Has the "Sonic's sh*tty friends" mentality been a detriment to this series?

[Lord-Dreamerz]

1 hour ago, UpCDownCLeftCRightC said:

This is true. But then you have to think, are shadow/blaze/etc going to start becoming a part of the main cast just so they can be playable in every game? That's probably not the answer, especially considering how the characters were written.... at least tails has an excuse to accompany sonic on most of his adventures. Knuckles not as much but I think ST treats him as part of the core cast (I dont think he should be as much as they do, even though I like knuckles, but the point remains).

Do they have to be Sonic's personal close friends in order to accompany him? Do they even have to accompany him altogether? Even if they play the same levels as each other, their stories don't absolutely have to include them working together every time. Also each extra character don't have to be playable every single game as if it must be a all or nothing deal. Rotating them in and out overtime between each game would be a nice choice to me. Lastly I dono about other peps... But I sure wouldn't mind if characters such as Blaze & Metal-Sonic were part of the main cast for a little while... In fact it sounds like great fun to me! It would be a much better choice instead of the lame idea of multiple Sonics within the same game that SonicTeam keep doing lately... AKA the Werehog/Classic Sonic/ETC...

[StaticMania]

13 minutes ago, Lord-Dreamerz said:

Rotating them in and out overtime between each game would be a nice choice...

This is literally the only thing they have to do when it comes to the characters...it's literally what every single good game series does.

Series with few characters can use them  most of the time.

Series with big cast either rotate character usage or have others as unlockables.

[Dr. Detective]

4 hours ago, knuckles20 said:

As for arguments saying “they need to take baby steps” or “they need to get Sonic right before bringing in anyone else, I see it as a huge load of crap since this isn’t some indie company were talking about. Despite their recent years SEGA is still one of the big developers in the gaming industry and yet I’m suppose to believe they need more than a decade’s time how to make one character work in 3D. No I’m not buying it and we need to stop giving them that excuse because that grace period should had ended with Generations. 

I mean, I don't really care. I'm not arguing for it personally. I'm cool with whatever so long as it works. I'm the last person you go to when you want to find someone who'll make excuses for Sonic Team. I was just saying that I'm open to anything so long as it gets results. 

 

[UpCDownCLeftCRightC]

1 hour ago, Lord-Dreamerz said:

Do they have to be Sonic's personal close friends in order to accompany him? Do they even have to accompany him altogether? Even if they play the same levels as each other, their stories don't absolutely have to include them working together every time. Also each extra character don't have to be playable every single game as if it must be a all or nothing deal. Rotating them in and out overtime between each game would be a nice choice to me. Lastly I dono about other peps... But I sure wouldn't mind if characters such as Blaze & Metal-Sonic were part of the main cast for a little while... In fact it sounds like great fun to me! It would be a much better choice instead of the lame idea of multiple Sonics within the same game that SonicTeam keep doing lately... AKA the Werehog/Classic Sonic/ETC...

Well kind of. This is the sonic franchise and at the end of the day, there needs to be some relevant connection to him in order for it to make sense. I dont think the relationship has to be one way or the other though. Maybe they have their own quest and motivation but at some level it needs to be related to the larger story. It would be weird otherwise to just have some character in the game that has nothing to do with sonic or the plot.

I think everything else you're saying is a matter of personal preference and I cant really argue against that except to just state my irrelevant tastes, so I'll leave it there.

3 hours ago, knuckles20 said:

As for arguments saying “they need to take baby steps” or “they need to get Sonic right before bringing in anyone else, I see it as a huge load of crap since this isn’t some indie company were talking about. Despite their recent years SEGA is still one of the big developers in the gaming industry and yet I’m suppose to believe they need more than a decade’s time how to make one character work in 3D. No I’m not buying it and we need to stop giving them that excuse because that grace period should had ended with Generations. 

