Should Sonic team do something about Silver's time travel ?

[Sega DogTagz]

25 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

Is a boss fight really worth that much more than the team-up and competitive missions that the rescued characters get, though? It might carry a little more weight as all bosses are required but some missions can be skipped, but I don't think it's a meaningful difference, and I'd say it has more to do with the structure of the game than Silver being deliberately better used.

The fact that you an skip the character missions says alot about them in comparison to a boss battle. Which one sounds more important, the mandatory fight you have to undertake or one of the 50 side missions you can cherry pick your way through.

The structure of the whole thing was trash tier, but Silver still had the most memorable and the biggest part to play in comparison to everyone save for Shadow.

 

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It's not as if Silver even does much. The two DBZ dash at each other for a bit, the ruby gets dropped when they pass each other one time, and then Silver gets one-shot. Throw any character short of Cream or so in there and they could believably manage something equivalent.

 

I struggle to envision most of the cast doing that... but whatever.

 

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If by screen time you're only counting fully animated cutscenes then sure, he's up there, but a lot of Forces' story is told through dialogue over the world map. Considering that one scene is about all he does before going back to just getting the occasional random line I'd say it's a difference of pennies.

And I'd really struggle to say that counts as contributing to the plot, because it's so arbitrary and accidental. He "contributes to the plot" about as much as the arm of the Ferris wheel boss in Colors did.

It doesn't change his impact on the story though. Without doing what he did, the heroes would have lost. No ifs ands or buts about it. Sonic accidentally set the Zeti free in lost world and as such kickstarted most of the plot of that game. Big had no idea he was courting global disaster by not securing his frog. It doesn't matter if what went down was intentional or accidental. Plot relevance is plot relevance. That's a contribution which is more than I can say about the talking heads from in between the cut-scenes (save for Rouge of course).

 

- and that ferris wheel jab is a total fix. Sonic blew that thing up thus he gets the credit, just like Silver threw hands with Infinite and gets the credit for causing that fumble.

[Razule]

6 hours ago, Rowl said:

But if fans really do want to see them return, than I think that their is no other choice than creating a new head canon for them, where those two are civilians of Sonic's world like the rest of his friends. I really can't think of a prober way to use them regularly, if they are not a part of the same narrative that takes place in the same time and dimension. 

 

What's the point of them if they lose what makes them unique though?

[Diogenes]

2 minutes ago, Sega DogTagz said:

The fact that you an skip the character missions says alot about them in comparison to a boss battle. Which one sounds more important, the mandatory fight you have to undertake or one of the 50 side missions you can cherry pick your way through.

Actually looking at the game, neither, they're both arbitrary challenges to open arbitrary roadblocks. There's barely even an excuse for why you're fighting Silver; the only reason it happens is that they decided they wanted a rival fight for each era and Silver's a rival from the modern era.

2 minutes ago, Sega DogTagz said:

The structure of the whole thing was trash tier, but Silver still had the most memorable and the biggest part to play in comparison to everyone save for Shadow.

Okay so on a 10 point scale of "importance to the narrative" he gets a 1.1/10 compared to most characters' 1/10. I don't see why that's supposed to be meaningful.

2 minutes ago, Sega DogTagz said:

I struggle to envision most of the cast doing that... but whatever.

Obviously they wouldn't be doing DBZ dashes all over the place but they could dodge and try to fight back long enough for butterfingers to drop the ruby.

2 minutes ago, Sega DogTagz said:

It doesn't change his impact on the story though. Without doing what he did, the heroes would have lost. No ifs ands or buts about it.

If the resistance hadn't sent Silver they likely would've sent someone else, and nothing Silver did was so special that no one else could have the same effect.

2 minutes ago, Sega DogTagz said:

Sonic accidentally set the Zeti free in lost world and as such kickstarted most of the plot of that game.

Yes, he made a deliberate, conscious choice that had major unforeseen consequences, which is very different from "Silver gets his ass kicked while a coincidence happens".

2 minutes ago, Sega DogTagz said:

Big had no idea he was courting global disaster by not securing his frog.

...and Big is largely irrelevant to SA's plot.

[Sega DogTagz]

19 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

Actually looking at the game, neither, they're both arbitrary challenges to open arbitrary roadblocks. There's barely even an excuse for why you're fighting Silver; the only reason it happens is that they decided they wanted a rival fight for each era and Silver's a rival from the modern era.

Action stages are arbitrary challenges roadblocking advancement of the story. If you want to start muddling the meaning of the words everything sounds insignificant.

