Character deterioration

[RedFox99]

Just now, SenEDDtor Missile said:

So a Guardian sabbatical?

What's that?

[Multikaris]

8 hours ago, Super Mechanio said:

Eggman's gone down the tubes too.

Only ten years ago, Unleashed specifically noted that Eggman "wasn't that cruel," in Tails's own words, and that he was morally above starving or torturing his prisoners. Forces sure threw that out the window, didn't it?

While Eggman was always willing to kill if it helped him accomplish his goals, he was never portrayed as a callous omnicidal maniac who wantonly disregarded all life. In fact, going back a bit farther to SA2 and Shadow, Eggman seemed heartbroken to learn that his grandfather had gone so insane that he tried to destroy the world. In Forces, Eggman's plan is to literally destroy the world that he's already conquered so he can conquer it again (???).

I know that the Eggman of the games has never been a saint. Even at his absolute most nuanced, he was still a very bad person who recklessly endangered the lives of innocent people for his own selfish ends. I understand that X and Boom created a more sympathetic Eggman that wasn't really reflective of the character from the games. But even still, he was never a generic one-note monster who just wanted to kill everybody. The Eggman I remember was a self-aggrandizing glory-hound who wanted a planet of subjects to adore him, not an empty planet stripped of every life but his own.

They've effectively turned Eggman into a slightly hammier SatAM Robotnik, and I really don't think it lines up with what the older games established about his character.

1. Eggman’s torture seemed to not phase Sonic at all. It’s likely his idea of torture was lousy.

2. The last few games where he’s been unable to do much harm may have broken him into being like his forgotten grandfather. And he may also have speciesist motives against the Mobians on their home planet. 

[Dr. Mechano]

1 hour ago, Miragnarok said:

And he may also have speciesist motives against the Mobians on their home planet. 

Based on what?

When has Eggman ever expressed any kind of species prejudice? In every appearance we've seen, Eggman seems to simply view himself as superior to everyone - human, animal, or robot.

[SenEDDtor Missile]

5 minutes ago, Super Mechanio said:

Based on what?

When has Eggman ever expressed any kind of species prejudice? In every appearance we've seen, Eggman seems to simply view himself as superior to everyone - human, animal, or robot.

Eggman strikes me as the guy who isn’t specieist himself, but definitely might not have a problem taking advantage of other people’s racist beliefs to turn them against each other to benefit his own schemes.

Although I suspect the notion of him being a racist comes from the SatAM cartoon.

[Ratcicle King]

9 hours ago, Super Mechanio said:

In Forces, Eggman's plan is to literally destroy the world that he's already conquered so he can conquer it again (???).

 

4 hours ago, Razule said:

He says he wants to burn the world to ashes.

He said, and I'll quote, ''The world will be nothing but ashes, from which a glorious Eggman Empire will rise''

That line isn't supposed to be taken literally, it's just Eggman being dramatic. The Ruby is specifically stated to mess with the victim's brain to make it think what's happening is real. Unless the planet itself has a brain, the Virtual Reality Sun couldn't affect it, only the people, and even then, only those affected by the Ruby. And Tails specifically says in that very cutscene that it WAS an illusion, even stating that while they(The resistance) are under the Ruby's influence it might as well be real for them.

Notice every time Infinite prepares to make an illusion in cutscenes, he makes this red bubble shockwave thing, which plays the infamous Phantom Ruby sound effect. That's him activating the Ruby, and whoever's hit by it falls under it's effects. He used it on the entire resistance before summoning the Sun, and Eggman showed up AFTER Infinite had done it, so he was safe from the sun, along with the rest of the world's populace and the planet itself.

Had Eggman's plan worked, literally all that would've happened would be the entire resistance just suddenly dropping dead.

So really, when Eggman says ''The World will be nothing but ashes'' that can't be literally, because the context we're presented doesn't fit the line. He most likely meant that once the resistance is done, the war is over, and without anyone to stop him, he will finally be able to rebuild the entire planet as he sees fit, similar to what he planned to do on Station Square.

[Salamander]

12 hours ago, SpongicX said:

I know this would probably tick a lot of fans off, but in order to give Knuckles some development and a reason to stick around, I think we need a game where Knuckles has to make a choice to save the master emerald, or save his friends. Imagine if there was a point in the series where Knuckles was put in a tough spot, to either save his friends, or the master emerald. In the end, Knuckles makes a hard decision, and saves his friends. In the process, the Master Emerald gets permanently destroyed, and Angel Island sinks into the ocean. Knuckles suddenly wouldn't know what to do with his life, but he sets out to try and enjoy life.

