Tails: between success and disservice of the character

[Bowbowis]

An argument I used to see thrown around a lot by Shadow haters for why he should disappear is that his arc was concluded in ShtH and he therefore had nothing  of value to keep him relevant going forward. Ironically, while post-ShtH Shadow immediately carved out a solid niche with his new role as a GUN agent and his strong team dynamic with Rouge and Omega the argument is, I think, a fairly accurate description of the problem facing Tails post-Adventure.

Tails learned to stand on his own in SA1. SA2 reaffirmed that development. After that the writers just seem to have no idea what to do with him and either ignore his development, like Heroes, or leave him as a generic smart-guy who occasionally does smart-guy thing but is otherwise just kind of there for the sake of being there, like '06. Attempts to spice up the latter characterization, like the sass machine of the Pontaff games, just tend to lose the traits that made Tails endearing in the first place.

Riders and Chronicles managed to give him some more character through his dynamics with Wave and Eggman respectively, but both are rather situational and don't work for building an interesting new status quo for Tails. For my money though, the game which best utilizes Tails post-Adventure is Sonic Battle. Unlike other games Battle treats the conclusion of Tails' story in Adventure as the beginning of his growth rather than the end of it. In Battle we see a Tails who has realized he can't rely on Sonic forever and is actively trying to become more independent (such as by requesting that Sonic not accompany him when he takes Emerl to the Central Lab). Still, he's not fully self assured yet and has moments where he becomes demoralized or gets in over his head and needs to lean on Sonic or Knuckles for help. He hasn't become fully self-sufficient yet but he's trying to get there.

[Kuzu]

5 hours ago, Diogenes said:

"Immediately", in this case, meaning at some unknown point across a several month span where his best friend is missing and possibly dead and Eggman has effectively taken over the world.

And it's not really fair to compare Tails in his mech vs Eggman in a functionally identical mech against Tails, unarmed, against 5 guys who just effortlessly beat the shit out of Sonic.

The main point is that Tails was willing to step up before, even when he fully thought Sonic was dead.

Compared to literally giving up all hope and not even trying to do anything until Classic Sonic comes into the picture.

 

If Tails has to have a breakdown that he has to overcome, fine. But Forces doesn't really justify itself very well because it half asses everything about its narrative.

 

Tails watched Sonic get the shit beat out of him...fine. How is that any worse than watching Sonic get blown up? Well the story doesn't really care to explain that, so it just is...because reasons I guess.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

30 minutes ago, Kuzu said:

The main point is that Tails was willing to step up before, even when he fully thought Sonic was dead.

Compared to literally giving up all hope and not even trying to do anything until Classic Sonic comes into the picture.

 

If Tails has to have a breakdown that he has to overcome, fine. But Forces doesn't really justify itself very well because it half asses everything about its narrative.

 

Tails watched Sonic get the shit beat out of him...fine. How is that any worse than watching Sonic get blown up? Well the story doesn't really care to explain that, so it just is...because reasons I guess.

He also faced down a massive Eggman piloted mech alone, and without any gadgets or inventions that was hell bent on destroying Station Square as well, and without Sonic to help, so the fact he was in a mech in SA2 is moot, he faced down Eggman alone before when the odds were massively stacked against him.

Not to mention I could accept being a bit worried about a 5v1 fight after seeing Sonic beaten down, I could even get that maybe he tried to save Sonic and it wasn’t focused on. But Tails didn’t even bother to help fight Infinite and co when they were literally 5v1 against Sonic, when Tails could’ve at least tried to help even the odds by helping him, or even the aforementioned cowering in front of bog standard badniks, there is literally zero excuse for Tails to be afraid of them when he wiped them out plenty of times in the past.

and there’s also the fact that by Chaos and Shadow both being present, they practically spotlight the fact that both SA and SA2 happened, so it is pretty much the same person who was capable of destroying gigantic Eggman mechs alone and facing down his greatest enemy after said enemy supposedly killed his best friend due to his accidental slip about their plan, is now the exact same person cowering in fear of basic badniks.