The problem with this of course, is that the moment we decide "ok it's been long enough" and then sonic friends start getting shoehorned in the 3D games regardless of how well they play, we're just starting the shitty friends cycle all over again. There is no arbitrary time length for how long characters should not be included or anything like that. It's a "simple" (not necessarily easy) matter of designing a flexible gameplay so that they work without introducing bullshit gimmicks. That can happen in one development cycle. Or it can go on for ten plus years as you've noted. It depends on the developers and their goals. The harsh reality is that regardless, shoehorning characters in the games that aren't designed well to support them is going to cause a lot more problems. We know this because it has already happened. It's why the meme exists.

[knuckles20]

@UpCDownCLeftCRightC

We’ve discussed this many times with each other but it’s been over a decade since anyone but Sonic been playable in a 3D game, the games have become stale since Colors for me. I’ve been asking for for actual characters to be playable in the 3D games since being disappointed with Generation and I’m gonna keep asking for them because there’s nothing you or anyone else can say that’ll dissuade me.

[UpCDownCLeftCRightC]

35 minutes ago, knuckles20 said:

@UpCDownCLeftCRightC

We’ve discussed this many times with each other but it’s been over a decade since anyone but Sonic been playable in a 3D game, the games have become stale since Colors for me. I’ve been asking for for actual characters to be playable in the 3D games since being disappointed with Generation and I’m gonna keep asking for them because there’s nothing you or anyone else can say that’ll dissuade me.

We have and I'm not trying for that. Just as you state what you want, I'm just stating the obvious. There are many fans like you who wont change their minds. But it's not like I'm asking you to either. I just hope Sonic Team doesnt cave in prematurely because if they start adding characters to a formula that doesnt work for them, the series will just get shat on again for it. Even though that may not matter to you, to me it does because it affects the series reputation and sales over time.

.....Also, I dont want to play shitty gameplay like tails in a mech or silver rolling a ball just so I can say I played as them in a game. I want to play a fun 3D platforming sonic game.

[knuckles20]

The only gameplay I'd consider crap is the super easy boost 2 win 2.5D that they try to pass off as 3D games.

Really hard to say they would cave in prematurely when they have been pulling the bare minimum crap for 11 years.

Also from my perspective the games are a bigger joke now than ever. The "3D" games spend half of the time in 2D sections. The storylines are so bland and uninteresting it makes stuff like Breadwinners look like Citizen Cane in comparison. Their big budget games that are supposedly worth $40 can be completed in less than a day. Eggman went from an actual threat to the heroes (I'm sorry HERO because apparently we can only care about one person in this damn series), to Bulk and Skull level of intimation. They never shut the hell up about the how "amazing"  the Classic era is, whether it be from the deliberate bright imagery people thought represented that period or just putting Green Hill Zone at every opportunity. And Characters who has shown be able to step up to the challenge to fulfill their own goals, had all been regressed to spineless cheerleaders who can't anything without the title character.

 

 

[Scritch the Cat]

4 hours ago, UpCDownCLeftCRightC said:

Well kind of. This is the sonic franchise and at the end of the day, there needs to be some relevant connection to him in order for it to make sense. I dont think the relationship has to be one way or the other though. Maybe they have their own quest and motivation but at some level it needs to be related to the larger story. It would be weird otherwise to just have some character in the game that has nothing to do with sonic or the plot.

I think everything else you're saying is a matter of personal preference and I cant really argue against that except to just state my irrelevant tastes, so I'll leave it there.

The problem with this of course, is that the moment we decide "ok it's been long enough" and then sonic friends start getting shoehorned in the 3D games regardless of how well they play, we're just starting the shitty friends cycle all over again. There is no arbitrary time length for how long characters should not be included or anything like that. It's a "simple" (not necessarily easy) matter of designing a flexible gameplay so that they work without introducing bullshit gimmicks. That can happen in one development cycle. Or it can go on for ten plus years as you've noted. It depends on the developers and their goals. The harsh reality is that regardless, shoehorning characters in the games that aren't designed well to support them is going to cause a lot more problems. We know this because it has already happened. It's why the meme exists.

