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Wraith

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One thing I like about Tangle is that they designed her around a mobility gimmick first. I can't stop thinking about ways the main games could use her or a character like her that could swing and toss enemies around. Combine it with Sonic's natural ball physics and you'd have a character that could be a pretty significant addition. Use her tail to swing from grapple point to grapple point or swing around trees and poles to gain speed on the ground. 

One problem is trying to figure out what types of things she can grapple onto and how she would react to them. I want her to be able to use her gimmick fairly often but I don't want the level design to lean too hard on grapple points the Sonic can't use. I want to sort of camouflage them depending on the stage as  branches, poles, or whatever, but it also has to be pretty clear what you could hook onto and what you can't. 

 

Whisper is a little less exciting because wisp gimmicks have been in the games before, but I like the idea of a character that can change their secondary action freely depending on the wisp they have equipped. You could have a hover, a glide, an air dash and more potentially all on the same character which would be insane for speedrunning. 

You could balance this out by making them cosumable and the order they can be used in fixed, so Whisper players will have to consider their loadout a little going into a stage. That wouldn't be as fun as being able to break levels freely, but you dont want her to be too easy. I just like the idea behind a character that can "freestyle" to go along with the fixed gimmicks of earlier sonic characters.

 

This is mainly mechanics focused but you can talk about introducing them in the lore too I guess. I just didn't see the point in that with Whisper's backstory still being a mystery in the comics. 

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1 hour ago, Wraith said:

One thing I like about Tangle is that they designed her around a mobility gimmick first. I can't stop thinking about ways the main games could use her or a character like her that could swing and toss enemies around. Combine it with Sonic's natural ball physics and you'd have a character that could be a pretty significant addition. Use her tail to swing from grapple point to grapple point or swing around trees and poles to gain speed on the ground. 

One problem is trying to figure out what types of things she can grapple onto and how she would react to them. I want her to be able to use her gimmick fairly often but I don't want the level design to lean too hard on grapple points the Sonic can't use. I want to sort of camouflage them depending on the stage as  branches, poles, or whatever, but it also has to be pretty clear what you could hook onto and what you can't. 

Yes I would also like a spiritual successor to Ristar.

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I've been imagining "Sonic, but with a grappling hook" making for incredibly fun gameplay for years now, so I'd love to see Tangle (or a character with a similar ability) in a game designed to really explore that kind of motion. I've actually even spent time thinking up how I'd make an entirely original game based on that kind of gameplay; some of my ideas might be too ambitious or not really well suited to a Sonic game specifically, but here's the gist of what's been rolling around in my head.

I'd have two buttons for using her tail/grappling hook/whatever ability. The first auto-targets enemies and interactable objects like the homing attack, meant for use at higher speeds and for following the paths the designers deliberately lay out. The second would be manually aimed using the right stick (I picture the camera zooming in to an over-the-shoulder view once you start aiming, though I'm not sure if that'd be too disorienting, or annoying when you're just trying to look around rather than aim) and could attach to most surfaces for more organic, off-the-beaten-path travel. In either case you'd end up in the same state on a successful hit. Hold the button to continue hanging on and swing freely like a pendulum, release the button to, well, release. Press the attack button (or maybe just jump) to zip to your target. This works as her version of the homing attack when attached to an enemy. If instead you're attached to a wall, you've got a few options; keep holding the grapple button to wall cling (from which you could jump, drop, maybe start a wall run), release it while zipping to just let physics take over,  or hold the run/parkour button to immediately go into a wall run (as long as your angle isn't too perpendicular to the wall). I've also thought about an ability to sort of "flex" your tail/grapple/whatever and fling yourself kind of like how the capturable poles and forks in Mario Odyssey work.

Whisper...I'm far less interested in. She's basically just the Avatar from Forces but she can use any wisp instead of being locked into one.  I think if I was going to try to make it work I'd tie each wisp to a specific ability rather than having different movesets to switch between; more Zero than Mega Man X. The wisps have a pretty eclectic set of powers so I'm not really sure how to turn them into a single coherent moveset though...but speaking of Mega Man, now I'm imagining her using spike like MM10's wheel cutter,  turning her wispon into some kind of plasma-bladed push lawn mower as she runs and using it to zip straight up walls.

e: or like the Inkling's roller. Splatoon might be a decent thing to look to for inspiration, since it's interestingly platform-y while also being gun-focused.

