What are the worst things that happen to the franchise?

[Diogenes]

12 minutes ago, Wraith said:

In other words, there are a lot of Mario characters, some of them new even, that are considered major pillars or mainstays. The Sonic series is allowed to have these.

My argument isn't that Sonic isn't allowed to have more than two characters or something, because of course that would be stupid. But compare how the two series actually use their major characters.

In the average "main" Mario game you get Mario, Bowser, and Peach by default. Hero, villain, damsel. Luigi might show up, maybe for a little cameo or as player 2 or a post-game character, but he's probably not part of the plot and there's a fair chance he's just not there at all. Yoshi, if he appears, is treated as a powerup rather than a character. "Toad" is more of a species than an individual. Wario and DK moved on to their own things and are lucky to even get referenced. Rosalina is probably the most recent character that you can justifiably call a "major" character, and (again, talking main series games, not spinoffs) she was introduced 10 years ago, was an NPC twice, and playable once, and that's it. When it comes to main games, Mario is very (arguably excessively) conservative with its main cast, saving the "everyone is here" type fanservice for spinoffs. Aside from their absolute fundamentals even the other major characters usually only show up in minor roles when the developers feel they have a good use for them.

And then look at Sonic. You've got Sonic, Eggman, and Tails as your main trio, ok. But then you've got Knuckles, who has been in almost every main game since his introduction, only skipping Unleashed and Colors. And Amy, likewise in almost every game since her introduction, except Colors. And Shadow, in almost every game since his introduction, except Unleashed, Colors, and Lost World. And Rouge, in almost every game since her introduction, except etc etc. And these aren't just as cameos or brief gimmicks, most of these are playable appearances with significant story roles. It's only in the back half of the modern era that the series has started breaking away from that, and even then it's feast or famine; it's either the main trio plus one or two cameos, or basically everybody again. There's no sense of restraint, there's no sense of purpose, there's no ability to just let go of things. If you survive past your introductory game you're a Main Character forever, constantly competing with every other Main Character whether there's a reason for you to be here or not.

[Wraith]

24 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

My argument isn't that Sonic isn't allowed to have more than two characters or something, because of course that would be stupid. But compare how the two series actually use their major characters.

In the average "main" Mario game you get Mario, Bowser, and Peach by default. Hero, villain, damsel. Luigi might show up, maybe for a little cameo or as player 2 or a post-game character, but he's probably not part of the plot and there's a fair chance he's just not there at all. Yoshi, if he appears, is treated as a powerup rather than a character. "Toad" is more of a species than an individual. Wario and DK moved on to their own things and are lucky to even get referenced. Rosalina is probably the most recent character that you can justifiably call a "major" character, and (again, talking main series games, not spinoffs) she was introduced 10 years ago, was an NPC twice, and playable once, and that's it. When it comes to main games, Mario is very (arguably excessively) conservative with its main cast, saving the "everyone is here" type fanservice for spinoffs. Aside from their absolute fundamentals even the other major characters usually only show up in minor roles when the developers feel they have a good use for them.

And then look at Sonic. You've got Sonic, Eggman, and Tails as your main trio, ok. But then you've got Knuckles, who has been in almost every main game since his introduction, only skipping Unleashed and Colors. And Amy, likewise in almost every game since her introduction, except Colors. And Shadow, in almost every game since his introduction, except Unleashed, Colors, and Lost World. And Rouge, in almost every game since her introduction, except etc etc. And these aren't just as cameos or brief gimmicks, most of these are playable appearances with significant story roles. It's only in the back half of the modern era that the series has started breaking away from that, and even then it's feast or famine; it's either the main trio plus one or two cameos, or basically everybody again. There's no sense of restraint, there's no sense of purpose, there's no ability to just let go of things. If you survive past your introductory game you're a Main Character forever, constantly competing with every other Main Character whether there's a reason for you to be here or not.

This is too focused on numbers for it to be legitimate to me. Sure Knuckles and Shadow show up or whatever in a lot of Sonic games but they don't actually do anything to affect the game in a major sense a lot of the time. There was an expectation that they had to have some bigger role in things when they showed up but that died more than 10 years ago. Like even Sonic Heroes only really has three playable characters and there's no plot for the split focus to tear apart. Like, I understand Sonic Heroes is shit but I don't think the amount of characters they smashed into it is really why, I guess? They just threw in a bunch of skins and change some numbers around. These are characters that don't have significant roles and are barely playable in Shadow or 06, and flat out aren't in a large majority of the games after that. Generations gave a few characters some cool moments in the boss fights but largely had the main cast stand there and Forces was only willing to go as far as to give them text boxes and space in the background in cutscenes. There's no real enthusiasm or effort or money or dev time or ANYTHING being put into this so called nightmare of an extended cast. They're window dressing. They're like the reoccurring enemies in Mario except even those usually have some unique mechanic tied to them. Logistically, it's really hard for me to feel like they're actually harming anything. What would cutting shit like that even fix at that point? Secret Rings, Black Knight, Colors and Lost World all did cut that shit and I sure as shit didn't see a quality spike as a paying consumer. Sonic Mania on the flipside has 5 characters now and the game was still fun. At that point you could argue that if they don't affect the game they might as well not be there and well shit I'd agree but I don't like feeling that way about it. I'd rather be excited to see them. 

So it'll always feel like a surface level criticism when they come up to me. Sorry. 

[Multikaris]

29 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

My argument isn't that Sonic isn't allowed to have more than two characters or something, because of course that would be stupid. But compare how the two series actually use their major characters.

