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19 minutes ago, E-122-Psi said:

Sally struggled to have a chemistry with Amy and really any SEGA character besides Sonic for twenty years in the comics, what makes you think the games could do it?

Because it's Sonic Team and/or the games doing it?

19 minutes ago, E-122-Psi said:

I have to say that, I don't really buy into the idea of whitewashing Sally and Amy as friends with no hang ups. Maybe not bitter rivals, but surely there'd be SOME conflict going on there. They also turned down the opportunity to give a more developed dynamic between her and Mina before she was retired. 

In the context of the reboot, Sonic and Sally seemingly weren't romantically involved, so I guess that's where that comes in.  Unless you're talking about as a natural extension of their personalities?

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Sega should just buy up the IPs for at least the Archie/SatAM cast and integrate them, even if only for the party games. Sally, Bunnie, and Mina still have fans, and probably even more than Rouge. Sonic has always had the ability to appeal to more than just the male gender, but moreso in the comics. One way the Sonic franchise could elbow Mario is in having more vibrant cast of female characters than just "The Girlfriend Who Is Pink." 

Sonic is Sega's most valuable brand, by far. If the MCU can exist, Sega can put Bunnie Rabbot in a game.

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1 hour ago, Moose the Cat said:

Sega should just buy up the IPs for at least the Archie/SatAM cast and integrate them, even if only for the party games. Sally, Bunnie, and Mina still have fans, and probably even more than Rouge. Sonic has always had the ability to appeal to more than just the male gender, but moreso in the comics. One way the Sonic franchise could elbow Mario is in having more vibrant cast of female characters than just "The Girlfriend Who Is Pink." 

Sonic is Sega's most valuable brand, by far. If the MCU can exist, Sega can put Bunnie Rabbot in a game.

I mean, there's also Daisy, Rosaline, Toadette, and Pom Pom.

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The thing is that they already imported characters from other medias. Amy and Charmy are fun but you have to ask, are they fun for anything they inherited from their original manga selves? Do they maintain the same appeal? Were fans of the manga Amy and Charmy satisfied?

If SEGA adapted characters from the cartoons and comics, fans would be expectant that they kept the same appeal from those interpretations, which would be especially difficult with the Archie/SatAm cast since they were established from a fair bit of lore (even the reboot had to maintain a lot of backstory to some degree). There's already contention whether these versions do a good job representing what made the earlier fans like them in say, SatAm. I think you have to ask, if they don't manage to recapture that depth and appeal they had earlier, wouldn't it have just been better to make new characters from scratch?

It's like how the 'Titans' era Crash Bandicoot games reimagined Tiny for their new take on the canon. It was hated, not necessarily because it was a BAD character, but because it was nothing like the original Tiny. The link was pointless and if anything just insulted fans of the character. If they had just made it a new character, there likely would have been far less contention.

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They would be a little different because it's hard to recapture the voices of certain writers, but that's some thing that's hard without a continuity shift anywa. As long as you get the general idea down I think most people would be fine with it.

I think it'd be fun to include them. I genuinely like Sally's dynamic with most of the sega cast from when Ian took over onward. That includes Amy, who had plenty of back and forth with her. 

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I genuinely can't say most of the FF or archie characters, from older stuff had a good dynamic. Specifically because characters from sonic adventure forward for a good long time just felt wholly disconnected from the world. They would show up and do a thing, but they were essentially entirely separate. This didn't help that Ian flynn felt compelled to often section these folks off into thier own little sections where thier interactions with other non game characters were minimal. I can't say a character has great chemesitry with the cast if they are not allowed to interact in any meaningful way with a lot it. And it isn't just sally again its a lot of older characters.

Its why I appreciate the newer guys, from jump all the dudes from IDW ingratiate themselves into the world, and interact with characters and make those characters and themselves have weight, like they exist like they have meaning. Back in archie you had characters basically exist in 2 realities. It died down a bit in the reboot, but it was still very much there. To the credit of Ian FLynn it seems like he realized this back  ( possibly with the push of worlds unite) then and was before the book got canceled write a bunch of stories to solve that problem. But as it stands characters that were made after sonic cd were essentially living in a different reality often quite literally so and had their own people. And only sparsely got interact with other characters

 

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3 hours ago, E-122-Psi said:

The thing is that they already imported characters from other medias. Amy and Charmy are fun but you have to ask, are they fun for anything they inherited from their original manga selves? Do they maintain the same appeal? Were fans of the manga Amy and Charmy satisfied?

