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Why "I" dislike Amy's Piko Piko Hammer


Sonic Fan J

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10 hours ago, Rosaleia said:

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.

Yes, we got that idea from the one person who has made a bunch of posts as long as some college dissertations that meander their way to that sentiment; but these are again criticisms that haven't really applied to Amy since Sonic X and are being measured against expectations for what her character is supposed to represent that were never really supported by anything. People didn't like Amy (in particular) in the middle of the ST USA era because Amy (in particular) stood out the most for how the entire cast had been caricatured to the point of being bad anime character stereotypes; but Amy was not at all the only one who got that criticism thrown at her. Sonic X was the worst for that overall and cast a long shadow on the rest of the series because of it for a while, but even in the handful of decently written games of that era (where everyone else would snap back to a character with actual personality traits as needed) Amy still stood out as a sore thumb for how hopelessly exaggerated her personality had become even when trying to be in a serious story. What the exaggerations were weren't the important part even though "stalker tsundere" is an especially divisive character trope.

 

Sonic Boom also wasn't written to placate Sonic Fan J; and if anyone legitimately took Amy's personality in Boom as a pro-feminist bent they are even more desperate to chase ghosts than the ones who insist that a character hitting things with a goofy giant hammer with hearts on it in a cartoon platformer series is directly analogous to actual violence against others. She was a borderline straw feminist who was attempting to pass herself off as the only sane person in the group instead; and her only adhering to her "empowerment" ideals when it was convenient for her to do so was acknowledged as being part of the joke in-universe.

 

 

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I got inspired and I decided to draw this.

This is how I would simplify Amy's gameplay to single button. I included rolling and curled jump, she plays like Sonic with her own twist; I kept the hammer because without it she would become a Sonic clone.

1317088922_Amymoveset.png.6badf20829a47847e639dfaff9989762.png

She has Super Peel-Out instead of the spindash (you will run uncurled after releasing).

Holding the jump button on landing, the same input for Sonic's Drop Dash, has the opposite effect on her: she stomps the hammer on ground canceling any horizontal momentum but causing a shockwave that damages everything in a range. Since it will stop you in place, you can easily chain it with a Super Peel-Out.

Hitting an enemy with the hammer will cause the enemy to be destroyed without bouncing on it.

Down + Jump while rolling will trigger the same high jump that was in both Sonic Adventure and Sonic Advance. Maybe you'll jump higher the faster you are.

EDIT: I forgot an arrow, you can switch from rolling to spin jump by pressing A (not Down + A, A alone).

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Do what SA1 does, but move the mid-hammer swing to the jump button because it's just like the insta-shield anyway...

Holding the jump button causes her to spin faster with the hammer for a higher bounce off an enemy...

Her jump should be naturally higher than Sonic's, because the hammer jump is useless in 2D...

Having the peel-out or that short hop from Advance 1 depends on the level design...

That's really all you need to do.

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10 hours ago, StaticMania said:

Her jump should be naturally higher than Sonic's, because the hammer jump is useless in 2D...

I disagree with this.

Not only it was very useful in Aadvance 1 (but this really depends on level design), it was also very fun to perform, and in a videogame, something that's fun is never useless.

That's the move that I'd never remove from her gameplay, because it's the most enjoyable of all her moveset (both in 2D and 3D). Along with the ability to jump higher by hammering a spring.

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I did have a longer response but lost it so I'll just try to briefly address some of the points that more held my attention.

On 12/8/2019 at 1:15 PM, Iko said:

Also I kinda disagree about using an hammer to defeat bad guys being a bad example to children.

I'm kind of cutting a lot of context out of this, but asides from feeling giving her a weapon undermines her being a hedgehog and makes her less special because she has to use a weapon, my main problem with it being a bad example to children is her using it on her friends to get her way. I have nothing against her being bratty and entitled, but there should be consequences that aren't just swept aside by her bringing out the hammer. It leaves a bad taste in my mouth and just don't see it leaving a good impression. That's just me though.

On 12/8/2019 at 1:15 PM, Iko said:

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.

I never said to remove it, or at least didn't mean to if I did as you are right that it is too iconic and would never be. I honestly agree that it's implantation however did leave me with a horrible taste as stated above. However, what I did want to convey at one point or another is that I found Mania a lost opportunity for a number of reasosn to explore how she could have been made playable within the confines of the developer mindset of Hoshino in a setting that would have been before she was given the hammer. Considering Ep. 6 of Mania Adventures though it was a vain hope at best to have that curiosity satiated.

