Which character is the most unnecessary?

[DabigRG]

3 minutes ago, dbzfan7 said:

 

Well one of the backstories is Sonic comes in with his plane, which Tails discovers. So that at least should tell us Sonic can fly it. Heck in ASRT he pilot both a boat, car, and plane. I don't think it's a stretch to say he couldn't do that stuff. Now swimming...that is where he's gonna need some help.

I meant in terms of what the games have actually done.

Cause unless that was indeed in the Japanese Instruction manuel at the very least, the plane being Sonic's is more of a cool, retroactive backstory thing.

[dbzfan7]

5 minutes ago, DabigRG said:

I meant in terms of what the games have actually done.

Cause unless that was indeed in the Japanese Instruction manuel at the very least, the plane being Sonic's is more of a cool, retroactive backstory thing.

It was in the manuals I believe. In the games...well we go ASTR, and in the Classics if you play as anyone who is not Sonic, he will fly the plane at the end. Play as Tails he flies the plane. Play as Knuckles, and Sonic flies the plane. Pretty sure Knuckles story in 3K is canon, and Sonic flies the plane there.

[Waveshocker Sigma]

I'm surprised nobody has said the most obvious choice.

Silver.

His arc has been done to death and the only time it was kinda good was in the Archie comics before it got rebooted away to never happen again and as far as the games go, he's either there to job to somebody in a cutscene, there to pad out the roster of a spinoff or just there to have another hedgehog character that we don't actually need. Not to mention his awful speed and playstyle along with his bland and honestly uncool personality, design and overall character that just doesn't mesh well with anyone else in the cast. Not to mention the fact that he serves as a constant reminder of the lowest point of the series, as well as being a big part of why it was a low point.

If there's anyone I'd axe out, I'd happily get rid of Silver before absolutely anyone else.

[StaticMania]

Probably because it's not obvious.

[Multikaris]

13 minutes ago, dbzfan7 said:

It was in the manuals I believe. In the games...well we go ASTR, and in the Classics if you play as anyone who is not Sonic, he will fly the plane at the end. Play as Tails he flies the plane. Play as Knuckles, and Sonic flies the plane. Pretty sure Knuckles story in 3K is canon, and Sonic flies the plane there.

The Tornado still lacked armaments until Adventure 1. 

[DabigRG]

17 minutes ago, dbzfan7 said:

It was in the manuals I believe. In the games...well we go ASTR, and in the Classics if you play as anyone who is not Sonic, he will fly the plane at the end. Play as Tails he flies the plane. Play as Knuckles, and Sonic flies the plane. Pretty sure Knuckles story in 3K is canon, and Sonic flies the plane there.

That's not really what I was addressing, but okay.

[dbzfan7]

Just now, Miragnarok said:

The Tornado still lacked armaments until Adventure 1. 

True, though that doesn't mean it couldn't have been written to have them normally. It's not out of the question since biplanes have been made for combat before. Or you could just have no air stage to begin with, so there is no need for any sort of flying. It's not like plot was a big deal in the classic days anyways. I'd guess it came after level design.

 

Just now, DabigRG said:

That's not really what I was addressing, but okay.

Oh well then I apologize.

[Multikaris]

33 minutes ago, dbzfan7 said:

True, though that doesn't mean it couldn't have been written to have them normally. It's not out of the question since biplanes have been made for combat before. Or you could just have no air stage to begin with, so there is no need for any sort of flying. It's not like plot was a big deal in the classic days anyways. I'd guess it came after level design.

 

Oh well then I apologize.

Say... what kind of purpose did Nabbit serve in his appearances? Or Bowser Jr.? Or even Luigi? 

 

But still, the Tornado having to be leapt off of is more fitting with the rest of the game.

[TideKai]

So, I try to stay out of character discussions since my opinions on a lot of the characters are almost purely subjective, and I feel that I wouldn't be able to really contribute anything substantial to the conversation. I do want to kind of chime in here and put in my two cents.

I don't really want anyone to get "axed", just sort of written better. I know this is a really cop-out answer, I just don't know how to describe it. Most of the characters have an aspect I like and I'd rather they improve and feel more substantial as a character and to the narrative instead of getting rid of them completely. Even the characters that I don't like, I can see them being rewritten or retooled so that they are more appealing (maybe not necessarily to me but to others). I don't know...maybe someone else knows what I'm trying to say and can say it better than me? I'm awful at picking the right words to describe what I'm feeling.

But my opinions on which characters I like and which I don't are kind of all over the place so maybe I shouldn't say anything, haha.