I see where you're going with this and I believe it's a fair comparison to make, but I don't think the comparison comes close to being the same. It took Amy and Charmy years after their debut to become the characters they are today. Amy's origin is very unique compared to most Sonic characters. She was originally created by Naoto Oshima, Sonic's creator, because Sega themselves wanted to have a Minnie Mouse equivalent for Sonic. It's quite possible that if Naoto had never gotten the chance to direct Sonic CD, Amy would never have appeared in the games - same with Charmy and Vector with Chaotix. Amy may have made her first appearance in the manga, but there wasn't much to her character from the few translations of it I've read. It was really the games that defined Amy, her feelings for Sonic that he won't accept, her Piko Piko hammer, ect. I don't think the small changes made to Amy were noticeable enough to make much of a stink about, if there were any at all. The Freedom Fighters, however, were mostly defined characters from the beginning of the pilot Heads or Tails. Their appearances were the only major changes made when the series entered full production.

The Freedom Fighters were beloved characters long after their debut and still are, even after their last appearance almost four years ago. Even just this year notable voice actress Cristina Vee expressed a desire to play Sally, tweeting "I love her and I will voice her someday" and even giving her opinion on who should voice Bunnie. The Freedom Fighters have such a long, well loved history with Sonic, that they can be compared to few other franchises with characters from expanded universe material.

Sega has professionals willing, waiting and able to bring these characters back in a satisfying way to most fans. The question isn't really "Can Sega bring these characters back in a way that will please fans?" but "Does Sega want to bring these characters back in a way that will please fans?".

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18 minutes ago, Shadowlax said:

I genuinely can't say most of the FF or archie characters, from older stuff had a good dynamic. Specifically because characters from sonic adventure forward for a good long time just felt wholly disconnected from the world. They would show up and do a thing, but they were essentially entirely separate. This didn't help that Ian flynn felt compelled to often section these folks off into thier own little sections where thier interactions with other non game characters were minimal. I can't say a character has great chemesitry with the cast if they are not allowed to interact in any meaningful way with a lot it. And it isn't just sally again its a lot of older characters.

Its why I appreciate the newer guys, from jump all the dudes from IDW ingratiate themselves into the world, and interact with characters and make those characters and themselves have weight, like they exist like they have meaning. Back in archie you had characters basically exist in 2 realities. It died down a bit in the reboot, but it was still very much there. To the credit of Ian FLynn it seems like he realized this back  ( possibly with the push of worlds unite) then and was before the book got canceled write a bunch of stories to solve that problem. But as it stands characters that were made after sonic cd were essentially living in a different reality often quite literally so and had their own people. And only sparsely got interact with other characters

 

To be fair, the games were sorta doing that as well at the time.

You had your cast herds and big epic stories in the games around the time he started, true, but how many times did Knuckles, Shadow, or Amy acknowledge Cream, Big, or Charmy's existence? Hell, how often did Knuckles and Tails interact? 

Add in that the comics had over a decade's worth of characters(a chunk of which were intentionally killed or written off even) plus all the cleanup meant to get things in a appealingly digestible state and it was really hard at times to sneak in non-plot relevant pairups.

Or in the reboot's case, getting the license turned loose right when the playground was on the way to being officially open. And honestly, Knuckles and Shadow were good for one constructively trilogy, but the second time was kinda unneeded.

13 minutes ago, Plumbers_Helper said:

The Freedom Fighters were beloved characters long after their debut and still are, even after their last appearance almost four years ago. Even just this year notable voice actress Cristina Vee expressed a desire to play Sally, tweeting "I love her and I will voice her someday" and even giving her opinion on who should voice Bunnie. The Freedom Fighters have such a long, well loved history with Sonic, that they can be compared to few other franchises with characters from expanded universe material.

 

Really now? That is...huh.

Big name fans, I guess.

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55 minutes ago, Plumbers_Helper said:

I see where you're going with this and I believe it's a fair comparison to make, but I don't think the comparison comes close to being the same. It took Amy and Charmy years after their debut to become the characters they are today. Amy's origin is very unique compared to most Sonic characters. She was originally created by Naoto Oshima, Sonic's creator, because Sega themselves wanted to have a Minnie Mouse equivalent for Sonic. It's quite possible that if Naoto had never gotten the chance to direct Sonic CD, Amy would never have appeared in the games - same with Charmy and Vector with Chaotix. Amy may have made her first appearance in the manga, but there wasn't much to her character from the few translations of it I've read. It was really the games that defined Amy, her feelings for Sonic that he won't accept, her Piko Piko hammer, ect. I don't think the small changes made to Amy were noticeable enough to make much of a stink about, if there were any at all. The Freedom Fighters, however, were mostly defined characters from the beginning of the pilot Heads or Tails. Their appearances were the only major changes made when the series entered full production.

The Freedom Fighters were beloved characters long after their debut and still are, even after their last appearance almost four years ago. Even just this year notable voice actress Cristina Vee expressed a desire to play Sally, tweeting "I love her and I will voice her someday" and even giving her opinion on who should voice Bunnie. The Freedom Fighters have such a long, well loved history with Sonic, that they can be compared to few other franchises with characters from expanded universe material.

