Why "I" dislike Amy's Piko Piko Hammer

[Almar]

19 hours ago, Skull Leader said:

when the main roadblock right now not just for Amy, but for any and all characters not introduced in the Genesis trilogy is Sonic Team thinking that only Tails and Knuckles matter, that they should be put on a pedestal and be given priority over everyone else. Just changing that one attitude from them would make a big difference.

It's not like Knuckles and Tails are treated bettter. Knuckles even in Sonic Forces can't escape from being Team Sonic's Zoidberg and Tails doesn't have a single character anymore (from arrogant brat to instead being the post-Luigi's Mansion Luigi to Sonic's Mario).

[DabigRG]

11 minutes ago, Almar said:

It's not like Knuckles and Tails are treated bettter. Knuckles even in Forcs can't escape from being Team Sonic's Zoidberg and Tails doesn't have a single character anymore (from arrogant brat being the post-Luigi's Mansion Luigi to Sonic's Mario). 

Yeah, I'd say every character besides Team Dark, Big, and to lesser extents Eggman has been given sketchy material and lesser deals at some point.

Though in Tails case, I'd argue that's more the stories suddenly trying to give him a bigger range of emotional weight after so long of just following Sonic hypercompetently and failing to have it come across as reasonable or genuine.

[Fire-N-Space]

Just now, Almar said:

It's not like Knuckles and Tails are treated bettter. Knuckles even in Sonic Forces can't escape from being Team Sonic's Zoidberg and Tails doesn't have a single character anymore (from arrogant brat to instead being the post-Luigi's Mansion Luigi to Sonic's Mario).

Knuckles & Tails are treated better they get more screen time,  playable in a lot games, and there more important to the story most of the time then any other character even Amy a main character gets push out by them.

[Muscles Maximum]

1 hour ago, Fire-N-Space said:

Knuckles & Tails are treated better they get more screen time,  playable in a lot games

If by “playable in a lot games” you mean Mania, then yeah you’re right. All one game them’s playable in since 06.

[Fire-N-Space]

Just now, Strong Guy said:

If by “playable in a lot games” you mean Mania, then yeah you’re right. All one game them’s playable in since 06.

There is also Sonic Rivals, Sonic Rivals 2,  Sonic Boom: Shattered Crystal, Sonic Runners Adventure (2017), and Sonic Mania. In Sonic and the Secret Rings Amy was not even part of the story like Knuckles & Tails.

[Skull Leader]

9 hours ago, DabigRG said:

Okay, this where I can actually step and point out that you're oversimplifying things and/or wrong: Boom!Amy does have flaws and especially quirks. It's one of the reasons why she's one of the more "fleshed out" and versatile characters in the Boom cast.

If anything, I'd say certain people's issues comes from the fact that it's not explicity/exclusively Game!Amy's traits and flaws.

Yep. Boom Amy has been shown to be somewhat bossy, thinks that she knows what is best, has a bit of an ego, etc. But at the same time she still feels empathy for others like the Bee bot that she adopts, fiercely defends Knuckles from a scammer, is the only one that sticks with Sticks (lol) when the entire town turns on the badger because of some BS that one of her ancestors did many years ago, etc.

Even her crush on Sonic is still there, but tweaked (she keeps it to herself instead of announcing it to the enture world like Games!Amy) to create another type of comical situations.

Ans still the Piko hammer had nothing to do with any of this, nor do I think it resulted in anything negative, especially when the episode in which it was stolen resulted in the first appearance on a Western animated show of Vector the Crocodile, one of my top five favorite characters.

Besides, like Tornado shown in a picture, some people take what is meant to be played for laughs way too seriously, as if it was going to have the same kind of consequences that take place in the real world.

[Skull Leader]

7 hours ago, Almar said:

It's not like Knuckles and Tails are treated bettter. Knuckles even in Sonic Forces can't escape from being Team Sonic's Zoidberg and Tails doesn't have a single character anymore (from arrogant brat to instead being the post-Luigi's Mansion Luigi to Sonic's Mario).

Something that I suspect to be the cause of why these two characters went downhill so badly was Sonic Team's stubborn insistance in making them show up no matter how.