[dbzfan7]

4 minutes ago, Miragnarok said:

Say... what kind of purpose did Nabbit serve in his appearances? Or Bowser Jr.? Or even Luigi? 

 

But still, the Tornado having to be leapt off of is more fitting with the rest of the game.

Single player wise, nothing. But in multiplayer platform games, they serve as people others can play as together with friends and family.

I agree it's not a bad thing, just not inherently needed. I think we would benefit from better usage of side characters to compliment the main ones, but it's clear the higher ups couldn't give a shit in their triple a titles.

[Multikaris]

2 minutes ago, dbzfan7 said:

Single player wise, nothing. But in multiplayer platform games, they serve as people others can play as together with friends and family.

I agree it's not a bad thing, just not inherently needed. I think we would benefit from better usage of side characters to compliment the main ones, but it's clear the higher ups couldn't give a shit in their triple a titles.

Yeah, it’s not as much the case with Activision and Crash Bandicoot, unlike most mascot series. And Mania did have a 2-player competitive mode for the characters to show their stuff, too.

[Shadowlax]

47 minutes ago, TideKai said:

So, I try to stay out of character discussions since my opinions on a lot of the characters are almost purely subjective, and I feel that I wouldn't be able to really contribute anything substantial to the conversation. I do want to kind of chime in here and put in my two cents.

I don't really want anyone to get "axed", just sort of written better. I know this is a really cop-out answer, I just don't know how to describe it. Most of the characters have an aspect I like and I'd rather they improve and feel more substantial as a character and to the narrative instead of getting rid of them completely. Even the characters that I don't like, I can see them being rewritten or retooled so that they are more appealing (maybe not necessarily to me but to others). I don't know...maybe someone else knows what I'm trying to say and can say it better than me? I'm awful at picking the right words to describe what I'm feeling.

But my opinions on which characters I like and which I don't are kind of all over the place so maybe I shouldn't say anything, haha.

If I may " It would suck to just remove characters because someone likes them somewhere and i would prefer people to be happy rather than characters just be gotten rid of to appease my ego "

 

Anywho If I had to choose

Omega

Omega litterally exists because Team Dark needed a third. He interacts with no one most of the time besides shadow and rouge, he is often thrown out anyway when stories focus on shadow and rouge. And his friendship to shadow and rouge contributes largely nothing. He's the " Power" but shadow can do whatever destructive damage he can do, and even more so. And Omega is a large loud murderous robot so you know he can't sneak. He doesn't even contribute much to his team, often just used as a plot device.

I fully aspect that if there is some 3d sonic reboot omega is gone. First.

Now I agree with the statement above, I don't really have any drive to actively axe someone because somebody likes them and they could be fixed. But omega never had or has huge fanbase, so even getting rid of him wouldn't really be much.

Edit: Omega acts with the other so little if not at all in the games that up untill forces you could pretend that Omega isn't real and is a collective fever dream shadow and rouge are having

[StaticMania]

You'd think with the type of isolated stories we've been getting lately, a character like E-123 Omega would get more use...he's not really losing out on development or anything. This applies to a lot of characters honestly, the way stories are being told now actually benefit the random usage of characters. They could shine more in stories that have nothing to do with eachother and...not feel unnecessary.

[TideKai]

2 hours ago, Shadowlax said:

If I may " It would suck to just remove characters because someone likes them somewhere and i would prefer people to be happy rather than characters just be gotten rid of to appease my ego "

Maybe I wouldn't have worded it so harshly, but I guess that's the gist of what I'm trying to say, haha. I just think there are very, very few "active" characters in the series that really deserve to be completely removed without at least an attempt to try and implement them better. Like, no one is incapable of being "fixed" (heck, I would even make an argument that a retooled Elise could be a good addition to the cast). And I know, I know...this whole argument basically boils down to "make character good, NOT BAD" and it's a really simple argument that's very vague in execution. It's just that I think all the characters have something going for them that makes them unique and interesting. It's just how they're put into the stories and how they're being used.

2 hours ago, Shadowlax said:

Omega litterally exists because Team Dark needed a third. He interacts with no one most of the time besides shadow and rouge, he is often thrown out anyway when stories focus on shadow and rouge. And his friendship to shadow and rouge contributes largely nothing. He's the " Power" but shadow can do whatever destructive damage he can do, and even more so. And Omega is a large loud murderous robot so you know he can't sneak. He doesn't even contribute much to his team, often just used as a plot device.

I fully aspect that if there is some 3d sonic reboot omega is gone. First.