In the average "main" Mario game you get Mario, Bowser, and Peach by default. Hero, villain, damsel. Luigi might show up, maybe for a little cameo or as player 2 or a post-game character, but he's probably not part of the plot and there's a fair chance he's just not there at all. Yoshi, if he appears, is treated as a powerup rather than a character. "Toad" is more of a species than an individual. Wario and DK moved on to their own things and are lucky to even get referenced. Rosalina is probably the most recent character that you can justifiably call a "major" character, and (again, talking main series games, not spinoffs) she was introduced 10 years ago, was an NPC twice, and playable once, and that's it. When it comes to main games, Mario is very (arguably excessively) conservative with its main cast, saving the "everyone is here" type fanservice for spinoffs. Aside from their absolute fundamentals even the other major characters usually only show up in minor roles when the developers feel they have a good use for them.

And then look at Sonic. You've got Sonic, Eggman, and Tails as your main trio, ok. But then you've got Knuckles, who has been in almost every main game since his introduction, only skipping Unleashed and Colors. And Amy, likewise in almost every game since her introduction, except Colors. And Shadow, in almost every game since his introduction, except Unleashed, Colors, and Lost World. And Rouge, in almost every game since her introduction, except etc etc. And these aren't just as cameos or brief gimmicks, most of these are playable appearances with significant story roles. It's only in the back half of the modern era that the series has started breaking away from that, and even then it's feast or famine; it's either the main trio plus one or two cameos, or basically everybody again. There's no sense of restraint, there's no sense of purpose, there's no ability to just let go of things. If you survive past your introductory game you're a Main Character forever, constantly competing with every other Main Character whether there's a reason for you to be here or not.

Also, Mario spinoffs do tend to exclude some of the expanded roster as well, such as Pauline until very recently. Captain Syrup, Mona, Kamek, and many of the Kongs would also fit.

 

And Wraith, Lost World was the first one to completely cut away from the extended cast, as all prior games had them in some minor capacity (Secret Rings’s Party Mode and Colors DS, for instance). Sadly, starting from Lost World, even the Wisps have started to become useless cheerleaders...

[Diogenes]

2 minutes ago, Wraith said:

This is too focused on numbers for it to be legitimate to me. Sure Knuckles and Shadow show up or whatever in a lot of Sonic games but they don't actually do anything to affect the game in a major sense a lot of the time.

That's kind of the point though. They're "main characters", there's this sense of obligation for them to be involved, even when they don't have a good reason to be, or a good role to play. Mario can say "well Luigi doesn't really need to be part of this whole wedding thing, we can just have him host that minigame we're making as DLC" while Sonic's gonna say "of course Knuckles is here! Of course Amy is here! Of course we need fucking Charmy the Bee to say like 2 lines and punch a dude!" And it leads to these bloated games where you're either shuffled between half a dozen different kinds of gameplay or half the cast accomplishes basically fuck all or sometimes both, and it's not good for the games or for the characters.

2 minutes ago, Wraith said:

Logistically, it's really hard for me to feel like they're actually harming anything. What would cutting shit like that even fix at that point? Secret Rings, Black Knight, Colors and Lost World all did cut that shit and I sure as shit didn't see a quality spike as a paying consumer.

Okay but like...there's a fuckload of things wrong with Sonic, is fixing any one thing ever going to do much to improve it? The series isn't going to get far if they fail to fix anything because it won't fix everything.

26 minutes ago, Wraith said:

I'd rather be excited to see them. 

Me too! Which is why I want them to actually put effort and thought into how they're used and not just keep cramming everyone in all the time.

[Dr. Detective]

2 hours ago, Wraith said:

This is too focused on numbers for it to be legitimate to me. Sure Knuckles and Shadow show up or whatever in a lot of Sonic games but they don't actually do anything to affect the game in a major sense a lot of the time. There was an expectation that they had to have some bigger role in things when they showed up but that died more than 10 years ago. Like even Sonic Heroes only really has three playable characters and there's no plot for the split focus to tear apart. Like, I understand Sonic Heroes is shit but I don't think the amount of characters they smashed into it is really why, I guess? They just threw in a bunch of skins and change some numbers around. These are characters that don't have significant roles and are barely playable in Shadow or 06, and flat out aren't in a large majority of the games after that. Generations gave a few characters some cool moments in the boss fights but largely had the main cast stand there and Forces was only willing to go as far as to give them text boxes and space in the background in cutscenes. There's no real enthusiasm or effort or money or dev time or ANYTHING being put into this so called nightmare of an extended cast. They're window dressing. They're like the reoccurring enemies in Mario except even those usually have some unique mechanic tied to them. Logistically, it's really hard for me to feel like they're actually harming anything. What would cutting shit like that even fix at that point? Secret Rings, Black Knight, Colors and Lost World all did cut that shit and I sure as shit didn't see a quality spike as a paying consumer. Sonic Mania on the flipside has 5 characters now and the game was still fun. At that point you could argue that if they don't affect the game they might as well not be there and well shit I'd agree but I don't like feeling that way about it. I'd rather be excited to see them. 

So it'll always feel like a surface level criticism when they come up to me. Sorry. 

Yeah, I have to agree for the most part.

Maybe if they had actually been trying to properly incorporate everyone in these games through significant gameplay and story changes with each new title and just weren't able to, I could see the issue at hand being just the number of characters in the main and secondary cast. 

They haven't really, though. Sonic Adventure had 6 playstyles, one for each character. Then in Adventure 2, it went down to 3 playstyles despite there being the same number of characters. Then in Heroes it was technically only really one playstyle. You had a group of three that acted as a singular unit that could run, punch, and fly and that was copy and pasted across 12 characters, double what the last two games had before. And also, despite the number of characters, Heroes' story is considered to be one of the simplest in the series. And this is a game that actually managed to keep everyone hinged on their own motivations for the most part. Knuckles was starting to slip away a bit but at the very least his island and the Master Emerald have a few mentions in the game. 

