Popular and unpopular Sonic opinions you agree and disagree with!

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Just now, Kuzu said:

I mean, it's not solution because it's not affecting the official product; I mean, you are right that it's pointing out flaws in the character writing, but that's not a solution. That's just venting your grievances. 

It’s either that or giving up about it. Which I’d say is easy, but then I’ve been at this for 15 years on this very website so I guess I’m just that stubborn.

[Kuzu]

3 minutes ago, CrownSlayer’s Shadow said:

It’s either that or giving up about it. Which I’d say is easy, but then I’ve been at this for 15 years on this very website so I guess I’m just that stubborn.

Well like I said, keep screaming until they get it right...or as close to right as this series can do.

 

For the most part, I think the character writing is...slowly improving; its still not perfect, but it's an upward tick from lost world. 

[Sonic Fan J]

Maybe it's just because I prefer Japanese character tropes to western ones, but to me Amy works best as a Genki Girl First and foremost with her enthusiasm leading the jokes. Her temper and her compassion should lead her into different situations, but she is first and foremost a deredere fan girl of Sonic with the optimism and good cheer to literally follow him any where and never tire of it. When you push her anger above that or her compassion you either get the demon headed beast @E-122-Psi is pointing out is a grating take on her or you get the quiet stops focusing on herself IDW version who you would be hard pressed to believe was created as a character who would and could follow Sonic endlessly. It's one of the things I dislike about BOOM! Amy, is everything is dialed back, and then stirred into a soup of plot traits for the episode.

If there is one thing I notice when people talk about Amy, especially when they say she has no personality, is that they completely ignore her Genki Girl aspects and boundless optimism. That, or they replace them to serve their ends. There is a reason that as the type of Amy fan I am that I was so upset when Tangle in IDW Issue #24 exemplified everything I expect from Amy. Outside of her tail antics, that was what I expect from Amy. Not surprisingly few other people see that as they somehow miss her energetic traits. It boggles my mind, as I will always put her energetic traits as the base of her character which her compassion, temper, adventurousness, brattiness, playfulness, and even crush on/love of Sonic are built on. Without that she always seems to come unglued or one of her other traits completely cannibalizes the others. It's why Sonic Adventure 2 is still my favorite as all of these aspect of her were balanced on top of her positive Genki Girl base.

 

[E-122-Psi]

I remember Boom Amy starting off okay, the first few episodes she had that sort of giddy enthusiasm about everything, and the temper moments were there but again, more moderated, just Amy sulking and ruffling her feathers when she thought she was being unappreciated (they also made a point it was particularly Sonic who could bring these traits out of her, which was a more subtle way of making her crush feel like an effective trait to her character). They seemed to get the more idealistic side of Amy in the show at least, the 'first one to show sympathy, but WILL snap if pushed too far' type, stuff like the episode with Eggman living with Sonic for example. The main problem is she kinda underwent this 'Lisa Simpson syndrome' where she went from just an emotional precocious kid with a compassionate streak to being a stuck up activist with the disposition of a disgruntled forty year old. It seemed to laser focus another originally more subtle aspect of her; her pomposity.

Maybe it's because Boom actually got the childlike balance right with Tails for once, so he started to take those traits from her, similar to how Cream sometimes does. Plus Knuckles' more innocent simpleton persona, leaving someone needing to take over the curmudgeon role.

[Kuzu]

22 minutes ago, E-122-Psi said:

 

Maybe it's because Boom actually got the childlike balance right with Tails for once, so he started to take those traits from her, similar to how Cream sometimes does. Plus Knuckles' more innocent simpleton persona, leaving someone needing to take over the curmudgeon role.

Here's the thing to consider when you have a large cast characters; the more characters you have, the more diluted their traits will have to be for the sake of balance.

There's no need to have two characters with similar character traits, otherwise they would be redundant.

If Tails or Cream are supposed to fill the niche of "childlike optimism" then, obviously that means Amy can't do it, and vice versa.

 

You can't have your cake and eat it too. Some characters are gonna have to take a hit for others to shine.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

9 minutes ago, Kuzu said:

Here's the thing to consider when you have a large cast characters; the more characters you have, the more diluted their traits will have to be for the sake of balance.

Wanna bet that’s not true?

 

[Kuzu]

7 minutes ago, CrownSlayer’s Shadow said:

Wanna bet that’s not true?

 

Not really.

[Sonic Fan J]

16 minutes ago, Kuzu said:

Here's the thing to consider when you have a large cast characters; the more characters you have, the more diluted their traits will have to be for the sake of balance.

There's no need to have two characters with similar character traits, otherwise they would be redundant.