 

10 hours ago, Diogenes said:

While we're on the subject, to bring back an old idea of mine: have a game end with the Master Emerald being shattered (ideally by Knuckles, in a situation where it was necessary to save the world or whatever) into a million pieces and spread across the planet. Knuckles becomes a free-roaming "treasure hunter" because he's searching for the pieces, a task that might take his entire life and may still not be finished even then. It gives him a goal that's not just "maintain the status quo" (even if it's essentially just "return to the old status quo"), it gets him out in the world instead of being stuck as a guardian while also not abandoning that aspect of his character, and the experiences he has while searching can be used to develop other motivations that can take over when/if the emerald shard hunt is resolved (whether he manages to restore it or decides that he doesn't need to).

I quite like both of these ideas, and my own choice would be to combine them.  Knuckles has to choose between the Master Emerald and his friends, chooses the latter, and the upshot is that the Master Emerald is shattered more or less for good.  Could be Eggman's last trump card to get it out of his way for good, as well as a plot device to develop Knuckles's character, though there's also something dramatically right about Knuckles smashing the ol' rock by choice yet again and making at once a bigger and a smaller deal out of it.  Smashing the Master Emerald is a way of choosing his friends over the emerald?  You could probably arrange that scenario.

Having an effectively unlimited number of Master Emerald shards floating around the planet also sounds like a good plot device to have on standby if you ever need people to stumble on random mystical artifacts of power.  Could even have retrofitted the Phantom Ruby around the concept, for instance.  Could even be another long-term plot device if you feel you might ever want to rebuild the whole thing way down the line.  I'd definitely prefer this to the Master Emerald just being vaguely off-screen and irrelevant.

[MetalSkulkBane]

Here's a funny thing about Eggman: from game one he was capturing animals as batteries for his robots. From that time he tried to nuke the city, threat her to blow the planet, broke the planet in pecies, made cruel experiments on aliens and was willing to conquer planet after draining most life out of it.

Even at his goofiest Eggman was always uncaring about healthy of other (not counting most cartoons). He might not torture people for fun, but if there is slightest chance it will help his plans, he will do it.

That line in Unleashed is taken out of context. In context it's part of a joke, plus Tails cheering up Chip. Eggman had many reasons to feed Pickles.

(But yeah, Eggman wouldn't destroy the world, unless 1 by accident or 2 he's reeeeeeally pushed to his limits. But I'm sure Forces Eggman didn't plan to destroy the world)

[Almar]

Pre-release info said Eggman plotted to destroy the world. And besides, the Phantom Ruby has an issue with how the game (especially when counting Mania) can't really decide whether it does illusions or reality warping.

[King Scoopa Koopa]

On 2017-11-27 at 1:26 PM, SpongicX said:

Yeah, Amy definitely has improved, but it’s a shame the games barely give her anything to do anymore, she’s just there. Ever since Unleashed, all she does is make appearances, yet doesn’t contribute to the plot. Sonic Riders Zero Gravity was the last game I recall to really have her stand out, yet the game randomly dropped her from the final chapter, only to have her show up at the end cutscene, that was really wierd. 

It may not have been an official game, but Amy was barely included in Lego Dimensions, yet I’ll admit they made up for it. They had her show up at the end, knock Eggman out, and give Sonic the last emerald he needed. That’s more of the Amy I wanted to see in Forces, where she is very useful, and can surprise the characters and players  with how useful she really is.

Amy went from damsel in distress to a heroine in her own right over the years, yet we never see her doing much anymore. Sonic Forces didn’t make it clear what her role was. She was just at a computer giving intel and coordinates, but it really felt out of place for Amy. Amy isn’t a computer wiz or expert navigator (except when tracking down Sonic on her own.)

In fairness, Amy being able to use a computer doesn't really contradict anything we've seen, right? And they've become fairly ubiquitous in our world, so it seems safe to say they would be in a more advanced world like Sonic's.

But much as I said for Tails, I feel like Boom Amy is the best version of the character to date. She's not obsessed with Sonic, but isn't a flat character as a result. We've seen her various interests and quirks, and she seems to be a compassionate individual with a hair trigger temper -- I can relate, actually.

Plus, there was that stuff early on about her studying the ancients on the island, but that didn't really pan out very much.