On 12/8/2019 at 1:44 PM, Wraith said:

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.

Unfortunately I have a bad habit of heavily (or over as I've been accused of) analyzing things I like. The more I like something the more I analyze it and find things that I just don't find work in how I see things. Hence this thread being born from me trying to explain my stance on how I see the franchise and the use of the hammer therein. As an example; as I see the run, jump, roll pyramid that the franchise started on as the most enjoyable approach, when I look at it through that lens I find Sonic 1 to be a work of genius that ever subsequent game (including my favorite, CD) lets down.

As for Amy herself, my favorite interpretation of her is Sonic Adventure 2, a game I lack any recollection of her hammer being present in on the Dreamcast version. That could just be my memory being faulty however.

On 12/8/2019 at 5:56 PM, Mark_The_Dephiles said:

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.

This just illustrates that we have fundamentally different perspectives when it comes to reskins in platformers and the concepts that birthed the franchise. In my case, I see Sonic's gameplay as the franchise gameplay and am perfectly fine with reskins. It's an old fashioned viewpoint to be sure, but I guess I'm just locked in the past in that way. Case in point; just due to his animations I find Tails to be drastically different to Sonic in Sonic 2 despite playing identically. To me, the visual element in a platformer or certain old arcade style games like Metal Slug is more than enough to differentiate characters even when they have identical gameplay. In fact, I prefer it that way, especially when the gameplay style is said to be the "core" or "main" style. That's the gameplay I'm playing for even when I want different visual stimulation. It's just a part of my weirdness I guess.

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44 minutes ago, Sonic Fan J said:

...but there should be consequences that aren't just swept aside by her bringing out the hammer. It leaves a bad taste in my mouth and just don't see it leaving a good impression. That's just me though.

When does she do this?

Outside of Riders Heroes' ending (which is somewhat justifiable), she's never really doe this.

The deck is stacked in her favor.

Amy does have her hammer in SA2, it's only during the somersault animation.

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2 hours ago, Sonic Fan J said:

I did have a longer response but lost it so I'll just try to briefly address some of the points that more held my attention.

I'm kind of cutting a lot of context out of this, but asides from feeling giving her a weapon undermines her being a hedgehog and makes her less special because she has to use a weapon, my main problem with it being a bad example to children is her using it on her friends to get her way. I have nothing against her being bratty and entitled, but there should be consequences that aren't just swept aside by her bringing out the hammer. It leaves a bad taste in my mouth and just don't see it leaving a good impression. That's just me though.

I never said to remove it, or at least didn't mean to if I did as you are right that it is too iconic and would never be. I honestly agree that it's implantation however did leave me with a horrible taste as stated above. However, what I did want to convey at one point or another is that I found Mania a lost opportunity for a number of reasosn to explore how she could have been made playable within the confines of the developer mindset of Hoshino in a setting that would have been before she was given the hammer. Considering Ep. 6 of Mania Adventures though it was a vain hope at best to have that curiosity satiated.

Wasn't she given the hammer because it's an actual Japanese toy?

It is a bit curious to see how she might've worked before, though.

2 hours ago, Sonic Fan J said:

Unfortunately I have a bad habit of heavily (or over as I've been accused of) analyzing things I like. The more I like something the more I analyze it and find things that I just don't find work in how I see things. Hence this thread being born from me trying to explain my stance on how I see the franchise and the use of the hammer therein. As an example; as I see the run, jump, roll pyramid that the franchise started on as the most enjoyable approach, when I look at it through that lens I find Sonic 1 to be a work of genius that ever subsequent game (including my favorite, CD) lets down.

As for Amy herself, my favorite interpretation of her is Sonic Adventure 2, a game I lack any recollection of her hammer being present in on the Dreamcast version. That could just be my memory being faulty however.

 

Now that you mention it, she never actually uses it from what I recall of 2player mode.

1 hour ago, StaticMania said:

When does she do this?

Outside of Riders Heroes' ending (which is somewhat justifiable), she's never really doe this.

The deck is stacked in her favor.

Amy does have her hammer in SA2, it's only during the somersault animation.

There was also a moment in Advance 3, iirc. That's about it though, without getting into Sonic X.

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9 hours ago, Sonic Fan J said:

I did have a longer response but lost it so I'll just try to briefly address some of the points that more held my attention.

