Tails: between success and disservice of the character

[DabigRG]

Just now, dbzfan7 said:

 

Couldn't say. I didn't watch all of Boom, I stopped because I thought it was shit, and later season 2 clips I did see were also shit. So I have not bothered to dive in.

 

Sounds about right.

[Kuzu]

Listen, I didn't say he was perfect; there's never going to be a perfect version of every character ever. All I'm saying is that...he's actually a character in Boom who can exist outside of being Sonic's sidekick. Boom is a differnet universe, and should not be judged to the same standards as every other version since that's absurd. 

[Strickerx5]

The thing with Tails (and really the rest of the cast) is that they really are in a bad spot due to a number of reasons. The main point of contention being that they're not seen as important because they're not " the main character" and the games often treat them as such.

It's a problem that a lot of series run into. Where writers will take the main character and only focus on them. Tbf, in a loose sense that is the main's job. To be the one that comes out the biggest hero at the end of the day. Though, for some series (including Sonic) the writers don't have any sense of balance with that. The world these characters live in seem scripted around the fact that they can't fail and that, in turn, also hurts the secondaries as well. Often to the point where their own characters are dumbed-down just so that the main character is shown as being ahead at all times. That lack of balance is lazy/ downright bad writing and it's only one issue that's been plaguing the series for a decade now.

Again, this is an issue that every secondary is suffering from but Tails seemingly gets the worst of it because he's the one that still gets any substantial amount of screen time at all. The real sad part here is that while other series manage to at least succeed in making the main character interesting, the current writing team still has trouble with Sonic himself.

You also have to consider that, with these being games, there's the added element of Tails (and others) "having" to be side-stepped. They're not playable, Sonic is. As a writer, you basically have to form each cutscene around what Sonic does in the next level. Of course, there are a multitude of ways that you could form the script to not mess over the secondaries but to be frank, that takes a level of competence I don't think the current writing staff have in regards to this series.

So imo, that's the reason why Tails is less in the forefront of the action now and why they've locked him into the path of being IT support. Now tbf, I'm actually not against his role in LW on paper. Hell, they even manage to show Tails excelling in the role at certain points. The problem is that, like the rest of LW's narrative, it's not all there and that simply applies to Tails too. For every one scene we get of Tails outsmarting the Zeti, you get three others of him in jealous mode or bragging about how he made a super computer out of gd soap.

It's a small slice of what makes LW a poorly written mess and a lot of those issues carried over into Forces. Only there, Tails doesn't get any scenes of him outsmarting Infinite or anyone. He's simply set to "support the main character no matter what" mode. Someone has to be around to help move Classic's "narrative" along.

[DabigRG]

9 minutes ago, Kuzu the Boloedge said:

Listen, I didn't say he was perfect; there's never going to be a perfect version of every character ever. All I'm saying is that...he's actually a character in Boom who can exist outside of being Sonic's sidekick. Boom is a differnet universe, and should not be judged to the same standards as every other version since that's absurd. 

Understood.

7 minutes ago, Strickerx5 said:

 

It's a problem that a lot of series run into. Where writers will take the main character and only focus on them. Tbf, in a loose sense that is the main's job. To be the one that comes out the biggest hero at the end of the day. Though, for some series (including Sonic) the writers don't have any sense of balance with that. The world these characters live in seem scripted around the fact that they can't fail and that, in turn, also hurts the secondaries as well. Often to the point where their own characters are dumbed-down just so that the main character is shown as being ahead at all times. That lack of balance is lazy/ downright bad writing and it's only one issue that's been plaguing the series for a decade now.

Again, this is an issue that every secondary is suffering from but Tails seemingly gets the worst of it because he's the one that still gets any substantial amount of screen time at all. The real sad part here is that while other series manage to at least succeed in making the main character interesting, the current writing team still has trouble with Sonic himself.

Oh yeah, I can see that..

 

 

 

[Kuzu]

13 minutes ago, Strickerx5 said:

The thing with Tails (and really the rest of the cast) is that they really are in a bad spot due to a number of reasons. The main point of contention being that they're not seen as important because they're not " the main character" and the games often treat them as such.