No, that meme exists because its creator was a fucking moron who proposed that one could extrapolate a cycle on the basis of one game and that most of the fanbase still consisted of Genesis purists; a big fallacy when Sonic Adventure 2 was the best-selling non-Nintendo game on Gamecube and a lot of people still love its characters.  Posting it is banned here for good reason. 

The ire about side characters was originally directed at very niche cases like Big the Cat; almost never at Tails and Knuckles, and while Sonic Heroes probably exacerbated the backlash against extra characters due to them being used to pad the game out, there was never a sense  that putting in unnecessary characters led to a glitchy game.  And it didn't with Sonic 2006, either; that game is a broken mess because they didn't finish it.  Had they done so, it would probably have been well-received, but some fuckwad suits at Sega made Sonic Team rush it out for Christmas and Sonic's fifteenth anniversary, and Sega deciding to start sucking off the "shitty friends" crowd was a convenient way to downplay that their execution was what stank, not the concept itself.  If you need any greater proof, just look at the Game Boy Advance port they made of the first Sonic game on Genesis; only Sonic playable, a very short game whose levels were already designed, and its execution was still fucked up.  Same with Sonic 4: Episode 1.  The problem isn't other characters.  The problem isn't even other playstyles.  The problem is that Sega is willing to release unfinished shit and charge full price for it, and needs to be brought to terms with that fact by the whole fanbase.  How to do that?  With those fangamers you wrongfully disparage.

Remember that awful GBA port I mentioned above?  Fans did it correctly the VERY NEXT YEAR!  The same group went on to make the mobile ports of several Classic Sonic games, and then Sonic Mania.  Sega itself has given lie to your notion that they're more dependable than fans when it comes to getting Sonic right, given that they hired those people and still aren't as good at replicating Sonic's old engine when they try.  Most of the times, in their 3D games, they don't try.  Fanmade 3D games have actually gotten the physics pretty close to the ones in Genesis games; boost Sonic can pussyfoot out of that responsibility.  They even showed it's possible to make Sonic 06 not suck.  As to characters, 3D fangames haven't implemented them well-enough for my tastes, yet...but they're trying, which is far more than I can say for Sonic Team.  Not getting it right yet isn't a valid criticism because almost no developers get it right initially; almost every computer program goes through a lot of crap mid-development; people test them, find bugs, report bugs, programmers fix bugs. 

Sega could make more ambitious Sonic games with more characters if they were willing to do more of that and not charge money until they've got it finished, and a big way to avoid a backlash would be to allow fans to come test early builds of games.  Thus, no ex-post facto blaming it on ambitious ideas.  Or if they have to blame it on ambitious ideas and scale back on them, they can at least save face by not releasing the game for money with those problematic bits still in.

As to the excuse about needing to get Sonic's own gameplay right before adding other characters back in, look; even if that had been valid at the time Sega started saying it after 2006's wipeout--and I'd argue that it wasn't too valid, since Sonic played pretty great in Sonic Adventure 2--if they're still saying that over a decade later when they still haven't added those other characters back in, it's probably safe to assume Sega will never get Sonic's own gameplay right.  The sad reality is that while now it is pretty obvious how to get Classic Sonic's gameplay right (though maybe still not obvious to Sonic Team), Modern Sonic's identity crisis is such that what "right" is for that is subjective.  Boost is probably a bigger base-breaker than other characters ever were, and if it's not, it should be, since it's a fundamental change to how Sonic himself plays, and if successful, will necessitate a wholesale departure from Genesis-style Sonic gameplay.  There are also entirely too many times when, as Roger Van Der Weide puts it, Sonic Team would rather burn down what isn't working than fix it.  Having recently replayed both Sonic Adventure and Sonic Colors, a good example of this is camera.  Granting that they never quite got camera controls working, completely removing controls and instead using automated camera angles that are often either too close or too far to interpret things easily was not an improvement.  Moving along to Roger's other points, though, if Sonic Team defines "getting Sonic's own gameplay right" as making the game more straightforward, then I absolutely will not invite them to get it right before they add Tails and Knuckles back in, because that sort of design reduces the utility of such characters.  Getting Sonic's gameplay right should mean his gameplay should utilize more exploration, too; except his specialty would still be speeding forward while Tails and Knuckles would be better for exploration.