[Shadowlax]

On 11/27/2017 at 4:04 PM, MetalSkulkBane said:

 

I have a similar philosophy with Amy: yes she shouldn't be a psychopath, but removing her crush on Sonic makes her most dry and generic of all Sonic characters. It giver her passion, energy, drive. Without it, she's just a girl. I don't think anyone made 'ultimate version of  Amy Rose' but Adventure titles were pretty okay at it and Ian Flynn nailed it for a majority of the time.

Nah, the best version of amy is the archie version when she isn't worried about sonic. Her best scene in the comics is her having a heart to heart with knuckles, sonic basically having other girlfriends forced her to get over it. And it turns out that she was a more interesting character than he was. I think I dunno that maybe its kinda sexist that her character at least in your eyes only needs to be defined by liking a guy, because she has a lot more interesting characteristics than that. 

I also Disagree Archie knuckles is great, he's kind of a dick which is what I want. ( well I an archie knuckles )  But is willing to learn and grow as a character, there's a moment where he realizes shit about shadow's life and he's genuinely sorry about it. There's moments where he's genuinely sad and feeling sorry for himself, he actually has a wide range of feelings other than " I"m tough" and " are you tricking me" he's actually a character. And if you call that dry? I want dry knuckles because dry knuckles is actually a character worth keeping around, because actually a frigging character

[Swing]

The main problem with the whole character deterioration is simple. The Sonic franchise never really had it's own real identity when it comes to it's world and characters. Rather than creating it's own world like Mario or Crash Bandicoot did the Sonic series always chased down trends instead. Sometimes we have a funny cartoony world with funny cartoony characters and sometimes we have a realistic world with realistic looking humans and animals. Which is the reason why a lot of Sonic characters are in such huge contrast to each other. Princess Elise looks more like a character from a Square Enix Game and the Deadly Six fit more into Nights into Dreams. 

And because the world of Sonic always chances in tone and style, so do also the characters and their backstories. Knuckles can be in one game the mature guardian of the Angel Island, the heavens of this universe and in the next one he can be a bigger moron than Packtrick Star. Tails can chance from a kid that earned its self-confidence to a helpless male damsel to a know-it-all smart ass. And it doesn't end here. In one game Classic Sonic is just the younger version of Sonic and in the next one he is another Sonic from another dimension. First Blaze is from another dimension, than from the future and than once again from her own dimension. This whole series is just in every single approach that it makes inconsistent.

Sure, characters do change over the years, but what the Sonic series does here has nothing to do with developing a character, it is just taking its characters and put them all in a new lore. We can see all Sonic characters more as actors rather than real characters. If Amy is in one game a strong headed nice girl than she is one, if we need Amy to be a self-appointed feminist, than she will be a self-appointed feminist in the next game.

That is the reason why I see a lot of the side and one-time characters like Chip, Princess Elise, Merlina, Shahra, the Deadly Six or the ghosts from Sonic Unleashed: Night of the Werehog as the better characters. Sure. They are all horrible written characters, but at least they are all consistent when it comes to their personalties and stories. Even if their are not really good. 

[RustyRick]

I’ve got a few pet with certain characters who just haven’t felt the same to me, in no certain order:

- Tails’ reliability hanging entirely on Sonic’s presence. It’s Tails’ core essence to be Sonic’s sidekick and best friend but even in Lost World as naggy as Tails could get he managed to push Sonic out of the way of a trap setup and reprogrammed the device while no one was around. Forces depicts him as just incredibly cowardly before even Chaos 0.

-Vector out of the Chaotix I really liked when he and his crew got reintroduced to the series proper in Heroes and while easily at odds with Charmy, the way he addressed his colleagues as ‘boys’ and complimenting them on occassion really struck a cord with me on how cool of a boss he was. X and Forces really kind of tone up his ego that it feels more grating than that he’s cool.

- Omega was also a relatively cool character in the few occassions he gets screentime and relevance, but in Forces especially feels underused. His whole schtick is ‘Destroy all Eggman robots and creations’ and in a setup where Eggman actually succeeds in his goal of workd domination for him to really shine for once, he’s out of commission for a good chunk and the only time he ever does something is near the end abd that still didn’t do much.

[Dash Speed]

To me I don' sweat it with Amy anymore, because with the exception of boom, she's borderline meaningless to Sonic and Tails most of the time.