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Well the Avatar did have a grappling hook but it was a real shitty one with pretty limited use. The wispons were the much bigger focus. Plus it was an actual grappling hook device, not a natural physical ability like Tangle's, so Tangle using her tail gives off a much stronger impression than "here's a gadget any asshole can strap on and use".

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32 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

 

Whisper...I'm far less interested in. She's basically just the Avatar from Forces but she can use any wisp instead of being locked into one.  I think if I was going to try to make it work I'd tie each wisp to a specific ability rather than having different movesets to switch between; more Zero than Mega Man X. The wisps have a pretty eclectic set of powers so I'm not really sure how to turn them into a single coherent moveset though...but speaking of Mega Man, now I'm imagining her using spike like MM10's wheel cutter,  turning her wispon into some kind of plasma-bladed push lawn mower as she runs and using it to zip straight up walls.

 

Worth noting that its extremely easy to make up new wisps beyond the base set, so whisper could potentially have any combination of abilities that suits her.

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26 minutes ago, Marco9966 said:

SEGA will make them one-dimensional and strip them of their charm

And they’ll STILL be an improvement over everyone introduced since Orbot.

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I think the cast is already huge and there is little place for them sadly. Maybe in spin-offs but even then, I don't see the point. And this is coming from somebody who LOVES Tangle and Whisper, I'd love to see them in the games, but where? I don't want them to replace game characters.

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44 minutes ago, Wraith said:

Worth noting that its extremely easy to make up new wisps beyond the base set, so whisper could potentially have any combination of abilities that suits her.

True, but there's already quite a lot as it is, and I think Whisper's supposed to have a more personal relationship with the ones she's been seen with, so I'd imagine that's where they'd start if they actually did try to make her playable.

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They should focus on the characters they have been neglecting before even Thinking about adding those two

 

Not to mention the backlash from SATam fans would be huge if those two got in the games before The FF

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On Whisper, I'm a little tied: 

  • On one hand, she falls in line with characters that brings something to the series with [likely] adding to another character. She also has the bonus of building off existing concepts within the games. 
  • On the other hand, she'd probably suffer from being added into the SEGAcast's restrictions. To say nothing of being inhrrently tied to Forces.

So ultimately, that's a no for her too. 

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1 hour ago, Diogenes said:

True, but there's already quite a lot as it is, and I think Whisper's supposed to have a more personal relationship with the ones she's been seen with, so I'd imagine that's where they'd start if they actually did try to make her playable.

I wouldn't be devoted to sticking with that set specifically if I were introducing her in a new canon, but if I had to I would still be interested in making it work. She's a lot less intuitive than Tangle in a way that may cause problems so I'm not a stickler for her, but I just thought the idea behind the Wispon was neat. 

Expanding her moveset metroid style instead of changing it is a good call. I was trying to find ways to keep her from running circles around Sonic but I guess it's not too big of an issue. 

As for Tangle, I think flexing your tail could ve as simple as running away from the grapple point and releasing once you build up enough tension. Maybe combine it with the standard Sonic spindash to let her launch herself at crazy speeds. 

I also like the idea of picking up smaller enemies and objects and being able to run with them. 

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23 minutes ago, Wraith said:

As for Tangle, I think flexing your tail could've been as simple as running away from the grapple point and releasing once you build up enough tension.

So it'd be like the Combi-ring but better.

Tangle would be automatically better due to not having to drag someone else around.

That was a neat idea that...ironically could be more realized without the 2 characters thing.

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3 hours ago, Tangled Jack said:

I think the cast is already huge and there is little place for them sadly. Maybe in spin-offs but even then, I don't see the point. And this is coming from somebody who LOVES Tangle and Whisper, I'd love to see them in the games, but where? I don't want them to replace game characters.