However, whether they're actually done, in their or other people's opinions, if Sonic Team thinks they're ready to make games with Classic Sonic and a character who uses grappling hooks in them, then they have at least some places that Tails and Knuckles can fit in, too.  If not in their 3D segments, then at least in their 2D ones, of which for better or worse, there are still plenty.  It's a start.  It's not a finish, but it would be better than they've done in a main game for over a decade.

[UpCDownCLeftCRightC]

Egh. At this point I'm just talking in circles about the same topic we've been talking about for years now. I disagree with a few of the above posts but now I cant be bothered to put more energy into this, because I'm just repeating myself. There are fundamental differences in how we're evaluating things and that's totally ok. I'll just bow out here and agree to disagree.

I hope that ST is able to get their shit together and focus long enough to have us fans stop speculating on how best to do their jobs. If I was a dev I would take it as an insult that my entire fan community has daily discussions on how to do my job better than me, and constantly says I suck at it despite putting hundreds of hours into my work. 

[Whatever the WhoCares]

No. The mentality is a symptom of the problem. Let’s do this timeline style:

1990s: Sonic’s friends are well-accepted as slight but inspired variations on his gameplay.

1998-2006: Sonic’s friends play vastly differently  and are often obtuse and not fun to use. This is where the “shitty friends” think stems from. 

2008-2013: Taking the completely wrong message from this, Sega only has Sonic as the playable character, while often retaining the obtuse gameplay styles.

2017: Sonic Mania makes it so Sonic’s friends are well-accepted as slight but inspired variations on his gameplay. 

2017: Sonic Forces makes it so Sonic’s friends are slight AND uninspired variations on his gameplay. 

[Scritch the Cat]

12 hours ago, UpCDownCLeftCRightC said:

I hope that ST is able to get their shit together and focus long enough to have us fans stop speculating on how best to do their jobs. If I was a dev I would take it as an insult that my entire fan community has daily discussions on how to do my job better than me, and constantly says I suck at it despite putting hundreds of hours into my work. 

I would certainly like for Sonic Team to prove me wrong, but I feel like I won't like Sonic Team unless they prove me wrong.  Proving me wrong, I must restress, isn't just about talent.  Of course there are many, many people who are worse at making games than Sonic Team is.  However, most of those people aren't making games, and when people make fangames, even if the fangames aren't good, at least I didn't have to pay to play them. 

Bad official games are different.  The reason I'm so skeptical of Sonic Team/Sega is not because absolutely everything they've released since 2006 is total garbage; they've had moments of competence even if the concepts they tried for games aren't the ones I'd prefer.  Obviously, they don't intend for Sonic games to suck.  However, the more recent release of Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric implies that if a game does end up sucking, on an objective, technical level, they're still willing to release it for money without fixing it, and act as though nothing is wrong. (Note: Because I'm talking about the bad ethics of releasing unfinished games, I can include games based on the Sonic brand even if Sonic Team didn't personally make them.)  While having even one humiliating moment like that was terrible, I might have warmed to them since if only they genuinely demonstrated they were sorry and turned over a new leaf, but no; we got another humiliating moment like that.  We may get another still.  We also may not, but even if the next few games we get are decent or even good, that doesn't absolutely put Sonic Team in the clear to me, because people thought Sonic Colors and Sonic Generations were decent or even good, and then Sonic Team still went on to release Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric.  What would do much, much more to redeem them in my opinion would be Sonic Team becoming more transparent to consumers; doing a multitude of things to let people test early builds of their games and report bugs; not just to the game creators but also to the public.  Even if the reports that emerged revealed a currently terrible game, making that known would do a lot to show Sonic Team was willing to be better instead of just look better.