[Shadowlax]

44 minutes ago, Kuzu said:

The main point is that Tails was willing to step up before, even when he fully thought Sonic was dead.

Compared to literally giving up all hope and not even trying to do anything until Classic Sonic comes into the picture.

 

Quote

If Tails has to have a breakdown that he has to overcome, fine. But Forces doesn't really justify itself very well because it half asses everything about its narrative.

 

Tails watched Sonic get the shit beat out of him...fine. How is that any worse than watching Sonic get blown up? Well the story doesn't really care to explain that, so it just is...because reasons I guess.

This is my problem. Tails having to overcome his fears is one thing. Tails breaking down despite nothing in this situation being really that different besides " we really want to push this bad guy" to the degree in which he's cowering and can't function with out A sonic, sucks.

They didn't have to dunk on tail's character to make shadow look good in sa2 and it sucks they think they have to make tail's...this to make infinite and sonic look good now. Tail's can be a competent person even with a new bad guy around.

I guess in a meta sense what might make the situation worse is that infinite might not even last, so they choose to have this be the representation of the character for a bunch of people, for a character who is so bad they might not even stay around.  GREAT!

So I guess I approach this situation a lot differently from you all I guess. You all are looking at this from a narrative standpoint, but I think the issue where this stems from and all the tail's problems are purely corporate ones.

 

[Diogenes]

3 hours ago, Kuzu said:

The main point is that Tails was willing to step up before, even when he fully thought Sonic was dead.

Compared to literally giving up all hope and not even trying to do anything until Classic Sonic comes into the picture.

We don't know what all happened in the months between Sonic's beating and Classic appearing. Considering that even at his apparent worst Tails is out there in the still-smoldering ruins of a now-Eggman-controlled city trying to fix Omega it seems like a bit much to assume he never tried to do anything. He's clearly in a bad state but he didn't enter a permanent fetal position the moment Sonic went down.

3 hours ago, Kuzu said:

Tails watched Sonic get the shit beat out of him...fine. How is that any worse than watching Sonic get blown up? Well the story doesn't really care to explain that, so it just is...because reasons I guess.

It's the difference between being in the heat of the moment and being beaten down by months of tragedy.

2 hours ago, Ryannumber1Scarer said:

But Tails didn’t even bother to help fight Infinite and co when they were literally 5v1 against Sonic, when Tails could’ve at least tried to help even the odds by helping him,

What's going to help Sonic more, someone who's not primarily a fighter throwing themselves into the fight, or figuring out what the deal is with this impossibly fast guy and his inexplicable posse? Even Sonic wants Tails to figure out what's going on in that scene, not jump in and start swinging.

2 hours ago, Ryannumber1Scarer said:

or even the aforementioned cowering in front of bog standard badniks, there is literally zero excuse for Tails to be afraid of them when he wiped them out plenty of times in the past.

Forces' Egg Pawns look like chumps but they're still meant to be at least moderately dangerous, and he's put himself between them and a group of innocents. He doesn't have a lot of options at that point that wouldn't end with someone being turned into swiss cheese.

[Kuzu]

Then that's a failure on the story for not explaining shit then. If I'm supposed to assume that Tails is beaten down from months of tragedy after Sonic is captured, then that's something you need to show for it to have the proper impact, rather than just having us infer what happened through a text box. 

Because the entire thing happens so abruptly, that it comes off as comical and has been mocked across the internet.

 

Imagine if in Sonic Adventure, after Tails is separated from Sonic, we just get a textbox of what he did to upgrade the Tornado and never actually got to see any of it or his flashback to his first meeting with Sonic was completely omitted; that final fight with Eggman would have nowhere near as much weight.

 

I'm all for having characters experience certain types of hardship, but it needs to be done with respect to what's occurred before and properly conveyed to have the necessary impact you intend.

[Almar]

You all are overthinking this. They didn't want Tails to be important so the Mary Sue could be.

[Celestia]

I think that was more a result of only really throwing Classic Sonic in last minute for the vague Generations resemblance (and tie-in to Mania) than Tails. It's Classic that's genuinely a non-entity in the story. In fact it kinda reminds me of how Tails' stages in SA2 are uh...often thinly justified story-wise.