Point stands though. The Silver boss battle is a mandatory road block that has to be overcome in order to advance the game and the character side missions are optional pursuits that can be undertaken at the whim of the player. There is no question as to which one is more important.

 

19 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

Okay so on a 10 point scale of "importance to the narrative" he gets a 1.1/10 compared to most characters' 1/10. I don't see why that's supposed to be meaningful.

And I'll take that 0.1 and hang it over the heads of every other character. If we can get someone up to 0.2 in the next game, we might have something rolling in the right direction.

 

19 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

Obviously they wouldn't be doing DBZ dashes all over the place but they could dodge and try to fight back long enough for butterfingers to drop the ruby.

Well obviously the flight shenanigans are off the table, but I still don't see many of the other characters being willing and/or able to put up enough of a scrap to cause a fumble.

Looking at the Sega cast in todays day and age - Tails would go hide in a corner, Sega Amy isn't the powerhouse we know from other mediums - especially recently she'd probably just talk at him, Vector, Charmy and Rouge would all likely be steamrolled in a heads up brawl like that.

I just don't see it. They practically spoke about the guy in hushed tones and reverent whispers. They wanted none of him.

Sure Avatar did okay, but he was already in possession of a prototype the mucked up Infinite's powers and had main character bias going for him to boot.

 

19 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

Yes, he made a deliberate, conscious choice that had major unforeseen consequences, which is very different from "Silver gets his ass kicked while a coincidence happens".

Silver made a deliberate conscious choice to engage that had major unforeseen consequences via the forced error Infinite committed mid fight.

How is that any different than what Sonic did? Sonic even got his ass kicked following that choice in Lost World. Is a near perfect parallel.

 

[Diogenes]

1 minute ago, Sega DogTagz said:

Action stages are arbitrary challenges roadblocking advancement of the story. If you want to start muddling the meaning of the words everything sounds insignificant.

I'm not muddling anything by calling the roadblocks in Generations arbitrary, that's just how the game is designed. Even games with relatively minimal story usually justify their levels with "I'm here, I need to be there, and there's a level between here and there", but even that doesn't exist in Generations. Hell the closest thing to a story reason that you need to fight Silver is because the emeralds repair some gears that only exist to be platforms leading to the final boss.

1 minute ago, Sega DogTagz said:

Well obviously the flight shenanigans are off the table, but I still don't see many of the other characters being willing and/or able to put up enough of a scrap to cause a fumble.

Looking at the Sega cast in todays day and age - Tails would go hide in a corner, Sega Amy isn't the powerhouse we know from other mediums - especially recently she'd probably just talk at him, Vector, Charmy and Rouge would all likely be steamrolled in a heads up brawl like that.

I just don't see it. They practically spoke about the guy in hushed tones and reverent whispers. They wanted none of him.

Sure Avatar did okay, but he was already in possession of a prototype the mucked up Infinite's powers and had main character bias going for him to boot.

I mean that's basically admitting that power levels are bullshit and any character could've done it if the writers decided to have them do it. Also the avatar character goes through a whole fight with Infinite before they use their ruby, landing several actual hits on Infinite, unlike Silver. If I'm expected to believe some random ass kid can do that much after a couple of days on the job, then yes, practically any other Sonic character should be able to do at least that.

1 minute ago, Sega DogTagz said:

Silver made a deliberate conscious choice to engage that had major unforeseen consequences via the forced error Infinite committed mid fight.

How is that any different than what Sonic did? Sonic even got his ass kicked following that choice in Lost World. Is a near perfect parallel.

Sonic kicking the conch was intentional and the consequences were a direct result of that, and it's a decision made because of the kind of character Sonic is. That decision and action influence everything else that happens in the game; it's why the Zeti are able to rebel and do their own evil shit, it's the source of Sonic's self doubt, which is why he decides to work with Eggman, which is why Tails feels neglected and lashes out. It's fundamental to the story both in the practical sense of moving the "save the world" story forward but also giving consequence to Sonic's flaws and driving the more personal conflicts in the story.

Silver didn't intend to make Infinite drop a ruby; he got into a fight that meant nothing and only mattered by sheer coincidence. Roll the dice 100 times and sometimes Infinite drops the ruby and sometimes he doesn't. Stick another character in Silver's place and the situation is basically the same. It never matters that Silver was the one who did it. It's not even noticed until later, by characters who weren't even there at the time; if the ruby had just happened to be laying there outside of Eggman's jungle base from the start then everything would still go exactly the same.