Amy is just not a big deal to sonic team, she exists for little girls, sonamy, and the occasional comedy action scene. She helped Shadow, Gamma and Silver but that could have been anyone, Cream for instead helped Blaze to be more social.

Her role is assistant or taggalong since she's not an equal to boys in battle experience or abilites.

[DabigRG]

On 11/27/2017 at 12:03 PM, Ratcicle King said:

Knuckles' character can't be more deteriorated from his Adventure-Colors era character, honestly.

In there he got worse and worse until literally his only characteristic was ''that guy who tries to look cool but he's clumsy and stupid and fails at everything''.

As pointed out before, he was the one who busted the ME a second time, when he had like, 10 different option on how to approach this situation. In SA1, when he was fooled by Eggman, he didn't ''do it in some clever ways.'', he randomly found Sonic and the moment he realized who it was, tried to punch him in the face.

In Forces, he's the hotblooded captain of the resistance, but he's not stupid. People seem to forget that EVERYONE agreed with Operation Big Wave, Knuckles didn't force(heh) anyone to go through with it, and it was made to see the best course of action, enemy forces are out, take capital city back.

They weren't overwhelmed by the army, they weren't crushed because Knuckles was fooled by Eggman, they lost because no one could account for Infinite's presence there, and they had no idea what the Ruby's power was.

Now, let's go a bit further down in the Forces plot, to Null Space. Infinite was out of the picture, probably saving power for the final battle, they try another attack to Metropolis.

What happens?

They win. They do the exact thing Knuckles planned back in Capital City and they win. Knuckles wasn't an idiot, Infinite threw a wrench in his plans, and NO ONE was able to predict it, the moment Infinite was out, Knuckles' original plan worked.

So no, Knuckles wasn't an idiot for Operation big wave, he was hot blooded, yes, but he saw an oportunity and he took it. The entire failure at Capital City was to hammer home how much of a game changer Infinite's presence is, not how dumb Knuckles is. As Vector said, one flip of the Phantom Ruby Switch and their entire plan goes down.

And what do they do afterwards? Does Knuckles try to attack the city again in a fit of rage? Is he dumb enough to attempt a stupid counter attack?

Nope, he and the others figure out a way to stop the Phantom Ruby once and for all, taking Eggman's game changer out of the way for their next attacks.

The point of Operation Big Wave wasn't that ''Knuckles is an idiot'', it's that Infinite's illusions are too damn unpredictable and they need to deal with him before doing any major progress in this war.

Thank you. I wasn't really gonna say anything since I didn't really put that much thought into the matter myself, but it's nice to see someone not take a mistake or failure too seriously when it's obvious there are extenuating circumstances.

 

On 11/27/2017 at 1:26 PM, SpongicX said:

 

Amy went from damsel in distress to a heroine in her own right over the years, yet we never see her doing much anymore. Sonic Forces didn’t make it clear what her role was. She was just at a computer giving intel and coordinates, but it really felt out of place for Amy. Amy isn’t a computer wiz or expert navigator (except when tracking down Sonic on her own.) Plus, the game never established what Amy’s role was. (Or anyone besides Knuckles for that matter).

We didn’t see a character say “maybe Amy can help, she is our navigator  afterall.” The game never bothered explaining what Amy does. Amy could have been doing anything on that computer, but the game never bothers establishing what anyone’s role is. It doesn’t help when all we do is hear the characters talk throughout the game, yet never see what they’re doing besides that. We want to see them fighting, not blabbering throughout.

I really wanted to see more of these characters in Forces, not just hear from them. I really hope the next Sonic game can not only let these characters stand out heroically again, but I hope more of them are playable as well.

Yeah, I didn't really care for that either. I swear there was supposed to be some sort of establishing scenes or comments explaining why Knuckles and Amy had roles that would've/should've been held by Tails. Plus, she was probably the most negligible of all the characters in that game after Classic Sonic (and even he technically had more of an impact both literally and potentially) and maybe Espio.

Come to think of it, Espio probably should've had her role.

On 11/27/2017 at 1:57 PM, RedFox99 said:

That's why I'm itching for good spin-off games focusing on the others characters like what the Mario franchise did with Luigi, Yoshi, DK, and Peach.

 Same.

On 11/27/2017 at 2:15 PM, Dr. Detective Mike said:

I actually don't agree that Knuckles was bad in Sonic X like everyone else seems to think. At least not in the first series up to episode 52. It wasn't until episode 53 and onward where they took one of the traits that he DID always have and used it a bit too much to the point where he came off like a blithering idiot instead of just someone who was brash, serious, but still a little on the slow side.

