Most Annoying Sonic Characters

[SpongicX]

Omochao 

[Razule]

On 2/22/2018 at 5:45 PM, blueblur98 said:

lest us not forget johnny.

smug, stupid AND just plain cheap.

c h e c k t h i s o u t

Johnny Lightfoot?! 

[DabigRG]

2 hours ago, Razule said:

Johnny Lightfoot?! 

Jetskiing Johnny.

[MainJP]

Anyone in Sonic Heroes.

[Tornado]

21 hours ago, SpongicX said:

Omochao 

11 minutes ago, MainJP said:

Anyone in Sonic Heroes.

Details in posts, please. You're referring to characters in games 7 and 13 years old as if their inclusion goes without saying.

 

[SpongicX]

On 2/25/2018 at 6:40 AM, Tornado said:

Details in posts, please. You're referring to characters in games 7 and 13 years old as if their inclusion goes without saying.

 

Sorry, I thought Omochao was pretty  explanatory. What else can be said that hasn’t been said? Most of his voices are annoying. The only games I can think of that didn’t annoy me with Omochao were  Sonic Riders and Sonic and the Secret Rings.

In most games, his advice is useless, and the way he constantly flutters around the screen with that souless robotic face is obnoxious. He’s always dragging the games down with his presense. He’s basically become the Super Mario Toad of Sonic. They even partnered him with Toad as pointless exposition explainers in the Mario and Sonic handheld games.

Lego Dimensions may have had some funny jabs at trashing Omochao, but it still didn’t make his inclusion any less annoying. The forced parts with Omochao are still too long and tedious.

[DabigRG]

16 minutes ago, SpongicX said:

In most games, his advice is useless, and the way he constantly flutters around the screen with that souless robotic face is obnoxious. He’s always dragging the games down with his presense. He’s basically become the Toad of the Super Mario franchise, and even partnered him with Toad as pointless exposition explainers in the Mario and Sonic games.

If Omochao is seriously dragging down any game, then there's clearly another problem.

Although I do concur that I avoid him in London Party.

[DarkChaosGaming]

I also reply verbally to Omochao whenever I accidentally touch him, usually with very unflattering comments. Usually because his advice is totally pointless, or just stating the obvious, in a really really annoying voice.

*Touches Omochao on the last level* 

Omochao: Did you know that if you push A while in the air you can do a Homing Attack? 

Me: Did you know that if it was allowed I'd homing attack on your head all day long?

 

Ok maybe the advice isn't quite THAT useless, but close enough. Amazing how the best Rouge actress can produce a voice that awful.

[RedFox99]

What's sad is how all the other characters practically become Omachao during the Time eater fight

[BaronGrackle]

Where was Omochao when I was playing Carnival Night Zone in S3? Huh, huh?

[DabigRG]

4 minutes ago, BaronGrackle said:

Where was Omochao when I was playing Carnival Night Zone in S3? Huh, huh?

Still sealed on Prison Island.

 

Better question is where was Omochao during Sonic Lost World.

[Multikaris]

I agree with the Boom villagers sentiment around here. But moreso because I find them ugly as sin. And... unpopular opinion incoming, the Hard-Boiled Heavies, who I find to be interchangeable with the Deadly Six in the end.

[Sgt Nate V]

On 2/21/2018 at 10:50 AM, HylianBran said:

Swim to get your damn frog!

Did you forget that Cats don't like water?

[SpongicX]

11 hours ago, DarkChaosGaming said:

I also reply verbally to Omochao whenever I accidentally touch him, usually with very unflattering comments. Usually because his advice is totally pointless, or just stating the obvious, in a really really annoying voice.

*Touches Omochao on the last level* 

Omochao: Did you know that if you push A while in the air you can do a Homing Attack? 

Me: Did you know that if it was allowed I'd homing attack on your head all day long?

 

Ok maybe the advice isn't quite THAT useless, but close enough. Amazing how the best Rouge actress can produce a voice that awful.

I personally think the current voice of Omochao is the worst, which is crazy, because he has the same voice as Blaze.

Blaze’s current voice is great, but her voice for Omochao is freaking annoying. Hearing Omochao with a high pitched girly voice is not a good mix. 

[DarkChaosGaming]

On 2/28/2018 at 1:15 AM, SpongicX said:

I personally think the current voice of Omochao is the worst, which is crazy, because he has the same voice as Blaze.