I'm kind of cutting a lot of context out of this, but asides from feeling giving her a weapon undermines her being a hedgehog and makes her less special because she has to use a weapon, my main problem with it being a bad example to children is her using it on her friends to get her way. I have nothing against her being bratty and entitled, but there should be consequences that aren't just swept aside by her bringing out the hammer. It leaves a bad taste in my mouth and just don't see it leaving a good impression. That's just me though.

I think this was sort of the execution approach that put me off it. In the earlier uses of the SA styled Amy, she had a temper, but not only was it more moderate but they didn't really exaggerate how damn domineering it was. We see cases like Vector and Rouge dismissing her as a "little brat", characters treating it like a standard ineffectual temper tantrum. Then they started doing the REALLY over-the-top anime tsundere approach, with Amy's temper being 'scary' and everyone, even the villains, being scared of her abusive tendencies, thus making the gag reduce her to this invincible bully of sorts. Sonic X was obviously the worst offender, though I remember the Archie comics doing this volatile take on Amy as well, in spite of it not being consistent, it did have the bad effect of dehumanising her, just making her feel like a rabid guard dog on a leech (eg. her threatening the likes of Monkey Khan or even murderous characters like Patch, and them and the narrative treating her like a terrifying demon). The domineering version of Amy did eventually make it into the games of this era, if not as exaggerated.

Compared to say Knuckles temper, which, even if it could be intimidating sometimes, routinely comes back to bite him, Amy's temper became something that made her LESS human and fallible, more just a scary violent girl gag.

Sonic Boom made it more mundane again, but also lost the point in a different way, making her less a moody little girl and more a middle aged curmudgeon. Temper I suppose is an abrasive flaw, hard to make sympathetic routinely (especially for girls where it's hard to let their opponents fight back), but sometimes writers forget traits come in different styles and packages.

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11 hours ago, Sonic Fan J said:

However, what I did want to convey at one point or another is that I found Mania a lost opportunity for a number of reasosn to explore how she could have been made playable within the confines of the developer mindset of Hoshino in a setting that would have been before she was given the hammer. Considering Ep. 6 of Mania Adventures though it was a vain hope at best to have that curiosity satiated.

I'm under the impression (also because of that animated short) that Classic Amy's hammer is meant to be an actual toy, that can't deal damage, unlike her modern counterpart. I know that in Sonic the Fighters she uses it, but that game has many weird things, including that attack of her that generates random objects. So I'm not sure how a Mania Amy would play... each character in Mania has a unique move or ability, so she can't play exactly like Sonic. Maybe super peel-out and a jump trick of some type, or a double jump even?

Also, still headcanon of mine, but I think that Amy is able roll but often avoids to because she doesn't want to ruin her dress... even in Sonic Advance 1 (the game where she can't normally roll) she can roll if a level gimmick forces her to. I would like to keep this trait of her represented in her gameplay, that's why I prefer if she has the super peel-out instead of the spindash. On the other hand, I think that her Advance 1 hop does not fit her, and would be more suited for a certain bunny character if anything (I have my moveset idea for her as well).

11 hours ago, Sonic Fan J said:

As for Amy herself, my favorite interpretation of her is Sonic Adventure 2, a game I lack any recollection of her hammer being present in on the Dreamcast version. That could just be my memory being faulty however.

 

10 hours ago, StaticMania said:

Amy does have her hammer in SA2, it's only during the somersault animation.

 

8 hours ago, DabigRG said:

Now that you mention it, she never actually uses it from what I recall of 2player mode.

I'm not sure if there are differences between the Dreamcast version and the Gamecube/PC port, but it seems that Amy has her hammer in Sonic Adventure 2 as well, it's just hard to see because of the light orb that covers it (it appears when she rolls and jumps).

hammer.png.99a72679ed0cbd9d97399b27f1e1264b.png

though the design of the hammer is not the modern one yet, it's still a toy-hammer design.

