In your opinion, how should Sonic's friends be used?

[knuckles20]

2 hours ago, RedFox99 said:

What would be a good start to fixing the extend cast's reputation?

Have them be important to the plot and not just go gaga whenever Sonic ties his shoes. (In other words I wanna see them kicking ass and not kissing Sonic's ass).

Have their gameplay similar to Sonic but still disntinct that they don't come off as clones. (Ex Adventure , Rush).

And if people still complain about Sonic not being in the spotlight all the time, well tough shit. I had to deal with nothing but Sonic since Unleashed and it just made the series so small and empty.

[Multikaris]

3 hours ago, Conquering Storm's Servant said:

I'd argue that people didn't complain about Tails and Knuckles in Mania because they put them on a better pedestal than other characters, and wouldn't have complained about them regardless than if you stuck someone like Shadow there in the game without any problems.

Most of the time whenever the phrase "Sonic's Shitty Friends" pops up, Tails and Knuckles are considered exceptions regardless of whether they've been poorly done or not with everyone else. It's not like that's a surprise when that was made clear by most outlets that used the term since ShTH and Sonic 06 flopped, and still used the term even when every other character was relegated as NPCs at best or absent at worst and Sonic was made the only playable character up until now. Not that good gameplay can't fix the problem, but it's hardly any shock that no one would have complained about Tails or Knuckles in Mania unless you messed them up to Sonic 06 levels of bad--and hell, I'd wouldn't be surprised even if they were botched that bad that people wouldn't blast them as badly as they've done others.

Sadly, I think even that pedestal has begun to fall apart with the Second Dark Era. But the pedestal does still exist. And thankfully nobody minded the Hard-Boiled Heavies or any of the cameos.

[RedFox99]

Just now, Miru the Living Planet said:

Sadly, I think even that pedestal has begun to fall apart with the Second Dark Era. But the pedestal does still exist. And thankfully nobody minded the Hard-Boiled Heavies or any of the cameos.

What was the Second Dark Era?

[Multikaris]

Just now, RedFox99 said:

What was the Second Dark Era?

Stuff like Boom, the reboot of the comic, the Wii U exclusivity...

[RedFox99]

On 8/27/2017 at 7:10 PM, Miru the Living Planet said:

Stuff like Boom, the reboot of the comic, the Wii U exclusivity...

Oh yeah. I liked the reboot a bit more than the pre reboot to be honest but yeah that was a bad time for the series.

[StaticMania]

They should try...not shoving every character in every game whenever they can. That was probably the most negative thing for those early 3D years.

 

Deciding which characters to use for which game should've definitely been alot simpler and knowing which characters should be playable or not should've just been common sense

[Multikaris]

10 hours ago, StaticMania said:

They should try...not shoving every character in every game whenever they can. That was probably the most negative thing for those early 3D years.

 

Deciding which characters to use for which game should've definitely been alot simpler and knowing which characters should be playable or not should've just been common sense

They basically have been doing that... but badly, by effectively locking characters out of the games, and for some reason not using the characters that do get involved. 

 

And another thing...

 

These HAVE to be the characters we know and love. No custom characters, no alternate Sonics, no generic RCs. 

And Mario has had some characters who are as despised at least as much as the friends are. Waluigi, Bowser Jr, Petey Pirahna, Lubba, Kersti, etc. Bowser Jr's hate has mellowed out after the turn of the decade and Waluigi gained an ironic cult following, but the others have been  forgotten outside the Mario fandom. And speaking of Waluigi's ironic following, I despise it. Many of those followers are hypocrites who still hate Sonic's friends.

http://m.neogaf.com/showthread.php?p=210854124

[StaticMania]

That's not really the same thing though...none of Mario's characters ever get to be playable outside of spin-offs (so they aren't really forced to play as them, not that they woud play much different regardless) and how much dislike those characters get varies anyway.

[Multikaris]

On 8/28/2017 at 11:44 AM, StaticMania said:

That's not really the same thing though...none of Mario's characters ever get to be playable outside of spin-offs (so they aren't really forced to play as them, not that they woud play much different regardless) and how much dislike those characters get varies anyway.

But people are still content to hate on the friends even when they aren't playable outside of spinoffs (or in anything at this point), while not giving even story-involved Mario characters, such as Lubba, hate.

[RedFox99]

Given that Forces has come out, do you think the game used the extended cast well?

[Salamander]

Only in the sense that they conveyed more of an impression of there being a Resistance by the number of them present.  Otherwise, there's very little to connect them to their usual personalities, motivations, and histories.

[RedFox99]

6 minutes ago, FFWF said:

Only in the sense that they conveyed more of an impression of there being a Resistance by the number of them present.  Otherwise, there's very little to connect them to their usual personalities, motivations, and histories.

I got that impression as well. 

[Swing]

Like I said before it is not really easy to use all of them in a really correct way. All of Sonic's friends basically have the same role in this world. Their are all action super heroes just like Sonic himself.

[RedFox99]

3 minutes ago, Swing said:

Like I said before it is not really easy to use all of them in a really correct way. All of Sonic's friends basically have the same role in this world. Their are all action super heroes just like Sonic himself.

Well, they have different personalities and abilities.

[Swing]

Just now, RedFox99 said:

Well, they have different personalities and abilities.

Sure, but in the end they are all juts like Sonic super hero action animal characters. All of them. And you can not put all of them in the centre of the story. 

[RedFox99]

Just now, Swing said:

Sure, but in the end they are all juts like Sonic super hero action animal characters. All of them. And you can not put all of them in the centre of the story. 

That's true. Maybe have some games use them as main characters and another do so for the others.