Tails never had issues with his character until they decided to introduce some conflict and drama around his relation with Sonic, which is the characterization equivalent to the gameplay idea from Sonic 4 Episode II where they felt that to make Tails be of more contribution besides being Sonic with flight, they implemented a team mechanic that made his use mandatory instead of optional like in previous games.

Similar issue with Knuckles, who in Forces is forced (I know, unintentional pun) to assume a role for which his character was anything but qualified... yet they still went ahead as it would had made Knuckles look more "important" than the rest of the other characters in the Resistance, and giving the needed excuse to slap him on the cover alongside Tails to basically work like those clickbait thumbnails from Youtube videos.

Maybe if there was some actual character rotation, as well as giving roles based on who can better contribute or makes the most sense rather than playing it safe or in favor of marketing (sometjing that pretty much only contemplates Tails, Knuckles and Shadow), Tails and Knuckles' characterizations would not had suffered from the current issues at hand, while the other characters would had enjoyed more exposure.

[Sonic Fan J]

Hope no one minds me bringing up a dead thread, especially one that seemed to veer dangerously towards becoming rather toxic, but a thing I found funny happened yesterday.

The copy of my opening post over on my Deviant Art page picked up a like which rather surprised me. It's the fifth "like" the post has picked up since I posted it some 18 months ago across all platforms I posted it on. As a result, seeing someone "like" my post made me want to read through it again. I honestly expected when I did to find that I would no longer agree with any of what I wrote as I did my best to divorce myself from the topic and boil it down to my dislike of the Amy's Piko Piko Hammer to just being an irrational emotion I suffered from to get my self ostracized from here like I did the SEGA Forums back in the day for my opinion. Yet reading through my lengthy post all I ended up discovering is that my opinion hadn't changed at all and that I still agreed with myself.

It's honestly a weird sensation to revisit one's own opinions from an earlier point in your life that you tried to divorce yourself from only to discover that all you did was bury why you feel the way you do. Perhaps though based on most of the feedback that this thread received I'm also not wrong in presuming that there might be something wrong with me. Regardless, it was interesting to discover that trying to divorce my opinions and emotional response really accomplished nothing except maybe me talking about eth subject here again. I'm sure there are plenty of users here who appreciated that so I'll just limit this post to being a comment on the outcome of some self reflection due to the topic. Admittedly though, I do wonder what someone with a degree in psychology would say my opinion and attempts to deal with it says about me.

[Iko]

3 hours ago, Sonic Fan J said:

Hope no one minds me bringing up a dead thread, especially one that seemed to veer dangerously towards becoming rather toxic, but a thing I found funny happened yesterday.

The copy of my opening post over on my Deviant Art page picked up a like which rather surprised me. It's the fifth "like" the post has picked up since I posted it some 18 months ago across all platforms I posted it on. As a result, seeing someone "like" my post made me want to read through it again. I honestly expected when I did to find that I would no longer agree with any of what I wrote as I did my best to divorce myself from the topic and boil it down to my dislike of the Amy's Piko Piko Hammer to just being an irrational emotion I suffered from to get my self ostracized from here like I did the SEGA Forums back in the day for my opinion. Yet reading through my lengthy post all I ended up discovering is that my opinion hadn't changed at all and that I still agreed with myself.

It's honestly a weird sensation to revisit one's own opinions from an earlier point in your life that you tried to divorce yourself from only to discover that all you did was bury why you feel the way you do. Perhaps though based on most of the feedback that this thread received I'm also not wrong in presuming that there might be something wrong with me. Regardless, it was interesting to discover that trying to divorce my opinions and emotional response really accomplished nothing except maybe me talking about eth subject here again. I'm sure there are plenty of users here who appreciated that so I'll just limit this post to being a comment on the outcome of some self reflection due to the topic. Admittedly though, I do wonder what someone with a degree in psychology would say my opinion and attempts to deal with it says about me.

I've read through all your OP.

I know nothing of psychology, but I think that you should stop thinking that there's something wrong with you just because your opinion differs from the average.

I've read your post, and while I may not be the best person to comment it since I quite dislike Amy a bit, I still agree with part of it.