In the meanwhile, while testing Amy's animations, moves and stuff, I spent some time to defeat the first boss of Sonic Advance 2 (in time attack mode) without using the hammer, that means, only by tripping into the boss (because both the rolling and jumping animations include shades of yellow in the sprite, that means that the hammer is used in them). In order to do this, first you have to collect 50 rings or more (up to 140 I think), then you need to reach boost mode and trip on the boss with the correct timing. If you are too fast, you'll enter in the boss' sprite and when the trip animation will end you'll get damage, losing all the rings; you have to balance the speed in order to hit the boss exactly at the edge of its sprite and then end the attack animation outside from it, taking care of the boss' hammer and the slopes as well. A perfect run is pretty much the only way to do it, and it's very challenging. (I didn't try with the other characters but I think you can do it with everyone, but with Amy it's funnier because she trips by face on it). I did this because I was just curious to see if you can defeat a boss by using the boost mode attack only anyway (and yes, it's hard but possible, but probably only with the first boss of the game).

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Interesting topic.

My stance on Amy’s hammer tends to vary a bit from time to time, but I will say this.

I like it, and I think she’s the only character in videogames that i can think of that uses one (Piko Piko that is).

However, sometimes I wish Classic Amy didn’t use one.

Do I have a worthy moveset replacement? Well... it’s a little goofy, but I’ll share it.

You know how in CD she hugs Sonic in PPZ? That. What if smothering opponents IS her ability?

Basically, her double jump ability is an 8-directional Air-dash that upon contact with an enemy, grabs on in a tight hug. You can ride wherever the badnik is going briefly by not letting go (hold on for too long, and you take damage). When you release the button, Amy basically breaks the badnik by the pressure of her hug. You can then, as the player, input her ability again.

The drawback, if it sounds to OP, could be that she doesn’t curl on jump.

And maybe as an extra, you can stir the badnik left/right while riding it.

 

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That actually reminds me a lot of a suggestion I had back on the SEGA Forums when suggesting movesets.

I actually repeated it here in this topic 

though without going into the heavy duty details. The idea of Amy using her grab that could even hold Sonic in place as a means to turn enemies into impromptu platforms I find particularly platform centric while providing her a unique form of movement that changes how you explore levels.

I honestly forgot about this old idea so thanks for reminding me about it as I still like it quite a bit.

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10 hours ago, Sonic Fan J said:

That actually reminds me a lot of a suggestion I had back on the SEGA Forums when suggesting movesets.

I actually repeated it here in this topic 

though without going into the heavy duty details. The idea of Amy using her grab that could even hold Sonic in place as a means to turn enemies into impromptu platforms I find particularly platform centric while providing her a unique form of movement that changes how you explore levels.

I honestly forgot about this old idea so thanks for reminding me about it as I still like it quite a bit.

Oh nice! So we had the same idea for a hammer less Amy! Or very similar at least!

yeah, I like your non-violent take on it because it gives it a more parkour-like  style. While mine was more of an Elmyra Fudd (Tiny Toons) sort of homage. 

But I love the idea of her holding on to badniks and possibly ride them for a bit or using them as platforms.

Also, watching these characters spin was a spectacle for me when I was a kid. And when I was introduced to CD, I couldn’t wait to see Amy turn into a pink buzzsaw of doom and ploughing through robots as well.

Alas that didn’t happen until Advance 2..

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I admit I'm not sure how turning Amy into a glompy Elmyra type doesn't have any of the same implications that were pointed out from her swinging about a cliche anime hammer. :P

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I read the title of this thread thinking "wow, is her hammer really that big of a deal?", but after reading I can get what you mean. I think a compromise would be Modern Amy keeping her hammer in gameplay, but not over relying on it in the story. While Classic Amy could have a different style. Someone mentioned how she could summon other objects from thin air in Sonic Fighters, and I thought maybe some combination of that and her interest in magic could be used for her gameplay. Like summoning a pole to vault with, an object that can drop on enemies, and so on. Maybe the direction and movement could change what she does.

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1 hour ago, DryLagoon said:

...but not over relying on it in the story.

This statement assumes she ever actually uses it in the "story", whatever that means in the case of the games.

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1 hour ago, StaticMania said:

This statement assumes she ever actually uses it in the "story", whatever that means in the case of the games.

That's actually a good point. I'm pretty sure Forces was the only game where Amy used her Hammer in cutscenes. Even in the games where she was at her peak craziness like Battle, the hammer never came out. I'm pretty sure it was mostly an X thing. 

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14 minutes ago, thumbs13 said:

That's actually a good point. I'm pretty sure Forces was the only game where Amy used her Hammer in cutscenes. Even in the games where she was at her peak craziness like Battle, the hammer never came out. I'm pretty sure it was mostly an X thing. 

Adventure 1, Advance 3, Riders, and Zero Gravity.

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