I remember Knuckles being at the height of his coolness when I was a kid watching Sonic X. He never seemed to just be around. He would always show up at more random points and was mostly alone throughout all of it, which I thought was cool. Everything about how he acted in Episode 3 kind of highlighted everything I love about him. Even the comedic side. And that moment where he lets go of the ladder when they escape to be on his own because he does things his way was pure bliss for maximum coolness for me watching that show as a kid. I still have a lot of admiration for that kind of portrayal of him since it did kind of piggyback of how he was in Adventure 2. For a while then after I just figured that's what Knuckles was supposed to be.

So him being stuck with everyone in Season 3 and him being tethered to Sonic and Tails in Heroes felt a bit like a jump back for me on that end. I suppose I didn't really start to have any real immediate issues until Sonic Riders where he literally had no reason to be there. Heroes and Shadow, I at least saw the immediate threat and could put it together in my head why he joined but why the fuck is he looking for a Chaos Emerald with Sonic and Tails in Future City? 

 

Agreed.

On 11/27/2017 at 3:30 PM, Almar said:

 

As for Knuckles, he has the issue (one shared with Blaze and Silver actually) where the core of the character was designed for a particular game (or game set) with a particular setting. He was only an enemy from Eggman's trickey to begin with, so later games had to do it again or just up the aggression (Sonic Rivals) to have him be Sonic's "rival." The Master Emerald and Angel Island haven't been relevant in awhile, but he's one of the sacred characters so of course he shows up.

Exactly.

On 11/27/2017 at 4:04 PM, MetalSkulkBane said:

Speaking of making Knuckles too serious, Sonic Forces. Obviously, it's still best Knuckles in years, but making him 'that's why it's called war' is a step too far. Still, from my perspective Knuckles isn't a strategic genius in this game. Most planning is done by everyone, with him giving the final word. I like to think that Knuckles was chosen as a leader for exactly the same reasons as in real world: marketing. With Sonic gone, Tails 'losing it' and Shadow doing god knows what, Knuckles is the best face to boost morales. People know him, trust him and he's this super cool guy from floating Island. I doubt people would follow Vector, the guy who owes me money and solved the riddle of missing cat. (Who also plays the role of dumb guy in this game).

 

Ditto. I was honestly an odd man out from the moment I heard that was gonna be a thing. The tie-in comics had a brief suggestion that could've been used to justify it, but the game never really does anything with that, so I'll just assume it was Mr. Flynn indirectly invoking it in addition to making a callback.

On 11/27/2017 at 4:10 PM, shdowhunt60 said:

Ignoring that, this is an example of people taking things too seriously. It communicates its point clearly enough, Eggman forces his hand, and Knuckles smashes the Emerald because he can restore it anyway. That's not a stupid decision, that's just one people happen to disagree with. I mean, the game even fucking acknowledges its point when Rouge admonishes him for smashing the emerald.

Yep.

On 11/27/2017 at 4:20 PM, Almar said:

I don't recall seeing anything nowadays suggesting Knuckles is especially respected among Sonic's great growing posse. Let alone the hoards of nameless anthros to recruit for the Resistance (or even known). I mean, assuming the Genesis to Adventures to 06 games' events are still canon Knuckles would just be some hermit on Angel Island that fought Sonic a few times, was running around Station Square looking for jewelry, went on the run with Sonic, beat up black aliens, and whatever else happened. Hardly stuff that makes him more qualified to lead.

And besides, he's still treated by his subordinates like a fool rather than a respected general.

Honestly, the unspoken reason from my POV is that he simply stepped up when Tails went missing(the Japanese version) and the genes of his ancestors was giving him the insight he needed to have any idea how to be a commander.

On 11/27/2017 at 6:28 PM, Diogenes said:

While we're on the subject, to bring back an old idea of mine: have a game end with the Master Emerald being shattered (ideally by Knuckles, in a situation where it was necessary to save the world or whatever) into a million pieces and spread across the planet. Knuckles becomes a free-roaming "treasure hunter" because he's searching for the pieces, a task that might take his entire life and may still not be finished even then. It gives him a goal that's not just "maintain the status quo" (even if it's essentially just "return to the old status quo"), it gets him out in the world instead of being stuck as a guardian while also not abandoning that aspect of his character, and the experiences he has while searching can be used to develop other motivations that can take over when/if the emerald shard hunt is resolved (whether he manages to restore it or decides that he doesn't need to).