Blaze’s current voice is great, but her voice for Omochao is freaking annoying. Hearing Omochao with a high pitched girly voice is not a good mix. 

Well same for back in the Adventure days, Lani Minella did an amazing job as Rouge, but Omochaoi... OMG... 

[E-122-Psi]

I actually sometimes find some depictions of Sonic himself irritating or downright odious.

It's less the lighthearted ones, they can be obnoxious sometimes but can be loveable. Hell even the STC one is SUPPOSED to be a douche. It's the more serious works that tend to make him kinda unlikeable, largely because a lot of his trademark quirks, ie. being reckless and cocky and NEVER learning from his mistakes, don't quite work in a story with more serious consequences.

Satam/Archie Sonic is a guy that plays around with the enemy and takes serious risks because he's bored, yet at the same time he's had this backfire, sometimes in ways that aren't reversed or hurt people other than himself. He'll have one half hearted apology then go back to his old egotistical self even if the aftereffects are still there. Even worse he's known for being rather self righteous or vindictive to anyone who criticises or gets in the way of his approach. He's even had cases he's spitefully refused to help someone out of a petty grudge (I don't think even the STC version has had the heart to do that). Sure he has saved the world many times and he deserves respect, but those times he DIDN'T and wouldn't let anyone else do anything about it aren't ignorable because of it. People get robotised or legionized because he wasted time showing off when he made himself the world's only hope.

Since he and Sally are often the 'dream team' of said interpretations, Sally herself also tends to fall into this problem, but with ten times the self righteous hypocrisy about it since she considers herself the more pragmatic and cautious foil (eg. making a council and then overruling them whenever they don't make the decision she wanted, or refusing to take responsibility for the people who got legionized by NICOLE because she doesn't want to be mean to her best friend).

[RedFox99]

1 hour ago, E-122-Psi said:

I actually sometimes find some depictions of Sonic himself irritating or downright odious.

It's less the lighthearted ones, they can be obnoxious sometimes but can be loveable. Hell even the STC one is SUPPOSED to be a douche. It's the more serious works that tend to make him kinda unlikeable, largely because a lot of his trademark quirks, ie. being reckless and cocky and NEVER learning from his mistakes, don't quite work in a story with more serious consequences.

Satam/Archie Sonic is a guy that plays around with the enemy and takes serious risks because he's bored, yet at the same time he's had this backfire, sometimes in ways that aren't reversed or hurt people other than himself. He'll have one half hearted apology then go back to his old egotistical self even if the aftereffects are still there. Even worse he's known for being rather self righteous or vindictive to anyone who criticises or gets in the way of his approach. He's even had cases he's spitefully refused to help someone out of a petty grudge (I don't think even the STC version has had the heart to do that). Sure he has saved the world many times and he deserves respect, but those times he DIDN'T and wouldn't let anyone else do anything about it aren't ignorable because of it. People get robotised or legionized because he wasted time showing off when he made himself the world's only hope.

Since he and Sally are often the 'dream team' of said interpretations, Sally herself also tends to fall into this problem, but with ten times the self righteous hypocrisy about it since she considers herself the more pragmatic and cautious foil (eg. making a council and then overruling them whenever they don't make the decision she wanted, or refusing to take responsibility for the people who got legionized by NICOLE because she doesn't want to be mean to her best friend).

Ian's favoritism towards Sally seemed to be one of his bigger writing issues. It felt like she wasn't allowed to be humiliated like the other characters or be called out.

[DabigRG]

2 hours ago, E-122-Psi said:

making a council and then overruling them whenever they don't make the decision she wanted,

 To be fair, Hamlin pretty clearly had it out for her there and Scourge was another Archie!Sonic that supposedly conquered his world with the intention of doing the same.

So unless I'm remember the order of events wrong, that really wasn't a time for the Council to be obstructive. Sally was just using the Catch 22 in their logic to make that point.

2 hours ago, E-122-Psi said:

refusing to take responsibility for the people who got legionized by NICOLE because she doesn't want to be mean to her best friend.

When was this exactly? I'm kinda blankin.

Also, I'm pretty sure it was Snively and some Dark Egg Legionnaires doing the legionizing. Which, Cheese and Rice!

[E-122-Psi]

14 hours ago, DabigRG said:

 To be fair, Hamlin pretty clearly had it out for her there and Scourge was another Archie!Sonic that supposedly conquered his world with the intention of doing the same.