The main theme literally says "the TWO of us."

[Diogenes]

3 hours ago, Kuzu said:

Then that's a failure on the story for not explaining shit then.

On that we agree. I'm certainly not going to argue that anything in Forces is well-told, just that the game was trying to set up something with Tails and wasn't just shitting on him out of ignorance or malice.

[Kuzu]

2 hours ago, Diogenes said:

On that we agree. I'm certainly not going to argue that anything in Forces is well-told, just that the game was trying to set up something with Tails and wasn't just shitting on him out of ignorance or malice.

Yea, I don't know if I agree with this lol. It definitely feels like not doing pretty basic research.

[DabigRG]

20 hours ago, Ryannumber1Scarer said:

1. There's also him immediately facing down Eggman in SA2 after Eggman launches Sonic to his death. Tails in Forces immediately goes into a despair that the other characters say is Tails going nuts, Tails in SA2 immediately rises to the occasion, and decides he's going to be strong to save Amy and fulfil Sonic's last wish to stop Eggman no matter what, and save the planet.That's not even pointing out the fact that Sonic being knocked out by Eggman and co is a lot more ambiguous than seeing Sonic placed into an exploding capsule and sent out to a mocking death in front of his friends, only escaping via the power of chaos control,
2. and then in Forces where Sonic is imprisoned for a few days/weeks, and then escaping due to Illusion Zavok being a complete idiot. 
3. Or we could also point out the fact that Tails practically had a hand in Sonic's near-death in SA2 was because he didn't have Sonic's poker face and he fell for Eggman's trick and revealed that the emerald Sonic was placing down for the ransom was a fake, confirming something that Eggman only lightly suspected and bluffed about.
4. And even then, Tails stood his ground to fight Eggman as the planet hanged in the balance, while in Forces, in pretty much the same situation where Eggman was going to gain control of the planet, Tails did nothing, was afraid of a few mooks, and didn't even try to save Sonic. Like, screw fighting, or being scared, you'd think at the very least, Tails would've made some kind of effort to airlift Sonic out of there, even if Infinite quickly shot him back down. The level of character inconsistency here is absolutely ridiculous, not helped later by Tails immediately jumping back to smug rival when he and Classic meet Eggman in later levels. 

Gonna just number these so I don't have to edit:

1. There is technically a difference in stopping Eggman himself right then and there vs. saving Sonic from five villains who have mostly proven themselves capable of countering him.

2.That's what I thought during the initial stream of the game, but he was actually there because Eggman realized the Resistance discovered Sonic was alive and so tried to get rid of him.

3. Which arguably gives him more reason to fix things then and there.

4. This sorta falls into sort mix of power creep, the stakes being escalated so many times, "overdeveloping" things, and of course somewhat loose storytelling. The character already hit that second high years ago in the climax of an epic story, so it can or will be awkward to appropriately carry through with that energy at the very beginning of the newest one.

 

 

18 hours ago, Bowbowis said:

An argument I used to see thrown around a lot by Shadow haters for why he should disappear is that his arc was concluded in ShtH and he therefore had nothing  of value to keep him relevant going forward. Ironically, while post-ShtH Shadow immediately carved out a solid niche with his new role as a GUN agent and his strong team dynamic with Rouge and Omega the argument is, I think, a fairly accurate description of the problem facing Tails post-Adventure.

True.

To make another comparison, Amy at the very least got her own sidekick and Team framework to lead and further develop with going forward, even if it didn't quite do so while panning. And some of the other characters hypothetically have enough of a basis or connection with other things to potentially gain ground on if giving the chance.

Tails doing things without Sonic and being the tinkerer capable of countering Eggman's latest scheme is about as far as he's gotten, with Tails Adventure retroactively being the closest to a normal step forward.

[A Peep]

uhh... I hate Tails in Lost World, he’s like, “sonic why u work with baldy mc nosehair, I made a Wii u gamepad out of toothpaste and lego, u don’t trust me”, like at least in forces, Tails has every bit of personality sucked out of him, but it makes him more boring than anything 

[DabigRG]

So I was listening to the latest episode of Pizza Party Podcast and one of the guests suggested that Tails usually a POV character. Anyone agree with that assessment?