It's a problem that a lot of series run into. Where writers will take the main character and only focus on them. Tbf, in a loose sense that is the main's job. To be the one that comes out the biggest hero at the end of the day. Though, for some series (including Sonic) the writers don't have any sense of balance with that. The world these characters live in seem scripted around the fact that they can't fail and that, in turn, also hurts the secondaries as well. Often to the point where their own characters are dumbed-down just so that the main character is shown as being ahead at all times. That lack of balance is lazy/ downright bad writing and it's only one issue that's been plaguing the series for a decade now.

Again, this is an issue that every secondary is suffering from but Tails seemingly gets the worst of it because he's the one that still gets any substantial amount of screen time at all. The real sad part here is that while other series manage to at least succeed in making the main character interesting, the current writing team still has trouble with Sonic himself.

You also have to consider that, with these being games, there's the added element of Tails (and others) "having" to be side-stepped. They're not playable, Sonic is. As a writer, you basically have to form each cutscene around what Sonic does in the next level. Of course, there are a multitude of ways that you could form the script to not mess over the secondaries but to be frank, that takes a level of competence I don't think the current writing staff have in regards to this series.

So imo, that's the reason why Tails is less in the forefront of the action now and why they've locked him into the path of being IT support. Now tbf, I'm actually not against his role in LW on paper. Hell, they even manage to show Tails excelling in the role at certain points. The problem is that, like the rest of LW's narrative, it's not all there and that simply applies to Tails too. For every one scene we get of Tails outsmarting the Zeti, you get three others of him in jealous mode or bragging about how he made a super computer out of gd soap.

It's a small slice of what makes LW a poorly written mess and a lot of those issues carried over into Forces. Only there, Tails doesn't get any scenes of him outsmarting Infinite or anyone. He's simply set to "support the main character no matter what" mode. Someone has to be around to help move Classic's "narrative" along.

I wouldn't really say it's lazy or bad writing; at the end of the day, the series main goal is provide an enriching gameplay experience to the player. You don't need a secondary cast to accomplish that. It sucks if you are a fan of the secondary cast and I understand people's frustration with that, but...Sonic is, as you said, the primary character who matters at the end of the day. 

[Strickerx5]

21 minutes ago, Kuzu the Boloedge said:

I wouldn't really say it's lazy or bad writing; at the end of the day, the series main goal is provide an enriching gameplay experience to the player. You don't need a secondary cast to accomplish that. It sucks if you are a fan of the secondary cast and I understand people's frustration with that, but...Sonic is, as you said, the primary character who matters at the end of the day. 

True, that is the main goal. Although, truth be told, I've never been one for the argument of simply meeting the main goal. You might not need this stuff to ship the product, but lord knows that's a slippery train of thought that can lead to any game getting a pass. I'd rather not have corners cut just because the main goal was reached. These are different teams within ST at the end of the day so I'm really not for one team doing fine and the other doing fuck all (that's of course acting like the rest of these games are fine but hey).

The truth of the matter is, it simply isn't that hard to let Sonic be the hero at the end of the day while also not shitting on the other cast in the process. This series has done that before so I fail to see why it's ok for that same bar not to be met now. It shouldn't be hard to have other cast members doing background task during levels instead of getting 80% of their forces wiped out because Sonic isn't around.

Dumbing down the characters to that extent, to me, is terrible writing.

[Kuzu]

8 minutes ago, Strickerx5 said:

True, that is the main goal. Although, truth be told, I've never been one for the argument of simply meeting the main goal. You might not need this stuff to ship the product, but lord knows that's a slippery train of thought that can lead to any game getting a pass. I'd rather not have corners cut just because the main goal was reached. These are different teams within ST at the end of the day so I'm really not for one team doing fine and the other doing fuck all (that's of course acting like the rest of these games are fine but hey).

The truth of the matter is, it simply isn't that hard to let Sonic be the hero at the end of the day while also not shitting on the other cast in the process. This series has done that before so I fail to see why it's ok for that same bar not to be met now. It shouldn't be hard to have other cast members doing background task during levels instead of getting 80% of their forces wiped out because Sonic isn't around.