Shadow's game is kind of where I liked how the characters were handled the best, honestly. They were off on their own missions and when Shadow comes across them, he gets a taste of what they're trying to do. Their exploits become a part of his experience like subplots to his main story. It was a good formula for creating a beefy adventure, a lived in world, and a war that actually felt like a war. I wish Forces had done this. Neither game had a good story to tell unfortunately.

The only game that had multiple playable characters that gave them their own individual styles after the first Sonic Adventure was Sonic 06 actually. That method of making sure everyone played completely different from one another was time-consuming and unnecessary. I actually rather like the speed, power, flight dynamic they have. Or at the very least, do a Sonic Mania and change very little but keep the core of who they are relatively the same. Most of these issues just come down to bad planning and decision making to be honest.

I can't speak for anyone else but for me, when it comes to the cast, their problems hinge mostly from how they're being handled. Not from how many of them there are. 

1 hour ago, Diogenes said:

That's kind of the point though. They're "main characters", there's this sense of obligation for them to be involved, even when they don't have a good reason to be, or a good role to play. Mario can say "well Luigi doesn't really need to be part of this whole wedding thing, we can just have him host that minigame we're making as DLC" while Sonic's gonna say "of course Knuckles is here! Of course Amy is here! Of course we need fucking Charmy the Bee to say like 2 lines and punch a dude!" And it leads to these bloated games where you're either shuffled between half a dozen different kinds of gameplay or half the cast accomplishes basically fuck all or sometimes both, and it's not good for the games or for the characters.

Seeing Charmy sting that one clone made me happier than it should have. 

Only really because I felt in my bones that there might be a chance where he and the Chaotix could be apart of something that mattered or have some general focus that meant something again. Brainstorming plot and story ideas  is fun but when you see just how much of a good thing is being wasted on them just standing around in the modern games, it doesn't make a very good case for them sticking around in the eyes of other people, this is true.

All Sonic Team is doing by shoving them in and having them stand around is validating the criticisms against them that say they're useless. A lot of people really like these characters and you're never going to endear these characters to the people who don't like them by having them do nothing and shouting meaningless nonsense. "It looks like a homing shot" indeed.

I will say that I still don't feel like the cast being huge has contributed much to the different gameplay thing as much as some people claim it has. Again, the only time they've felt the need to make sure every single character played completely differently from each other was in Adventure and 06. Sonic 06 was the prime example of "what the fuck are you doing" since it tried doing this with 9 characters when Sonic Adventure barely managed with 6. Not to mention, Sonic being the only character in Unleashed didn't stop them from changing the gameplay styles either. I think when it comes to that, they're mostly just making dumb decisions. 

I'd  still be fine if they stuck with what Heroes did and assigned each character a slot in speed, power, and flight.

[Kuzu]

I feel the treatment of the cast in both series comes down to focus. Mario has far less focus on narrative than Sonic does. Mario plots are basically summed as "Bowser(or whoever) is causing trouble, go stop him" and that's that, no greater focus. Even when the plot is more fleshed out in RPG's, the basic gist is the same. After that, you, the player, are in the control of the entire game up until the ending when Mario saves the day. That's it. There's no focus on the cast because that basic of a plot only really needs a few elements. So Mario, the hero you play as, the Bowser the bad guy who causes trouble, and Peach the damsel you have to rescue. You can add anybody else, but they're not really necessary for telling that story. 

 

Sonic, on the other hand, tends to be far dynamic with it's narrative. Hence, the characters need to be a bit more dynamic for the plot to work. At their most basic, it's just Eggman causing trouble and Sonic and his sidekick Tails have to stop him. But then Eggman unleashes an ancient water god out of the Emerald that Knuckles is guarding, so now Knuckles has to get involved. Eggman kidnaps a bird that Amy is looking after, so she has to be involved. Eggman creates a new robot to serve him, which justifies Gamma. And Froggy is possessed by Chaos` tail, which causes Big to get involved. And that's not even going into the can of worms involving Shadow.

 

Sonic Team kind of created this expectation in the series of most of the cast having some type of significant role, while Mario didn't. That's they their treatment is different. It's why nobody bats an eye when nobody shows up in a Mario game outside of spin offs, but why so many people are upset with how inconsequential the cast have become in Sonic.

[Meta77]

i do not think 06 hurt that bad. Most who hate on 06 probably were already on the offset of not caring about sonic to begin with. What hurt/s the franchise the most is sega not taking the time to make sure the games good, testing it, and just not giving a crap as a game nears its finish. That alone is why 06 was a mess, thats why shadow was toned down from this game they meant to be dark and not mellow high school rated teen i said damn, and even forces with a final fight with infinite just gone. Id be willing to forgive them just a tiny bit if they could write a blasted good story.

[MadmanRB]

Of course the answer is Sonic 06 as the series still hasnt recovered from it.

Boom might have an effect too but not nearly on the level of 06.

06 nearly killed the franchise, and its effects are very long term

[Dr. Detective]

1 hour ago, Kuzu the Boloedge said:

Sonic Team kind of created this expectation in the series of most of the cast having some type of significant role, while Mario didn't. That's they their treatment is different. It's why nobody bats an eye when nobody shows up in a Mario game outside of spin offs, but why so many people are upset with how inconsequential the cast have become in Sonic.

Well, sure. The Sonic characters had significant enough roles to play when they first showed up. Like most characters in a story. An easy way to fix that would be to make sure that when they show up in a story, they're there because they have a significant role to play again. 

Colors isn't a story with a premise that needs a ton of characters in it, for example. The number of people that were in it was fine for what it was.

Forces, on the other hand, had a plot that dealt with Eggman taking over the world. In order to get the best out of a plot like that, having a lot of characters with something to contribute would go hand and hand. Giving each person something to do or something to learn in a tale like that would've been expected. 

Both of these games tripped up for me though. Colors, I just thought was written badly. Forces, not only was it written badly, but it did nothing with the cast it had on top of that. 