[Sonic Fan J]

I think him and Amy actually both serve really well as POV characters and kind of would like it if more stories actually liked at it from that stance. Of course I'm also like the only person I know who prefers to see Sonic as a larger than life teenager through the eyes of grade school children as that was how he was for me back in the early nineties. That and him being a childrens' book like character but infinitely cooler.

[DabigRG]

16 minutes ago, Sonic Fan J said:

I think him and Amy actually both serve really well as POV characters and kind of would like it if more stories actually liked at it from that stance.

Really now?

[CaptainRobo]

I accidentally post something that is not related to this topic. So, I got nothing to say on this. Sorry, guys. 

[Shadowlax]

3 hours ago, DabigRG said:

So I was listening to the latest episode of Pizza Party Podcast and one of the guests suggested that Tails usually a POV character. Anyone agree with that assessment?

If you mean for how we view the story. I dissagree. The narrative is often focused around who you are playing as at the moment. If you mean , for younger members of the audience. I would say yes, but I would also say every sonic character or at least most of the core ones, are POV's. The series IMO i kinda built for you attaching yourself with the ones you vibe with best. Sonic if tails is your pov in whatever scenario he can be. So can sonic, knuckles, amy , shadow, blaze, silver, even eggman in sa2. 

 

Now should he POV for a film? I don't know if I want that to be honest, but I feel like the issue with tails now is that he needs more agency and forcing him to be the vector for the audience in this sort of scenario removes it

[Sonic Fan J]

On 12/6/2019 at 7:30 AM, DabigRG said:

Really now?

A lot of it stems from my viewpoint of Sonic himself, but yeah. I just find it weird at times humanizing a larger than life character through their own POV than through someone who isn't larger than life. Just my take though.

On 12/6/2019 at 10:33 AM, Shadowlax said:

If you mean for how we view the story. I dissagree. The narrative is often focused around who you are playing as at the moment. If you mean , for younger members of the audience. I would say yes, but I would also say every sonic character or at least most of the core ones, are POV's. The series IMO i kinda built for you attaching yourself with the ones you vibe with best. Sonic if tails is your pov in whatever scenario he can be. So can sonic, knuckles, amy , shadow, blaze, silver, even eggman in sa2. 

 

Now should he POV for a film? I don't know if I want that to be honest, but I feel like the issue with tails now is that he needs more agency and forcing him to be the vector for the audience in this sort of scenario removes it

I'm probably misinterpreting your point here, but a lot of it reads as though the second person narrative has been thrown out without due consideration. I'd use Dr. Watson as a fine example of a well known and distinctive second person narrator but arguable Tails' role does require actual breakdown and study of his character and role to use him as an effective second person narrator. Unfortunately, outside of Ian Flynn no one seems willing to reconcile Tails' disparate personality facets back into him being one character. Though perhaps putting him in the position of a second person narrator would help to rectify that by actually putting us in his head and allowing us to the world and Sonic's story from his POV.

[Shadowlax]

2 hours ago, Sonic Fan J said:

A lot of it stems from my viewpoint of Sonic himself, but yeah. I just find it weird at times humanizing a larger than life character through their own POV than through someone who isn't larger than life. Just my take though.

I'm probably misinterpreting your point here, but a lot of it reads as though the second person narrative has been thrown out without due consideration. I'd use Dr. Watson as a fine example of a well known and distinctive second person narrator but arguable Tails' role does require actual breakdown and study of his character and role to use him as an effective second person narrator.

I'm not saying you can't consider it at all. To be blunt I would love stories where you are in the eyes of others seeing how they feel about them. Would love it for a few characters. What I am saying however is that sonic narratives tend to be very strait foward. Your perspective is who you play at the time.

The idea is that they want you to identify with the character you identify with. So everyone is a POV character, just for yourself. Kinda. Sonic characters and often video game characters in general talk as if they are selling themselves to you

2 hours ago, Sonic Fan J said:

Unfortunately, outside of Ian Flynn no one seems willing to reconcile Tails' disparate personality facets back into him being one character. Though perhaps putting him in the position of a second person narrator would help to rectify that by actually putting us in his head and allowing us to the world and Sonic's story from his POV.