If Tails or Cream are supposed to fill the niche of "childlike optimism" then, obviously that means Amy can't do it, and vice versa.

 

You can't have your cake and eat it too. Some characters are gonna have to take a hit for others to shine.

This is actually to me where nuance and contrast becomes extremely important. In the case of Tails and Amy the former typically has confidence issues where latter never falters. For Cream and Amy the former is super polite in their kindness while the latter is very in your face and bossy. Despite the similarities, you have to look at the nuances in how they express those similarities and you suddenly discover that you have a whole lot more differences in characterization then you ever realized. The problem Sonic writers seem to have is a lack of enough nuance themselves to handle the character nuances. They'd rather broad stroke it to the point that sky is always blue, day, night, clear, stormy. The sky is blue darn it and that's all that matters. until the writers and producers can move away from such extreme broad strokes instead of looking at the nuances there is little doubt that there will be major character overlap resulting in the typically ham-fisted overreaction/correction approach that we've seen year after year. 

[Kuzu]

12 minutes ago, Sonic Fan J said:

This is actually to me where nuance and contrast becomes extremely important. In the case of Tails and Amy the former typically has confidence issues where latter never falters. For Cream and Amy the former is super polite in their kindness while the latter is very in your face and bossy. Despite the similarities, you have to look at the nuances in how they express those similarities and you suddenly discover that you have a whole lot more differences in characterization then you ever realized. The problem Sonic writers seem to have is a lack of enough nuance themselves to handle the character nuances. They'd rather broad stroke it to the point that sky is always blue, day, night, clear, stormy. The sky is blue darn it and that's all that matters. until the writers and producers can move away from such extreme broad strokes instead of looking at the nuances there is little doubt that there will be major character overlap resulting in the typically ham-fisted overreaction/correction approach that we've seen year after year. 

Welcome to the problems of having a series that's a brand first and foremost, and a long running multimedia franchise.

Characters become broader over time as different writers and producers take the helm.

Some guys are just gonna come in with their own ideas and interpretations that don't necessarily align with what came before outside of broad strokes.

Macquire!SpiderMan is different from Garfield!Spiderman who is different from Holland!Spiderman. Same character and share some basic traits, but they're all portrayed differently.

 

That's kind of what Sonic characters are.

 

 

[Sonic Fan J]

Yet said broad strokes can still differentiate characters like Tails, Amy, and Knuckles. The confidence lacking genius sidekick. The overenthusiastic follow Sonic to the ends of the earth bubbly fangirl, and the gullible and short tempered rival. Those are broad strokes and describe the three of them completely differently from each other without even betraying how they were introduced. Even with such broad strokes though, there is plenty of room for individual creative vision with out betraying that. Why so many writer do is beyond me regardless of how many theories I can come up with. But really, at the least I feel there is no reason for overlap even with a broad strokes approach just because of the difference in concept for those three at least.

[DabigRG]

3 hours ago, E-122-Psi said:

Maybe it's because Boom actually got the childlike balance right with Tails for once, so he started to take those traits from her, similar to how Cream sometimes does.

2 hours ago, Kuzu said:

Here's the thing to consider when you have a large cast characters; the more characters you have, the more diluted their traits will have to be for the sake of balance.

There's no need to have two characters with similar character traits, otherwise they would be redundant.

If Tails or Cream are supposed to fill the niche of "childlike optimism" then, obviously that means Amy can't do it, and vice versa.

 

You can't have your cake and eat it too. Some characters are gonna have to take a hit for others to shine.

 I remember this being brought up a while back with both Team Jubilee & Rotor and it sounds like a weak hurdle to have under certain circumstances. 

J hits the right of it. If you have two or three characters to that are similar, write stories and interactions that bring out more from them interdependently.

3 hours ago, E-122-Psi said:

I remember Boom Amy starting off okay, the first few episodes she had that sort of giddy enthusiasm about everything, and the temper moments were there but again, more moderated, just Amy sulking and ruffling her feathers when she thought she was being unappreciated (they also made a point it was particularly Sonic who could bring these traits out of her, which was a more subtle way of making her crush feel like an effective trait to her character). They seemed to get the more idealistic side of Amy in the show at least, the 'first one to show sympathy, but WILL snap if pushed too far' type, stuff like the episode with Eggman living with Sonic for example. The main problem is she kinda underwent this 'Lisa Simpson syndrome' where she went from just an emotional precocious kid with a compassionate streak to being a stuck up activist with the disposition of a disgruntled forty year old. It seemed to laser focus another originally more subtle aspect of her; her pomposity.