[Rowl]

3 hours ago, Razule said:

What's the point of them if they lose what makes them unique though?

The same thing can be also said about Knuckles. He is technically the guardian of the Master Emerald and the Angel Island, the lost paradise. But now he just hangs around most of the time next to Sonic. You see this is really the tricky part with some of the characters. Blaze for example has this whole story concept of been a princess in another dimension and Silver been in another time period. If the writers really want to use those two characters on a regular basis, than the stories of the next Sonic game must be about Blaze and/or Silver.    

Another option would be, if the writers make time and dimension traveling a very important and common story angle in the narrative  of Sonic's new head canon, where it is a daily thing that happens all the time. Kinda like dimension traveling is a pretty important story part in the Disney animated series "Star vs. the Forces of Evil".  

[MadmanRB]

5 hours ago, Sega DogTagz said:

Well, in comparison to the rest of the cast, he gets shown off in a favorable light. You can hand-wave his inclusion as a boss in Gens, but at the end of the day he got more mileage than 90% of the rest of the fuzzy cast. He got to stand around cheering Sonic on at the end on top of having that boss battle to his credit. He was there, and the devs used him.

I'd seriously have reservations about saying anyone could swap in for Silver and end up with the same result in forces. I think the list of characters who could go toe to toe with Infinite hard enough to make him drop a prototype is on the lean side. But I get what your trying to say. Even in the face of that, you cant discredit that he had more screen time, and actually contributed to plot in that allotted screen time. Silver and Rouge were the two friends that had major contributions to Forces overall plot. Without those two, the heroes would have lost.

 

Whereas in the last couple games - characters like Amy, Vector and even Knuckles have been little more than mouthpieces - Silver has actually shown up and done stuff in his appearances. I'm not going to say he's being utilized as well as he should be, but I will be quick to point out that he has a leg up on most of the friends ensemble.

Explain Sonic forces then

 

Go on, I like to know what the hell he was doing with all those powers that whole time, ordering a bloody pizza?

 

Taking a long vacation in Cancun when the world was being taken over?

[Salamander]

It's a shame that Silver doesn't really have the clout to serve as a major character to structure a game around, even if not playable.  I think some kind of Sonic & Silver time-travel adventure, visiting past and future versions of Iconic Sonic Locations, would be a pretty cool theme.

[Rowl]

Sure. They can make a game about only Sonic and Silver.... but... we will face another problem with this concept. The fans of the Sonic series will, unlike the fans from the Mario or Crash Bandicoot series demand Sega to put in their favorite characters as well. If Silver is in the game, than fans want to see Blaze, and other fans want to see Knuckles and than other fans want to see Knuckles, Amy, Vector etc.

Look how big the out cry was in Forces because the left Blaze out. It really seems that Sonic Team can't make a game with one side character with out including all of the other characters as well. They always kinda forced themselves to included as many characters as possible.

Forces had all of Sonic's friends besides Blaze, Big and Cream. Lost World had for some reason Knuckles and Amy in the game, even thought the story could have worked with out them. Shadow the Hedgehog also had all of the characters in it besides Big and Metal-Sonic. 06 also included all the important characters at the tie, even thought more than half of them do not contribute anything to the narrative. I even heard of rumors that neither Knuckles or Amy where planned to take part in the story of SA2 and where only included because of the high demand of the fans. 

[Salamander]

Right.  That's the problem with establishing a recurring ensemble cast; people start to expect to see them in every game.  It's all or nothing.  (Although with that said, I don't think other fandoms are quite so different.)

[Almar]

Silver's problem is the same one that Knuckles and Blaze has in that he's rooted in one element of the Sonic universe (time travel/future) as opposed to being rootless like Sonic and so can be easily inserted into many situations. Silver's presence in Forces only getting a sloppy throwaway line in the comic about him protecting the future just shows that how he's not really suited to be like Tails or the Chaotix.

 

[Scar]

They need to rethink the entire cast to be brutally honest.

A-tier, so called Main Cast characters - these appear in most games and should be playable

B-tier, recurring characters - they appear occasionally and may be playable if the situation calls for it (or if you can come up with interesting enough gameplay)

C-tier, spin-off/external media only characters/cosmetic skins if absolutely necessary to appease their fans (referenced or appearing rarely in main series games)

Who fits in each tier? Who could actually needs to be relevant to main series Sonic games?

If there are characters that do fucking nothing or have done so little in the nearly 30 years this franchise has somehow survived, then bin them. Just delete them and don't even think about them. Anything else you can relegate to appearing in Sumo Digital's Sonic Racing series or random Olympics games or whatever else other spin-offs SEGA allow to be made. Oh and the Comics can continue to use them I guess.

