Humans on Mobius

[MetalSkulkBane]

I've been pondering lately about humans in Sonic games.

It's well known fact that (Eggman aside), they aren't very popular, or at least nearly as mobians. So should they even be there? Are they just way to make unimportant NPC easier? They didn't even existed in classic age, but since SA2 would be hard to ignore their existence.

So what do you think about role of humans in Sonic World?

[Nepenthe]

Unseen =/= non-existent. The fact that Eggman exists, along with the fact that every animal we saw was living or located in some isolated wilderness versus the various urban and suburban centers we saw in the games and official artwork, lent credence to the assumption that humans also feasibly existed on Earth too. So it's not as if there wasn't a contextual basis for their appearance in SA1.

[Muscles Maximum]

Yeah, what Nepenthe said. Really, I'm sure humans were always meant to exist in Sonic's world from conception. Of course there was the whole Madonna thing with her being Sonic's gf.

Plus you can look to Man of the Year which shows Sonic and Eggman in a more urban environment with plenty of humans around.

Don't forget there's the OVA with Sara and her dad too, it may be a different continuity, but it's still based off Sonic CD. They easily could have made Sara some monkey looking mobian but they went with human. 

So yeah, I'm sure they were always meant to be around. We just don't really happen to see any where Sonic 1, 2, 3&K, and CD take place. And honestly, Eggman alone should be proof humans are a thing in Sonic land.

[Monkey Destruction Switch]

I actively love fictional universes in which funny animals (the "technical" term for animal characters who behave like humans) and humans casually co-exist, so as you can imagine, I have no problem with it whatsoever. Like others mentioned, there was no particular reason in the classic era to assume Eggman was the only human who existed just because others didn't appear. From my point of view, there's really no reason for humans not to appear in Sonic games. I honestly don't understand in the slightest why some people seem to think that universes in which funny animals and humans both exist are some sort of horrible contradiction or something; since funny animals are treated just like humans in terms of the narrative and their behavior, I don't get why it should cause problems. Heck, us humans are just "funny animal" apes, aren't we?

The only thing that bothers me a little is the fact that funny animals who aren't major characters (e.g. "bystanders") never really appear in the Sonic games outside of Sonic Rush Adventure, as far as I know. I'm fine with humans being the dominant species, but it would be nice to see that "Sonic & co" don't just exist in a vacuum. It's not like it's an enormous problem or anything - people can just assume that anthros are a minority. But I feel it would be an improvement to depict a few areas as having a higher "furry" population, in order to give a little "context" to the main characters and make them look less like sore thumbs.

[Your Vest Friend]

Seems like it's been retconned since the early days unfortunately, probably in response to all the whining about it. So you have humans as the bulk of the population in one setting, little animals as the bulk of the population in another.

And if you want anthros as the bulk, you have to go to Sonic Boom because the main series seems adamant that there will never be a major anthro population. Which is hilarious because a lot of the human whiners want that instead so they're still not fully appeased.

[Meta77]

Sara was a neko just saying.

[Blacklightning]

Usage of the american canon aside for a moment, I always found it kind of weird that the animal folk always seem to have such big shoes to fill compared to humans. Nevermind that the overwhelming majority of them can break the sound barrier, even a relatively mundane one like Amy can still swing a big fucking hammer hard enough to put a robot out of commission with it. I'd like to see that balance mixed up a little, y'know? Have some "ordinary" animal folk across the games as NPC, and a few humans that can still pull their weight by comparison, even if they bascially have to pull a Batman and use tools to do it.

That being said I'd just like the balance between species to be represented at all beyond vauge references like "this level has urban buildings in it" and "a really old and obscure short showed them side by side once".

[Meta77]

A lot of fans hate humans being around sonic. Unless your an really old fan or follow segas original plan to have sonic with a human gf many would not know of them by how little sega uses them. I would to like to see more humans. Not those goofy types in sonic unleashed but the kind in 06 and the adventure series.

[LoseR]

5 hours ago, Blacklightning said:

...and a few humans that can still pull their weight by comparison, even if they bascially have to pull a Batman and use tools to do it.

Uhm excuse me, but I believe we've already gotten that.