Just a bunch of wasted opportunities. People having this expectation out of these characters is fine, you just need to be able to handle it. 

They don't know how to handle it. 

 

[ThePrinceOfSaiyans]

Honestly, probably the SEGA Saturn. I don't think it's a coincidence that there was a noticeable dip in quality after SEGA went third party, and the Saturn's poor sales had a lot to do with that. 

[Kuzu]

19 minutes ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

Well, sure. The Sonic characters had significant enough roles to play when they first showed up. Like most characters in a story. An easy way to fix that would be to make sure that when they show up in a story, they're there because they have a significant role to play again. 

Colors isn't a story with a premise that needs a ton of characters in it, for example. The number of people that were in it was fine for what it was.

Forces, on the other hand, had a plot that dealt with Eggman taking over the world. In order to get the best out of a plot like that, having a lot of characters with something to contribute would go hand and hand. Giving each person something to do or something to learn in a tale like that would've been expected. 

Both of these games tripped up for me though. Colors, I just thought was written badly. Forces, not only was it written badly, but it did nothing with the cast it had on top of that. 

Just a bunch of wasted opportunities. People having this expectation out of these characters is fine, you just need to be able to handle it. 

They don't know how to handle it. 

 

But there lies the problem, Sonic team don't design these characters with long term appearances in mind. That's why they have characters arcs that don't go past one game. But if they prove popular,  then Sonic Team feel obligated to keep using them to meet fan demand, regardless if they'd fit or not. It's why characters like Shadow, Blaze, and Silver are still around. They're too popular to drop, but Sonic Team clearly have no use for them either.

Take Sonic Forces for example; the main focus of that game are Sonic, The Avatar, and Classic Sonic with Infinite as the new big threat. If you're trying to focus on those elements, how are you also supposed to juggle the plethora of supporting characters too?  

Sonic Unleashed had a similar plot with world threatening consequences, but the focus of the game is on Sonic & Chip; you don't need any of the other supporting characters to tell that story and so they didn't appear and nobody really batted an eye. 

With Generations and Forces though, they go out of their way of adding these characters knowing full well they had no real use for them because fans kept demanding the return of the supporting characters.

 

Sonic Team feel obligated to keep using these characters because they fans that want to see them, but they also don't have any real plans for them ether hence why they just show  up with nothing to do.  They're kind of in a catch-22; if they don't use the characters, people complain they're not being used. If they are used, but in an unsatisfactory way, people complain they're annoying and taking focus away from Sonic.

Nintendo avoided this issue entirely because they've never created that expectation to begin with; yea, people complain how minimal Mario plots are, but Nintendo don't give a shit and just do their own thing and save those characters for spin offs only and they've committed to that. Wanna see Baby  Peach or Waluigi? Tough shit pal, hold that. 

[Dr. Detective]

1 hour ago, Kuzu the Boloedge said:

But there lies the problem, Sonic team don't design these characters with long term appearances in mind. That's why they have characters arcs that don't go past one game. But if they prove popular,  then Sonic Team feel obligated to keep using them to meet fan demand, regardless if they'd fit or not. It's why characters like Shadow, Blaze, and Silver are still around. They're too popular to drop, but Sonic Team clearly have no use for them either.

Absolutely. Some characters can hang just fine with long-term appearances like Sonic, Tails, Amy, the Chaotix, Rouge, Eggman, Metal Sonic, and the like. They don't really require too many hoops to jump through to include them in a plot aside from "We need someone to steal this thing" or "we need someone smart to figure out this thing". However, others like Shadow, Blaze, and Silver have very significant appearances that ended in ways that didn't seem too flexible for multiple appearances.

The worst part about that is that they ended up being some of the more popular ones too. Shadow fucking died. Blaze's situation was set-up so that it would be incredibly hard, nay almost impossible, for Sonic and Tails to easily see her, and Silver is from a ruined future that no longer existed when time was reset.

It's actually the most baffling in Silver's case because, as I've stated before, he was designed specifically to be used again. They WANTED him to be popular and they knew he was going to be sticking around because he was already slated to appear in 3 Sonic games before Sonic 06 even came out. Trailers for Sonic Rivals and news that he'd be a playable character in Sonic and the Secret Rings' party mode were circulating at the same time trailers for Sonic 06 were out. It's actually kind of incredible how dumb they were when it came to Silver. 

Like almost everything they did in the 2005-2007 era for Sonic was some of the most drooling, brain-dead, moronic, eye-bleedingly stupid things they could do but the Silver situation still fascinates me. They wanted another popular hedgehog character like Shadow and they wanted him to stick around so they thought that their best bet was to have him come packaged with a story that reset itself and became obsolete at the end of his debut game. Have his actual, real introduction be a much less sought after title exclusive to the PSP. Have him fuck up the backstory of another popular character, Blaze, just so he could score some instant brownie points due to knowing someone who's also popular, made him a hedgehog (because those are the most popular animal in the series), and ripped off the Trunks story from DBZ but left out the parts that kept the time travel BS from fucking up the plot.

They fucked Silver's introduction so hard, it's unbelievable he's still around.

1 hour ago, Kuzu the Boloedge said:

Take Sonic Forces for example; the main focus of that game are Sonic, The Avatar, and Classic Sonic with Infinite as the new big threat. If you're trying to focus on those elements, how are you also supposed to juggle the plethora of supporting characters too?  

Sonic Unleashed had a similar plot with world threatening consequences, but the focus of the game is on Sonic & Chip; you don't need any of the other supporting characters to tell that story and so they didn't appear and nobody really batted an eye. 