Sega has professionals willing, waiting and able to bring these characters back in a satisfying way to most fans. The question isn't really "Can Sega bring these characters back in a way that will please fans?" but "Does Sega want to bring these characters back in a way that will please fans?".

But doesn't that just make the process MORE delicate for the Freedom Fighters? Since while the games wisely chose more non-discript characters to adapt from the manga, there's a lot of lore and characterisation to break or forgo with the Freedom Fighters that made them endearing in the first place.

Barely anyone trusts SEGA to depict the cast they have right now, so yes, the big question, DO YOU trust them to do it well?

58 minutes ago, Shadowlax said:

I genuinely can't say most of the FF or archie characters, from older stuff had a good dynamic. Specifically because characters from sonic adventure forward for a good long time just felt wholly disconnected from the world. They would show up and do a thing, but they were essentially entirely separate. This didn't help that Ian flynn felt compelled to often section these folks off into thier own little sections where thier interactions with other non game characters were minimal. I can't say a character has great chemesitry with the cast if they are not allowed to interact in any meaningful way with a lot it. And it isn't just sally again its a lot of older characters.

Its why I appreciate the newer guys, from jump all the dudes from IDW ingratiate themselves into the world, and interact with characters and make those characters and themselves have weight, like they exist like they have meaning. Back in archie you had characters basically exist in 2 realities. It died down a bit in the reboot, but it was still very much there. To the credit of Ian FLynn it seems like he realized this back  ( possibly with the push of worlds unite) then and was before the book got canceled write a bunch of stories to solve that problem. But as it stands characters that were made after sonic cd were essentially living in a different reality often quite literally so and had their own people. And only sparsely got interact with other characters

 

I have to say that, I wasn't big on the Freedom Fighter dynamic, it worked in SatAm itself due to the limited cast, but as Archie became more and more of an amalgamation of all things Sonic, it felt like a homogenisation of every hero character out there, that they were all doing the same thing, just watching out and fighting against Eggman's oppression with no side motive besides whatever collateral damage he caused (the whole 'he robotocised my family' became more repetitive than say, Sonic Adventure 1's unique branch of agendas caused by his scheme with Chaos or even Heroes' character driven reasons for uncovering him). As the 'hero squad' became more and more ridiculous bloated, the original Freedom Fighters felt redundant, just the standardised lot that were more important just because and lacked even the minimal drives the games ones sometimes inherited from their adapted personalities. It bugs me that Ian, and now maybe even the games writers, seem to love this approach so, even de-canonising any small but character defining bits of personal ambition like Sally's monarchal duties and Vector's money lust (even Boom understood Vector isn't the same without those big ol' dollar signs coming out of his eyes).

Forces was the best excuse plot to adapt the Freedom Fighters in their own original dynamic as a good lead off, but I'd rather that didn't become the default in the games from this point.

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35 minutes ago, DabigRG said:

To be fair, the games were sorta doing that as well at the time.

You had your cast herds and big epic stories in the games around the time he started, true, but how many times did Knuckles, Shadow, or Amy acknowledge Cream, Big, or Charmy's existence? Hell, how often did Knuckles and Tails interact?

Amy was litterally on a team with cream and big and they interact with shadow and knuckles in heroes. Tails and knuckles were also on a team. Shadow interact with everyone except big in his game and in battle. We haven't even begun mentioning shit like the riders games, 06, rush ect. Yes there are some weird lack of interactions. Like to this day knuckles and shadow have not any interesting interaction outside of shadow's game. That's weird but these characters interacted.

But my point wasn't even about interaction or just interaction with characters, its the world reflecting their existence. Ok imma give you an example

One of the best subtile things about shadow in the new comic. You know who knows about shadow, mercs. That says a little bit about the circles he gets around into and what he gets into. That's a neat fun bit of characterization. Its not gigantic but its things like that that make the world for those characters feel...lived in. This isn't even mentioning the shadow andriods that were brought back.  To be fair later in the reboot, they tried to do that. It wasn't great all the time and sometimes didn't amount to much. But there was an attempt because someone saw a problem .

Compare this to say like I dunno archie shadow where in an alt future he is literally married to sally ( forcibly I guess? ) and like doing wild shit to echidna throughout that entire narrative, and like feels alien the whole time. Now to be fair he is uh, out o character like all get out during that storyline. But then since its in the future its on you to like plant seeds of believably of this possibly outcome in the narrative, the never do that. Shadow continues to feel alien as hell and gets shunted off to gun land.

Don't get me started on rouge

God I hate archie rouge just .... She existed in a thrist void.

 

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Add in that the comics had over a decade's worth of characters(a chunk of which were intentionally killed or written off even) plus all the cleanup meant to get things in a appealingly digestible state and it was really hard at times to sneak in non-plot relevant pairups.

