I have a plan to "fix" Game-Canon Amy Rose

[Scape]

Subject: I have a plan to "fix" Game!Canon Amy Rose.

I get the feeling that it's become taboo to say anything about her, but I can't internalize my thoughts anymore. I think it's funny how defending Amy to the Sonic Fanbase is just like defending the overall Sonic series to the rest of the world. As an off-and-on Sonic fan, I already have a target on my back. On top of that, I'm getting sick of Amy not being a fun character. I'm getting sick of people saying things like "Amy was always terrible" "Amy needs to die" "Amy's fans are idiots" but when IGN says this about the Sonic series as a whole, they're up in arms.

So, in celebration of the 25th anniversary and Sega's big attempt to regain the goodwill that Rise of Lyric killed, I'm gonna attempt to explain how one of the most divisive characters in the series can be done better.

1. End the crush because most of SEGA's writers don't know what to do with it. After Sonic Adventure 2, her obsession with Sonic became her main defining trait to the point of being a detriment to herself and everyone around her. Tails had a similar relationship with Sonic, but eventually grew out of it, becoming absorbed in his work and almost dismissive of him. [which is probably becoming it's own problem but whatever] This contributed to making Amy look even worse. Sonic's friends are more interesting when they possibly have their own lives to lead. That's not to say she should go all "rah rah gurl power sonic is old news" Just let her affection towards him be background radiation. Don't make her dismissive of Sonic.

2. Dive into her interest in the mystical like fortune telling, dowsing and her possible psychic abilities. Have games of chance more likely to fall in her favor. When she's near a special item (hidden Item Boxes, Rings and Springs, Giant Rings, Red Star Rings, etc.) she closes her eyes and gets surrounded by hearts. When a hazard off-screen is nearby, an exclamation point appears above her head. And maybe have instances where Sonic Tails and Knuckles skeptical of all her mystical mumbo-jumbo even though their lives have been so strongly influenced by it.

3. Make her the one looking after those little animals that Sonic rescues. Whenever he opens a big capsule of them, she runs up and checks on them. As he rescues the critters by the dozens, she hangs back a bit, letting them flock to her and making sure they're cared for. As Sonic continues, Amy gathers more and more of them. By the end of the game, her and thousands of the critters storm the final stronghold with Sonic, breaking machinery, helping him traverse and giving him items.

4. Maybe have Tails make her these shoes [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0skVVddNibQ] Just cut out the middle man. She can now reach Boost-level speeds. Say that Tails gave them to her during her last birthday. He wanted to see if she'd be less frustrated with Sonic and understand him better, if she could reliably trail him. She begins running errands using the skates instead of her car out of concern for the environment, and becomes hooked. The sensation of the wind ripping through her quills, the feeling of being virtually unstoppable, and the knowledge that she could now theoretically catch up to Sonic without breaking a sweat. She eventually senses him run past her hometown and decides to go for it. She skates as fast as she can towards him until the shoes begin to lift her feet off the ground and propel her forward. After a while, she begins trailing him. Once he notices, his path starts changing erratically, making tons of zig-zags and sharp turns, but she mimics him beat-for-beat. He finally relents and slows down. Before he can speak, she says that she knows he doesn't owe her anything and promises to respect his privacy, but she would still like to just play tag every once in a while. After a moment of silence, He compliments the build quality of her shoes and how well she kept up with him. Then after another bit of contemplation, he pokes her and goes "Tag, you're it" before taking off.

If that couldn't make her cool, nothing could. We start thinking about Amy in a finer detail than “burn it to the ground and forget it existed.” What do you think?

[Neo_Fire_Sonic]

54 minutes ago, Scape said:

1. End the crush because most of SEGA's writers don't know what to do with it. After Sonic Adventure 2, her obsession with Sonic became her main defining trait to the point of being a detriment to herself and everyone around her. Tails had a similar relationship with Sonic, but eventually grew out of it, becoming absorbed in his work and almost dismissive of him. [which is probably becoming it's own problem but whatever] This contributed to making Amy look even worse. Sonic's friends are more interesting when they possibly have their own lives to lead. That's not to say she should go all "rah rah gurl power sonic is old news" Just let her affection towards him be background radiation. Don't make her dismissive of Sonic.
 

or just make it like how boom amy is, she hides it and sonic is completely oblivious. Like the fangirls in the yugioh series

[Mad Convoy]

1 hour ago, Scape said:

I get the feeling that it's become taboo to say anything about her, but I can't internalize my thoughts anymore. I think it's funny how defending Amy to the Sonic Fanbase is just like defending the overall Sonic series to the rest of the world. As an off-and-on Sonic fan, I already have a target on my back. On top of that, I'm getting sick of Amy not being a fun character. I'm getting sick of people saying things like "Amy was always terrible" "Amy needs to die" "Amy's fans are idiots" but when IGN says this about the Sonic series as a whole, they're up in arms.