Dumbing down the characters to that extent, to me, is terrible writing.

Has it though? In the classic era, you only had three main playable characters and a few NPC's. Balancing wasn't much of an issue back then. After Sonic Adventure the cast began to bloat immensely and the series struggled to balance them there as well. It got to a point when you had a game with 12 total characters, but only a handful of them were relevant to the game itself. 

I've began to feel that the series large cast is a detriment to all of this and that culling some of them is necessary. But Sonic Team will never do that because they probably feel "every character is important" but then they never bother actually making them fit within the series. So they just linger around like a party guest that doesn't know when to leave. The average series has about 2-5 central characters, Sonic has over 10 that are all struggling for spotlight of their own. 

It's why I'll give another point to Boom; by having a much smaller cast to deal with, you can focus on developing the ones who are meant to be the focus of the narrative. Rather than having them compete with a dozen or so other characters for screen-time.  I know a lot of people are reluctant to think about this, but I feel a lot of thought should be given the idea that perhaps not all of these characters are really that necessary and that maybe the series could benefit with a more focused group. 

[Wraith]

2 minutes ago, Kuzu the Boloedge said:

I know a lot of people are reluctant to think about this, but I feel a lot of thought should be given the idea that perhaps not all of these characters are really that necessary and that maybe the series could benefit with a more focused group. 

Why is this even still being fielded as a "suggestion" when there hasn't been a Sonic game that focused on more than 3 characters in over 10 years

Half of you don't even think about the games when you talk. You're just posting the same essays from 2009

[Kuzu]

3 minutes ago, Wraith said:

Why is this even still being fielded as a "suggestion" when there hasn't been a Sonic game that focused on more than 3 characters in over 10 years

Half of you don't even think about the games when you talk. You're just posting the same essays from 2009

I don't know if you've realized this, but the games have been better received since they started doing that. I don't see what "an essay from 2009" has to do with this point. 

Like, Colors and Generations were pretty well received despite their problems, and sure enough, they are games with Sonic as the primary focus.

[Strickerx5]

7 minutes ago, Kuzu the Boloedge said:

Has it though? In the classic era, you only had three main playable characters and a few NPC's. Balancing wasn't much of an issue back then. After Sonic Adventure the cast began to bloat immensely and the series struggled to balance them there as well. It got to a point when you had a game with 12 total characters, but only a handful of them were relevant to the game itself. 

I've began to feel that the series large cast is a detriment to all of this and that culling some of them is necessary. But Sonic Team will never do that because they probably feel "every character is important" but then they never bother actually making them fit within the series. So they just linger around like a party guest that doesn't know when to leave. The average series has about 2-5 central characters, Sonic has over 10 that are all struggling for spotlight of their own. 

It's why I'll give another point to Boom; by having a much smaller cast to deal with, you can focus on developing the ones who are meant to be the focus of the narrative. Rather than having them compete with a dozen or so other characters for screen-time.  I know a lot of people are reluctant to think about this, but I feel a lot of thought should be given the idea that perhaps not all of these characters are really that necessary and that maybe the series could benefit with a more focused group. 

The games that did this are the same games that actually solved this exact issue already. Secret Rings, Unleashed, Black Knight, all of these games have Sonic as the only playable character but still managed to make use of its supporting cast without making them lesser.

A culling of characters is far from necessary. Hell, it's probably one of the worst routes they could ever take. Though, like they've been doing, you don't need to have every single one of them appear in each game. If the game only calls for a few of them, then so be it. The problem is that these latest games have been going by the ideal and yet still manage to mess up the few cast members they do deploy.

So the issue here really isn't the cast size. Imo, again, it's more of the people that are writing them.

[dbzfan7]

It's honestly not as hard people make it out to be. Well except for balancing a large cast cause that is hard. But even with a small cast they tend to not even be able to handle that either. It also doesn't help Tails case that the screen time he's given shows he's not really going anywhere but treading waters. Everyone else has either grown or is more independent. Because of the role of plot bitch he's just one of his own tools rather than his own character. Completely serving the plot they want to tell rather than himself.