Lets be clear i'm not blaming any one for this , or rather not seriously. I think Ian missed some oppertunities , but I dunno spilled milk and all that. Just as the comic stands, due to sega's intervention, or everyone else before ian being not good and not giving a shit about game material, or Ian's writing those characters felt alien as hell. And eventually Ian noticed and actively took steps to start changing it. He saw a problem

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Or in the reboot's case, getting the license turned loose right when the playground was on the way to being officially open. And honestly, Knuckles and Shadow were good for one constructively trilogy, but the second time was kinda unneeded.

 

I don't know about the playground being open, more so Ian Flynn noticing the problem. There are plenty of characters before the reboot ended that could have interacted, however eventually he did notice. And took active steps to try and integrate characters and elements that have long since felt alien into the world, to varying levels of success and relevance. And it did get stopped before he started putting out full stories doing so, but he saw the problem. I feel like its a major contributing factor to how the new dudes in IDW are characterized with the world around them.

But it was a problem, the older archie characters to me because I came up loving the adventure era characters felt super alien and liked they lacked chemistry because they just didn't exist to all the characters I liked.

But this actually brings me to a greater point to why I just don't think the FF's in a game will ever be a thing and if they are, they will be background npc's at best. They were just made at a time , to kinda fill space. But now the space is filled

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Heroes was good for merging individual ambitions into group formats, besides Team Sonic who were pretty much the generic hero group. Rogue pretty much manipulated Omega and Shadow's frustrated but confused mentality for her own ambition, Team Rose were the bunch of misfits used as pawns and trying to get back their friends, while Chaotix were out for monetary gain.

In the comics ALL of the character are the generic hero group, and the main Freedom Fighters are the most generic-y hero-y group of them all, with any solo ambitions like Sally's royal duties, and even silly side quirks like Antoine's delusions of grandeur and Bunnie wanting to be a hair stylist abolished for the usual mission plan each and every story. Combined with the aforementioned lack of chemistries with the newer SEGA cast (they wouldn't even touch upon Sally and Amy besides 'no, no, they're friends, see? Perfect friends' which is just as generic) it feels like they don't contribute much to the dynamic of the games world besides being rather dull down to earth contrasts, which tended to also involve flanderising the games cast and costing them dynamics.

I just don't want anymore characters like this, ones that don't offer any new agency to the story besides being another hero. We need more characters with a unique agenda or occupation that can change up the dynamic. Hell why not some more incidental characters like Big and Megadrive era Knuckles that are just forced into the situation when doing their own thing? I want more character driven plots again. NO MORE HERO SQUADS.

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13 minutes ago, Shadowlax said:

Amy was litterally on a team with cream and big and they interact with shadow and knuckles in heroes. Tails and knuckles were also on a team. Shadow interact with everyone except big in his game and in battle. We haven't even begun mentioning shit like the riders games, 06, rush ect. Yes there are some weird lack of interactions. Like to this day knuckles and shadow have not any interesting interaction outside of shadow's game. That's weird but these characters interacted.

Okay, that works if you pick apart the pairs I was actually going for, but shaver.

13 minutes ago, Shadowlax said:

But my point wasn't even about interaction or just interaction with characters, its the world reflecting their existence. Ok imma give you an example

One of the best subtile things about shadow in the new comic. You know who knows about shadow, mercs. That says a little bit about the circles he gets around into and what he gets into. That's a neat fun bit of characterization. Its not gigantic but its things like that that make the world for those characters feel...lived in. This isn't even mentioning the shadow andriods that were brought back.  To be fair later in the reboot, they tried to do that. It wasn't great all the time and sometimes didn't amount to much. But there was an attempt because someone saw a problem .

Oooh, that's what you meant! Okay, I got you now.

13 minutes ago, Shadowlax said:

Compare this to say like I dunno archie shadow where in an alt future he is literally married to sally ( forcibly I guess? ) and like doing wild shit to echidna throughout that entire narrative, and like feels alien the whole time. Now to be fair he is uh, out o character like all get out during that storyline. But then since its in the future its on you to like plant seeds of believably of this possibly outcome in the narrative, the never do that. Shadow continues to feel alien as hell and gets shunted off to gun land.

Yeeeah, you can blame whatever editor it was and Ken Penders for that. The editor for asking for it and Penders saying hell no, you'll have to make someone else do it.

13 minutes ago, Shadowlax said:

Don't get me started on rouge

God I hate archie rouge just .... She existed in a thrist void.

That's one of the cases where the comic tried to add newer characters in, but had a mixed idea of how to do it. It's kinda like Perci in the show except flanderizing instead of objectifying.

13 minutes ago, Shadowlax said:

 

I don't know about the playground being open, more so Ian Flynn noticing the problem. There are plenty of characters before the reboot ended that could have interacted, however eventually he did notice. And took active steps to try and integrate characters and elements that have long since felt alien into the world, to varying levels of success and relevance. And it did get stopped before he started putting out full stories doing so, but he saw the problem. I feel like its a major contributing factor to how the new dudes in IDW are characterized with the world around them.