Spoiler

In actuality though, I kinda like the strange idea they have that humans are normal and then Sonic and co just kind of exist alongside them. It's like the animal people live off on mostly non-human-inhabited islands or whatever, and sometimes they visit locations where humans live. I mean according to Adventure, Amy even lived in Station Square, so they must coexist to some extent by now.

I would also like to see SOME helpful interactions by humans, even if they aren't the focus. Like humans have never really helped anyone in the games, but they've done bad things many times.

 

[MetalSkulkBane]

6 hours ago, Blacklightning said:

Usage of the american canon aside for a moment, I always found it kind of weird that the animal folk always seem to have such big shoes to fill compared to humans. Nevermind that the overwhelming majority of them can break the sound barrier, even a relatively mundane one like Amy can still swing a big fucking hammer hard enough to put a robot out of commission with it. I'd like to see that balance mixed up a little, y'know? Have some "ordinary" animal folk across the games as NPC, and a few humans that can still pull their weight by comparison, even if they bascially have to pull a Batman and use tools to do it.

That being said I'd just like the balance between species to be represented at all beyond vauge references like "this level has urban buildings in it" and "a really old and obscure short showed them side by side once".

Would you really? I mean, Imagine taking girl who looks like Shara, giving her some powers and making making her part of main Sonic cast, like a third member to Silver/Blaze team. Wouldn't that feel... of?

[Blacklightning]

1 minute ago, MetalSkulkBane said:

Would you really? I mean, Imagine taking girl who looks like Shara, giving her some powers and making making her part of main Sonic cast, like a third member to Silver/Blaze team. Wouldn't that feel... of?

Come again?

Is there some kind of memo I haven't gotten here, or does Eggman somehow not count?

[MetalSkulkBane]

Just now, Blacklightning said:

Come again?

Is there some kind of memo I haven't gotten here, or does Eggman somehow not count?

He is a villain, that's kinda a different position.

Then again, maybe it's just his unique design. Maybe making very cartoonish looking human would  work. Less Chris Thorndyke, more Billy Hatcher.)

[Blacklightning]

I didn't see anyone complain when he helped the heroes out during the last story... and the time after that... and the time after that... and the time after that... well okay they did complain eventually that Eggman kept being stolen from the limelight, but certainly not because the games had a human supporting protagonist, let alone a playable one. I'm still not seeing the problem here.

Even if you put it down to a design thing, then that just speaks to me that the design needs to be just as evocative of consistent Sonic design rather than the generic crap SA1-06 pulled - but that just strikes me more as good design sense in general rather than personal preferences.

[Nepenthe]

Random idea, but human kid who made shitty gadgets and wanted to help out with the heroes but the heroes were like "Ugh, this child's a fucking weirdo" could probably be an endearing little subplot/running gag, and it could subsequently make Tails tolerable again as he would actually have something in common with him.

[Tara]

I don't really have any qualms with humans existing in any quantity.  Rather that means Sonic is outlier or he's commonplace, it really makes no difference to me.  Cartoons have a long history of animals (and other non-human things) interacting with humans without people questioning the reality of it, and I don't feel like Sonic has such an extensive lore that it's really damaging to the overall story by not having some kind of consistency or explanation.

Plus, I kind of want to avoid human/animal relations as a subplot as much as possible, given Archie's breathtakingly horrendous take on the affair. *shudder*

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Archie didn't exactly touch on human/anthro relations all that much. If anything it was mostly background, and any that wasn't (like Nate Morgan experiencing racism from the Mobians) was pretty minor overall. Not to mention is barely memorable after Ian took over the writing reigns, so no doubt even long time readers would have a pause trying to remember anything like that outside the Pre-Genesis Wave Great War.

That said, I've always favored a mix of humans and mobians in the setting. I love Unleashed's human designs, but they would be much more colorful if they had anthro's alongside them representing each culture as well. It's not too much to think about, but when you do it's kinda bizarre that Sonic and his folks are the only known anthro's of the setting while the rest is populated by humans. Not very diverse when you look at it, and the same applies when Eggman is the only human in an anthro world.