That sounds vaguely similar to Karl Bollers unused stories with the Master Geode.

On 11/27/2017 at 8:44 PM, Kellan said:

Was that his plan? I thought his plan was... (spoilers)

  Hide contents

...to create an illusion of a sun which would fall on the resistance. Since the sun was an illusion, it wouldn't actually destroy the world, it would just kill everyone who was there to witness it. So, Eggman would only be destroying the resistance, which seems to be much more in character for him than omnicide.

 

That was my thought as well. Especially since the sun wasn't really that big and they were in a wasteland anyway.

Plus, Infinite could always just focus the energy onto the Resistance.

On 11/27/2017 at 9:10 PM, Razule said:

He says he wants to burn the world to ashes.

I honestly just chalked it up to that villain thing where he's so close to victory that his inhibitions and common sense are being ignored due to the overconfidence. It wouldn't be out of place with him.

Does he say that in the Japanese Version too?

On 11/29/2017 at 8:29 AM, Swing said:

The main problem with the whole character deterioration is simple. The Sonic franchise never really had it's own real identity when it comes to it's world and characters. Rather than creating it's own world like Mario or Crash Bandicoot did the Sonic series always chased down trends instead. Sometimes we have a funny cartoony world with funny cartoony characters and sometimes we have a realistic world with realistic looking humans and animals. Which is the reason why a lot of Sonic characters are in such huge contrast to each other. Princess Elise looks more like a character from a Square Enix Game and the Deadly Six fit more into Nights into Dreams. 

And because the world of Sonic always chances in tone and style, so do also the characters and their backstories. Knuckles can be in one game the mature guardian of the Angel Island, the heavens of this universe and in the next one he can be a bigger moron than Packtrick Star. Tails can chance from a kid that earned its self-confidence to a helpless male damsel to a know-it-all smart ass. And it doesn't end here. In one game Classic Sonic is just the younger version of Sonic and in the next one he is another Sonic from another dimension. First Blaze is from another dimension, than from the future and than once again from her own dimension. This whole series is just in every single approach that it makes inconsistent.

Sure, characters do change over the years, but what the Sonic series does here has nothing to do with developing a character, it is just taking its characters and put them all in a new lore. We can see all Sonic characters more as actors rather than real characters. If Amy is in one game a strong headed nice girl than she is one, if we need Amy to be a self-appointed feminist, than she will be a self-appointed feminist in the next game.

That is the reason why I see a lot of the side and one-time characters like Chip, Princess Elise, Merlina, Shahra, the Deadly Six or the ghosts from Sonic Unleashed: Night of the Werehog as the better characters. Sure. They are all horrible written characters, but at least they are all consistent when it comes to their personalties and stories. Even if their are not really good. 

More or less.

On 11/29/2017 at 9:00 AM, RustyRick said:

-Vector out of the Chaotix I really liked when he and his crew got reintroduced to the series proper in Heroes and while easily at odds with Charmy, the way he addressed his colleagues as ‘boys’ and complimenting them on occassion really struck a cord with me on how cool of a boss he was. X and Forces really kind of tone up his ego that it feels more grating than that he’s cool.

 

Oh my goodness, you're right!

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

On November 29, 2017 at 7:29 AM, Swing said:

The main problem with the whole character deterioration is simple. The Sonic franchise never really had it's own real identity when it comes to it's world and characters. Rather than creating it's own world like Mario or Crash Bandicoot did the Sonic series always chased down trends instead.

Actually, Sonic did have its own identity with its world and characters. It was only after ShTH OR Sonic 06 (or arguably started there) that it began ignoring that and chasing down trends for whatever reason. And even then, Unleashed looked like solid ground for further building that world until it up and chucked it away like it was pointless when they continued, with mixed to poor results and reception.

22 hours ago, Dash Speed said:

To me I don' sweat it with Amy anymore, because with the exception of boom, she's borderline meaningless to Sonic and Tails most of the time.

Amy is just not a big deal to sonic team, she exists for little girls, sonamy, and the occasional comedy action scene. She helped Shadow, Gamma and Silver but that could have been anyone, Cream for instead helped Blaze to be more social.

Her role is assistant or taggalong since she's not an equal to boys in battle experience or abilites.

The fuck kind of sexist shit is this?!?

[Dash Speed]

1 hour ago, Conquering Storm's Servant said:

 

Quote

The fuck kind of sexist shit is this?!?