You need to be brutal. Forget about the attachment some minor sect of the franchise's fanbase has to some of the more niche characters - just bin them and don't think twice. One of these characters in my humblest opinion is Sticks. I don't know who she is, or what she does, but she isn't necessary at all.

With regards to Silver himself. I think he might work as a B-tier character. Turns up occasionally, maybe even be playable (if they can work something out with respect to his moveset). They'd have to nerf his abilities so he's not pulling off the ridiculous shit that you saw in 06's cutscenes and when you were fighting against him as a boss. Backstory? I think he's one of the many that will need to have it wiped (another example being Blaze, who I also think should be a B-tier occasionally playable character). The timetravel nonsense is way to difficult to reconcile so fuck it. All that Iblis Trigger nonsense or being sent back to the past to sort out some problem in the future. Bin it. Come up with something else.

[Dr. Detective]

All the characters have at least one specific thing tied to their identity that makes it so that they could provide some sort of point of character or story development to work off of (aside from Cream) and time travel, sadly, is the thing that belongs to Silver.

Time travel, despite how much it sucks, can work in certain cases. For example, if you make it so that the character can only travel TO the future and never return to the past, there's not much to be confused about aside from what the people in the past did to cope with the loss of whoever jumped to the future. Unfortunately, Silver's gimmick is that he's FROM the future so he can only ever come to the past and meddle around there. As such, the concept behind him returning everytime the future changes inherently doesn't make much sense. Silver must be getting incredibly lucky to still exist everytime he goes to the past and fucks with the timeline.

The only other way to work around this is to go full Future Trunks and outright confirm that his future is from an alternate timeline. Or make him a time cop or some shit. It's literally written in their original notes for him to think Trunks from Dragon Ball Z when it comes to his character. Why they would do that and not take advantage of the thing that made it so that the timeline wasn't royally fucked goes in the bin of "Confusing and Stupid things Sonic Team/SEGA can easily avoid but for some reason decide to barrel headlong into". 

I wouldn't be opposed to a story where he stays in the past for a little bit. Like, if he was trying to get back to the future but for some reason he's stuck and his plotline for that game to the next (should they do connecting plotlines again. Which they won't) would be about him trying to get back to the future. Like a reverse Samurai Jack or something. However, that's still got to be a temporary thing. Silver's character gimmick is that he's from the future. You can't get rid of that or downplay it. You're just gonna have to work with it.

Take that away and you're gonna have to find something else for him because without that he's sitting over there with Cream the Rabbit, without an occupation or connection that matters. At most it'd be "I'm friends with THIS person".

We've got a techno sidekick struggling with his low self-esteem.

A love interest struggling with a desire for respect.

A guardian of an important ancient artifact struggling with crippling isolation.

A science experiment struggling with a desire to live up to the wishes of his dead friend.

A robot flexing his ego and acting upon a desire fueled by revenge and his ambition to be the best of his kind.

A morally gray jewel thief/government agent/spy/treasure hunter/club owner that changes the tide of either side she's on with clever mental aptitude and manipulation

Three misfit detectives with their own individual personalities (rough and business type boss with a fun attitude, calm and level-headed ninja, hyperactive, scatterbrained child) struggling to make as honest a living as they can and reacting to their occupations differently based on which of the three archetypes they are.

A princess from another dimension in charge of protecting heavily important artifacts that see to the salvation of her planet in a duty that she takes so seriously that it had initially stripped her of any real desire to take care of her own well-being with relation to any social life she might have had.

A mad-man with an unwavering desire to create a strong empire and use it to take over the world so that he may enact his idealistic rule.

And a fisherman.

We can come up with stuff for all of that. They just need to have something to their name. Something that not only has an interesting personality type to work with but a clear idea of where to take their personality in a story going forward. Or a job. Even giving them something as simple a job would do fine. Or a desire for something. Anything. 

If you take away Silver's time travel gimmick, he's gonna need something else to stay relevant.

[Darth InVaders]

Unless they want to permanently trap Silver in Sonic's time, it's time to retire or semi-retire (with only a few time-travel related appearances).

His entire purpose in Forces was to "job" to Infinite and make Infinite look more powerful and also to knock the extra prototype Ruby out of his grasp. They could have used Knuckles to do that. At least with Knuckles it makes more sense, even with the complaint about how he should be guarding the Master Emerald - he would still be involved in a world-wide war.