Depending on who you ask Tails is a character with as much potential or nearing Sonic in where you can go with him, or his story is done and can't go anywhere like Shadows.

 

[Kuzu]

6 minutes ago, Strickerx5 said:

The games that did this are the same games that actually solved this exact issue already. Secret Rings, Unleashed, Black Knight, all of these games have Sonic as the only playable character but still managed to make use of its supporting cast without making them lesser.

A culling of characters is far from necessary. Hell, it's probably one of the worst routes they could ever take. Though, like they've been doing, you don't need to have every single one of them appear in each game. If the game only calls for a few of them, then so be it. The problem is that these latest games have been going by the ideal and yet still manage to mess up the few cast members they do deploy.

So the issue here really isn't the cast size. Imo, again, it's more of the people that are writing them.

Eh; I'd argue those three games tbh. Secret Rings is mostly about Sonic and Shahra for the most part. Tails, Knuckles and Eggman at best. Same deal with Unleashed, its focused on Sonic & Chip while Tails and Amy don't do much. Black Knight is kind of better, but the Knights of the Round are just presented as boss fights and even in the second half of the game, they're only contribution is giving up their swords so Sonic can do the heavy lifting. I don't mind that, but I would hardly argue its a point towards "using them well".

But yes, I will agree the writing in general has been an issue and not the amount of characters. 

4 minutes ago, dbzfan7 said:

It's honestly not as hard people make it out to be. Well except for balancing a large cast cause that is hard. But even with a small cast they tend to not even be able to handle that either. It also doesn't help Tails case that the screen time he's given shows he's not really going anywhere but treading waters. Everyone else has either grown or is more independent. Because of the role of plot bitch he's just one of his own tools rather than his own character. Completely serving the plot they want to tell rather than himself.

Depending on who you ask Tails is a character with as much potential or nearing Sonic in where you can go with him, or his story is done and can't go anywhere like Shadows.

 

Shadow is a much more versatile character than Tails, because he works independent of Sonic which opens room for him to branch off. Meanwhile, Tails is never anything else besides "Sonic's sidekick".

[Wraith]

14 minutes ago, Kuzu the Boloedge said:

I don't know if you've realized this, but the games have been better received since they started doing that. I don't see what "an essay from 2009" has to do with this point. 

Like, Colors and Generations were pretty well received despite their problems, and sure enough, they are games with Sonic as the primary focus.

I'm glad mainstream critics are enjoying classics like Sonic Colors, Generations and Sonic 4 episode 1, but that doesn't do anything for me and others that find those games and their narratives unsatisfactory.

[dbzfan7]

8 minutes ago, Kuzu the Boloedge said:

Shadow is a much more versatile character than Tails, because he works independent of Sonic which opens room for him to branch off. Meanwhile, Tails is never anything else besides "Sonic's sidekick".

He's not allowed to be anything else, not that he isn't anything else. Not to mention Shadow basically played out his whole story in a 3/4 game arc no less, which makes it difficult to see where to even go at this point. But he does have independence which is a much stronger characteristic that makes it easier to do something...if there was much left to do.

The difference is so much can be done with Tails still if they do it. While Shadow has had so much done with him he has less places to go. He's independent which makes a good starting point, but not much middle or end to speak of since they kinda happened already.

[Kuzu]

1 minute ago, Wraith said:

I'm glad mainstream critics are enjoying classics like Sonic Colors, Generations and Sonic 4 episode 1, but that doesn't do anything for me and others that find those games and their narratives unsatisfactory.

Then that's a personal problem. I'm not saying those games were perfect and couldn't have been better, but even nowadays people will point towards games like Colors or Generations as among the better ones in the series. And sure enough, Mania also doesn't do much more than Sonic 3 , and it's one of the best recieved games in the last five years.  

Cutting the excess fat from the series helped its reputation, even for a little bit.

2 minutes ago, dbzfan7 said:

He's not allowed to be anything else, not that he isn't anything else. Not to mention Shadow basically played out his whole story in a 3/4 game arc no less, which makes it difficult to see where to even go at this point. But he does have independence which is a much stronger characteristic that makes it easier to do something...if there was much left to do.

So is a character done as soon as their character arc is over? 