But it was a problem, the older archie characters to me because I came up loving the adventure era characters felt super alien and liked they lacked chemistry because they just didn't exist to all the characters I liked.

But this actually brings me to a greater point to why I just don't think the FF's in a game will ever be a thing and if they are, they will be background npc's at best. They were just made at a time , to kinda fill space. But now the space is filled

Yeah, I suppose that's natural.

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5 minutes ago, DabigRG said:

Yeeeah, you can blame whatever editor it was and Ken Penders for that. The editor for asking for it and Penders saying hell no, you'll have to make someone else do it.

I just hope one day someone can convince sega to let them do a future story that doesn't have the editors squander the potential any character because they have ideas. But on topic, whoever's fault it was, it not being followed up on at all ( presumably because no one liked and they just dropped. Hey guess shadow is just dead in the future or some shit ) made that alien feeling worse. And not just shadow, multiple characters, like no attempts to go " ok tails and mina hook up, lets plant seeds of potential or something" nope. Everything dropped, everything.

Which I guess is good because the future arc is dog shit trash, but unfortunately flynn tried to continue to use that timeline in actual not shitty narratives. The issue is, then you have like justify that as a potential future and they never really did

 

 

5 minutes ago, DabigRG said:

That's one of the cases where the comic tried to add newer characters in, but had a mixed idea of how to do it. It's kinda like Perci in the show except flanderizing instead of objectifying.

I mean I think that was the case for most post adventure characters.

 

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3 hours ago, E-122-Psi said:

But doesn't that just make the process MORE delicate for the Freedom Fighters? Since while the games wisely chose more non-discript characters to adapt from the manga, there's a lot of lore and characterisation to break or forgo with the Freedom Fighters that made them endearing in the first place.

Barely anyone trusts SEGA to depict the cast they have right now, so yes, the big question, DO YOU trust them to do it well?

As @Wraith said it would be difficult. But I'd personally rather see them try then just ignore them. I didn't like how Tails was handled in Sonic Forces, but that doesn't mean I never want to see Tails ever again out of fear of them getting him wrong.

I don't trust Sega as a whole, but I do trust certain individuals: Ian Flynn, Evan Stanley, Tyson Hesse, etc. I understand you don't like the Freedom Fighters, that's fine. I personally don't care for Cubot & Orbot, I feel they don't add anything to Eggman or Sonic that wasn't done better with previous lackeys. Scratch & Grounder were pretty goofy characters to begin with, but they still managed capture Sonic on occasion and proved themselves as a threat multiple times when Sonic wasn't around to help. To me Cubot & Orbot are completely superfluous characters, but I'm not going to say they should never make an appearance ever again because I don't like them.

That just means to me they haven't reached their full potential - and I hope to see that happen someday.

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The sad thing is I don't HATE the Freedom Fighters. If I did it would be SO much easier to dismiss them. They're a study in frustration for me in spades because I see so many glimpses of potential to be good characters, but I see the writers try and fail so miserably to realise that most of the time, despite most of them being simple archetypes plenty of other basic cartoons do reasonably well, in fact I see this problem MORE so than I do the games cast if that is possible, who can at least manage basic quirks and pantomime to express distinct characteristics and again, have a few more character driven appearances under their belt (Mighty and Ray have reintroduced themselves and shown characters that i find not remarkable but enjoyable, even Knuckles still has some amusing hubris about him).

I understand the complaints with Orbot and Cubot but I feel like they fill their role as supporting characters, comic relief that isn't really meant to have a huge role besides comical banter with Eggman. The Freedom Fighters always represented this insufferably pompous uphold by the writers of serious emotional 'mature' storytelling and a solid cast that had as much their own stories to tell as Sonic. I think people are just as entitled to hate Orbot and Cubot but I think when the Freedom Fighters fail it is a MUCH more detrimental and infuriating situation, especially since they can sometimes end up taking the SEGA cast down with them.

I mean the LAST thing Sonic needs right now is a 'wins every argument' sitcom female archetype placed next to him demonstrating how his spontaneous approach is always wrong and how he needs a girlfriend as an emotional crutch all of a sudden. That was always what Sally's base character came down to when they couldn't write her well (which was pretty damn often, they failed miserably to make her inherently flawed in any way, even in the last points when opportunity was in front of them they scratched their heads desperately), and I can only imagine SEGA, who rarely has even the comic writers marks for effort, could simplify her into something even worse.

I don't want these characters to be forgotten forever, but at the same time I don't want them reimagined in a way that I have to watch them and the franchise around them getting skewed and frustratedly depicted. Orbot and Cubot just get me a 'meh' at their worst, the Freedom Fighters make my damn head hurt.