Note: I am aware that Sonic Team has been merged with another division of Sega, meaning it technically doesn't exist.  I use the term out of convenience because it still encompasses "the people who control the fate of the Sonic brand".  Saying "Sonic Team must take responsibility for Sonic going in a good direction" essentially means that the people or sort of people (based on company position) who handed Archie a list of demands for revamping their adaptation to prevent any more harm of the sort Ken Penders caused, need to apply that sort of oversight to the games, as well.

[Sonic Fan J]

I think part of the problem that is resulting in arguments here actually boils down the problem of a little thing called reverse engineering. Now why does that matter of all things when it comes to adding different characters? Well it's due to the seeming situation of never having the same people between games. So where one side of the argument argues for bring them back and the other says get Sonic right, neither side's stance means a whole lot with a rotating crew who can't reverse engineer the code of the prior games to build upon since the people who wrote it are gone. Without the people who wrote the code you can't improve upon it to get things 'right' if the new programmers can't reverse engineer it or even understand it if they do. With a rotating group of programmers you lack the necessary consistency to improve an existing formula, and if they are neither good at making an engine nor reverse engineering then a basis to build upon won't happen. When you have that situation it doesn't matter if you exclude or include Sonic's friends in any given game because the next game will be built different just due to using different programmers per game. It isn't a good or efficient creation process, especially for an ongoing series, and probably needs to be addressed before anything else.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

On one hand, removing the characters actually got people to open their eyes to the realization that they weren’t the problem in the first place, and blaming them is plaun scapegoating. That hasn’t been universal tho, as we do still have those that continue to believe this even when the past ten years lacked the characters in a playable or even support role. On top of that, Generations’ release showed that people were still trying to take the piss out of the whole meme by calling out characters in the background, who literally do nothing but stand and give some plain and dry hints and hardly anything else bar the mini-games and rival battles, as a detriment—yes, because Cream the Rabbit or whomever character standing at the level gate that this reviewer dislikes somehow makes the game worse. Hell, I remember Game Informer said Generations was bad for having levels from other games past the Classics, so it really highlights how downright petty people were blatantly being about Sonic.

On the other hand, it didn’t solve a damn thing. Which is really the crux of it all. The only major thing it did was shift focus to the Boost formula they came up with following Unleashed’s release, and now we’re right back at square one only without the extended cast.

Nowadays, the whole sentiment has evolved into something less about quality and more about spiting those that happen to like the extended cast. So I’d say it’s not only been a detriment, but it’s evolved into a whole new issue that seems to be doing worse. Thanks to all that, we not only have an extended cast that lacks agency, but we even have some the cast divided and blockaded from interacting with each other. Really telling how it’s perfectly fine for the Chaotix to be revamped and modernized, yet Mighty and Ray are barred from the treatment like they’re exclusives. And it gives an impression of how Sega is handling the franchise less with care and more as a quick buck when that division is irrelevant to achieving bank in the first place.

The whole Sonic 4 marketing was just a sign of things that we didn’t see coming.

[Hiki]

[removed]

[Scritch the Cat]

3 hours ago, Conquering Storm’s Servant said:

On one hand, removing the characters actually got people to open their eyes to the realization that they weren’t the problem in the first place, and blaming them is plaun scapegoating. That hasn’t been universal tho, as we do still have those that continue to believe this even when the past ten years lacked the characters in a playable or even support role. On top of that, Generations’ release showed that people were still trying to take the piss out of the whole meme by calling out characters in the background, who literally do nothing but stand and give some plain and dry hints and hardly anything else bar the mini-games and rival battles, as a detriment—yes, because Cream the Rabbit or whomever character standing at the level gate that this reviewer dislikes somehow makes the game worse. Hell, I remember Game Informer said Generations was bad for having levels from other games past the Classics, so it really highlights how downright petty people were blatantly being about Sonic.