Now I agree with the statement above, I don't really have any drive to actively axe someone because somebody likes them and they could be fixed. But omega never had or has huge fanbase, so even getting rid of him wouldn't really be much.

Edit: Omega acts with the other so little if not at all in the games that up untill forces you could pretend that Omega isn't real and is a collective fever dream shadow and rouge are having

I...actually love Omega. Like, he's one of my favorite characters...I love Team Dark. They're my favorite Team. I love them. Would take them all out to dinner if I could. I'd pay.

(But again, almost all my opinions on the characters are subjective and all over the place. I should probably be quiet, ahaha.)

 

[Fire-N-Space]

Cream The Rabbit 

 Lacking motivation in adventuring she keeps following Amy around acting cute and friendly but she doesn't even like half of Amy's activities such as boxing,   being romantic or racing with her.

Sticks

 Feels as if she was invented to just be the straight man to Amy in Boom for she was the romantic one ( which she hardly shows ) with Sticks staying around   making sure Amy has something to complain about.

Blaze

 This female cat plays just like Sonic in the games she's in being so serious that it makes her uninteresting seemingly only being there to mete out justice.

Silver

 Silvers future never seems to get fixed and he kind of just hangs around trying to stop all evil in the world having no idea what it could be doing to his future. 

 

 

 

[Dr. Detective]

1 hour ago, TideKai said:

I...actually love Omega. Like, he's one of my favorite characters...I love Team Dark. They're my favorite Team. I love them. Would take them all out to dinner if I could. I'd pay.

(But again, almost all my opinions on the characters are subjective and all over the place. I should probably be quiet, ahaha.)

 

No, you're good. I love Omega as well. He's badass. He's funny. His entire motivation is based on something unapologetically selfish and inherent on revenge, something risky and almost unseen for a character not aligned with villainly in a series with a demographic like this. He and Rouge definitely have the most anti-hero potential out of Team Dark in my opinion. 

A lot of what was listed about him there is all stuff that ties back to poor handling, which is something that could be said of literally any character nowadays. Omega's potential to disrupt the status quo by being a force of nature that works for himself, leading to bad or good things happening on either side depending on who the hero or villain of a given game is and what his objective towards rampaging at Eggman could lead to is something thats yet to be tapped into. 

Even Ian Flynn relented and just lazily gave him Gamma's soul, making him more of a hero rather than take full advantage of his interesting position. The fact that he's also friends with Shadow and Rouge on top of that also provides a positive layer to his more negative traits. Its the ultimate waste of an opportunity to see him so mismanaged.

I'd lose a little respect for any writer that saw fit to just toss him away before attempting to captialize on it at least once. I love that Team Dark is a part of their characters and it being the reason for the character's origin literally doesn't matter. So long as its treated as just "a part" of who they are and not literally just who they are at all times, its a great addition to their identity. 

This whole discussion on whose the most useless is a bit of a odd one for me. I don't see how it matters given that the position everyone has at the moment is fairly equal. Even I as someone who tauts that Cream is the one character that doesn't have a focal point for any kind of development or personal occupation can see that the simple solution to that problem would be to simply give her one.

Just get creative. If you can't you might just be letting your hatred or lack of interest in a character as they are now cloud your judgement. If you think the bar for what can be done with them was set by anyone at Sonic Team then you're giving them too much credit.

[Salamander]

Characters are only as necessary or unnecessary as the writing makes them.  If they aren't being used at all, is it even fair to call them "unnecessary"?  You can only call them out in relation to their role in a particular game.  But even then, I think that "necessary" is too high a bar to demand everyone clear.  It can be more interesting for a character to be present without them being absolutely "necessary".

[Plasme]

The problem is that the series has never really cared about good story telling from Heroes onwards. If it did, we wouldnt have this situation of a million core characters who all serve very similar functions.

For as much flak as it gets the Boom cartoon had the right idea. Greatly reduce the amount of core characters (Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Amy, Sticks, Eggman, Orbot, Cubot) and focus the series around them. That way, when characters do serve similar narrative functions (Metal Sonic and Shadow as rivals), they only appear in special moments so it doesn't come off as completely redundant.

I think the Adventure games did a decent job at keeping the characters to a good number and their roles defined. The problem with the Adventure games was Sonic's role as protagonist but not having the majority of screen time or great significance to the plot. I think Boom manages to keep Sonic as the plot's focus pretty well.

[Iko]

I agree with those who say that nobody is unnecessary and all of them can be interesting and useful as long as the writing wants to.

Though, I kinda agree with @Shadowlax about Omega... I like his design but I absolutely dislike how he's used in the story of the games.