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7 hours ago, Shadowlax said:

I genuinely can't say most of the FF or archie characters, from older stuff had a good dynamic. Specifically because characters from sonic adventure forward for a good long time just felt wholly disconnected from the world. They would show up and do a thing, but they were essentially entirely separate. This didn't help that Ian flynn felt compelled to often section these folks off into thier own little sections where thier interactions with other non game characters were minimal. I can't say a character has great chemesitry with the cast if they are not allowed to interact in any meaningful way with a lot it. And it isn't just sally again its a lot of older characters.

How does the older cast not interact with each other in any meaningful way? You’re painting a broad brush over characters who’ve gone through romantic troubles, family troubles, war zones, and loss of life, and that’s just by staying in Ian’s era of writing pre-reboot. Off the top of my head:

-Sonic and Tails had their first fist fight in the entire franchise over family and societal issues regarding the land they lived it after living under a shadow of constant tragedy and danger with Eggman and nearly led to a civil war

-Rotor was Injured to the point of being unable to fight (at first), yet he still tried to help in someway by being part of the leadership in a new society so that it doesn’t wind up turning against them as a result of said near-civil war, which it eventually did when it came to Nicole running the city.

-Bunnie and Antoine got married, since their relationship was building for a while even before Ian took over. They do it in the same issue Espio makes a last stand in the heart of Eggman’s city before Eggman vaporizes zaps him into the life-draining Egg Grapes.

-Sally essentially kept whole teams together, such as the joint forces of the Freedom Fighters and the Chaotix when they made a push on the Egg Dome before Eggman temporarily went insane. And yet her and Sonic’s act of mercy on Eggman turned out to bite them in the ass when he returned to form with a new Death Egg, just like how Sonic’s act of mercy on Mr. Tinker in IDW would bite him and much of the land in the ass when Eggman unleashes a techno-plague on them. Sally whole position as the team leader requires her to have meaningful interactions at the bare minimum so these groups and others allied with them can work together as smoothly as possible.

-Then there’s Silver and his whole quest for the traitor to fix his future, but due to not knowing the full details of his quest since information in the future is scarce, he jumps too quick to conclusions that put him at odds with Sonic and the Freedom Fighter until he joins his own group of Freedom Fighters

-Knuckles being turned into Enerjak and being faced off against the Freedom Fighters, the Chaotix, and Shadow the Hedgehog before Sonic went Super. Not only is Knux manipulated into fanatical devotion to freeing his people from what he feels to be the evils of technology—an act of his that actually further divides his people into a society that rebuilds in their ancestral land and a society that joins Eggman to regain the technology he purged from them—but he fights the very people he considers his friends after they reject the person he became and try to return him back to norm, costing the life of his father in the process.

-And Rouge being far more antagonistic towards the people who are supposed to be her allies. Often rubbing off the wrong way given how people are actually used to Rouge (even me), but is still one that was developed as she interacted with the Chaotix and the Freedom Fighters in duplicitous ways.

And that’s before the first Genesis Wave even hit. There’s plenty more that you’re not even trying to look into, dude.

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Its why I appreciate the newer guys, from jump all the dudes from IDW ingratiate themselves into the world, and interact with characters and make those characters and themselves have weight, like they exist like they have meaning.

I really fail to see the difference between how the cast of IDW and Archie ingratiate themselves into the world other than the fact that Archie had it’s world and characters established over a span of more than two decades while IDW is still in the early stages of exploring its own.

How do the characters exist like they have meaning? And how is all the interactions made in Archie not? Because there seems to be a double standard here.

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Back in archie you had characters basically exist in 2 realities.

Are you talking about Scourge’s universe? Or the Genesis arc? Or the Dark Moebius arc?

Because if not, then there wasn’t two realities.

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It died down a bit in the reboot, but it was still very much there. To the credit of Ian FLynn it seems like he realized this back  ( possibly with the push of worlds unite) then and was before the book got canceled write a bunch of stories to solve that problem. But as it stands characters that were made after sonic cd were essentially living in a different reality often quite literally so and had their own people. And only sparsely got interact with other characters

Ian’s first issue officially writing for the comics has Shadow show up before the Freedom Fighters after subduing Bean the Dynamite off panel when the duck and Bark the Polar Bear crashed Sonic’s birthday party.

Then Scourge and Crocbot after who knows how many issues show up againin the next issue and cause trouble, and Sonic and Shadow team up to deal with them.

How is that “sparsely interacting” with other characters?

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2 hours ago, CrownSlayer’s Shadow said:

I really fail to see the difference between how the cast of IDW and Archie ingratiate themselves into the world other than the fact that Archie had it’s world and characters established over a span of more than two decades while IDW is still in the early stages of exploring its own.

How do the characters exist like they have meaning? And how is all the interactions made in Archie not? Because there seems to be a double standard here.

Are you talking about Scourge’s universe? Or the Genesis arc? Or the Dark Moebius arc?

Because if not, then there wasn’t two realities.