Sorry for bringing this up, but, one of the reasons for why I dislike Amy, is because I always had this impression that she was created only to be "the female", and that her personality was changed several times because it has never been important, as long as she keeps being pink and a girl. I suppose we disagree on this, but reading your post I see that there are some points were we agree in a way, such as the way you seem to be annoyed by Amy's change of personality in the Sonic X period.

About yourself, I think you're taking this subject too personally and too much seriously. Often the developers of the game don't think too much in depth about little details. The fact that Amy got kidnapped in Sonic CD does not necessarily mean that she's weak, the fact that she went through Metallic Madness does not necessarily mean that she's as strong as Sonic; I mean, they probably didn't consider those implicit things when they created the game, they had a plot to follow and that's it. In Sonic Advance 2, Tails gets kidnapped just like Amy, though Tails stars as an hero on par with Sonic in many other games. For the same reason, I don't think that Amy is considered useless without the hammer... I think they gave her the hammer because she's an hedgehog, and without the hammer she would be too much similar to Sonic. If you think about it, Shadow usually plays like Sonic, but he's supposed to be a Sonic "clone", he's a "Dark Sonic" after all... though Silver has those psychokinetic powers to differentiate him from Sonic.

I think it's less "she needs the hammer to be strong" and more "she needs the hammer to play differently than Sonic".

Also I kinda disagree about using an hammer to defeat bad guys being a bad example to children. There is plenty of videogames and media where the hero wields a weapon, and it has never been a problem. By that logic, Kirby leads kids to do a genocide, and give them the wrong idea that in order to make new friends you have to punch people to death and eventually corrupt them with gifts (the friend heart); and I'm pretty sure it's not the case.

Amy's hammer is too iconic, you can't just remove it... I think the problems relies more in how she uses it and less about she having it at all.

Gameplay wise...

Honestly I loved her gameplay in Sonic Advance 1 and I was kinda disappointed that in Advance 2 she was reduced to a Sonic clone. Though I agree with you at the gameplay being too complicated, it's something I think as well and I tried to simplify it in some of my fan-movesets time ago. Speaking of your post, you said "trying to divorce my opinions and emotional response really accomplished nothing", and I agree with that. We should never force ourselves to change an opinion just to adapt to the mass, that's just wrong and leads to bad stuff, big scale bad stuff. And I said this because you said yourself that you enjoyed Hammer Vault in Sonic Adventure a lot, then you say you dislike it because of what it represents conceptually-wise. If you had fun with that move, there must be a reason why it was that fun, a reason that maybe can still be implemented to the character even if you remove the fighting elements from her moveset. The reason why I loved her Sonic Advance 1 gameplay was because once you learn some advanced tricks with her, her gameplay becomes very fun and fluid just like with any other character (she's quite overpowered when you learn how to play as her actually); the only problem here is the complexity, it's reuqiring to learn some advanced techniques to master her gameplay before being able to experience the fun; Hammer Vault is an example that the fun is still there, it's just harder to achieve. So, instead of removing the fun, I think they should find a way to make it simple and intuitive as it is for all the other characters.

My 2 cents.

[DabigRG]

9 minutes ago, Iko said:

 

Sorry for bringing this up, but, one of the reasons for why I dislike Amy, is because I always had this impression that she was created only to be "the female", and that her personality was changed several times because it has never been important, as long as she keeps being pink and a girl. I suppose we disagree on this, but reading your post I see that there are some points were we agree in a way, such as the way you seem to be annoyed by Amy's change of personality in the Sonic X period.

 

She apparently was.

[Wraith]

This reads like you don't actually like Amy as a character that much if her Hammer and her short temper, two fairly consistent aspects to her character since the 90s, bother you to this degree. None of this has gotten in the way of her being fairly competent and able to keep up with everyone else. She's shown again and again and again that she can very much keep up with the others in her own way. Her curiousness and her capability was never stomped out by having a hammer. She's able to keep up by leaning it what she does uniquely well the same way Tails does.

I look at the potential quirks in her gameplay as an oppurtunity. There are more than enough characters that play exactly like Sonic. I like that they tried to bend the rules of their own game a bit and think it could lead to something interesting if polished up.

[Tornado]

"A year and a half later, and I just wanted everyone to know.