Well, I suppose this is the right place for you. The people on this forum are probably the most open I've seem about Sonic's friends. Dunno what IGN has to do with this though.

Onto the meat of the topic

1 hour ago, Scape said:

1. End the crush because most of SEGA's writers don't know what to do with it. After Sonic Adventure 2, her obsession with Sonic became her main defining trait to the point of being a detriment to herself and everyone around her. Tails had a similar relationship with Sonic, but eventually grew out of it, becoming absorbed in his work and almost dismissive of him. [which is probably becoming it's own problem but whatever] This contributed to making Amy look even worse. Sonic's friends are more interesting when they possibly have their own lives to lead. That's not to say she should go all "rah rah gurl power sonic is old news" Just let her affection towards him be background radiation. Don't make her dismissive of Sonic.

She kind of already is like that in Boom, as Neo_Fire_Sonic mentioned. She also has elements of this in Sonic Lost World, where she never fawned over Sonic. So I'd declare this a problem already solved.

1 hour ago, Scape said:

2. Dive into her interest in the mystical like fortune telling, dowsing and her possible psychic abilities. Have games of chance more likely to fall in her favor. When she's near a special item (hidden Item Boxes, Rings and Springs, Giant Rings, Red Star Rings, etc.) she closes her eyes and gets surrounded by hearts. When a hazard off-screen is nearby, an exclamation point appears above her head. And maybe have instances where Sonic Tails and Knuckles skeptical of all her mystical mumbo-jumbo even though their lives have been so strongly influenced by it.

This makes sense to me, because I'm familiar enough with the Sonic franchise to know about Sonic CD's instruction manual. But it wouldn't make sense to people who aren't familiar with Sonic CD's instruction manual, because she has never showed any sign of psychic ability outside of Sonic Chronicles, a relatively obscure Sonic title, and maybe Sonic 06 if the invisibility thing is any indication. In fact, plenty of people probably consider the CD's manual's contents to be non-canon as it contains some mistakes (such as calling Amy "Sally Acorn"). So while the idea appeals to me, its probably not a good idea to pursue for Amy's character if she is going to be redeemed, as it simply won't make sense to a lot of people.

1 hour ago, Scape said:

3. Make her the one looking after those little animals that Sonic rescues. Whenever he opens a big capsule of them, she runs up and checks on them. As he rescues the critters by the dozens, she hangs back a bit, letting them flock to her and making sure they're cared for. As Sonic continues, Amy gathers more and more of them. By the end of the game, her and thousands of the critters storm the final stronghold with Sonic, breaking machinery, helping him traverse and giving him items.

I think the first part is a good idea. Amy's always been styled as a protector-type character so it makes sense for her to look after the Flickies/Wisps/etc. But it would be pretty difficult to have them infiltrate the final stronghold, not to mention that if she and the Flickies are throwing items all over the place it might make the final level too easy and thus disappointing. Could use some refinement but still pretty good idea.

1 hour ago, Scape said:

4. Maybe have Tails make her these shoes [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0skVVddNibQ] Just cut out the middle man. She can now reach Boost-level speeds. Say that Tails gave them to her during her last birthday. He wanted to see if she'd be less frustrated with Sonic and understand him better, if she could reliably trail him. She begins running errands using the skates instead of her car out of concern for the environment, and becomes hooked. The sensation of the wind ripping through her quills, the feeling of being virtually unstoppable, and the knowledge that she could now theoretically catch up to Sonic without breaking a sweat. She eventually senses him run past her hometown and decides to go for it. She skates as fast as she can towards him until the shoes begin to lift her feet off the ground and propel her forward. After a while, she begins trailing him. Once he notices, his path starts changing erratically, making tons of zig-zags and sharp turns, but she mimics him beat-for-beat. He finally relents and slows down. Before he can speak, she says that she knows he doesn't owe her anything and promises to respect his privacy, but she would still like to just play tag every once in a while. After a moment of silence, He compliments the build quality of her shoes and how well she kept up with him. Then after another bit of contemplation, he pokes her and goes "Tag, you're it" before taking off.