Ian’s first issue officially writing for the comics has Shadow show up before the Freedom Fighters after subduing Bean the Dynamite off panel when the duck and Bark the Polar Bear crashed Sonic’s birthday party.

Then Scourge and Crocbot after who knows how many issues show up againin the next issue and cause trouble, and Sonic and Shadow team up to deal with them.

How is that “sparsely interacting” with other characters?

So imma talk about this because this bit lets me succinctly make my point " He showed up to sonic's house and punched some things " , cool. What important sonic characters besides sonic and sonic from another dimension did he interact with and his presence mean anything to? That's the problem, not just with shadow with a bunch of post adventure characters in preboot archie. When they leave the screen , the page they don't exist. They don't mean anything to the greater world, no one cares about them, they aren't mentioned or relevant or have ties that mean anything. Punching scourge and bean isn't interact worth meriting and doesn't really do much for the character. And after all that he gets shoved off to his own corner of the world with gun where when he can litterally show up to help people in the next big thing he is busy " guarding the president " or whatever.

You know what happens in, in IDW, people actually know who shadow is and talk about him off screen. Whispers old crew talking about shadow off screen says more about shadow's place in the world in one sentence than shadow ever did punching people in the face in the whole of Archie utill eclipse showed up. It isn't just enough to do something in the story , it has to matter. That character has to be a thing and matter to people once they leave. They did more in one line, one line than most of shadow's tenure in that book.

And you know how I know I'm right. Because Ian noticed it and started changing shit to fix it, that's why you started having characters like big and cream hang out with the FF"s more. Its why Shadow had eclipse a character he could quite literally chase around the world to force him to interact with the world around. Its why right before the comic ended FLynn was gonna do an arc where it turns out bunnie came from blazes world. Because he realized that all the lore all the weight in the world was built up around a a select group of characters and he needed to even that shit out.

So that's what i'm talking about

One line did all that

One line

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36 minutes ago, Shadowlax said:

So imma talk about this because this bit lets me succinctly make my point " He showed up to sonic's house and punched some things " , cool. What important sonic characters besides sonic and sonic from another dimension did he interact with and his presence mean anything to?

Who? Shadow? Theres:

-Sally, who sometimes called him in for back up when things really were serious. (I’m not even including their marriage in 25YL arcs)

-Rouge, who often was playing many parties at once.

-Eggman, who he worked for in order to find out more about himself, yet wasn’t above threatening the man himself.

-E-101 Gamma who he was sent to recruit for GUN before Gamma downloaded his mind into Omega

-Hope, who reminded him a lot of Maria

-Knuckles, who he fought against as Enerjak, yet before that was the one character who actually understood Shadow predicament of wanting to know more about himself and fought off Snively to help buy time for Shadow discovering that knowledge.

-Metal Sonic, who he fought against in Blaze’s dimension and tried to convince the Metal copy that he didn’t have to obey Eggman and could follow his own path (which Metal soundly rejected, like he would also do in IDW)

-And then there was Blaze and Marine, who did everything they could to help Shadow stop Metal Sonic tearing up their world and give Shadow an Emerald to return home

That’s just off my head. I’m pretty sure there’s more I missed.

Edit: I did, there’s also Nicole, who helped him access Prof. Gerald’s diary so he could find out more about himself while Knuckles was out buying him time from Snively.

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That's the problem, not just with shadow with a bunch of post adventure characters in preboot archie. When they leave the screen , the page they don't exist. They don't mean anything to the greater world, no one cares about them, they aren't mentioned or relevant or have ties that mean anything.

Literally anyone who can read the comics knows that isn’t true. Especially you.

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You know what happens in, in IDW, people actually know who shadow is and talk about him off screen. Whispers old crew talking about shadow off screen says more about shadow's place in the world in one sentence than shadow ever did punching people in the face in the whole of Archie utill eclipse showed up. It isn't just enough to do something in the story , it has to matter. That character has to be a thing and matter to people once they leave. They did more in one line, one line than most of shadow's tenure in that book.

That’s not showing meaning, that’s being upset that people aren’t fanboying over Shadow.

And it’s been said to you many times that he’s not the only character in the comics people like or want to talk about.

 

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And you know how I know I'm right. Because Ian noticed it and started changing shit to fix it, that's why you started having characters like big and cream hang out with the FF"s more

No, you’re not right. And the reason why is because there was a lawsuit was getting in the way of all his plans and he had to write something else in place of it. This is what happened and was first noticed when Endangered Species’s final issue was completely and abruptly changed from what he originally had it.

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 Its why Shadow had eclipse a character he could quite literally chase around the world to force him to interact with the world around. Its why right before the comic ended FLynn was gonna do an arc where it turns out bunnie came from blazes world. Because he realized that all the lore all the weight in the world was built up around a a select group of characters and he needed to even that shit out.