That I disagree with. Focusing on Sonic, The Avatar, and Classic Sonic doesn't at all make it hard to juggle the supporting characters. In fact, because you have three playable characters it's actually far easier. You have a decent range of three separate points of view to follow for one. Different connections between different characters could easily be made with that. Team Dark seemed like it had something going but that fizzled out and wasn't capialized on at all. Tails could have easily replaced Classic Sonic and had his own self-discovery story dealing with the fallout of losing Sonic. The Chaotix are detectives and had there been better use  concerning any number of Eggman plans and strategies, missions including them and the hardships they could have been through, with the aid of whatever character you're playing serving as the bridge to witness it, could have easily been included into the mix.

Basically, you just need to completely re-work the story the way it is now into something that can actually support the large cast. Plenty of games, anime, books, and movies have managed it, sometimes through the lens of just ONE character you're following, much less three. To this day I remain shocked that Marvel managed to do it so well with Infinity War. Games are obviously different, of course, but I really don't think it would have been that hard to do. I brainstorm this stuff all the time, because of how frustrating it is knowing what they could have done with something like Forces and the cast it had. 

Unleashed could have done it as well, if they felt like it. Though the approach I would have used would be much different than the one in Forces. I'd have taken that chance to have them go through more relaxed and simple subplots with each area they visited. Chun-nan did that a bit with the bird that turned evil due to Dark Gaia's influence. They don't really do anything like that with the other countries though. It's a bit of a shame. Sometimes little side-stories where you just get to have some fun with the characters can do a lot as well. Sometimes even more than an intense war setting.

But yeah, if the question is "How are they supposed to do it" then that's not an issue for me. I think there's plenty of ways to do it. The issue is that they're not talented enough or don't care enough to try so they just shove them all in there without attempting anything.

1 hour ago, Kuzu the Boloedge said:

They're kind of in a catch-22; if they don't use the characters, people complain they're not being used. If they are used, but in an unsatisfactory way, people complain they're annoying and taking focus away from Sonic. 

I don't know if that's really a catch-22 the way you've described it since you added the caveat "but in an unsatisfactory way". The solution there would be to just do it in a satisfactory way right?

If they had established early on that Silver was a character who they were going to use moderately and only when they needed some time travel bull-shit, people would probably be less inclined to complain when he didn't show up all time. Some still would, but having a general pattern and an actual handling on the characters creates a different expectation then the lazy, hap-hazard way they currently are using them. 

As it stands, there is no set standard so people are probably more antsy when someone is left out of the loop. It wasn't because Silver was a character with a role to play. It was because Silver was treated like a character who could and WOULD just... show up. Whenever. Without reason. Without a purpose.

 

 

[Almar]

I say a big difference between Mario and Sonic that helps let the plumber get away with his cast size is that Mario ended up with a more solid world than Sonic does. More worldbuilding if you will.

For example, koopas are treated as one species with plenty of members in the background as civilians instead of just serving Bower or Peach. Same goes for other Mario species. The closest Sonic has to a species as characterized from its diversity is the echidnas. Enough other anthro characters in a Sonic game are treated as one-of-a-kind or at most have another who's connected to them (like Sonic with Amy as his fangirl and Shadow as his doppelganger, don't know what's up with Silver).

Miyamoto might not demand plot but he has let 2nd parties do a bit with the characters and world while still expecting Mario to keep to a solid direction. Sonic Team does the opposite (makes demands on how outsiders handle the world/characters yet refuse to hold them to a solid direction). Ian Flynn even talked about how his writing has been hamstrung by Sonic Team's rules on how to handle the characters (like how Cream can't take part in fighting anymore).

As odd as might be to say this, I wonder if Sonic's cast size would have worked out better if the games bothered to have more normie animal NPCs before Forces.

 

[Kuzu]

4 hours ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

Absolutely. Some characters can hang just fine with long-term appearances like Sonic, Tails, Amy, the Chaotix, Rouge, Eggman, Metal Sonic, and the like. They don't really require too many hoops to jump through to include them in a plot aside from "We need someone to steal this thing" or "we need someone smart to figure out this thing". However, others like Shadow, Blaze, and Silver have very significant appearances that ended in ways that didn't seem too flexible for multiple appearances.

The worst part about that is that they ended up being some of the more popular ones too. Shadow fucking died. Blaze's situation was set-up so that it would be incredibly hard, nay almost impossible, for Sonic and Tails to easily see her, and Silver is from a ruined future that no longer existed when time was reset.

It's actually the most baffling in Silver's case because, as I've stated before, he was designed specifically to be used again. They WANTED him to be popular and they knew he was going to be sticking around because he was already slated to appear in 3 Sonic games before Sonic 06 even came out. Trailers for Sonic Rivals and news that he'd be a playable character in Sonic and the Secret Rings' party mode were circulating at the same time trailers for Sonic 06 were out. It's actually kind of incredible how dumb they were when it came to Silver. 

Like almost everything they did in the 2005-2007 era for Sonic was some of the most drooling, brain-dead, moronic, eye-bleedingly stupid things they could do but the Silver situation still fascinates me. They wanted another popular hedgehog character like Shadow and they wanted him to stick around so they thought that their best bet was to have him come packaged with a story that reset itself and became obsolete at the end of his debut game. Have his actual, real introduction be a much less sought after title exclusive to the PSP. Have him fuck up the backstory of another popular character, Blaze, just so he could score some instant brownie points due to knowing someone who's also popular, made him a hedgehog (because those are the most popular animal in the series), and ripped off the Trunks story from DBZ but left out the parts that kept the time travel BS from fucking up the plot.

They fucked Silver's introduction so hard, it's unbelievable he's still around.

Secret Rings, he's only playable in a side minigame, so that's hardly his most offensive appearance. 

And honestly, I already made a decent argument for why those other characters besides Sonic, Tails, and Eggman don't need to show up. Sure, they don't have the same story significant problems that Shadow, Blaze, or Silver do, but they also don't have any reason to show up as well. Rouge barely factors into any game she appears in for instance outside of being a supporting character for Shadow. Which is fine mind you, but her presence could be removed without really harming the game is what I'm saying.