This I like. How might you integrate it into the games' stories?

1 hour ago, Scape said:

If that couldn't make her cool, nothing could. We start thinking about Amy in a finer detail than “burn it to the ground and forget it existed.” What do you think?

SSMB has kind of already been discussing Amy and the other friends in terms of what they can do rather than based on stigmas, so I'd say Amy has already been thought about in finer detail here. But we can always think more.  

[Frobman]

Having been looking up a bunch of [good and completed] translations to profiles in manuals and websites, I was also thinking how giving Amy more use of her tarot/dowsing abilities might open up more gameplay mechanics. (And with informed attributes for others like Tails disliking thunder and Knuckles hating strong sunlight might do for parts in stages they don't do so well in, like how Sonic is with water)

Character wise, if they go for what Boom's doing or close to that, that'd be fine.

[JezMM]

Big Amy fan, but I'm not keen on anything in the OP to be honest.

I like that Amy has a crush on Sonic, it's cute, and I also like that she has grown as a person over the course of the series - from being a fangirl in CD/Adventure, to being a bit of an annoying friend in Adventure 2, to... complete psycopath in Heroes but let's let that one slide, to being a trusted friend of Sonic's who may still take any opportunity to flirt with him but is steadfastly one of the group in 2006 onwards, and knows when to put her feelings away to help the cause.  To axe the crush entirely would be to throw all that development away.

The mystic powers thing I've always found a bit of pointless thing that people gravitate towards almost just to get brownie points for knowing some lore from some old manuals that never get referred to in-game.  If they ever do something with this, I think they'd need to introduce it as if it's a new thing she's begun rather than act like she had these abilities the whole time to not alienate people.  But honestly, I like her being an all-rounder character with a bit of focus on fighting ability due to her hammer.  It's so typical for "the girl" in a predominantly male cast to be the one with magical powers or whatever, I'm glad the core four Sonic characters subverts that to be honest.  She's become a lot less hotheaded and empathetic compared to Knuckles (who has steadily gone in the opposite direction for better or worse), so I feel there is room for two "fighters" in Sonic's squad.

The looking after flickies thing... honestly again while her care for those in need is a part of her character, the flickies have proven themselves plenty independant during times of peace, I feel Amy has her own life to live in this regard.  Again it just feels like a bit of a "typical" role for a main female character and I like to see Amy subvert those expectations whenever possible considering her very typically girly character design.

Finally, I don't really see any need for her to be able to keep up with Sonic.  She has her own unique skillset and in most games she can run at pretty much Sonic's speed if necessary for gameplay anyway.

 

 

I will say while I can't decide one way or another on whether I'd want her canon personality to go this way, I am very much a fan of her slightly more neurotic adult personality she has in Sonic Boom.  She has basically become Monica from Friends and that's fine by me because it makes her a genuinely entertaining and funny character which is a kind of important trait in a sitcom.

 

 

I guess my main disagreement here is that she needs fixing in the first place.  I think the real issue is people writing her off due to her portrayal in her more psychotic/fangirlish appearances and not paying attention to any of the nuances the other games DO provide in their writing (which is of course sadly limited when it comes to quality, so like, I get it, just wish it didn't happen).

[ChikoLad]

A mixture of Sonic Adventure (overall personality), Sonic X (in terms of her attitude towards her love for Sonic), and Sonic Heroes (in terms of her abilities/how fun she is to play) would be the perfect representation of Amy, IMO.

Boom Amy is OK but I think she's too much of the stereotypical "arrogant smart girl that's better than all of the boys" type of character. Like the really try hard kind of "strong female character".

Amy has never been much of a problematic character either way IMO. The only game I felt seriously botched her was Sonic Chronicles, but that game botched a lot of characters (including Sonic).

[Wraith]

Amy's interest in the mystic should be more of a personality trait. Making her a full blown magician seems kind of out of nowhere and I've never been a fan of that idea. 

For the most part, I like her the way she is. You can just expand upon what's there instead of completely altering the character that much. She's the "normal" character in a cast full of freaks. She can't even go as fast as the other hedgehogs and doesn't really curl into a ball. Yet she makes due anyway with a fucking hammer. Despite the fact that she's at a disadvantage she makes herself needed. That's cool to me. 

Basically what I'm saying is Amy is Batman

[Rey Skywalker-Ren]

My idea to fix Amy would be to make her more relevant. As of now she is a background character and just as they got her character down pact. I want to see her in the action again. 

