent even in Sonic X. Since when Cosmo showed up and told her sad story(while crying, mind you). He still questioned on which side she really is.

 

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Knuckles being tricked because he sees the best in folks?

...that's surprisingly new to me.

[FriendBot]

7 minutes ago, Conquering Storm's Servant said:

Knuckles being tricked because he sees the best in folks?

...that's surprisingly new to me.

Really? 

Cause I think this was mentioned during Season 3 of Sonic X and near the ending of Chronicles, where Knux has this belief where there's always some good in every person; no matter how bad they are. But sadly, the 2 people in question of the case (Eggman and Ix) are villains that are most definitely going to stay as villains. 

And to be honest, that is an interesting mentality but it just seems like a dumb excuse to justify that "oh Knux isn't being so gullible that it actually surpasses his Boom counterpart's stupidity, he just has this strong belief he always sees the good in everyone", which is honestly more insulting to the character than what little purpose he has in the games nowadays (though I guess when I really think about it, both are about equal levels of insulting).

I just feel that there has to be one situation where Knuckles' belief actually comes true and because of never giving up on that character actually reformed them instead of being hopelessly naive of ol' Rad Red.

I guess it's just one out of the several character flaws in this franchise.

[Your Vest Friend]

22 minutes ago, Conquering Storm's Servant said:

Knuckles being tricked because he sees the best in folks?

...that's surprisingly new to me.

It's at the end of the dub of episode 56 of Sonic X...after Knuckles is tricked for the third time in the show's run.

This is something fabricated by the dub; in the Japanese version, Cosmo instead says that it was better that he was deceived about the heroes' plan (he was being used unknowingly in a fake-out by Sonic, Chris and Tails) than the others. It seems like picking and choosing bits to me. 

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

23 hours ago, VEDJ-F said:

It's at the end of the dub of episode 56 of Sonic X...after Knuckles is tricked for the third time in the show's run.

This is something fabricated by the dub; in the Japanese version, Cosmo instead says that it was better that he was deceived about the heroes' plan (he was being used unknowingly in a fake-out by Sonic, Chris and Tails) than the others. It seems like picking and choosing bits to me. 

Well I've no clue how I missed that, because I saw that episode and I don't remember anything about it having Knuckles see the good in Eggman.

Granted, I haven't watched that episode in years so I might've forgotten a lot of things that didn't stick out. Still, count me in with the crowd that finds it nonsense to apply to the games.

[E-122-Psi]

On 12 September 2016 at 4:18 AM, VEDJ-F said:

It's at the end of the dub of episode 56 of Sonic X...after Knuckles is tricked for the third time in the show's run.

This is something fabricated by the dub; in the Japanese version, Cosmo instead says that it was better that he was deceived about the heroes' plan (he was being used unknowingly in a fake-out by Sonic, Chris and Tails) than the others. It seems like picking and choosing bits to me. 

Oddly though the dub speech was almost used almost in vertabrim on one of the Japanese Sonic Channel wallpaper bios.

Admittedly, for once, it was a much nicer character tidbit than the original, especially in an episode all about the cast discouraging Knuckles over being used by Eggman, and how evil it is the latter keeps deceiving him (they sure liked to have the cast rag on poor Knux in X, even in Boom they at least TRY to be sympathetic to him a lot of the time).

[Your Vest Friend]

You can tell who the writers of SatAM actually cared about based on the names alone. The ones who were given the focus (Sally, Antoine, Dulcy) all have names that have significant meaning (Sally - Princess, Antoine - Praiseworthy, Dulcy - Sweet), while Rotor has a name that most closely fits in with normal Sonic conventions and Bunnie...has a pun, and a name that doesn't fit any Sonic naming convention.

In a hypothetical scenario where they were for some reason brought into the games (not gonna happen, but we can use our imagination), I think Sally, Rotor and Dulcy could work just fine (although it'd likely be Dulcy Dragon ala Charmy Bee), but Antoine would likely have to revert to Depardieu instead of the comic's D'Coolette (because Depardieu at least has an origin relevant to Antoine's character, D'Coolette is fabricated from nothing), while Bunnie might need a complete name overhaul. I mean, it is an actual name used for people as well, but it seems odd within the context of Sonic, especially when she's not the only bunny around. 

[Big Panda]

What do Antoine's last names mean?

[Your Vest Friend]

It's not got a super symbolic meaning, but it's derived from a place in France. Likely the show writers were just having a reference to the actor in there, but at least there's genuine roots to it. 

[Big Panda]

Just now, VEDJ-F said:

It's not got a super symbolic meaning, but it's derived from a place in France. Likely the show writers were just having a reference to the actor in there, but at least there's genuine roots to it. 

I said "names", plural. Which name are you referring to here? =p

[Your Vest Friend]

Just now, Ernest-Panda said:

I said "names", plural. Which name are you referring to here? =p

Oh, that one is Depardieu. Like I said, D'Coolette has no meaning aside from putting sounds together and going "Oh yeah, that sounds French I guess". 

[E-122-Psi]

I thought Sally Acorn was derived from Ricky the squirrel's name in early Western media (though the convenient meaning was a possible reason she kept it).

Just to note SatAm's own early bible used the Acorn surname, while Antoine was called D'Coolette there as well. The comic seemingly took notes from it while the show was in early production and deviated from concept notes.

[Your Vest Friend]

Ah, so they changed it to have more meaning while D'Coolette was a placeholder then? Well, I'm sorry for blaming Archie on it then, but the point about Depardieu being more game-fitting still stands.

I was actually here for some Archie unpopular opinions, but I noticed I hadn't responded to that yet, whoops.

So I know this isn't discussed a lot on the forums here, but there's plenty of Egg Boss character discussion on other circuits I frequent. And to be honest, I'm not fully down with what the circuits have decided for Mordred (it was inevitable) and Maw.

Essentially, Maw is seen as someone who is extremely into the whole torture thing and is very liberal with his use of it, while also being very open to experiences. Mordred, meanwhile, is often seen as naive and shirks away from any sort of extreme activity.

Me? I kind of see it being the opposite. Not 1:1 opposite, but the gist is there.

-Maw to me seems like he'd be very prudish and intent on keeping up an air of class. While his experiments (that are implied at the end of Eggman's Dozen) are torturous to whoever is used for it, he doesn't see it as torture for the sake of torture. He sees it as just another stepping stone in his ultimate goal - perfection of the body and mind. As such, he wouldn't throw it around so carelessly, and that hyper-focus also might limit what he does outside of this (composing and conducting music fits in with his classy image, but it also shows his controlling side as he wants to dictate exactly what needs to be done to make the tune perfect). He still unsettles the other Egg Bosses, but more because his creepy statements allude to his ulterior motives and they sense that.

-Mordred was an adviser before betraying the kingdom for power, and is shown to be good in that role even after that point. Whether he got that position rightfully or through manipulation, naivete is not usually a trait found with such a skillset (and note that naivete =/= cowardice. If anything, not being naive would only heighten that cowardice since he's more alert to what could happen in the worst case scenarios). And on the torture side? Pre-reboot, Mordred torturing for the sake of torture was outright canon. And while he is much more cowardly now, we've seen that he still likes to assert dominance when in a position of advantage. Not only that, but Ian's comment on his stamp collecting hobby not only implies that he still loves to use torture, he's possibly more liberal with it and does far worse things with it than less cowardly pre-reboot Mordred ever did with his lashings.