So unless I'm remember the order of events wrong, that really wasn't a time for the Council to be obstructive. Sally was just using the Catch 22 in their logic to make that point.

The bit with Hamlin having a petty personal grudge just seemed like something added onto the end to make him the bad guy. Otherwise he could have easily been portrayed as a cold but pragmatic fella (especially since the other council members seemed to begrudgingly agree with him about the Freedom Fighters, not just respectfully going against their direction, but flat out ignoring and going behind their back). Even there you could see why Hamlin thought Sally deemed him unimportant, even if his own reaction was even more unprofessional.

This is also something that tended to convey Sally as a hypocrite, since it was pretty much her shtick to get high strung with Sonic whenever he ignored or went against her advise against using his heads-on approach to a bad guy.

14 hours ago, DabigRG said:

 When was this exactly? I'm kinda blankin.

Also, I'm pretty sure it was Snively and some Dark Egg Legionnaires doing the legionizing. Which, Cheese and Rice!

Which they did thanks to how easily they reprogrammed NICOLE, something the Freedom Fighters didn't remotely anticipate against a techno mage. She literally waltzed right next to their base and it was done, they were THAT cocky NICOLE couldn't be harmed.

Again Sonic and Sally were too busy patting themselves on the back and having a party to acknowledge the people still hurt or traumatised by the whole ordeal, let alone show they were doing anything to assure it wouldn't happen again, and the narrative method was to make the opposition calling them out on this do so in such a callous way that the two could just straw man them as mean and ungrateful.

 

Self righteous protagonists draw a really fine line between arrogant but sympathetically so, or just flat out infuriating designated heroes, and it usually depends on how well the writers are willing to admit the character has an ego and have it bite them. And Archie would go to their graves before doing this with Sally, even if it meant inflicting the whole cast around her with the exact same lessons and humblings she should have faced a million times over. Even when they were willing to admit she made mistakes they were unwilling to connect it to any sort of hubris or hypocritical trait of her's.

To compare Boom!Amy and Twilight Sparkle of MLP are of very similar holier than thou archetypes to Sally, but the writers are open about that, they are butt monkeys to their own ego and it makes for a fun personality instead of them being annoying (most of the time anyway).

[RedFox99]

@E-122-Psi You've hit the nail on the head. The problem with how Ian and Hurst wrote was that they was too afraid to have her be in the wrong and have characters that call her out be in the right (like with Spark of Life). This can make her pretty unsympathetic as she can come off as self-righteous and as a Creator's Pet. As mean as it might sound, it's partly why I'm glad Ian isn't going get to write Sally in the new comics.

[Your Vest Friend]

Hurst i think genuinely treated her as a creator's pet. Like, really obviously on the level of Penders treating Julie-Su as a creator's pet. 

I'm not sure what Ian was going for with Sally. I mean, his writings where he had total freedom (Other M most prominently) completely omitted Sally so it doesn't seem like he was that gung-ho about her. I suspect it was more a case of him falling into a particular trapping that kept coming up pre-reboot; he tried to stick so closely to the original vision and versions that had come before, even at the detriment of the book sometimes. Post-reboot seemed more like an issue of keeping her role relevant. 

[DabigRG]

14 hours ago, E-122-Psi said:

The bit with Hamlin having a petty personal grudge just seemed like something added onto the end to make him the bad guy. Otherwise he could have easily been portrayed as a cold but pragmatic fella (especially since the other council members seemed to begrudgingly agree with him about the Freedom Fighters, not just respectfully going against their direction, but flat out ignoring and going behind their back). Even there you could see why Hamlin thought Sally deemed him unimportant, even if his own reaction was even more unprofessional.

This is also something that tended to convey Sally as a hypocrite, since it was pretty much her shtick to get high strung with Sonic whenever he ignored or went against her advise against using his heads-on approach to a bad guy.

 

Wasn't he was always portrayed as irritable and confrontational, though? And he generally had a point too, given Geoffrey's shenanigans both before...well, the Secret Service formation(and even that's debatable) and after the Iron Dominion invasion.

Though on the note of him holding a grudge, I think that's both a continuity based motivation and more of a way to help the younger audiences remember who they should side with on the issue, even if it's arguably unnecessary.