As for taking her crush away, it would kind of ruin the character. In my opinion, her crush on Sonic is part of the reason why she loved going on adventures. That and it can cause for some wacky comedic moments to happen. Of course, I do not want it to be her defining trait but taking that aspect away doesn't do the character any justice. Boom!Amy had it to where she still loved Sonic, and we knew it, but it was more a secret. 

[Sparky]

Remember this? Amy Rose representing Nimue, the Lady of the Lake in Sonic & the Black Knight? Within the game's story, she made use of plenty of mystical, magical abilities and skills. Sir Lancelot shared Sonic's speed and agility, and was capable of using Chaos Control to warp time and space, Sir Gawain was as strong as Sonic is fast, a powerful fighter also capable of gliding through the air and climbing up walls. Sir Percival was capable of manipulating flames. Sir Galahad has Psychokinetic abilities. The Blacksmith uses his twin tails to fly, and is... well, a Blacksmith. Those characters represent Shadow, Knuckles, Blaze, Silver, and Tails, respectively. And thus, each character shared the same exact skills and abilities as their counterparts. Amy's counterpart, Nimue, uses MAGIC. What does that say about Amy? It says a lot about the girl who was originally described as liking fortune telling and mystic things, with card reading and dowsing being her "specialty", back in Sonic CD's Japanese instruction manual.

[sonicgirl313]

I feel like this video helps explains Amy and how the solution should pretty much be toning down her crush on Sonic. I actually agree with it and the irony is I'm a sonamy fan. Sure it seemed sweet and adorable when I first became a Sonic fan at the age of twelve... but then I grew up and while I still like the couple... eh I don't find myself loving Amy's hyper fangirl moments as much as I once did. I feel like the best representation of her crush would be Sonic Unleashed. The crush was still there but it wasn't... oh what's the word I'm looking for, crazy I guess.

 

[FriendBot]

I'll just be the lazy guy and say just make her like the current Archie version, pretty much do that with every character. And call it a day.

[StaticMania]

Amy's not no show-goil, nobody wants to see her perform magic tricks as a lame way to stay relevant in battle. She's a normal type, mang. Just as good as every other...with her own strengths and weaknesses...Magic stays with magic users, like Silver or Blaze.

[Lord-Dreamerz]

Umm I like Sonic Team Amy as she is. I think she often feels only extremely flat as a character because she doesn't get much screen time in most of the games... which means she basically just gets reduced to a parody version of herself over half the time in what is basically cameo roles like most Sonic characters sadly nowadays.

Honestly I don't even like the personality of Boom Amy, I find it more annoying then normal Amy somehow...

So how do we fix Amy? Make her playable more often and or give Sonic games deeper stories that allow the cast to be more then 1 dimensional personality characters.

[Sparky]

19 hours ago, StaticMania said:

Amy's not no show-goil, nobody wants to see her perform magic tricks as a lame way to stay relevant in battle. She's a normal type, mang. Just as good as every other...with her own strengths and weaknesses...Magic stays with magic users, like Silver or Blaze.

Why does everyone say she's "normal"? When has that ever been the case?! Silver and Blaze don't use magic. Silver uses Psychokinesis and  Blaze uses Fire. Neither is actually "magic". Amy has had mystical stuff since her game debut, she's always had an affinity with fortunes and mystic things. It's just that she didn't really do anything physical until Sonic the Fighters, where her "Magical" Hammer debuted. 

Amy, in terms of ability, is actually like the kind of stuff Nimue did. Not some normal powerless girl that just so happens to carry around a hammer. She has magical and mystical abilities, skills, and talents. That's her true specialty. She's a magical girl, not a normal girl. Tarot Cards, Dowsing, whatever other mystical things, have been apart of her character after CD. They weren't just forgotten or ignored completely, since they were mentioned in Sonic Battle, and are included in her Sonic Channel profile. Plus, the games themselves make it very clear that Amy can literally feel Sonic's presence and sense his location. Some may call that being a crazy stalker, but what it is is magic. This is why the comics have Amy using the Mystic Melody. Being mystic things are her specialty.

[Monkey Destruction Switch]

42 minutes ago, Sparky said:

Tarot Cards, Dowsing, whatever other mystical things, have been apart of her character after CD. They weren't just forgotten or ignored completely, since they were mentioned in Sonic Battle, and are included in her Sonic Channel profile. Plus, the games themselves make it very clear that Amy can literally feel Sonic's presence and sense his location. Some may call that being a crazy stalker, but what it is is magic. This is why the comics have Amy using the Mystic Melody. Being mystic things are her specialty.