Different branches of sega have very different ideas about sonic and wont reconcile. This is unfortunately the norm

[Sonario]

Hugely unpopular opinion here, but I kinda liked his character progression from Colors and Generations to Lost World. He was bratty, arrogant and a bit of a jerk, but that's only logical for his age as a growing preteen, plus his role model is Sonic so he'd obviously try to emulate his 'tude, which leads to him taking it too far and becoming a jerk. He even realizes this in the story and somewhat goes back to his original nice personality while still keeping some of the 'tude. Sure, it's not handled all that well, but I got what they were going for and personally, I liked it. Made Tails less one-dimensional at least.

I think Tails gaining some of Sonic's cockiness while still remaining pure hearted, polite and cheerful at heart makes him less bland. (his one-liners from Team Sonic Racing and his subtle jabs in the Twitter Takeover like saying Eggman fails at long walks along the beach are great bits of characterization for him IMO). His personality in Sonic Colors and the OK-KO Crossover event is Modern Tails at his best IMO, occasional snark here and there, a bit of tude, but overall being the smart, friendly, helpful and heroic ball of sunshine we all know and love.

His "characterization" in Forces on the other hand is just plain garbage. He's never been cowardly or overly dependent on Sonic, even standing up to Eggman back in SA1 despite his fears (Just me, but I love the Luigi parallels). Glad he's not that way anywhere else so far and has gone back to normal as of TSR.

[Milkman_1032]

In my opinion I wouldn’t say Tails “stopped being a hero” because he still is but he’s just not a fighting hero. He still has his heroic moments like in Sonic Forces when Tails saved the day from the sun by giving the prototype phantom Ruby to the Avatar. If Tails didn’t do that the illusion sun would of fried everyone on the planet!

[batson]

It's things such as Tails' portrayal in Lost World that almost makes me kinda glad that SEGA seems to have largely given up on the idea of Sonic having a canon (compared to both the classic age and the Adventure age where each main game tended to be correlated to the next). The negative aspect of canon is that whenever a character has a wildy out of character moment, then by the laws of canon you always need to consider that that moment decisevely happened, even from the point of view of later installments. If Tails had been a massive asshat in Sonic Adventure 1 then we wouldn't have been able to look at Tails in Sonic Adventure 2 without knowing that this is the same guy that acted like an asshat, in other words he is a character that is an asshat, even if we dont get to see his asshatery at this exact moment.

But now it's like, neither SEGA nor anyone else have any idea of what happened or didn't happen. Is Angel Island located close to Station Square or do the two places exist on different planets or different dimensions? Is classic Sonic from the past or from another dimension? Does modern Sonic have any memories of the events of Sonic 1 or did those events happen to classic Sonic who is a different guy?

Basically, who cares if Tails is a bitch in one game when seemingly every game now takes place in it's on little universe where some of the stuff from some of the other games probably happened but we don't know which games or which stuff and we don't know if even the stuff from the games that did take place in the timeline of the new game happened exactly the way they happened in the original game or in a different way and between classic and modern we don't even know if the stuff happened to the same  guys or if they happened to two different groups of guys from different dimensions.

[Milkman_1032]

On 7/7/2019 at 6:06 AM, Red Hot Jack said:

I think that Miles "Tails" Prower is an awesome character, really accompanies Sonic well as a sidekick during the classic era, he was great, he was the buddy that follows Sonic and acts like him, tries to imitate him, and learns to spin dash along with the blue hero. Plus he was a fantastic playable character in Sonic 3 & Knuckles, with his Flying ability, really making the game easier for beginner players.

Now, Adventure Tails is also great, he wants to step up as a main hero, not being overshadowed by Sonic anymore, he wants to become his own person. I really loved this evolution in the 1998-2001 period. Also he finds his own inventions, planes, mechs, even though most people including me didn't like that he was being relegated to shooting gameplay in Sonic Adventure 2, really boring and just to provide a skin to Eggman, as he wasn't planned as playable in the beta phase of the game. But still, great writing for him, he wants to avenge Sonic and become the leader when he believes Sonic is dead at the end of the game.

