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Which other animal species should be introduced to the series?


Solister

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9 minutes ago, Sega DogTagz said:

Proghorns, Chinchillas, Thylacines, shoot we even got a Jellyfish. And she was awesome no less.

Abyss was a Squid.

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There is a disturbing lack of pandas in the Sonic franchise... at least with the games.

At least a panda is something I would not mind to have similar moves like Sonic, simply because how it's rolling animation would most likely look like a Ying-Yang.

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42 minutes ago, DabigRG said:

Abyss was a Squid.

I was talking about Opal.

latest?cb=20180103215158

 

 

 

But Abyss is also cool

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Archie was a mixed bag. While some of the characters incorporated their species well (Cassia and Clove and Thunderbolt come to mind  primarily), some were pretty poorly executed, and I'd say Opal was one of them. The Jellyfish part was pretty much just a hat, and the rest of her was a generic mammal mould. Even the Voxai from Chronicles were a more carefully executed jellyfish-like design. 

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Kinda liked how Archie had a whole society of aquatic anthros in it’s setting.

Real shame we lost that, because if anything, that was the place to point to for many aquatic species: Puffer fish and Angler fish as a king and queen, a mantis shrimp, orcas, squids, manta ray, jellyfish, dolphins, and I think they did have a lobster there too.

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31 minutes ago, VEDJ-F said:

Archie was a mixed bag. While some of the characters incorporated their species well (Cassia and Clove and Thunderbolt come to mind  primarily), some were pretty poorly executed, and I'd say Opal was one of them. The Jellyfish part was pretty much just a hat, and the rest of her was a generic mammal mould. Even the Voxai from Chronicles were a more carefully executed jellyfish-like design. 

but the Voxai - outside of being alien - made no attempt at being "Sonic characters". They were just things. Were they Jellyfish? Sure, sorta. But was their anything about them that tied them to this franchise from a design standpoint? Absolutely not. Bioware could play the alternate dimension card, but that is precisely why the Voxai are a mute point in this conversation. They were never designed to be Sonic Jellyfish.

Much like Sonic, Knuckles and most of the Cast, Opal was constructed with the same principles, and used the natural characteristics of her species to flesh out her moveset. She's covered in dangerous tendrils.

 

That should be the baseline of any new species or character. It has to make some attempt to conform to the identity of the franchise. There can still be outliners, and those outliners can still be well done (Thunderbolt comes to mind) but there has to be a foundation that we should all be starting from.

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45 minutes ago, VEDJ-F said:

Archie was a mixed bag. While some of the characters incorporated their species well (Cassia and Clove and Thunderbolt come to mind  primarily), some were pretty poorly executed, and I'd say Opal was one of them. The Jellyfish part was pretty much just a hat, and the rest of her was a generic mammal mould. Even the Voxai from Chronicles were a more carefully executed jellyfish-like design. 

This is something that I found odd because, in an attempt to have more "game-like" designs, I think the Archie staff fell for the trap of designing characters using the "Sonic mold", which makes even less sense when dealing with characters based on animals like Jellyfish that bear no resemblance whatsoever to the anatomy of mammals, birds or reptiles.

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Bees don’t bear the resemblance to mammals, birds, and reptiles either, but we have Charmy.

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13 minutes ago, Conquering Storm's Servant said:

Bees don’t bear the resemblance to mammals, birds, and reptiles either, but we have Charmy.

True. However keep in mind that Sonic is very much based on how anthropomorphic characters were drawn in classic cartoons, and there is also the precedent of how a lot of the material in which Sonic's design was inspired depicted bees with mammal-like characteristic like a nose or the number of limbs, such as Disne's Spike the Bee: http://disney.wikia.com/wiki/Spike_the_Bee

A Jellysifh on the other hand has no such recognizable traits for a cartoonist to simplify (especially facial ones) and turn it into a more antrhopomorphic design. It justs looks like most anthros in the franchise molded after Sonic or Amy with some weird hair on their head.

Granted, one can also argue that the Archie staff simply didn't have any examples to follow as a basis from ST as the Japanese developers never created characters that were not mammals, birds or reptiles.

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Yeah, that’s kinda why they followed the basic Sonic template when making a jellyfish character...

The overall point is that they’re supposed to at least look like a Sonic-styled character. That in itself is central to how they look, kinda like how Knuckles is supposed to be an echidna in spite of the vast liberties they took from the appearance of actual echidnas in his design.

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9 hours ago, VEDJ-F said:

Because they don't actually add to the cast that often, contrary to what may be thought. I mean, the last ones they made that applied to the main games were a Honey Badger (for Boom, but thanks to M&S she applies to the main games) and a Jackal, and they aren't exactly common.

Sticks isn't actually a honey badger, she's a "jungle badger."  I lost the link in the forum wipe a few years ago, but there's an interview where her designers explain that they flat-out made up the species.

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9 hours ago, Sega DogTagz said:

I was talking about Opal.

latest?cb=20180103215158

 

 

 

But Abyss is also cool

I figured, but just wanted to keep to the Egg Boss pattern you had going there.:lol:

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On the jellyfish argument,

I think since the basic starting point for all Sonic character designs is a circle that a jellyfish character would have benefited from using an orbinaut as it's base. In that way you get the typical Sonic design style but also are able to play around with the jellyfish concept for freely.