Appearing in a single spin-off game and appearing in character profiles are, all things considered, pretty minor ways for a character trait to be featured. Amy's affiliation with the mystical is far too insignificant to be considered a major part of her character as things stand now. In the main series games themselves, I don't think there's even a hint of Amy being affiliated with mystical things. At best, it's just a piece of trivia that's referenced in a few relatively unimportant games. That's it.

And that thing about her being able to sense Sonic's presence is just your headcanon.

[Sparky]

10 minutes ago, Monkey Destruction Switch said:

Appearing in a single spin-off game and appearing in character profiles are, all things considered, pretty minor ways for a character trait to be featured. Amy's affiliation with the mystical is far too insignificant to be considered a major part of her character as things stand now. In the main series games themselves, I don't think there's even a hint of Amy being affiliated with mystical things. At best, it's just a piece of trivia that's referenced in a few relatively unimportant games. That's it.

And that thing about her being able to sense Sonic's presence is just your headcanon.

How is it "just my headcanon" when it's mentioned and referenced in-game? By both herself and other characters?

[StaticMania]

It's probably because you're taking purely comedic lines...for humor and interpreting them as being completely serious. Amy doesn't use magic of any kind in the games, it's that simple.

[Sparky]

In Sonic CD, the reason she's even there is by order of the cards, because of a destined encounter. The manual doesn't even actually state if she knew Sonic was there or not, all that was said was that she came to Little Planet by order of the cards, and there she has a destined encounter. Card Reading and Dowsing were listed as her "specialty", and she was described as an energetic optimistic "tomboy" that likes fortune telling and mystic things. In Sonic the Fighters, her hammer is called a "Magical Hammer" in the moves list, and considering she summons it out of nowhere and has an endless supply... yeah, it's magic. In Sonic Adventure 2: Battle, she was given the special moves "Storming Heart" and "Amy Flash". Amy Flash itself is worth mentioning because, unlike Sonic's Time Stop and Shadow's Chaos Control, Amy Flash just paralyzes the opponent without affecting time and space. That's enough of a difference for it to have more meaning to it than just gameplay balance purposes and stuff. In Sonic Heroes, it's mentioned often during levels and stuff that Amy can "feel" Sonic's presence. I remember one instance in Final Fortress where she says that at one point in the level. In Sonic Rush, Cream herself states that Amy is like a Sonic Radar or something. In Sonic '06, they apparently felt Invisibility made enough sense for Amy to have, even if the move was just a placeholder or something. 

The only thing keeping her from doing the things Nimue did is the fact she uses the magical Piko Piko Hammer. 

[Monkey Destruction Switch]

59 minutes ago, Sparky said:

In Sonic CD, the reason she's even there is by order of the cards, because of a destined encounter. The manual doesn't even actually state if she knew Sonic was there or not, all that was said was that she came to Little Planet by order of the cards, and there she has a destined encounter. Card Reading and Dowsing were listed as her "specialty", and she was described as an energetic optimistic "tomboy" that likes fortune telling and mystic things.

This is definitely the most prominent appearance of Amy's affiliation with mysticism, but at the end of the day it's still just one game, most people don't consider being a snickering trickster to be a particularly big part of Knuckles' character even though he was in his debut game (and that was even actually in the game, not just the manual)

And even with this example in mind, perhaps an even more important point to make is that even in this example, Amy is nowhere remotely close to, as you said in your first post, being a "magical girl"; it just means she likes tarot cards and other superstitious things and that, in this one instance, they apparently worked. It doesn't mean that Amy has magical abilities of any kind; she just knows how to read tarot cards, and that's honestly not that big a deal

59 minutes ago, Sparky said:

In Sonic the Fighters, her hammer is called a "Magical Hammer" in the moves list, and considering she summons it out of nowhere and has an endless supply... yeah, it's magic.