Plus Knuckles' more innocent simpleton persona, leaving someone needing to take over the curmudgeon role.

You know, something else that's funny about this is I recall Knuckles being more like his game self in that same episode. And wasn't there a bio or two that also described him as being more in line with that as well?

[E-122-Psi]

3 hours ago, DabigRG said:

 You know, something else that's funny about this is I recall Knuckles being more like his game self in that same episode. And wasn't there a bio or two that also described him as being more in line with that as well?

Not sure, I mean, one thing they DID maintain of Knuckles' abrasiveness was his Daffy Duck like frustration around Sonic, just he could turn it off (which I suppose says something since Knuckles is meant to be the comic relief yet wasn't just one same trait over and over, even if the stupidity area DID get used prominently ).

One thing I suppose with characters with similar traits is that sometimes you can play on the mutuality. For example I get Tails differing from Sonic's impulses in areas, certainly, but I like the versions of Tails that share his enthusiasm, if anything those are the ones they are most bros. So long as they have SOME differing traits at times and can vent them in different ways. I mean Boom Tails can act like a shy introvert to Sonic's extrovert in some scenes and then be teaming up with him in the childish den fight between the group the next.

My avatar also demonstrates two very different characters who only developed a great chemistry when they got some mutual character traits between them.

[DabigRG]

On 4/7/2020 at 11:30 PM, E-122-Psi said:

Not sure, I mean, one thing they DID maintain of Knuckles' abrasiveness was his Daffy Duck like frustration around Sonic, just he could turn it off (which I suppose says something since Knuckles is meant to be the comic relief yet wasn't just one same trait over and over, even if the stupidity area DID get used prominently ).

He was one of the best characters in that show.

Being able to tell different versions of the same joke as well as react differently to a given situation and even headline the weirder stuff all contributed.

On 4/7/2020 at 11:30 PM, E-122-Psi said:

One thing I suppose with characters with similar traits is that sometimes you can play on the mutuality. For example I get Tails differing from Sonic's impulses in areas, certainly, but I like the versions of Tails that share his enthusiasm, if anything those are the ones they are most bros. So long as they have SOME differing traits at times and can vent them in different ways. I mean Boom Tails can act like a shy introvert to Sonic's extrovert in some scenes and then be teaming up with him in the childish den fight between the group the next.

I suppose that's true.

On 4/7/2020 at 11:30 PM, E-122-Psi said:

My avatar also demonstrates two very different characters who only developed a great chemistry when they got some mutual character traits between them.

Crash and Coco? Uh, you mean the tattoo characterizations or....

[StaticMania]

10 minutes ago, DabigRG said:

Crash and Coco? Uh, you mean the tattoo characterizations or....

Both would apply...

[E-122-Psi]

Well the Radical era Crash games did add tons of liberties story and character wise, but they did chain off some cool dynamics (they are essentially the Boom era of Crash :P). They were the start of giving Coco a goofier more childlike personality like her brother rather than just being a standard straight man character. Notice how the remakes retroactively utilise this and add loads of cute moments between the two that were utterly absent in the original versions, stuff like her playing around and doing the silly dance with him. This is where it works better than just making them total opposites in every single way.

[Kuzu]

I admit that it's very cute, but it also makes Coco's character somewhat less distinct from Crash's. Not that Crash ever puts much focus on characterization to begin with, so it works.

[StaticMania]

How it does that?

She's still the smart one who takes things more serious than her brother.

[DabigRG]

She's also more cute and sassy...or I guess kiddie(idk her age seems higher than you'd think)...compared to Crash being kinda brainless and doofy.

[E-122-Psi]

1 hour ago, StaticMania said:

How it does that?

She's still the smart one who takes things more serious than her brother.

You look at the remakes and they tend to have different reactions to the same deaths and results. You combine differing and similar aspects of each character and they can still often act very differently even when venting similar emotions or traits (eg. them getting annoyed with the player for losing, but while Crash just kinda sulks in a childish way and then loses focus, Coco acts fidgety or even throws a tantrum at you). Laid back air head against excitable prodigy means different ways both characters can act childlike.

This is an important approach with 'opposites attract' type chemistries that many writers often forget, to the point of sometimes avoiding showing said characters venting the same traits.

[Mountaindewandsprite]

Unpopular:

Archie and IDW comics treats the characters better than the main game series ever will.

[Monkey Destruction Switch]

10 minutes ago, Mountaindewandsprite said:

Unpopular:

Archie and IDW comics treats the characters better than the main game series ever will.

I think that may be less unpopular than you think.