14 hours ago, E-122-Psi said:

Which they did thanks to how easily they reprogrammed NICOLE, something the Freedom Fighters didn't remotely anticipate against a techno mage. She literally waltzed right next to their base and it was done, they were THAT cocky NICOLE couldn't be harmed.

Again Sonic and Sally were too busy patting themselves on the back and having a party to acknowledge the people still hurt or traumatised by the whole ordeal, let alone show they were doing anything to assure it wouldn't happen again, and the narrative method was to make the opposition calling them out on this do so in such a callous way that the two could just straw man them as mean and ungrateful.

 

Oh yeah, I do remember reading that. And yes, that was pretty damn negligent of them, or at least egregiously dumb.

 

Though Mina was at least a somewhat credible voice, from what I remember. Both because she was always pretty friendly with them and because they specifically made a point of showcasing that was shaken up herself.

 

14 hours ago, E-122-Psi said:

And Archie would go to their graves before doing this with Sally, even if it meant inflicting the whole cast around her with the exact same lessons and humblings she should have faced a million times over. Even when they were willing to admit she made mistakes they were unwilling to connect it to any sort of hubris or hypocritical trait of her's.

Huh. It's been a good while since I've actually read any preboot stories, much less any where Sally was really a focus, so these type of complaints are something I never really had much context on, nor really had any real opinion about. 

Thinking about the matter, I guess it could be rooted in a combination of SEGA having taken a special interest in her and the fact that Mr. Flynn had been working to revitalize a number of major things about the comic, with Sally being one of the more present for grandfathery/contractual reasons. And it can be a little hard to properly throw any shade against a character(at least in the more detracting eyes) when you're actively working to reestablish them in a positive manner.

 

14 hours ago, E-122-Psi said:

Self righteous protagonists draw a really fine line between arrogant but sympathetically so, or just flat out infuriating designated heroes, and it usually depends on how well the writers are willing to admit the character has an ego and have it bite them.

To compare Boom!Amy and Twilight Sparkle of MLP are of very similar holier than thou archetypes to Sally, but the writers are open about that, they are butt monkeys to their own ego and it makes for a fun personality instead of them being annoying (most of the time anyway).

Fair enough. The former in particular is a case where I'm actually fine with both points of view.

3 hours ago, RedFox99 said:

@E-122-Psi You've hit the nail on the head. The problem with how Ian and Hurst wrote was that they was too afraid to have her be in the wrong and have characters that call her out be in the right (like with Spark of Life). This can make her pretty unsympathetic as she can come off as self-righteous and as a Creator's Pet. As mean as it might sound, it's partly why I'm glad Ian isn't going get to write Sally in the new comics.

Why Spark of Life?

3 hours ago, VEDJ-F said:

Hurst i think genuinely treated her as a creator's pet. 

I'm not sure what Ian was going for with Sally. I mean, his writings where he had total freedom (Other M most prominently) completely omitted Sally so it doesn't seem like he was that gung-ho about her. I suspect it was more a case of him falling into a particular trapping that kept coming up pre-reboot; he tried to stick so closely to the original vision and versions that had come before, even at the detriment of the book sometimes. 

Same here.

Unlike in the comics(which simply has too many issues for be to bother investigating, much less notice the criticism to begin with), I do think Sally had a little too much presence in Season 2, particularly since it led to the demotion of Rotor and especially Bunnie. Recently hearing that the creators apparently didn't like the former doesn't help much, even if he did seem to have a problem of being somewhat out of theme in ways.

By contrast, Mr. Flynn actually seemed do things that at least indirectly called Sally's approach to things at times into question and he himself didn't seem to actually care too much about her character itself so much as what he could conveniently do with it on occasion.

3 hours ago, VEDJ-F said:

. Post-reboot seemed more like an issue of keeping her role relevant. 

You think so?

[E-122-Psi]

49 minutes ago, DabigRG said:

Oh yeah, I do remember reading that. And yes, that was pretty damn negligent of them, or at least egregiously dumb.

 

Though Mina was at least a somewhat credible voice, from what I remember. Both because she was always pretty friendly with them and because they specifically made a point of showcasing that was shaken up herself.

Except they strawmaned Mina as well and Sonic and Sally ended up on bad terms with her for the rest of the pre-reboot run.

NICOLE patched things up, but that was largely Mina admitting she was completely in the wrong.

 

3 hours ago, VEDJ-F said:

Hurst i think genuinely treated her as a creator's pet. Like, really obviously on the level of Penders treating Julie-Su as a creator's pet. 