I believe that may also be known as "cartoon physics"

Amy may have an attack called "Magical Hammer" but as far as I can recall she never does anything particularly "mystical" with it in the game that can't be explained away with the above, and right now I'm trying to focus on things more tangible than attack names and mentions in user's manuals - you would need to provide more actual instances of Amy using mysticism in a game for me to be convinced it's an even somewhat important part of her character

In subsequent games they don't call her hammer "magical" so it's a lot more logical to assume cartoon physics are at play

And at the end of the day, even if her hammer was indeed magical in Sonic the Fighters, that's still just a minor spin-off that has very little relevance to the series as a whole

And even if we ignore the fact that it's just a minor spin-off, even if, just for the sake of argument, I go along with everything you say and declare that yes, Amy's hammer is magical, that doesn't even prove Amy herself is actually magical or that her affinity for mystical stuff is anything more than a superstitious hobby, because the power could just be in the hammer itself and the wielder need not have any magical skills or abilities (note: I'm still not saying her hammer is magical because I don't see anything but an attack name in a single old spin-off game to indicate that it is, unless you assume that cartoon physics are magic which you really shouldn't)

59 minutes ago, Sparky said:

In Sonic Adventure 2: Battle, she was given the special moves "Storming Heart" and "Amy Flash".

OK Rouge can cause earthquakes got it

59 minutes ago, Sparky said:

In Sonic Heroes, it's mentioned often during levels and stuff that Amy can "feel" Sonic's presence. I remember one instance in Final Fortress where she says that at one point in the level. In Sonic Rush, Cream herself states that Amy is like a Sonic Radar or something.

You're taking throwaway lines ridiculously seriously. Seriously, the only reason you're interpreting any of this as meaning that Amy literally has mystical Sonic-tracking powers is because you're actively looking for it. No one on a normal playthrough of the games would make this assumption. No one. If Sega actually intended for this to be a part of Amy's character, that she can literally, tangibly sense Sonic's presence using her magical abilities, I don't see why they wouldn't make it more obvious.

tl;dr: You can interpret and skew things however you like, and clearly you have, but the evidence that anyone working on the games intentionally portrays Amy as having real magical abilities just isn't there. If you don't bring up any more tangible proof, I'm not likely to keep up this argument at all.

Amy is a girl with a big hammer who has some interest in fortune telling. She's not magical.

[Celestia]

I don't think Amy really needs fixing...any more or less than almost everyone else in the cast, that is. Just give her more screentime, more things to do, and for the love of all that is good, don't degress back to her Heroes or Battle style characterization. Fortunately the main games don't really do that anymore, at least. Except Colours DS, if that counts. She was awful there.

I wouldn't mind exploring the whole "mystical" concept, tho'. I do agree it would be a little out of nowhere since there's only been one unambiguous on-screen reference to it (Sonic Battle), but it wouldn't necessarily have to be a major aspect of her character. Sonic is often described as having a short temper, but we only really see it when he has a reason to be really mad, rather than showing it off in every single game. Amy being capable of, say, tarot readings that are incredibly vague but turned out to be a big deal like in CD's backstory would be perfectly fine, and probably wouldn't be brought up that often. It'd just be a fun little nod to some old lore that was never really utilized, and I'm all for that.

Now, if she started casting spells or something, yeah, that'd be a bit much.

...That said, I always thought it was more fun to assume Amy really can pull hammers out of thin air...somehow. I know it's a classic cartoon physics gag, but in a franchise full of weird superpowers, it's--okay, it'd be the weirdest one, probably. XP

[Sparky]

8 hours ago, Monkey Destruction Switch said:

This is definitely the most prominent appearance of Amy's affiliation with mysticism, but at the end of the day it's still just one game, most people don't consider being a snickering trickster to be a particularly big part of Knuckles' character even though he was in his debut game (and that was even actually in the game, not just the manual)

And even with this example in mind, perhaps an even more important point to make is that even in this example, Amy is nowhere remotely close to, as you said in your first post, being a "magical girl"; it just means she likes tarot cards and other superstitious things and that, in this one instance, they apparently worked. It doesn't mean that Amy has magical abilities of any kind; she just knows how to read tarot cards, and that's honestly not that big a deal

I believe that may also be known as "cartoon physics"

Amy may have an attack called "Magical Hammer" but as far as I can recall she never does anything particularly "mystical" with it in the game that can't be explained away with the above, and right now I'm trying to focus on things more tangible than attack names and mentions in user's manuals - you would need to provide more actual instances of Amy using mysticism in a game for me to be convinced it's an even somewhat important part of her character

In subsequent games they don't call her hammer "magical" so it's a lot more logical to assume cartoon physics are at play

And at the end of the day, even if her hammer was indeed magical in Sonic the Fighters, that's still just a minor spin-off that has very little relevance to the series as a whole