[Diogenes]

Taking out characters, on its own, doesn't fix all of the series' problems.

Bringing back characters, on its own, doesn't fix all of the series' problems.

Neither situation proves or disproves either side's point because the series' issues are complicated and numerous and this is just one part of the equation.

But that doesn't mean that both options are equally good, or equally irrelevant, or whatever. The question of how best to fix Sonic is unanswered. And we all have our own separate ideas for what would work best, which is why we keep having the same arguments over them.

Personally, I feel the fewer plates you've got to keep spinning, the more likely you are to succeed. Yes, they can still fail even with a small cast, we all know that from both reason and experience. But I still think the better of the two options is to focus on a smaller cast, get the fundamental parts of the series figured out, and then consider how to reintroduce other characters. If you disagree, fine, you can argue your view of things, or simply continue holding it, whatever. But I'd really like if we could move on from acting like it's ridiculous to even consider this option.

[DabigRG]

34 minutes ago, Kuzu the Boloedge said:

 

I've began to feel that the series large cast is a detriment to all of this and that culling some of them is necessary. But Sonic Team will never do that because they probably feel "every character is important" but then they never bother actually making them fit within the series. So they just linger around like a party guest that doesn't know when to leave. The average series has about 2-5 central characters, Sonic has over 10 that are all struggling for spotlight of their own. 

Uh, is that really apt?

Sonic has 6, maybe 7 particular substantial characters; everyone else is just recurring or semi-reliable special guests. And even those numbers are questionable.

[dbzfan7]

1 minute ago, Kuzu the Boloedge said:

So is a character done as soon as their character arc is over? 

If they can't come up with something, then yes actually. To this day many even argue his arc was done and should have died in SA2. He continued anyways to mixed results. You can continue indefinitely, but if you go nowhere you basically tread water. You become eye candy more than anything else.

It could be argued Tails character arc was done in like Adventure 2 or Heroes. Though he pulled a Gohan and 180'd any sort of development he did have, just to be put in a sub par role. Or to in the future go through the same arc again, and then 180 again. Who knows.

Comparing the two Shadow has had his story told. A lot of his dilemmas have been cased closed. All addressed or dealt with. While Tails big goal really hasn't been reached, or the closest he got led to a regression. It's easy to tell a newer Tails story because a lot hasn't been covered, things addressed, etc. Shadow's really only got trying to find a new purpose....which he's treaded on since 06 and that's about it. Of course more can be done there on said discovery, but I feel that's a lot less to do when compared to an incomplete character like Tails.

[Wraith]

My point is they essentially already gutted the cast years ago. Shadow, Rouge, Blaze etc are long gone from the series aside from playing bit parts. Their meaningful contributions have stopped. There's no more need to discuss what they should do when it's already been done. 

So, what now? How many games of fumbling around exclusively with Sonic, Tails and Eggman does it take? If theres narratives are as much of a step up as you all consider them to be, surely they've found a rhythm and can at least swap Tails out for some other character. 

[dbzfan7]

They can swap Tails with Knuckles, and his job will be to explain ancient ruins to Sonic, then do nothing else. 

[StaticMania]

Tails does what he needs to. Help Sonic, he doesn't really need to do anything else. If the writing is good, they actually act like real friends too.

His whole independence arc really never needed to be a thing, they could've did the Boom thing where he needed confidence in building things.

You'd think that'd be where he goes from the start of Sa1 if he wasn't already a child prodigy in that aspect.

[Strickerx5]

38 minutes ago, Kuzu the Boloedge said:

Then that's a personal problem. I'm not saying those games were perfect and couldn't have been better, but even nowadays people will point towards games like Colors or Generations as among the better ones in the series. And sure enough, Mania also doesn't do much more than Sonic 3 , and it's one of the best recieved games in the last five years.  

Cutting the excess fat from the series helped its reputation, even for a little bit.

I wouldn't say skimping on story details and characters is what led these games to be good at all. More that the teams involved with the other factors of the game did their job and people took note of it. That still doesn't mean that others didn't take note of the writing team's consistent failures. And that's not even getting into how titles like Gens and Colors (the latter of which having its own issues outside of story to begin with) are going on a decade old and are still really the only examples of this ever being the case. Though, we're now getting mainline games that don't do anything beyond the soundtrack well... and even that's debatable depending on who you ask.