These characters are inoffensive enough where their presence (or lack therof) shouldn't really affect a game. 

4 hours ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

That I disagree with. Focusing on Sonic, The Avatar, and Classic Sonic doesn't at all make it hard to juggle the supporting characters. In fact, because you have three playable characters it's actually far easier. You have a decent range of three separate points of view to follow for one. Different connections between different characters could easily be made with that. Team Dark seemed like it had something going but that fizzled out and wasn't capialized on at all. Tails could have easily replaced Classic Sonic and had his own self-discovery story dealing with the fallout of losing Sonic. The Chaotix are detectives and had there been better use  concerning any number of Eggman plans and strategies, missions including them and the hardships they could have been through, with the aid of whatever character you're playing serving as the bridge to witness it, could have easily been included into the mix.

Basically, you just need to completely re-work the story the way it is now into something that can actually support the large cast. Plenty of games, anime, books, and movies have managed it, sometimes through the lens of just ONE character you're following, much less three. To this day I remain shocked that Marvel managed to do it so well with Infinity War. Games are obviously different, of course, but I really don't think it would have been that hard to do. I brainstorm this stuff all the time, because of how frustrating it is knowing what they could have done with something like Forces and the cast it had. 

Unleashed could have done it as well, if they felt like it. Though the approach I would have used would be much different than the one in Forces. I'd have taken that chance to have them go through more relaxed and simple subplots with each area they visited. Chun-nan did that a bit with the bird that turned evil due to Dark Gaia's influence. They don't really do anything like that with the other countries though. It's a bit of a shame. Sometimes little side-stories where you just get to have some fun with the characters can do a lot as well. Sometimes even more than an intense war setting.

But yeah, if the question is "How are they supposed to do it" then that's not an issue for me. I think there's plenty of ways to do it. The issue is that they're not talented enough or don't care enough to try so they just shove them all in there without attempting anything.

I'm inclined to think it's less they're incompetent (Which yea, they are) and more, they don't care in this case. Because they want to focus on building the gameplay and developing that rather than try and make a cohesive plot out of that.

So yea, they could have did all of what you said in Forces, but their focus was on building up Sonic's bond with the avatar above anything else. That's the meat of the game. Trying to make the other characters important on top of that would probably be extraneous for them to do.

Unleashed isn't any worse of a game just because the Chaotix aren't around solving mysteries; would it have made the game better? Possibly, but that's not the point. 

The point is that a lot of these characters are, at the end of the day, superfluous to the franchise. And it's pretty obvious Sonic Team don't care enough to really try and justify their presence in the games because their focus is usually on building on whatever gameplay gimmick they have for said game. 

4 hours ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

I don't know if that's really a catch-22 the way you've described it since you added the caveat "but in an unsatisfactory way". The solution there would be to just do it in a satisfactory way right?

If they had established early on that Silver was a character who they were going to use moderately and only when they needed some time travel bull-shit, people would probably be less inclined to complain when he didn't show up all time. Some still would, but having a general pattern and an actual handling on the characters creates a different expectation then the lazy, hap-hazard way they currently are using them. 

As it stands, there is no set standard so people are probably more antsy when someone is left out of the loop. It wasn't because Silver was a character with a role to play. It was because Silver was treated like a character who could and WOULD just... show up. Whenever. Without reason. Without a purpose.

That requires developers who care enough to try :V

And yea, that's kind of what they've been doing since Unleashed; cutting the cast down to bare essential of Sonic, Tails, and Eggman the hero, his sidekick, and the villain. Generations and Forces are obviously the exceptions to this rule, but it's far better than the shit they were doing in the 2000's when every character showed up all of the time and did fucking nothing. Someone finally realized "Hey,  these characters don't ALWAYS have to show up right?" 

But yea, their use in those two games left a lot to be desired, so that's still a problem in itself.

[Osmium]

Its pretty clear that most of the secondary characters weren't designed to be around in the long-term but fan demand kept them around. Chaotix were just supporting characters in a weird spinoff 32x game that barely anyone played and then were introduced to Heroes, probably spurred on by their popularity in comics on either side of the pond. Shadow was meant to die in SA2 and never come back but we all know what happened with that. Chip turned out to be a deity. Characters like Rouge and Omega are reskins for when the story demanded it like Heroes. Gamma and Big were just there for sale of varied gameplay styles. They're the Marble Zone of SA1. 

Even Knuckles has a lot of this idealistic choice tied to him as he's basically chained up to Angel Island and so you have to incorporate all of that if you want to include him. His whole image is still so stuck to S3&K's story that no one could think what to do with him until SEGA threw up their hands and just had him run around "because you guys like him, right?". 

Mario doesn't have that problem with secondary characters, and even so just keeps them for the sake of large rosters. Sonic doesn't have that luxury so all the characters have to be shoved into main series plots when people really want to see them. 

[Dr. Detective]

6 hours ago, Kuzu the Boloedge said:

Secret Rings, he's only playable in a side minigame, so that's hardly his most offensive appearance. 

That wasn't the point. I mentioned it because it was proof on top of his appearance in Rivals that they were planning on keeping him around despite his status as a character that came packaged with a backstory that was contained to one game and royally messed up.

6 hours ago, Kuzu the Boloedge said:

And honestly, I already made a decent argument for why those other characters besides Sonic, Tails, and Eggman don't need to show up. Sure, they don't have the same story significant problems that Shadow, Blaze, or Silver do, but they also don't have any reason to show up as well. Rouge barely factors into any game she appears in for instance outside of being a supporting character for Shadow. Which is fine mind you, but her presence could be removed without really harming the game is what I'm saying.