If it was me, I'd retcon him as a recurring miniboss instead, a sort of alternative to Metal Sonic with more static bossfights.

And the Chaotix... they keep appearing in games though they don't do much more than what other characters can do. They are detectives, but aside of Heroes, they are never shown working as detectives in the games, and they don't even have iconic gameplay gimmicks to justify their inclusion for gameplay reasons.

Anyway, I keep saying that Big the Cat would work very well as a shop keeper; it would be in-character, for someone who likes fishing, to stay in a place the whole time and wait for a customer to "catch the lure".

And he would work well also because, let's say you want to put a store in Eggman's base for gameplay purposes, it makes no sense story-wise, but Big the Cat is there, it doensn't need to make sense, it's Big the Cat... look at his cameos in Sonic Adventure 2.

[Wraith]

Omega is not only a great idea but also hilarious and everyone who's saying ditch him lacks creativity. Omega being a straight-shooting ball of rage to comical levels contrasts well with Rouge who always has another agenda. Shadow would actually probably find it pretty refreshing how predictable Omega is by comparison. Having a loud distraction that can also take a beating makes sense for characters that lean on stealth, too. 

He just...wouldn't be the brightest. He's very one track minded in his goals which Shadow...understands, to be frank. He's been there. The whole vengeance thing. 

[Monkey Destruction Switch]

Broadly speaking, I tend to agree with the notion that "axing" characters or labeling them as unnecessary is itself unnecessary, but if anyone fits this description, it would be the Babylon Rogues. Even then, they obviously serve a purpose in the Riders series, but generally it feels like they could've just created a racing game that didn't involve them or maybe involved an interesting new character instead of the boring cookie-cutter rivals that they are. Even when I was young, I thought the Rogues just seemed like clutter. They only exist for that very specific sub-series and for me there's almost nothing interesting or appealing about them as characters. I like almost every Sonic character to some extent, but it's hard for me to muster up anything better than stony cold indifference for the Rogues. The thing is, it seems like the "lore" behind them has some chance to be interesting, but the characters themselves don't do anything for me. I don't resent their fans or anything, in fact I think it's kind of cool when people can see some value in something that I can't.

58 minutes ago, Iko said:

Anyway, I keep saying that Big the Cat would work very well as a shop keeper; it would be in-character, for someone who likes fishing, to stay in a place the whole time and wait for a customer to "catch the lure".

And he would work well also because, let's say you want to put a store in Eggman's base for gameplay purposes, it makes no sense story-wise, but Big the Cat is there, it doensn't need to make sense, it's Big the Cat... look at his cameos in Sonic Adventure 2. 

I like this idea.

[DabigRG]

10 hours ago, Miragnarok said:

Say... what kind of purpose did Nabbit serve in his appearances? Or Bowser Jr.? Or even Luigi? 

 

Nabbit is a thief to chase down.

Bowser Jr is a semi-significant mid boss.

Luigi is player 2.

7 hours ago, StaticMania said:

You'd think with the type of isolated stories we've been getting lately, a character like E-123 Omega would get more use...he's not really losing out on development or anything. This applies to a lot of characters honestly, the way stories are being told now actually benefit the random usage of characters. They could shine more in stories that have nothing to do with eachother and...not feel unnecessary.

Pretty this.

Some characters are geared towards adding variety to the game series at large through alternative plots, but the emphasis on both epic adventure and self-contained ones means those characters often don't get much focus.

And ironically, the former is where many of those characters got most their screentime, so it's a screwy concept anyway.

[Shadowlax]

1 hour ago, Wraith said:

Omega is not only a great idea but also hilarious and everyone who's saying ditch him lacks creativity. Omega being a straight-shooting ball of rage to comical levels contrasts well with Rouge who always has another agenda. Shadow would actually probably find it pretty refreshing how predictable Omega is by comparison. Having a loud distraction that can also take a beating makes sense for characters that lean on stealth, too. 

He just...wouldn't be the brightest. He's very one track minded in his goals which Shadow...understands, to be frank. He's been there. The whole vengeance thing. 

I don't think I lack creativity at all. Omega isn't that interesting or fun, and isn't really required to tell interesting stories. And to be quite frank, i'm kind of more interested in rouge and shadow getting away from each other, and interacting with others than just themselves or omega. And I don't think you need omega for shadow to relate to that, people feel that way all the time. I think you could get a more interesting version of that sort of interaction if it was an entirely different character who for whatever reason wanted revenge and is never the type to want that thing and shadow is kind of trying to figure out how to handle that.