Now, what happened here? In Sonic 2006, he was already misused compared to other friend characters in the game, but that game was an unfinished mess, Tails I believe was supposed to be the fourth main character but later became an amigo character, but still, he really lacked screentime or his own stages compared to people like Rouge, Omega, Blaze and even Amy who is playable in few stages, they all still had their own plots, Knuckles was another underdog in that game.

I know that in the last 10 years, due to the failure of Sonic 2006 the "shitty friends" were given a minor role and the focus was back on Sonic, that Tails still had been given a better role than Knuckles, Amy and Shadow, among Others, who also deserved better, so everyone was misused, but Tails in particular, in these games:

1. Sonic Unleashed: the main focus is the friendship between Sonic and Chip, which I did not approve as it meant Tails was useless, besides, he became a damsel in distress who couldn't fight the Dark Gaia monsters, he was only used for the Tornado travelling.

2. Sonic Lost World: Tails became a focus again in the story, but at what cost? The Writers Pontaff didn't know what to do with him, and the focus on the triangle Tails - Sonic - Eggman became a thing, with Tails on the wrong side, the jealous one, although he was right about Eggman betraying them, obviously. Tails is smart, but now he is so smart he became an arrogant jerk who is a prig and declares he is intelligent he doesn't need help. Really Tails' worst portrayal, but at least he did something, unlike...

3. Sonic Forces: where Tails is once again the damsel in distress, he can't fix Omega, he can't fight simple Chaos 0 and ask for help by any Sonic, he is really useless, only having the form of hope that Sonic will return. Although he does some good in the game, but only for exposition scenes with Eggman, the Avatar to explain the stuff about the Phantom Ruby prototypes. Another big disservice to the character in my opinion.

But, I'm aware that most of you already knew all of that, I still want to express my disappointment that the Writers have no idea what to do with the character sadly.

However there IS some good in recent Tails appearances, besides main games, he was just acceptable in Sonic Colors and Sonic Generations, once again a supporting character but at least well written, Tails has become more independent, less an action hero but more of a tech guy who works on his creations, a smart but kind boy who is no longer Sonic's puppy, but his own person, even though he is not a hero like in the Dreamcast days.

But Tails' best recent appearances where he is well written are 2, in particular, besides Sonic Mania where he is a cool playable character, but talking in story perspective and writing:

1. Sonic Boom cartoon: When he's not written by Pontaff, Tails is a really gentle kid who adores Sonic, but also works on his machines, creations, he is an ace pilot, and the character quirks, although not many, are that he is nerdy and his inventions are buggy as hell, and they put his friends in danger, which worries Tails to fix the problem. I thought it was nice writing, although most episodes revolved around the same basic plotline, and that became boring fast.

2. Sonic IDW comics: Forgetting some really horrible moments during the Archie days of the Ian Flynn era, where there was that infamous triangle with Fiona and Tails slaps Sonic, Flynn redeemed himself already during the reboot, although there weren't any Tails focused stories, and there aren't any Tails centrics yet in IDW, but still, Tails is written pretty well as most characters are, he is a fighter again, he is useful, he is smart and careful without being arrogant, he works on his creations and tries to find a cure for the virus in later issues, realizes that someone else is controlling the robots during season 1, etc. I'm really looking forward to some solo Tails comics in the future.

So what do you think? What role should Tails have in the future? How should he be handled?

Yea in my opinion I feel like it would make a lot more sense if Tails was a main character that supports Sonic but not like a sidekick. Think about Crash Bandicoots sister she supports Crash but she is not considered a sidekick! 

1 minute ago, Milkman_1032 said:

Yea in my opinion I feel like it would make a lot more sense if Tails was a main character that supports Sonic but not like a sidekick. Think about Crash Bandicoots sister she supports Crash but she is not considered a sidekick! 