In this instance I was replying specifically to the comment made about who was created to last long term and made mention of those who could. Now, if the argument is suddenly about who needs to show up then none of them do. Not Tails especially. However, Eggman doesn't need to be piloting those machines and Sonic could just be a personality-less avatar. Technically no one needs to be around but they are because I assume there's at least some desire to tell as story and have a big, colorful, developed world. At least that would be the case for any normal company. At this point, it feels like they're only around because they know there's enough fans out there who want it.

Also, I don't think Rouge appearing only to be a supporting character for Shadow is fine. Especially since I keep imagining all the cool stuff they could do with her and they don't do it.

Take my ideas Sonic Team, you pricks!

6 hours ago, Kuzu the Boloedge said:

These characters are inoffensive enough where their presence (or lack therof) shouldn't really affect a game. 

I'm inclined to think it's less they're incompetent (Which yea, they are) and more, they don't care in this case. Because they want to focus on building the gameplay and developing that rather than try and make a cohesive plot out of that.

So yea, they could have did all of what you said in Forces, but their focus was on building up Sonic's bond with the avatar above anything else. That's the meat of the game. Trying to make the other characters important on top of that would probably be extraneous for them to do.

Unleashed isn't any worse of a game just because the Chaotix aren't around solving mysteries; would it have made the game better? Possibly, but that's not the point. 

If Unleashed isn't any worse of a game with them not around then it's actually not possible that having them there would have made the game better. However, I disagree with that. Unleashed's story, while good and simple, has a bit of a problem once things get going, in that, the foundation it's built on doesn't fully get capitalized on within the main game. It does when you do all the missions and talk to the NPCs but not in the main story. After Chun-nan, there's a big, empty space in the story that could have been easily filled with subplots and side-stories to make the eventual goodbye to Chip and all of Chip's talk about all the adventures he had even stronger so that the climax felt even more powerful than it did. That's part of the importance of having subplots. They have these characters and chances for us to relax and get to know them better and that gets squandered too.

So whether they're incompetent or don't care, either one still leads to the same problem.

"Who are they?"
"THEY are insignificant!" 
~ Eggman, Sonic Generations

Between that and the "Enjoy your future, it's gonna be great" line, I think Generations might have shoved the failure in our faces a little too much.

[Kuzu]

2 hours ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

That wasn't the point. I mentioned it because it was proof on top of his appearance in Rivals that they were planning on keeping him around despite his status as a character that came packaged with a backstory that was contained to one game and royally messed up.

That backstory has no bearing on his appearance in Secret Rings tho, which is why it's fair game. Being a playable extra in a collection of mini games is different from having story centric role.

In short, Secret Rings doesn't really prove your point. Rivals does sure, since that game does have a plot, but there's no reason to justify any character in these multiplayer spin offs if they're just there to fill a roster. 

2 hours ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

In this instance I was replying specifically to the comment made about who was created to last long term and made mention of those who could. Now, if the argument is suddenly about who needs to show up then none of them do. Not Tails especially. However, Eggman doesn't need to be piloting those machines and Sonic could just be a personality-less avatar. Technically no one needs to be around but they are because I assume there's at least some desire to tell as story and have a big, colorful, developed world. At least that would be the case for any normal company. At this point, it feels like they're only around because they know there's enough fans out there who want it.

Also, I don't think Rouge appearing only to be a supporting character for Shadow is fine. Especially since I keep imagining all the cool stuff they could do with her and they don't do it.

Take my ideas Sonic Team, you pricks!

You can't really say for sure who was built to last long term, that's something you cannot measure. 

Any character can be justified with enough effort and planning. Are characters like the Chaotix easier than say, Blaze or Silver, sure. But then the chaotix are tetritary characters at best, so of course they can be justified easily.

You COULD use these characters, but you also don't HAVE to as well is what I'm saying.

2 hours ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

If Unleashed isn't any worse of a game with them not around then it's actually not possible that having them there would have made the game better. However, I disagree with that. Unleashed's story, while good and simple, has a bit of a problem once things get going, in that, the foundation it's built on doesn't fully get capitalized on within the main game. It does when you do all the missions and talk to the NPCs but not in the main story. After Chun-nan, there's a big, empty space in the story that could have been easily filled with subplots and side-stories to make the eventual goodbye to Chip and all of Chip's talk about all the adventures he had even stronger so that the climax felt even more powerful than it did. That's part of the importance of having subplots. They have these characters and chances for us to relax and get to know them better and that gets squandered too.

So whether they're incompetent or don't care, either one still leads to the same problem.

"Who are they?"
"THEY are insignificant!" 
~ Eggman, Sonic Generations

Between that and the "Enjoy your future, it's gonna be great" line, I think Generations might have shoved the failure in our faces a little too much.

Like you said, the game is fleshed out through interaction with the NPC's and the overworld. The player initiates and can choose to follow these subplots or just focus on the main campaign.

Unleashed not having much of a middle act isn't an issue to me because the foundation of the story was already laid out, and the middle part is filled with anything you do in the overworld.

[Dr. Detective]

1 hour ago, Kuzu the Boloedge said:

That backstory has no bearing on his appearance in Secret Rings tho, which is why it's fair game. Being a playable extra in a collection of mini games is different from having story centric role.

In short, Secret Rings doesn't really prove your point. Rivals does sure, since that game does have a plot, but there's no reason to justify any character in these multiplayer spin offs if they're just there to fill a roster. 

No, it does. Silver being slated to appear in those games before he was even out in 06 does act as proof that they were planning to keep him around past his initial introduction simply because they were games that were planned to come out after 06 before 06 even hit the scene. I'm not talking about his role in a story. The point is that they created Silver and immediately said he's going to appear in these new games afterward as apart of these rosters. 

I'm not talking about his role in the story. I'm talking about their intention to keep Silver around. They planned for him to be a mainstay from the get-go by promising him a slot in three games before they rolled out with his introduction.