An unpopular opinion of mine is that Ken Penders' writing, while certainly incredibly flawed, isn't completely and thoroughly terrible, and I find a lot of his stories enjoyable (even if they often don't hold up under any kind of scrutiny). I certainly don't think he's a great writer and I hate certain things about his stories and writing, don't get me wrong, and I think plenty of his ideas were either very poorly developed or inherently terrible to begin with, but there's definitely things I enjoy about his work and ideas that I like (even if I frequently wish they were executed a lot differently).

Following on that same train of thought, I actually kind of like Penders' handling of the Chaotix, to some extent. I enjoy how they feel like Knuckles' goofy group of friends. It makes Knuckles feel more like a "real" teenager. Also, I like that his version of Espio wasn't as dour and serious as more current versions. That's not to say I think they were super well written or something, just that I do find a certain amount of merit in how they were handled.

[StaticMania]

12 minutes ago, Monkey Destruction Switch said:

I think that may be less unpopular than you think.

Just maybe even...the opposite of unpopular.

I mean actually being used at all is just a given due to the differences between comics and games.

[E-122-Psi]

Maybe this one is though; I actually prefer the spin off comics over the mainstream ones. Stuff like X and Boom I think were done really well and in some cases even better capitalised on their show's strong points than Archie did SatAm, as short lived as they were.

I just think the writers, especially Ian, work better off of streamlined light hearted storytelling than trying to replicate the convoluted soap opera the likes of Penders tried to establish, especially with how many of them love their meta jokes and cartoony expressions (not to mention how much of Penders' stuff got streamlined anyway it was too big a mess for them). Too much of the serious comics' attempts at greater emotional baggage that isn't around bad guys reminds me of wrestling or talk shows' attempts at 'drama', characters hitting or screaming at each other obnoxiously over contrived conflicts that don't even get resolved satisfyingly enough., which taints the comics' tighter characterisations.

Post reboot and IDW get the tone balance better, but even then I prefer X/Boom's more free range premise than the perpetual war one (I mean in the dream world I'd go for neither direction and prefer something like Sonic Adventure but what can you do?).

Hell I'd argue I preferred the writing of the X comics over the anime itself for the large part, given the latter's reliance on poorly done morals and anime cliches.

[Red Hot Jack]

I think it means basically you dislike streamlined storylines with dark anime tone. You want more bright stories, I agree, look I definitely don't prefer Boom's sitcom tone, lack of continuity and boring/forced action, but still it was cool and relaxed, I wouldn't mind for the next cartoon, a mix of slice of life premise as well as episodes that follow the main storyline, a mix of both in fact, Sort of like Sonic X's season 1. A balanced series. My ideal cast would be Sonic, Tails, Knuckles and Amy for the heroes, Eggman and Orbot & Cubot for the villain side, potentially joined by comic originals Tangle and Whsiper who I really believe would fit the tone of said cartoon, and... Tribot, there could be some fun dynamics with the Robotnik team. The rest of game cast plus brand new characters would only appear as guests.

[E-122-Psi]

1 hour ago, Jack at Home said:

I think it means basically you dislike streamlined storylines with dark anime tone. You want more bright stories, I agree, look I definitely don't prefer Boom's sitcom tone, lack of continuity and boring/forced action, but still it was cool and relaxed, I wouldn't mind for the next cartoon, a mix of slice of life premise as well as episodes that follow the main storyline, a mix of both in fact, Sort of like Sonic X's season 1. A balanced series. My ideal cast would be Sonic, Tails, Knuckles and Amy for the heroes, Eggman and Orbot & Cubot for the villain side, potentially joined by comic originals Tangle and Whsiper who I really believe would fit the tone of said cartoon, and... Tribot, there could be some fun dynamics with the Robotnik team. The rest of game cast plus brand new characters would only appear as guests.

Fair enough really. I guess I'm just not much for most of Sonic's darker takes. I'm fine for some emotional value sometimes (eg. Gamma) but I feel like the pre-reboot comics are too much for me a lot of the time. Stuff like Sally slapping and dumping Sonic, Tails gangster beating him for stealing his girl, excessive fallouts and disownments all the way to the end of the Mecha Sally arc. I know people like more dramatic emotional stakes but I just find it so damn BLEAK and it never really culminates well enough to consider it a well written arc (eg. the writers seemed pushed to even TRY to resolve the first example). Then again I consider soap operas like Eastenders borderline misery porn so maybe I would have an extreme view on this.

Maybe this is why the Sonic X comic appealed to me since it was essentially its first season but with its writing flaws and formulaic qualities downplayed in favour of something a bit closer to a more tightly written take on the games. Adding in the 'Mobian' aesthetics the current depictions revived in place of the anime human world would sweeten the deal.