And even if we ignore the fact that it's just a minor spin-off, even if, just for the sake of argument, I go along with everything you say and declare that yes, Amy's hammer is magical, that doesn't even prove Amy herself is actually magical or that her affinity for mystical stuff is anything more than a superstitious hobby, because the power could just be in the hammer itself and the wielder need not have any magical skills or abilities (note: I'm still not saying her hammer is magical because I don't see anything but an attack name in a single old spin-off game to indicate that it is, unless you assume that cartoon physics are magic which you really shouldn't)

OK Rouge can cause earthquakes got it

You're taking throwaway lines ridiculously seriously. Seriously, the only reason you're interpreting any of this as meaning that Amy literally has mystical Sonic-tracking powers is because you're actively looking for it. No one on a normal playthrough of the games would make this assumption. No one. If Sega actually intended for this to be a part of Amy's character, that she can literally, tangibly sense Sonic's presence using her magical abilities, I don't see why they wouldn't make it more obvious.

tl;dr: You can interpret and skew things however you like, and clearly you have, but the evidence that anyone working on the games intentionally portrays Amy as having real magical abilities just isn't there. If you don't bring up any more tangible proof, I'm not likely to keep up this argument at all.

Amy is a girl with a big hammer who has some interest in fortune telling. She's not magical.

From my perspective, the only reason she isn't a magical girl in everyone's eyes is because after Sonic the Fighters, SEGA decided to have her hammer be her main form of attack in Sonic Adventure, and so her gameplay style was based around the hammer alone, and from then on everyone sees the hammer as her only special thing, when that wasn't actually the case. It's not some reference to old lore because it was never removed from her character, just not focused on as heavily as her personality and her hammer, aside from her appearance as Nimue, Lady of the Lake. None of the other Knights of the Round Table displayed abilities that their main counterparts didn't also have, so why would there be a difference with Nimue? She displays full on magic, so that means that the real Amy has that same level of magical ability and skill, without a doubt, just like how Sir Lancelot moved like Shadow, fought like Shadow, and used Shadow's abilities and skills. Amy's Tarot Cards, Dowsing, and her Piko PIko Hammers, all together, is a very significant sign of Amy being magic. Sonic Channel mentions all three of those things the same way it mentions Sonic's supersonic speed, Tails' flying and tinkering with technology/flying planes, Knuckles' power, and climbing/gliding/digging, Shadow's chaos control, Silver's psychokinesis, etc. Which means it's her core ability, her specialty. It's as important to her character as being energetic and optimistic and being in love with Sonic, even if it doesn't appear that way. 

[MetalSkulkBane]

There isn't much needed to fix in Amy. UNO She can't be too crazy, being able to think about different things that Sonic, DOS she can't threat her friends with hammer (especially Cream). Done. Some games did it right, Archie did it right, Fleetway and Boom to some extent too (although they changed her into a completely different character than games), Sonic X could try sliiightly harder.

1 Her crush needs to stay in one form or the other. it is vital part of her character. If we want ""serious"" Amy then Archie is good example. If we want more comedic approach I suggest that Amy is smart and competent, but around Sonic she goes into "fangirl" mode.

2 Maybe as little tricks, hobby or stuff, but her main gimmick should be hammer, not Magic Missile.

On 12.08.2016 at 4:09 AM, Sparky said:

Amy has had mystical stuff since her game debut, she's always had an affinity with fortunes and mystic things.

You know that Batman used guns to kill people during his first days? It's not exactly about "been here from start", but about what is being associated with character (which for Amy is her hammer and love for Sonic, not magic)

3 That's already part of her character, it's just that games do little with Sonic's friends (still, Lost World).

4 Make another super fast hedgehog? No thanks. One time experience could been a character development, staying like this would be devolving into Pink Sonic.

Two extra thing I would change about her if I had a time machine: her design and name. Now it's too late, we grew accustom to them. But in world where everyone had meaningful names, "Amy" sounds bland. Her design could use more touches, but most importantly she needs dress that hides her panties.

[JezMM]

The Black Knight thing is a reach.  Sure, the other characters have their abilities match their counterparts, but there's nothing to say Amy couldn't be an exception.  Unless you're really suggesting that Amy should be given the powers to shapeshift, summon magical circles and be able to see what is going on in other locations and instantly warp there if she chooses too.  Those are ridiculous powers for a Sonic character to have, completely over the top compared to the fairly focused powers of the other characters.  Nimue had whatever powers were convenient for that particular plot.

You can believe what you want to believe I guess, but at the end of the day, character traits from profiles don't really mean anything until they actually have relevance in a storyline or portrayal of the character, which they are yet to do.