Uh, excuse me? It's isn't sexiest, it's true. She's not a big deal to Sonic and Tails beyond being either supporting hinting sonamy.

I like Amy btw, but lets not build something about her thats meaningful like say on tails level. Sonic himself may love her deep down but is too emotionally hardened to return it due to having a life long duty of stopping eggman and being the free hero everyone looks up to.

[RustyRick]

Speaking of Amy, I thought that ever since Cream got introduced Amy’s advances towards Sonic became more aggressive that it seemed to me that Sonic Team couldn’t really find a way to make Amy unique in terms of personality  compared to Cream so her ‘tsundere’ side got cranked up a whole notch until from Unleashed onwards it thankfully got toned down. 

I’m fine with Amy expressing anger over Sonic constantly dodging the topic of reciprocating her feelings or not, but in games like Advance 3 and Heroes she threatened him for little real justifiable reasons.

I still appreciate the times Amy got the spotlight where it shows that she’s really emotionally supportive of those she considers her friends, tries to convince the likes of Shadow and Gamma to turn over to the good side and in 06 that she doesn’t just love Sonic blindly because he’s cool but that he’s always got his heart in the right place.

[DabigRG]

2 hours ago, RustyRick said:

Speaking of Amy, I thought that ever since Cream got introduced Amy’s advances towards Sonic became more aggressive that it seemed to me that Sonic Team couldn’t really find a way to make Amy unique in terms of personality  compared to Cream so her ‘tsundere’ side got cranked up a whole notch until from Unleashed onwards it thankfully got toned down. 

I’m fine with Amy expressing anger over Sonic constantly dodging the topic of reciprocating her feelings or not, but in games like Advance 3 and Heroes she threatened him for little real justifiable reasons.

I still appreciate the times Amy got the spotlight where it shows that she’s really emotionally supportive of those she considers her friends, tries to convince the likes of Shadow and Gamma to turn over to the good side and in 06 that she doesn’t just love Sonic blindly because he’s cool but that he’s always got his heart in the right place.

Yeah, that's a point I've seen brought up in the past and the timeline does kinda synch up.

Basically, it was them combining her love for Sonic with her newfound independence, self-, and increased passion, which unfortunately went into making her come off as an aggressive yandere when pushed to cartoonish/comedic levels.

[StaticMania]

2 hours ago, RustyRick said:

...so her ‘tsundere’ side got cranked up a whole notch...

She never had a tsundere side...before that point.

[andrewtuell1991]

On 11/27/2017 at 5:28 PM, Diogenes said:

While we're on the subject, to bring back an old idea of mine: have a game end with the Master Emerald being shattered (ideally by Knuckles, in a situation where it was necessary to save the world or whatever) into a million pieces and spread across the planet. Knuckles becomes a free-roaming "treasure hunter" because he's searching for the pieces, a task that might take his entire life and may still not be finished even then. It gives him a goal that's not just "maintain the status quo" (even if it's essentially just "return to the old status quo"), it gets him out in the world instead of being stuck as a guardian while also not abandoning that aspect of his character, and the experiences he has while searching can be used to develop other motivations that can take over when/if the emerald shard hunt is resolved (whether he manages to restore it or decides that he doesn't need to).

An interesting idea, reminds me of the nigh-eternal Shikon Jewel quest from Inu Yasha.  But having the ME break again might turn some people off, so what-if instead something happened to Angel Island.  Like maybe it could get caught in the Death Egg heat blast or whatever, completely vaporizing it.  Knuckles would constantly be on the go because keeping a power source like the ME in one place too long would draw the attention of Eggman or anyone else after it.  That way Knuckles could still function as being the ME's guardian but not have to be tied down to one place.

[RedFox99]

1 minute ago, andrewtuell1991 said:

An interesting idea, reminds me of the nigh-eternal Shikon Jewel quest from Inu Yasha.  But having the ME break again might turn some people off, so what-if instead something happened to Angel Island.  Like maybe it could get caught in the Death Egg heat blast or whatever, completely vaporizing it.  Knuckles would constantly be on the go because keeping a power source like the ME in one place too long would draw the attention of Eggman or anyone else after it.  That way Knuckles could still function as being the ME's guardian but not have to be tied down to one place.

Doesn't he have the ability to shrink the ME to the size of his palm?