The roster in the games is also full of crap that we can cut to make room for them; like the Deadly Six. 

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Personally, I don't really believe in this "room" thingy, to be frank. Whisper and Tangle occupy their own niche, and are complementary to the existing cast, and could be added pretty easily, according that they are usefull to the game. And TBH, it's not like every characters have to be here all the time. We already have a kinda rotating cast, with character that doesn't appear all the time. For instance, I would see more Tangle in stuff that works like "Advance" (simple ludologist side-games with a simple-yet-nice-story), while Whisper would work better in heavy story games.

30 minutes ago, Miragnarok said:

The roster in the games is also full of crap that we can cut to make room for them; like the Deadly Six. 

Which wouldn't make "room for them", as you are talking about removing secondary villain to add new protagonists. The number of character doesn't really work like Pokemon PC boxes 😛 It's not "we can't have more than 42 characters". It would be like saying that Cream wasn't in Forces to make enough place for Infinite.

To make "room" for them (depending of if we believe in the "too many character" hard vision), it would be more removing character that would occupy the same niche than them that would be more logical.

 

 

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I was told for literally a decade that the comics characters should stay in the comics. It was practically treated as a tautology around here for a decent amount of time. I don't think anything has warranted a change in that viewpoint now.

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7 minutes ago, Tornado said:

I was told for literally a decade that the comics characters should stay in the comics. It was practically treated as a tautology around here for a decent amount of time. I don't think anything has warranted a change in that viewpoint now.

I think the difference is IDW goes out of its way to be more in-line with the game universe, whereas Archie only really delved into that for the straight-up tie-in stories and to a lesser extent towards the end of the run. Like, I see your point, but I do wonder if the marketing and how the IDW comics are constructed in relation to the games (even if it's still not exactly a "comics = canon to games" situation) have changed the viewpoint here. 

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5 minutes ago, Tornado said:

We should have Chris in the games then too.

Or get the Freedom Fighters in IDW.

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I'm not gonna argue the characters actually should be added to the games but I think they're quite possibly the first comic characters to feel like they'd actually fit in the games, both in general design and in their abilities.

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54 minutes ago, Miragnarok said:

The roster in the games is also full of crap that we can cut to make room for them; like the Deadly Six. 

The Deadly Six are villains, though. Which automatically offers more to a particular game or story.

Tangle on the other hand would just be another hero for the already benched supporting cast.

27 minutes ago, Kazhnuz said:

Personally, I don't really believe in this "room" thingy, to be frank. And TBH, it's not like every characters have to be here all the time. We already have a kinda rotating cast, with character that doesn't appear all the time. 

Which wouldn't make "room for them", as you are talking about removing secondary villain to add new protagonists. The number of character doesn't really work like Pokemon PC boxes 😛 It's not "we can't have more than 42 characters". 

 

Pretty much.

28 minutes ago, Kazhnuz said:

To make "room" for them (depending of if we believe in the "too many character" hard vision), it would be more removing character that would occupy the same niche than them that would be more logical.

Which would then run into the issue of pushing out established characters just to make new additions more valuable.

17 minutes ago, Tornado said:

We should have Chris in the games then too.

 

12 minutes ago, Miragnarok said:

Or get the Freedom Fighters in IDW.

You know, you say that, but both Sonic X in hindsight and the Archie reboot in particular basically established a way they can be around without necessarily HAVING to be around.

9 minutes ago, StaticMania said:

The dislike for Sally & Friends is astonishing at this current moment in time.

I don't think it has anything to do with that.

With that said, the vibe that people may hold a grudge for them not originating in something loyal to the games and/or not jiving with it for the longest is probably a motive for some people out there.

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It's almost as if  Tangle and whisper were created with Sonic's lore and style in mind while the Freedom Fighters were created by people who weren't given any info on Sonic besides being a cool fast dude with attitude

 

There's also the fact that stuff Like Sally and Bunnie's backstories would clash heavily with Game Sonic lore, and Rotor's role would clash with Tails , and Antoine would never work in the Post-Bush era where people associate that type of stereotypes with  Iraq war supporters. 

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