On the other hand, it didn’t solve a damn thing. Which is really the crux of it all. The only major thing it did was shift focus to the Boost formula they came up with following Unleashed’s release, and now we’re right back at square one only without the extended cast.

Nowadays, the whole sentiment has evolved into something less about quality and more about spiting those that happen to like the extended cast. So I’d say it’s not only been a detriment, but it’s evolved into a whole new issue that seems to be doing worse. Thanks to all that, we not only have an extended cast that lacks agency, but we even have some the cast divided and blockaded from interacting with each other. Really telling how it’s perfectly fine for the Chaotix to be revamped and modernized, yet Mighty and Ray are barred from the treatment like they’re exclusives. And it gives an impression of how Sega is handling the franchise less with care and more as a quick buck when that division is irrelevant to achieving bank in the first place.

The whole Sonic 4 marketing was just a sign of things that we didn’t see coming.

Speak for yourself; I saw that coming way in advance, because I was downwind of critics and other whingebags who were making an enormous stink about the extra characters; it was impossible for Sonic Team to ignore, so all it took was one indication they were catering to that to tell me where things were headed.

3 hours ago, Hiki said:

I have the feeling that the reasoning SEGA has for pushing other characters to the side is more that they don't want people to find other characters to be cooler than Sonic. At least... when it comes to 3D games is how it seems. The CaC is an example of how SEGA doesn't want others to be as cool, or cooler than Sonic. Remember how limited our choices were with the CaC? I'm pretty sure I had heard that the reasoning behind how few options there were was because they didn't want the CaC to take the spotlight (Feel free to fact check this). I'd say that the cause of Sonic-focus in 3D games is because Sonic is seen as uncool nowadays. His personality certainly doesn't help with this problem, considering that Sonic keeps making dad jokes all the time. He had become so bland an uninteresting, whereas in Mania, he still has an actual fun and cool personality. Even if the gameplay is good now, SEGA can't bear to add other characters in for personality and story reasons. Sadly, SEGA doesn't seem like they're going to give up the kiddy, faux-Mario-esque Sonic any time soon. Why? They're stuck in their own little bubble, caring instead what the critics think, rather than what the fans want.

I'm not sure what you mean by "dad jokes".  I remember Roger Van Der Veide using that term to refer to the Sonic Boom cartoon, and there I assumed he meant "referring to things only older people who remember past incarnations of Sonic will find funny"(i.e., Tails ascribing "blast processing" to his invention or Sonic mentioning SonAmy fanfiction).  Why you'd call the same thing "kiddy, faux-Mario-esque" also confuses me, though I'm not sure whether the main series has the same sort of humor.  Pontaff has a reputation for not knowing enough about Sonic's past, instead.

However, speaking of Mario, it's funny how Nintendo doesn't ever worry about him being overshadowed by other characters in his own series; even though Mario isn't conveyed as a "cool" character.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

26 minutes ago, Scritch the Cat said:

Speak for yourself; I saw that coming way in advance, because I was downwind of critics and other whingebags who were making an enormous stink about the extra characters; it was impossible for Sonic Team to ignore, so all it took was one indication they were catering to that to tell me where things were headed.

So you mean to say that from the Sonic 4 marketing 8 years ago, you saw coming the catering of those wanting the removal of the cast would lead to this bizzare handling of the cast as inconsistent cheerleaders and a separation of Classic and Modern characters, with Mighty and Ray restricted to classic only come Mania’s release?

 

[StaticMania]

26 minutes ago, Scritch the Cat said:

I'm not sure what you mean by "dad jokes".  

Dad jokes...as in very easy and lame. Obvious puns and punchlines.

[Scritch the Cat]

3 hours ago, Conquering Storm’s Servant said:

So you mean to say that from the Sonic 4 marketing 8 years ago, you saw coming the catering of those wanting the removal of the cast would lead to this bizzare handling of the cast as inconsistent cheerleaders and a separation of Classic and Modern characters, with Mighty and Ray restricted to classic only come Mania’s release?