I don't think omega has been that interesting or funny, and I don't think I lack creativity. I think he's the 3rd that was created for a purpose and sega kind of doesn't know what to do with him. And if the 3d sonic reboot come, his ass is omega gone. He's gone, yesterday

[Eurisko]

Cream

Nuff said.

[DabigRG]

So to finally start commenting on what's been posted

21 hours ago, Rowl said:

We all know how much critiques and the internet love to bitch about Sonic and his shitty friends. Even us fans complain a lot of the huge cast of characters this series has. There for I wonder, if their a character or even a bunch of them, that you yourself can consider as completely unnecessary for the series. A character that is either useless for the overall narrative and contributes nothing to the world of Sonic? I personally have a handful of them.

 

This is what I mentioned earlier.

1. What overall narrative?

2.Which world of Sonic? 

And you're placing a little more emphasis on those things while ignoring gameplay or character dynamics.

21 hours ago, Rowl said:

 

Big the Cat

He can be pretty entertaining some times (although it is most of the time accidentally) and out of all the characters he has the most unique design, I consider him to be a pretty pointless character. He is more a character that lives by himself and stays out of all the action and the adventures. Big is not a person, that wants to fight. He just wants to relax and fish with his best pal who happens to be a frog. He feels completely out of place in a series that is all about been part of a huge, action heavy adventure.

 

Truth enough, but that's more or less the intention as well as his appeal nowadays.

He barely shows up anyway, though.

21 hours ago, Rowl said:

The Babylon Rouges

The problem with those three is, that Sonic and his friends already have enough rivals. Sonic himself already has Knuckles, Metal-Sonic, Shadow and Silver four big rival characters. Jet is really the fifth wheel in this scenario. Plus Jet, Wave and Storm are to much tied in in the Riders series, which it seems has been cancelled for good. And with out a new Riders game, I do not really see them been used anymore.

kinda see as pointless? 

I sorta agree with the last point overall--the Rogues are indeed context sensitive to a specific subseries.

With that said, they do get points for being straightforward rivals compared the more complicated if not outright muddled portrayals of the other three, particularly Wave. And they do have a context.

21 hours ago, Rowl said:

 

Mighty the Armadillo and Ray the Flying Squirrel

Two characters that have the same powers as Sonic other two best friends and even have the same colors scheme with mighty been red and Ray been yellow. I really no point in those two is we already have Tails and Knuckles feeling in similar roles.

 

Not really sure what the point is here, tbh.

They were designed/introduced before Knuckles & possibly Tails were a thing, are more friends in the since that they fought together once before going their separate ways, have fairly different attitudes compared to them, and have been locked to the Classic era anyway.

With that said, I do think Mighty should've had his color scheme touched up as well in Mania Plus.

21 hours ago, Rowl said:

 

Sticks the Badger

She felt so unnecessary for the Boom universe. For me it feels like she was only created, so that the Boom series can have its own character to promote the games. And yes, that is all what Sticks is for me. Plus, she was always the one character who was left out of the group if the writers only wanted to use four of the five main characters. 

Cream the Rabbit

She kinda has also no point in this universe anymore. She is a character that is kinda the sidekick of Amy. And Amy herself isn't really often used in the more resent games. So if Amy doesn't show up, than their is also no real point for Cream anymore. Also kinda like Big she is more a character that enjoys the more quiet times in life.

.

9 hours ago, Fire-N-Space said:

Cream The Rabbit 

 Lacking motivation in adventuring she keeps following Amy around acting cute and friendly but she doesn't even like half of Amy's activities such as boxing,   being romantic or racing with her.

Sticks

 Feels as if she was invented to just be the straight man to Amy in Boom for she was the romantic one ( which she hardly shows ) with Sticks staying around   making sure Amy has something to complain about.

 

.

Combining these two because I'm lazy:

I get mixed vibes regarding Sticks' exact origins, but the baseline is that they wanted a character that's very different from the others to help spice things up. A paranoid jungle girl with an aversion towards civilization is honestly kinda bizarre given most of the characters of anthropomorphic animals anyway, but at the same time, it definitely stands out from almost all of the cast anyway. Plus, she has the secondary purpose of demonstrating Boom!Amy's achievements while also making her a little more of a straight man.

Cream has a similar deal, with the complicated honor of being originally conceptualized with a specific role in mind(Amy's answer to Tails), but having the final result instead catering around giving her a different image and being one of the few characters designed specifically to suit a gameplay purpose. They try to reference the initial intent a few times here and there, but for the most part, everyone can agree she kinda got separated to the point of being her own thing.