 

Amy is still offensive.

 

 

 

To women."

[DabigRG]

1 hour ago, Tornado said:

"A year and a half later, and I just wanted everyone to know.

 

Amy is still offensive.

 

 

 

To women."

But of course--they keep tryin to get with her man!

[thumbs13]

I'd be fine with getting rid of Amy's hammer if there was a way to do that without just turning her into Pink Sonic. The Hammer can be used for comic effect, but it's also there to differentiate.

[Mark_The_Dephiles]

I don't think being able to roll or not should be this be all end all thing for Sonic characters. Rolling is Sonic's trademark ability and I think making every character able to do that just as well as he does cheapens it. Plus it encourages  Sonic Team to just make other playable characters just reskins of Sonic, which to me is just boring. A solution to the momentum problem would be to allow other characters to use their attacks without slowing down so much. The non rolling abilities just need to be buffed.

[Rosaleia]

On 5/28/2018 at 4:11 PM, MadmanRB said:

Nah magic wand is cliche and overdone and this is not harry potter

Despite there being magic within the series...? And it being a pivotal part of the plot?

I don't think a magic wand is bad, but I'd prefer it if was used in a more slapstick manner. Less complex spells and for more looney tunes physics to perhaps enhance the gameplay and its physics. The hammer isn't bad in my opinion. It reflects a more childlike personality, but I feel like a wand might offer more flexibility. Her trying to learn magic might also give her something else to do other than.... Just be around the plot to chase Sonic or be "just there" for little purpose other than fanservice.

 

On 5/28/2018 at 5:24 PM, Lord-Dreamerz said:

I agree. I have YET to see anybody suggest a hugely better idea for her character. I mostly only see ideas that makes her more generic and boring of a character when replacing her hammer with something or nothing else.

On another note. Am I the only one who found Amy the most fun to play as on Sonic Advance? Sure she needed some improvements like a roll and maybe the Super Peel Out... But she was different and fun to me. Pretty much the only character I use when I replay the game. xD

I think my main gripe with Amy is that she's supposed to be comic relief, but SEGA either relies too heavily on the one trick pony that is Sonic chasing for humor, or alternatively water her personality down. Likely to appeal to the SJW crowd, who are in no mood to see her classic antics anymore.

I feel like more work needs to be put into simply making Amy funnier as a character. For example, YES Harley Quinn is the girlfriend and love interest of the Joker, but she doesn't rely soley on him to be funny and have stage prescience. Same with the new version of Lola from the Looney Tunes show --- regardless of your stance on her alterations. Lola is OBSESSED with Bugs, but her chasing him isn't the only thing the writers rely on to make her entertaining. SEGA meanwhile either dilutes her personality, or keeps trying to roll in the same, tired ass Sonic chasing angle, which doesn't even work well because Sonic barely interacts with her before running away from her anyway.

A middle ground needs to be reached. Keep Amy's' feelings for Sonic, but don't make Amy so clingy and obsessed she's not interacting with him much because he's always running. Focus Amy more on her energetic personality and how she can be generally more humorous+ and less on her chasing Sonic to be funny. Because that shit's going to get stale and old to people after awhile, because there's not enough variation in how the dynamic works.

On 5/28/2018 at 4:52 PM, E-122-Psi said:

This. While Amy's obnoxious nasty tempered side does get over exaggerated, I tend to find whenever they try to dilute that for a more sound minded Amy she ends up....kinda boring. Amy was always meant to be a bit outspoken and bratty, even in most of CD's supplement material and even from what hints we get in CD itself, she was implied to annoy the hell out of Sonic and not give it a second thought, not to mention walked right into danger to follow him. In Drift's ending she glomps Sonic in spite of his discomfort. She was maybe more innocent and child like, but she was always headstrong and a bit ignorant, especially concerning her crush.

Boom took a rather different direction with Amy, but even there that sort of approach and behavioural pattern still exists, thinking she knows what to do, and getting very petty and high strung if no one listens to her. She is still to some degree childish and egocentric, just it hasn't overwhelmed her whole personality.

 

And concerning Amy using her fists over a hammer, how would that be an improvement. Knuckles uses his fists and he is regularly converted into dumb muscle who just smashes everything as a form of 'strategy'.