Even with Mania I still argue that its entire game was more about emulation rather than pushing anything forward like the classics actually did. It didn't have a narrative because the classics, going by today's standards, didn't either. Completely ignoring the fact that 3&K was very ahead of its time with how it showed progression with the tech it had.

 

Eh, but honestly. I'm getting really off topic here. My point is that Tails, in the hands of better writers, can go back to actually being enjoyable to watch even if ST continue to not want to use him in actual gameplay. It's pretty clear here that a lot of people generally aren't happy with where he and the rest of the cast currently are and it's also clear that simply cutting characters or dumbing down the plot aren't that helpful either.

[Diogenes]

It's been small, faltering steps in the right direction, alongside the occasional backslide, just like with everything else in the series. It's hardly in a stable place, in any sense, so I'd still suggest focusing on figuring out the fundamentals, rather than trying to add a bunch of things and probably fucking them up too. If you want to swap Tails or Amy for someone else once in a while then fine, but I don't expect them to have any more luck by doing that.

[DabigRG]

28 minutes ago, Kuzu the Boloedge said:

Shadow is a much more versatile character than Tails, because he works independent of Sonic which opens room for him to branch off. Meanwhile, Tails is never anything else besides "Sonic's sidekick".

 

20 minutes ago, dbzfan7 said:

He's not allowed to be anything else, not that he isn't anything else. Not to mention Shadow basically played out his whole story in a 3/4 game arc no less, which makes it difficult to see where to even go at this point. But he does have independence which is a much stronger characteristic that makes it easier to do something...if there was much left to do.

The difference is so much can be done with Tails still if they do it. While Shadow has had so much done with him he has less places to go. He's independent which makes a good starting point, but not much middle or end to speak of since they kinda happened already.

Pretty much.

 

15 minutes ago, dbzfan7 said:

While Tails big goal really hasn't been reached, or the closest he got led to a regression. It's easy to tell a newer Tails story because a lot hasn't been covered, things addressed, etc. Of course more can be done there on said discovery, but I feel that's a lot less to do when compared to an incomplete character like Tails.

And what is that?

8 minutes ago, Wraith said:

My point is they essentially already gutted the cast years ago. Shadow, Rouge, Blaze etc are long gone from the series aside from playing bit parts. Their meaningful contributions have stopped. There's no more need to discuss what they should do when it's already been done. 

 

Eh, really, I'd say that's really only a thing with Shadow and maybe Jet. There's nothing stopping the other characters from getting involved when it suits their interest/atmosphere well enough.

11 minutes ago, Wraith said:

 

So, what now? How many games of fumbling around exclusively with Sonic, Tails and Eggman does it take? If theres narratives are as much of a step up as you all consider them to be, surely they've found a rhythm and can at least swap Tails out for some other character. 

One can hope.

6 minutes ago, dbzfan7 said:

They can swap Tails with Knuckles, and his job will be to explain ancient ruins to Sonic, then do nothing else. 

And contest Sonic on something, do something funny, act as a challenge mode, or otherwise punch a wall/enemy for old times sake. 

[Lord-Dreamerz]

1 minute ago, Diogenes said:

It's been small, faltering steps in the right direction, alongside the occasional backslide, just like with everything else in the series. It's hardly in a stable place, in any sense, so I'd still suggest focusing on figuring out the fundamentals, rather than trying to add a bunch of things and probably fucking them up too. If you want to swap Tails or Amy for someone else once in a while then fine, but I don't expect them to have any more luck by doing that.

The thing is SEGA/Sonic Team I don't think are even trying to look for the ultimate Sonic engine/base for the series. In fact I think they actively enjoy consistently changing it instead of trying to perfect ANYTHING because they get bored and keep on wanting to try new ideas regardless of the results. Meaning this concept that we should wait for them to get the fundamentals for the series right first never will even happen... and even if it did, it would probably only last a few games at most before they toss it all out again because of boredom.