So that's what i'm talking about

One line did all that

One lin

Again, that was because of the lawsuit. Otherwise, Ian wouldn’t have changed anything he already had set in store. He didn’t have to create Eclipse for anything to give Shadow meaning, he could have easily done so with just him and Knuckles given they had far more of a dynamic going on than the Darkling did given the rivalry they had. And I’m gonna need a direct confirmation on that part about Bunnie being in Blaze’s world, because we don’t even know what he intended given it was never even released.

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39 minutes ago, Shadowlax said:

So imma talk about this because this bit lets me succinctly make my point " He showed up to sonic's house and punched some things " , cool. What important sonic characters besides sonic and sonic from another dimension did he interact with and his presence mean anything to? That's the problem, not just with shadow with a bunch of post adventure characters in preboot archie. When they leave the screen , the page they don't exist. They don't mean anything to the greater world, no one cares about them, they aren't mentioned or relevant or have ties that mean anything. Punching scourge and bean isn't interact worth meriting and doesn't really do much for the character. And after all that he gets shoved off to his own corner of the world with gun where when he can litterally show up to help people in the next big thing he is busy " guarding the president " or whatever.

You know what happens in, in IDW, people actually know who shadow is and talk about him off screen. Whispers old crew talking about shadow off screen says more about shadow's place in the world in one sentence than shadow ever did punching people in the face in the whole of Archie utill eclipse showed up. It isn't just enough to do something in the story , it has to matter. That character has to be a thing and matter to people once they leave. They did more in one line, one line than most of shadow's tenure in that book.

And you know how I know I'm right. Because Ian noticed it and started changing shit to fix it, that's why you started having characters like big and cream hang out with the FF"s more. Its why Shadow had eclipse a character he could quite literally chase around the world to force him to interact with the world around. Its why right before the comic ended FLynn was gonna do an arc where it turns out bunnie came from blazes world. Because he realized that all the lore all the weight in the world was built up around a a select group of characters and he needed to even that shit out.

So that's what i'm talking about

One line did all that

One line

"And when Shadow isn't on-screen, everyone needs to be asking 'where's Shadow?'"

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You know, no. I don't care. Think what you want.

Ain't no reason to argue. The change that I said happened, happened. Its up to you to believe it. And if you don't more power to you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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5 minutes ago, Shadowlax said:

That's not what I mean.

You are being disingenuous.

 

I'll just be real and say I've been reading a lot of the Flynn archie stuff lately and don't see this as much of an issue then.

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The general problem with the interactions with the Freedom Fighters is how formal and automated they are since, again, the plot almost always revolved around a mission plan first and foremost and actual unique character personality and agency dead last. Ian tried to fix this a bit around the last legs of the comic but I still think the FF were the ones they struggled the most with, them trying to be character driven had sort of 'trying to blindly connect their umbilical somewhere' feel. Personality was always just something they peppered onto their dialogue or whenever they wanted a bit of soap opera drama (and I got kinda sick of Archie's penchant for characters screaming and disowning each other for any broadened interaction).

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The 'last legs' featured arcs like "Spark of Life" where the entire crux of the thing is healing and growth. Largely the productive kind of drama that actually goes somewhere and ends the characters in a better place. Flynn could be accused of circling the drain in earlier days with the drama sometimes but he got a lot better with handling the FFs over time. 

Even then I noticed when he took over a shift in Sally into someone more willing to play along with Sonic's shenanigans was pretty immediate. A shift I notice is conveniently ignored whenever the "nagging wife" accusations come up. She became someone more like Sonic's M who could guide his nose in the right direction on a mission rather than be a drag. 

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7 minutes ago, Wraith said:

The 'last legs' featured arcs like "Spark of Life" where the entire crux of the thing is healing and growth. Largely the productive kind of drama that actually goes somewhere and ends the characters in a better place. Flynn could be accused of circling the drain in earlier days with the drama sometimes but he got a lot better with handling the FFs over time. 

Even then I noticed when he took over a shift in Sally into someone more willing to play along with Sonic's shenanigans was pretty immediate. A shift I notice is conveniently ignored whenever the "nagging wife" accusations come up. She became someone more like Sonic's M who could guide his nose in the right direction on a mission rather than be a drag. 

Spark of Life sort of had the same recurrent issue, it's best moments are the games cast (Big is quite fun in that arc) while the main FF still have that sort of 'blindly trying and failing to grasp a personality' thing. Like it hits a wall BIG TIME in approaching one of Sally's key traits; her contradicting tactics. No no, it is NICOLE who is the hypocrite. Sally is NEVER hypocritical.

This is in general the main reason why I think Sally's 'nagging wife' persona became so unpopular, not because she had it, but because writers didn't like to play on it in-universe. It never went anywhere into developing her character besides the snark and melodrama which ended up grating on fans and like so many problems with the FF, writers sought to ERASE it and pretend it never existed rather than hit it on the nose.

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