 

No, but then, I thought even worse was coming.  When they were boasting about removing characters, even when they were only specifically referring to them being playable, I was predicting they wouldn't even be present anymore.  I did suspect characterization was going to get bad, given the precedent set by Shadow the Hedgehog.  As to Mighty, Ray, and Classic Sonic, I hadn't really expected to see either of those again, after the unenthusiastic response to Sonic 4.

3 hours ago, StaticMania said:

Dad jokes...as in very easy and lame. Obvious puns and punchlines.

Well, moving right along, the haunting question Sega might have to consider is, "What if making Sonic cool again isn't the best way to make games profitable?"  Tastes change, so in order to keep up, they either have to rely on a different character to keep up with the times (Shadow The Hedgehog was an attempt; it failed), revise Sonic's own personality to fit new trends better (arguably it's been attempted many times, with debatable success), or just focus more on making games good.

[StaticMania]

This has been said plenty by a bunch of people here.

Sonic doesn't need to be cool in what he says...he can just be cool in what he does.

Sonic can be a dork personality wise if it's endearing enough, that's the type of thing he actually should share with Spider-Man.

This honestly applies to most protagonist, a lot of them tend to be massive dorks...but they can do cool stuff without that actually ruining anything.

[Scritch the Cat]

4 minutes ago, StaticMania said:

This has been said plenty by a bunch of people here.

Sonic doesn't need to be cool in what he says...he can just be cool in what he does.

Sonic can be a dork personality wise if it's endearing enough, that's the type of thing he actually should share with Spider-Man.

This honestly applies to most protagonist, a lot of them tend to be massive dorks...but they can do cool stuff without that actually ruining anything.

Here's the rub, though: What sort of actions are cool?  Running fast?  If that was cool Sonic would be super-popular again.  Exploration-heavy platforming?  Maybe, but modern Sonic games don't do that much.  Memes?  Probably are cool to some people, but relying on memes for attention hasn't necessarily made Sonic sell any better.

[Rowl]

14 hours ago, Hiki said:

I have the feeling that the reasoning SEGA has for pushing other characters to the side is more that they don't want people to find other characters to be cooler than Sonic.

I think it has more to do with the fact that they do not know what to do with them anymore. Most of Sonic's shitty friends have ended their stories years ago. It is kinda hard to use any character if you as a writer told everything that you can tell with them.

Take Chip for example. His story ended with Unleashed and it is nearly impossible to use him as a character anymore without ruin his finished story. A lot of Sonic's other shitty friends are in the same boat as him. Shadow for example also had his story ended with his own game Shadow the Hedgehog. He got all his questions answered, there are no secrets anymore to discover, he made peace with himself and G.U.N., and he let his past go. There is really nothing more to do with this guy.

And you can tell, that the writers really have big trouble in fitting Shadow into the narrative of a Sonic game. In most recent games he is just there for fanservice and is grumpy all the time. He is kinda like Squidward now.

[StaticMania]

2 hours ago, Rowl said:

...and is grumpy all the time.

There's nothing wrong with that.

Unlike in SA2B, the ending of Shadow doesn't really put him in a situation where he can't come back. His interactions with characters "could" be interesting and his view on things make excellent contrast to Sonic and the others. They just never do that.

[Red Hot Jack]

I think it has been toned down recently, there isn't much of this mentality among reviewers and critics even nowadays. Maybe Sonic's friends will be accepted in the future? Sega is stupid honestly, they need to realise the problem aren't the characters (btw you can't make a game with only Sonic, Tails and Eggman), but the writing. A lot of characters are fan favorites in the community, finally they realised that and are starting to use them more.

[Diogenes]

24 minutes ago, Jack in the Snow said:

(btw you can't make a game with only Sonic, Tails and Eggman)

They, uh. Have.

Several of them.

[Red Hot Jack]

Just now, Diogenes said:

They, uh. Have.

Several of them.

I know. And guess what: those stories sucked.