A mix of humans and mobians won't really detract anything from the cast either, since the focus is always on Sonic and his friends (and any other major character present), and the anthros outside of that are as much civilians as the other humans. Either way, I always found this "one or the other" take of things incredibly stupid and arbitrary, because it's not like it hasn't been done before.

[Salamander]

Eggman's existence suggests that humans must exist.  However... many of the games seem to just ignore either non-main-cast anthros, or non-Eggman humans, creating a bizarre arrangement where just a few anthros in a very human world or just one human in an anthro-rich world is seen as an ordinary and unremarkable state of affairs.  It's unbalanced and unsatisfying - to me, at least.

[Lord-Dreamerz]

As long they never do realistic humans/completely different art style humans from the main cast again then I'm cool with humans in the stories. Sonic Unleashed has done the best job for human designs that match the main cast... I just can't take it when you have a character that looks like it's from loony toons and then a character from final fantasy in the same world unless it's a joke, it doesn't work and looks awful otherwise. A anime style that could also work for the humans kinda I would say is Yugioh... But Eggman & everybody's design suggests they should really stick with the more classic cartoon human designs such as from Disney or Pixar styles.

[Diogenes]

13 hours ago, Blacklightning said:

Come again?

Is there some kind of memo I haven't gotten here, or does Eggman somehow not count?

Well even that only worked (for a certain value of "worked") by giving him radically different gameplay than the series' norm. I couldn't imagine any human character playing like Sonic. Or, to be honest, like any other gameplay style the series has seen. And as someone who wants to keep the series' gameplay more focused, I don't really see much room for playable human characters.

And I think that's fine, because the series isn't about humans. Humans as minor NPCs, fine, a couple of humans in more major roles, ok, but I don't feel like the games have any need to give us a specifically human perspective, or to ensure that humans are shown to be on par with Sonic characters. And the series already has more characters than it knows what to do with anyway, so I don't think there's any need to put more focus on human characters.

[Nepenthe]

Put Eggman in or on a machine that plays like Sonic and there's literally no issue. Not saying we need him to be playable all the time (would rather we focus on the animal cast first and foremost), but I don't see how Eggman can create Metal Sonic but he couldn't give himself those same abilities in a comparable fashion.

[Lord-Dreamerz]

Does Dr.Eggman even need a machine? We all know secretly he's the real fastest thing alive. =p

Putting that aside you could easily give Robotnik the right gear or machines to make him play like the other characters... Rocket shoes like from the Man of the Year video? But personally I'm not against Robotnik playing differently from the others to start with.

[Blacklightning]

That, or you could just make him Super.

Spoiler

Ahahaha okay but joking aside, the versatility of the Eggmobile is something of a running theme through most of Eggman's boss fights, so it would be pretty interesting to see that in a gameplay scheme - make him all about changing his pod into different forms on the fly to suit the situation, like a hot rod for going fast and a tank for blowing shit up, stuff like that.

[FantasticMrRobb]

23 hours ago, Nepenthe said:

Random idea, but human kid who made shitty gadgets and wanted to help out with the heroes but the heroes were like "Ugh, this child's a fucking weirdo" could probably be an endearing little subplot/running gag, and it could subsequently make Tails tolerable again as he would actually have something in common with him.

Kinda like Chris in the 3rd Season in Sonic X? All but the weirdo part.

[Diogenes]

21 hours ago, Nepenthe said:

Put Eggman in or on a machine that plays like Sonic and there's literally no issue. Not saying we need him to be playable all the time (would rather we focus on the animal cast first and foremost), but I don't see how Eggman can create Metal Sonic but he couldn't give himself those same abilities in a comparable fashion.

It's certainly possible for him to make a mech that can mimic Sonic, but I think actually going through with it would feel like a joke that got out of hand. I'm imagining some 5-foot diameter mech with Eggman inside rolling around loops and bouncing around like Sonic and it just feels out of place and out of character.

[Nepenthe]

I don't see much difference between Omega playing like Sonic and a similarly-designed robot that happens to have Eggman's upper body plastered inside some glass doing the same thing, nor do I think the Sonic series is above using frivolous and fun concepts like that.