 

For my choice of animal that I'd like to see, I'm with the pangolin crowd. I'll avoid rambling about why and instead also point out that I could get along with the idea of panda character (giant or red works for me). Though thinking about pandas gets me thinking about the Coconut Crew and feeling again that the concepts used in Forces were wasted in some many different ways.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Thankfully IDW is here to pick up where Archie and Boom were cut off. Even Rough and Tumble aren’t your typical skunks. I really hope the exploration of little-known animals continues in IDW. 

 

And i’ve noticed a much larger variety of animals as the basis for Badniks rather than with Mobians in the games. It also reminds me of Beast Wars, with Predacons being often invertebrates against largely mammalian Maximals. It’s more likely  that we’ll get a coconut crab, a flea, a crinoid, a whipscorpion, a cuttlefish, or a velvet ant as Badniks rather than Mobians, which open more of an opportunity to celebrate animals as they are without anthropomorphic qualities. 

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On 4/21/2018 at 11:58 PM, Conquering Storm's Servant said:

Kinda liked how Archie had a whole society of aquatic anthros in it’s setting.

Real shame we lost that, because if anything, that was the place to point to for many aquatic species: Puffer fish and Angler fish as a king and queen, a mantis shrimp, orcas, squids, manta ray, jellyfish, dolphins, and I think they did have a lobster there too.

Captain Stryker, Ahklut, Abyss, Pearly, Opal/PB, Echo/Bottlenose, and Mr. Bristles the Yeti Crab.

<strike>All</strike>Mostly such nicely incorporated and colorful designs for such unique creatures.

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I actually wouldn't mind more birds. I know the Babylon Rogues weren't everyone's favorite characters, but birds are my favorite animal group and I would love to see more -- especially an owl!

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11 hours ago, BlossomHaze said:

I actually wouldn't mind more birds. I know the Babylon Rogues weren't everyone's favorite characters, but birds are my favorite animal group and I would love to see more -- especially an owl!

That is definitely a interesting proposal. I am glad to know I'm not alone in wanting to see more birds. Though my desire maybe not as strong as with you. But I think birds, in general, do translate well to the Sonic Universe style. And I'll admit that I am rather fond of Wave in Riders and Jet does look pretty dang awesome himself. I'm more or less so-so with Storm, though I do respect the attempt with him.

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Isn't Chaos already a jellyfish? I mean, it's not canon, they never stated it, but it looks exactly like an anthropomorphic jellyfish.

This also fits my headcanon theory that anthros are grown up chao that copied some animal's traits (since Chaos is confirmed to be a chao); also the analogy between the Werehog and Chaos 2 makes me think that the were- forms are the result of exposure to negative chaos energy (basically the Werehog and Chaos 2 are in my headcanon just the same thing applied to 2 different characters). That's why I think there is a difference between anthro animals and regular animals (flickies and co.),

But headcanon aside, I actually think that Chaos would fit very well if was confirmed to be a jellyfish, Jellyfishes are mostly made out of water anyway (95 to 98%).

 

As for a species I'd like to see as a new character, since we have a bee, what about a mantis?

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7 hours ago, Ashwalking Bat said:

That is definitely a interesting proposal. I am glad to know I'm not alone in wanting to see more birds. Though my desire maybe not as strong as with you. But I think birds, in general, do translate well to the Sonic Universe style. And I'll admit that I am rather fond of Wave in Riders and Jet does look pretty dang awesome himself. I'm more or less so-so with Storm, though I do respect the attempt with him.

That's interesting, because Storm if my favorite among the three; Jet, he's on the lower end, and obviously Wave is right there in the middle. One of my OCs is a pheasant, and I would actually be rather fond to see one officially put in the Sonic universe sometime. They're just cool birds. Or a secretary bird with a kick attack? I don't know, lol.

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Untapped market with swordfish.
Why, you ask? They're fish...but sword.
Where's my character design job, Sonic Team?

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You know, I just saw something that made me think of a frog and was reminded of how a few years ago during a big political campaign how one group who were campaign together advertised themselves as Mach Frogge Bradley. It made me want to see an anthropomorphic frog who could do the speed of sound like Sonic who was either named Mach or Bradley the Mach Frog.

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Mammals: Pangolin, Caracal, Tenrec, Wolverine (Hell, mustelids in general. There is not one single mustelid in the main series), Mongoose, Lion, Elephant, and Platypus.

Birds: Owl, Eagle, Roadrunner (Meep-meep!), Falcon, Macaw, Sparrow, Canary, and Raven.

Reptiles: Snapping Turtles, Snakes, Geckos, Monitor Lizards, and Iguana.

Amphibians: Frog, Salamander, and Axolotl.

Fish: Sharks, Goldfish, Pirahnas,  Electric eels (A new kinetic ability), and Gars

Insects: Beetles, Dragonflies, Butterflies, Flies, Grasshoppers, crickets, and Hornet.

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On 5/21/2018 at 7:46 PM, BlossomHaze said:

Or a secretary bird with a kick attack? I don't know, lol.

Funny you should mention that~

latest?cb=20180513050711

It's not sonic related, but Aggretsuko has a bird named Washimi who does some seriously mean drop kicks. Or maybe it's a leg drop? But still.

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Hedgehog variants like tenrecs, porcuppine...

Wolves

Angora Rabbit980x.jpg(if they wanna add an old master of something)

 

Ocelot

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