I'm not sure what Ian was going for with Sally. I mean, his writings where he had total freedom (Other M most prominently) completely omitted Sally so it doesn't seem like he was that gung-ho about her. I suspect it was more a case of him falling into a particular trapping that kept coming up pre-reboot; he tried to stick so closely to the original vision and versions that had come before, even at the detriment of the book sometimes. Post-reboot seemed more like an issue of keeping her role relevant. 

I feel like Ian may have at least liked the original dynamic Sonic and Sally had, and would have kept to that unchanged if not for the constant complaints about Sally's character. He kept trying to appeal to some sort of flawed side to her, but I don't think he really had an understanding for it, especially since it was mostly just compressed vices that never hit her recurring irritating vices like her aforementioned self righteousness or overcautiousness. I get the feeling Ian started to give up when this didn't work and Sally remained divisive with the fan base so just started fading her into the supporting cast. Spark of Life was one final attempt to give Sally star appeal and it didn't work for the same reasons (Ian did a great job with Big in that story though XD).

One thing I've noticed is that Ian didn't really do a lot of methodical characters that were flawed in a really developed way. Most of the error prone cast members were reckless or hotheaded. This is recurring oversimplification with personalities in fiction; that cautious introverted characters are always careful (and often boring) straight men and spontaneous extroverted ones are always careless (and often jerkish) imbeciles, forgetting how many mental defects come from being the former such as OCD. There are less specific forms of intellect either, while in real life you can be smart and dumb in different areas, in many fictions you just have level headed geniuses and idiotic losers.

In fairness, Ian was only following the direction most other writers did beforehand, even besides Hurst, Rotor and Bunnie weren't exactly developed in terms of foibles and dynamics with the cast, and Dulcy was only step up from that due to being comic relief and flight vehicle (and rarely even being that in later canon). Nearly all of the character driven stories in early Satam/Archie involved Antoine or Sonic being egotistical morons and screwing everything up, with Sally being the voice of reason and everyone else being the 'good kids' who knew to follow orders and stay home.

[DabigRG]

6 minutes ago, E-122-Psi said:

Except they strawmaned Mina as well and Sonic and Sally ended up on bad terms with her for the rest of the pre-reboot run.

NICOLE patched things up, but that was largely Mina admitting she was completely in the wrong.

 

Was she? Again, I mostly remember her having nightmares, stating her point after Sonic and Sally, and then rethinking things once Geoffrey, Naugus, and Eggman wrecked shit up, so I might be blanking on specific order and/or delivery.

6 minutes ago, E-122-Psi said:

I feel like Ian may have at least liked the original dynamic Sonic and Sally had, and would have kept to that unchanged if not for the constant complaints about Sally's character. He kept trying to appeal to some sort of flawed side to her, but I don't think he really had an understanding for it, especially since it was mostly just compressed vices that never hit her recurring irritating vices like her aforementioned self righteousness or overcautiousness. I get the feeling Ian started to give up when this didn't work and Sally remained divisive with the fan base so just started fading her into the supporting cast. 

Yeah, I somewhat see that as well.

14 minutes ago, E-122-Psi said:

 Spark of Life was one final attempt to give Sally star appeal and it didn't work for the same reasons (Ian did a great job with Big in that story though XD).

I forgot to put this in the collective post above, but would you mind explaining this one? Because aside from the argument that it's not really about her, I honestly get it.

14 minutes ago, E-122-Psi said:

One thing I've noticed is that Ian didn't really do a lot of methodical characters that were flawed in a really developed way. Most of the error prone cast members were reckless or hotheaded.

This is recurring oversimplification with personalities in fiction; that cautious introverted characters are always careful (and often boring) straight men and spontaneous extroverted ones are always careless (and often jerkish) imbeciles, forgetting how many mental defects come from being the former such as OCD.

Hmm...there is definitely some truth to the greater issue.

What are some other examples of either in the book, not counting Shadow?

[RedFox99]

1 hour ago, E-122-Psi said:

. I get the feeling Ian started to give up when this didn't work and Sally remained divisive with the fan base so just started fading her into the supporting cast. Spark of Life was one final attempt to give Sally star appeal and it didn't work for the same reasons (Ian did a great job with Big in that story though XD).

Actually his wife Aleah Baker wrote that story, but was the story badly recieved?