 

I didn't care much for Boom!Amy, mainly because it just felt like they were trying too hard to dull her personality to appeal to SJWs. And compared to many of the other characters in the cast, she wasn't all that funny to me. Its like, they got rid of one problematic aspect of her character and replaced it with another.

But I do agree, that I wouldn't want her to use her fists. I mean granted, she probably could, but it..... Just doesn't suit the character very well imo as a weapon of choice compared to the hammer or even her attempting magic tricks a la Saint Tail. Amy is supposed to be energetic and childlike. So I think her hammer better reflects her personality.

[StaticMania]

1 hour ago, Rosaleia said:

...who are in no mood to see her classic antics anymore.

Her antics of...hugging Sonic, because...that's literally the only other thing she does besides chase him.

[Rosaleia]

6 minutes ago, StaticMania said:

Her antics of...hugging Sonic, because...that's literally the only other thing she does besides chase him.

I don't think its her hugging Sonic that's the issue for them, though. Its the way she pursues him. The fact her entire shtick is chasing Sonic, chronically obsessing, stalking, demanding he marry her. And the fact that, despite her being the lead female, outside Sonic, she lacks an identity due to the fact the premise of her entire existence is soley to pursue him. For impressionable, teenage girls and young adult women, I can understand that, this..... may not be the most appropriate thing to romanticize.

Still, I don't approve of the SJW's approach of completely overhauling her just to make her a 'feminist ideal' either (ie: Boring for the sake of political correctness). Amy just needs more flexible facets for her humor to be expressed, imo. Keep her feelings, but give her more of an identity outside of Sonic and make her a character who can just be generally designed to be 'funny' like say, Harley Quinn or Pinkie Pie, from MLP, without revolving her humor solely around chasing her crush. What I'm saying is, the general concept of her character's fine, it just needs to branch from Sonic a bit more so it can be more flexible with other characters and situations.

[Tornado]

I still have to wonder how much stuff many of the people in this thread have experienced that Amy has been in that has been made in the past 15 years.

2 hours ago, Rosaleia said:

Despite there being magic within the series...? And it being a pivotal part of the plot?

I suspect you won't be getting a response from this member.

[Wraith]

Amy wasn't toned down because of political correctness it was because people outside and inside the fanbase used to go on about how her manic antics were annoying. 

 

Even then it wasn't by a whole lot. An actual feminist push would probably have her impact the experience in a meaningful way. That was more likely to happen before 2010.

[Fire-N-Space]

After watching Amy on Sonic X again on Netflix it reminds me how dull she's become after 2013 and onward.  

[Rosaleia]

10 hours ago, Wraith said:

Amy wasn't toned down because of political correctness it was because people outside and inside the fanbase used to go on about how her manic antics were annoying. 

 

Even then it wasn't by a whole lot. An actual feminist push would probably have her impact the experience in a meaningful way. That was more likely to happen before 2010.

Yes, but while it wasn't the only one listed, one of the reasons people said they disliked Amy, and why they found her antics annoying had been due to the fact they didn't like how they felt Sonic Team romanticized her behavior. They didn't think she was "empowering enough" or acting as a good enough role model for impressionable children, etc. Especially in those age old Amy vs. Sally debates, where pro Sally fans would use this as a talking point to dismiss Amy or the SonAmy pairing.

Also, Boom!Amy, her watered down personality and pro-feminist rhetoric within the show is in direct response to the SJW crowd; designed to both appeal to these types of fans while simultaneously occasionally making fun of these of female characters. But while the writers do try to poke fun at this from time to time and make it a subject of humor, Amy, like many of these types of characters.... Just isn't funny enough on her own for it to really work in that series.

[The Famous Sonic]

Amy had an anger problem in Boom. 

[DabigRG]

45 minutes ago, The Famous Sonic said:

Amy had an anger problem in Boom. 

So, like many games? 

[Rosaleia]

4 hours ago, DabigRG said:

So, like many games? 

I mean, it was technically "there" but not as strong a degree as the actual games because they kept trying to emphasize her as the 'reasonably empathetic' one. Again, much of her personality was very watered down in that series.