[E-122-Psi]

On 27 November 2017 at 9:04 PM, MetalSkulkBane said:

With Knuckles, I agree with Dr. Detective Mike that Sonic X version was awesome (ignoring the few gullible moments). Most of the time they had a perfect balance between making him clever, dumb or being punching bug to the world. While games Knuckles tired me with his stupid recently, I don't love Archie/Fleetway versions either, as they are too 'dry' for my taste. No matter how Flynn tried, nothing his Knuckles did impress me as much as Knuckles solo episode in X or flying on torpedo to Eggman's base.

Speaking of making Knuckles too serious, Sonic Forces. Obviously, it's still best Knuckles in years, but making him 'that's why it's called war' is a step too far. Still, from my perspective Knuckles isn't a strategic genius in this game. Most planning is done by everyone, with him giving the final word. I like to think that Knuckles was chosen as a leader for exactly the same reasons as in real world: marketing. With Sonic gone, Tails 'losing it' and Shadow doing god knows what, Knuckles is the best face to boost morales. People know him, trust him and he's this super cool guy from floating Island. I doubt people would follow Vector, the guy who owes me money and solved the riddle of missing cat. (Who also plays the role of dumb guy in this game).

I have a similar philosophy with Amy: yes she shouldn't be a psychopath, but removing her crush on Sonic makes her most dry and generic of all Sonic characters. It giver her passion, energy, drive. Without it, she's just a girl. I don't think anyone made 'ultimate version of  Amy Rose' but Adventure titles were pretty okay at it and Ian Flynn nailed it for a majority of the time.

This is a recurring problem with these two and many other characters, in that writers often have trouble finding a balance with their quirks, making them either over-the-top caricatures of themselves or harmless and inoffensive but fairly bland.

X ALMOST had them right at the start of the series, I think what hurt their characters was less their own depiction and more their treatment by the narrative and cast.

Amy started off a good balance of sweet natured and Sonic-obsessed or temperamental, but the problem was the odd times her temper did flare they exaggerated the reactions so that everyone was intimidated of her, even major bad guys, making her look like a dangerous psychopath (comparatively, even with Heroes' Flanderization, Amy was just generally treated as an annoying 'little brat' by the others, which helped nuance it).

Similarly Knuckles had a mix of buffoonish and competent, but the competent side was undermined by him constantly falling victim to the 'loners are losers' moral and being overshadowed by Sonic's robotically ace-ish depiction. Even worse he started gain a Dr Zoidberg/Meg Griffin type aura around the other characters, with EVERYONE (even sweetly Cream, Cosmo and background character 64) randomly turning into school yard bullies around Knuckles. What was merely playful ribbing in the games got intensified into him being the team's dumbass patsy who needs to know his lowly place.

I think this comedic sociopathy was what made keeping the balance difficult so eventually they just went with the more one note depictions the show lent to, making Amy and Knuckles the bully and the bullied respectively, especially as their relevance slowly downgraded into comic relief by Season Three.

 

Concerning the un-Flanderized incarnations, I don't think it helps most of the more earnest depictions of Sonic are more plot driven than character driven. I notice this a lot with the more serious medias and I think that's why they end up feeling a bit bland, because a lot of the time the personality quirks aren't called in as often to matter.

The nearest to a more character driven interpretation trying for a more balanced Amy is Boom, and even then I think they flounder a little by losing a lot of other traits that, while overwhelmed by the usual Flanderized ones, are just as important. While Boom Amy started off overenthusiastic and bubbly in spite of her more grounded personality, thus maintaining a silly side, she slowly flanderized into the moody control freak of the group, thus we simply moved from one stale flanderization into a new one. Sure she still has quirks because of how self righteous and curmudgeonly she is, but it's starting to become hardly Amy and more a new character (ironically she's probably closer to what Sally Acorn should have been if not for her own character deterioration).

[RedFox99]

@E-122-Psi episodes like the earlier ones and Gives Bee a Chance did an alright job with her characterization, but yeah she did feel like a less favored Sally acorn at times.

[E-122-Psi]

18 minutes ago, RedFox99 said:

@E-122-Psi episodes like the earlier ones and Gives Bee a Chance did an alright job with her characterization, but yeah she did feel like a less favored Sally acorn at times.

Ironic because being favoured is what slowly led to Sally's character deterioration into something far worse.

[RedFox99]

Just now, E-122-Psi said:

Ironic because being favoured is what slowly led to Sally's character deterioration into something far worse.

At least with Boom Amy, she's often called out for her Sally-like traits.