[Monkey Destruction Switch]

Since I haven't actually done this yet, I'd like to respond to the OP. First of all, I'd like to congratulate the original poster for clearly putting effort into their thoughts and having some rather creative ideas. At the same time, I'm not really a big fan of any of them. None of them are terrible ideas that would upset me to a significant degree if they were introduced in a game, but they all seem pretty unnecessary and, all things being equal, I'd rather they not be implemented. (I might as well note that I don't really care about Amy that much; I certainly like her to an extent but I don't feel very strongly about her, and she's not one of my top favorites.)

#1 - Minimizing the crush would be okay, but "ending" it seems like a mistake. It is a fairly major aspect of her character and always has been. I feel like it should still be a part of her, she just shouldn't be obnoxious about it and it should be clear that it's not the only thing that makes Amy "Amy", that she has many positive personality traits such as boldness, optimism, a kind heart, persistence, surprising competence in battle, etc. As long as those qualifications are met, I don't see a reason to get rid of Amy's crush on Sonic or minimize it to an extreme extent. If handled properly, it can be an ingredient to Amy being a charming character.

#2 - Just because Amy has an interest in fortune telling doesn't mean she has innate psychic abilities, so even disregarding the fact that this has trait of hers has barely appeared anywhere other than character profiles and manuals, it would seem a little out of left field. It just doesn't have much to do with Amy as we know her. I like her being relatively "normal" and having somewhat underwhelming abilities compared to the rest of the cast, and yet still being eager and able to do her part. Not every Sonic character has to have flashy, special powers, I like the fact that some don't. I'm also not exactly sure how this is supposed to "fix" Amy, or what flaw of Amy's this is supposed to correct.

#3 - I'm with Jez, kind of a stereotypical girly thing to do, and it just seems really unnecessary on top of that.

#4 - Also seems unnecessary, like others have mentioned Amy can be fast if they want her to be, plus we already have a hedgehog character who skates.

1 hour ago, Sparky said:

Amy's Tarot Cards, Dowsing, and her Piko PIko Hammers, all together, is a very significant sign of Amy being magic.

I'm just going to make one last point: No. No they do not. None of these things point to Amy herself being magic. Tarot cards and dowsing do not require the user to be magical in any capacity. Anyone can use tarot cards or dowse. At most, it might take some study (particularly the tarot cards), but that's it. As far as we can tell, Amy's interest in tarot cars, dowsing, and other forms of fortune telling just point to Amy being superstitious and nothing more. Maybe the superstition actually has something to it (this is a fictional series, after all), considering tarot cards apparently worked for her in Sonic CD, but that's a far cry from Amy having magical abilities. (And even then, it rarely appears in any media other than manuals and character profiles, so it's not even a significant part of her character. Even if it hasn't been outright removed, it certainly hasn't done much important since its debut, so acting like it's a core aspect of her character is, frankly, a little silly. Being mentioned in her Sonic Channel profile is not nearly as important as what actually happens in the games.)

And there is no evidence that the Piko Piko Hammer is magical other than a single attack name from an old and insignificant spin-off. If you want to headcanon that its ability to appear out of nowhere and be in endless supply is an actual magical phenomenon and not just an acceptable break from reality typical in a fantastic and cartoony series, then go right ahead, but there's no evidence that Sega themselves is deliberately trying to point us towards this view.

[Sparky]

I don't get why everyone believes that Amy is "normal". She's been faster than sound ever since Sonic Advance 2, she's capable of spinning and homing attacks as of SA2 and Sonic Heroes, and so on. Magic and hammer stuff aside, from a physical standpoint she's just as super as the others. The idea of her being normal and stuff only comes from SA1(Adventure AND Advance) portraying her as very slow and incapable of spinning, relying on the hammer to do pretty much anything, and not doing much of anything in her initial debut (CD) in-game other than hug Sonic. That changed once SA2 (Adventure AND Advance) and Heroes came around. She is not the closest thing to a normal girl in the series. None of these characters that have been playable and stuff are "normal". Not Cream, not Rouge, not Big, No one. They are ALL super. Rouge's hips can cause earthquakes, and she can shoot some wave of black darkness or something. Cream can fly with her ears and she's nearly as fast as Sonic. Big can spin and homing attack and keep up with Amy and Cream (who are both supersonic) and stuff, even though he's meant to be the slowest or something. Flashy superpowers didn't start with Silver and Blaze, it's been apart of each character from the very beginning, and there isn't an exception. Not even Eggman is an exception, cause he's just as fast and strong as everyone else.