Maybe I'd agree if it was just the mini-game collection in Secret Rings alone. That wouldn't mean anything by itself but I'm lumping these three together because they all happened in the same span of time. The three of them were all planned to release within the span of 2006 and 2007 and were planned before his reception could have been known. That's why I'm counting them all as a bundle due to the circumstances. They all come together to act as proof of their intention.

1 hour ago, Kuzu the Boloedge said:

You can't really say for sure who was built to last long term, that's something you cannot measure. 

Any character can be justified with enough effort and planning. Are characters like the Chaotix easier than say, Blaze or Silver, sure. But then the chaotix are tetritary characters at best, so of course they can be justified easily.

You COULD use these characters, but you also don't HAVE to as well is what I'm saying.

Once again, I was replying to the comment about who was made to last long-term by pointing out that there were characters who could. That's it. I wasn't saying they were planned to last long term or anything like that. It was just me covering all the bases so that I could talk about the problems concerning the characters who obviously weren't created to last long term like Shadow and Blaze. That wasn't supposed to be a point of argumentation.

1 hour ago, Kuzu the Boloedge said:

Unleashed not having much of a middle act isn't an issue to me because the foundation of the story was already laid out, and the middle part is filled with anything you do in the overworld.

If that's how you want to play the game then that's fine. However, the issue does still stand for me that it's main story needed something a bit more focused on that stuff as well. 

[Kuzu]

21 minutes ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

No, it does. Silver being slated to appear in those games before he was even out in 06 does act as proof that they were planning to keep him around past his initial introduction simply because they were games that were planned to come out after 06 before 06 even hit the scene. I'm not talking about his role in a story. The point is that they created Silver and immediately said he's going to appear in these new games afterward as apart of these rosters. 

I'm not talking about his role in the story. I'm talking about their intention to keep Silver around. They planned for him to be a mainstay from the get-go by promising him a slot in three games before they rolled out with his introduction.

Maybe I'd agree if it was just the mini-game collection in Secret Rings alone. That wouldn't mean anything by itself but I'm lumping these three together because they all happened in the same span of time. The three of them were all planned to release within the span of 2006 and 2007 and were planned before his reception could have been known. That's why I'm counting them all as a bundle due to the circumstances. They all come together to act as proof of their intention.

The mini game collection is just that though. I get what you're saying, but using a minor role like that just doesn't hold water.

Because you're referring to Silver's PLOT relevance, not his general appearance. He could have easily never showed up in a relevant role outside of spin offs past 06. 

Silver being a mainstay only really comes in hindsight because you couldn't guess that.

21 minutes ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

Once again, I was replying to the comment about who was made to last long-term by pointing out that there were characters who could. That's it. I wasn't saying they were planned to last long term or anything like that. It was just me covering all the bases so that I could talk about the problems concerning the characters who obviously weren't created to last long term like Shadow and Blaze. That wasn't supposed to be a point of argumentation.

Fair enough.

21 minutes ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

If that's how you want to play the game then that's fine. However, the issue does still stand for me that it's main story needed something a bit more focused on that stuff as well. 

Agree to disagree then. I felt Unleashed was fine as it was. It wasn't great, but good for what it was.

[Dr. Detective]

1 hour ago, Kuzu the Boloedge said:

The mini game collection is just that though. I get what you're saying, but using a minor role like that just doesn't hold water.

Because you're referring to Silver's PLOT relevance, not his general appearance. He could have easily never showed up in a relevant role outside of spin offs past 06. 

Silver being a mainstay only really comes in hindsight because you couldn't guess that.

No I'm not. I'm literally not. I've said multiple times now that I'm NOT talking about plot relevance. I said it twice in the post you're responding too.

 

[Kuzu]

2 minutes ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

No I'm not. I'm literally not. I've said multiple times now that I'm NOT talking about plot relevance. I said it twice in the post you're responding too.

 

 And I'm asking how could you have possibly guessed Silver being a recurring character past his debut using Secret Rings?

[Dr. Detective]

1 hour ago, Kuzu the Boloedge said:

 And I'm asking how could you have possibly guessed Silver being a recurring character past his debut using Secret Rings?

What? 

I'm saying that their intention was to continue using Silver from the get-go because they slotted him in three games before his introduction even happened. I'm not saying any one game appearance is proof of that. This is supposed to be based on ALL the circumstances that I talked about not just the one that you, for some reason, sectioned off and separated from everything else I said.

If the Secret Rings thing happened on it's own, seperate from all the other stuff I talked about, then sure, I wouldn't necessarily consider that to be proof of their intention to keep him around but it acts as proof because it's another factor in what they were doing with him at the time. 

[Rowl]

Every hero character who has the same body build like Sonic and is playable in a main line game or one of the bigger spinoffs has pretty good chances to become a returning character.

I'm pretty sure if Sonic Chronicles and also the Boom series would have sold better, Shade and Sticks would both have become recurring regulars to the series. But more on the lower level like Jet, Big and Cream.

[Gumbit]

1 hour ago, Rowl said:

Every hero character who has the same body build like Sonic and is playable in a main line game or one of the bigger spinoffs has pretty good chances to become a returning character.

I'm pretty sure if Sonic Chronicles and also the Boom series would have sold better, Shade and Sticks would both have become recurring regulars to the series. But more on the lower level like Jet, Big and Cream.

But Sticks got her own comics for 25 anniversary , so she might be used in the future . As for Shade it's mostly Pen Kinder fault . 

[Marco9966]

Separating Classic and Modern Sonic.

 

5 minutes ago, Gumbit said:

But Sticks got her own comics for 25 anniversary , so she might be used in the future . 

She is even in the olympic games! So why not

19 hours ago, Diogenes said:

If you survive past your introductory game you're a Main Character forever, constantly competing with every other Main Character whether there's a reason for you to be here or not.

Yeah, Knuckles should be on Angel Island, Silver in the future, Blaze in Sol dimension, Shadow on "human world".