But yea that’s not going to happen at this rate but Sonic does need the support Tails gives. Sometimes I just wish they would make Tails a main character that can be a support character to Team Sonic instead of Sonic’s sidekick. Idk what do you think? He is fine how he is now anyway 

 

[Milkman_1032]

On 7/7/2019 at 8:50 AM, Badnik Mechanic said:

So if you're feeling brave...

When I was researching for that video... I looked at a lot of games which have had Tails in since Generations and I have noticed that they're trying to change a lot of the mainline cast to be more supportive and not just be a Sonic in another colour.

I can't remember everything I said in that video since it's getting on for a year old now, but from what I remember when I looked into his character.

When you look at what was going on in Sonic Adventure, they clearly portrayed him as a character who was trying to step out of his best friends shadow and stand on his own. Which was fine. A lot of games and secondary media until them had portrayed him as that. 

Now SA2 is an odd one, because the big belief is that originally he wasn't to be in that game (or at the least not very much at all), but it's kinda a continuation of what happens in Adventure, then we get the moment at the end of the game when he thinks Sonic has died and battles Eggman that a lot of his fans think is amazing.

The problems start in Heroes, both Tails and Knuckles start to become on par with Sonic in terms of their abilities in, they're also on par with Sonic now... but have all their additional benefits, like Tails being an inventor and computer programmer. The example in the video I give... Imagine there's a scenario where Eggman attacks in an airship, and Tails is around with his plane... If you think how he was post Heroes and Pre-Generations, there's the question of "Why are we waiting for Sonic? When Tails can easily handle this?"

And this goes on for several games, then around the time Generations comes out, stuff starts to change for all the characters, but with Tails specifically things seem more drastic. Tails seems more towards the technical support and tactician rather than the go to hero. 

For me at least that's fine.

 

I know a lot of people dislike Tails in Sonic Lost World, but... I actually think his portrayal in that game is really good. Aside from the one or two howlers, Tails is always active in the support role here, he's using his abilities to benefit the mission, even when he's captured he uses his abilities to try and escape. 

Now with Forces.... That game is a mess, for me it feels like they tried and then dropped an angle for the character but didn't try to re-write it. But in the initial opening section, there is still a hint of the positive aspects they've tried to do with him and you even see Sonic gesture to Tails to not get involved in the battle. Tails was really to get involved but Sonic said no.

The issues come afterwards, it can be explained with what's in there, but... Forces is a mess.

They could still betray Tails as a main character while being a support character. They just haven’t thought about doing that.

Just now, Milkman_1032 said:

They could still betray Tails as a main character while being a support character. They just haven’t thought about doing that.

Ok well the closest to Tails being a equal  support character would be Tails in Sonic forces sense he does more then just help modern Sonic.

[Badnik Mechanic]

Well... Since this has been bumped and assuming anyone cares enough to re-read this topic years on.

I've been recently taking a close look at Sonic Adventure and... I'm starting to feel like Tails... Has been amazingly misunderstood and totally mis-represented 

In Sonic Adventure, Tails as a character is far more akin to his portrayal in Sonic Forces than people are willing to admit, or want to remember. I don't wanna go to deep into this because... Well topic is 2 years old and not sure if people still care and also currently upto my eyeballs in working out my interpretation of him.

In adventure, Tails as a character is an utter minefield of contradiction from what the game presents him as being, what his theme song portrays him as, and how his gameplay supports it.

Let me give you an example, according to his song lyrics, he looks upto Sonic and wants to be as strong and as cool as he is. But he realises that he can't, but that's ok because he can help his friends and be better at things that they can't do.

---- This is literally every modern interpretation of Tails down to a T. Tails isn't trying to be a 2nd Sonic, he's on the sides doing other stuff to help out.

But in Adventure his gameplay is basically being exactly like Sonic... But faster. We can debate memory and design restraints as the reason why that is... it's not a great look when your painting him as one way, yet his gameplay narrative contradicts it.

If people want I'll elaborate on this with other examples, but even conceptions I used to have about him, such as the plot being him gaining confidence is also a tad undermined when if anything, in Adventure he just has a weird form of Imposter Syndrome over a lack of confidence.