Sonic's friends: Should they be defenseless without him or be capable of standing on their own two feet?

[Mountaindewandsprite]

With Sonic Force coming close to its 2nd Anniversary, I thought I'd go on a friendly rant about what irked me the most about the game: Sonic's friends being shown as defenseless or incompetent without him around. Yes, I know Sonic is the titular character and he is ultimately the one who saves the day, however, that shouldn't come at the expense of other characters' competence. In Forces we have Vector mentioning how without Sonic there is no hope, Knuckles failing a raid or something (only mentioned IIRC), Silver getting thrashed by Infinite (though in his defense, Sonic did too), and last but not least, Tails cowering before Chaos 0 (when he defeated Chaos 4) and crying for Sonic to save him. So, we're really just making the other characters defenseless now, Sega? Not surprising, considering the series has become like DBZ in the fact that characters such as Knuckles, Tails, etc. have taken a backseat while Sonic, Shadow, and Silver hog (no pun intended) all the glory. Now that I think about it, the only one's who directly fought Infinite were Sonic, Shadow, and Silver. The others just fought a bunch of clones.

[DabigRG]

Is this really a question that needs to be asked? The answer is no.

The far better question, the one worth consideration and discussion, is how capable(or defenseless) should each character be relatively speaking?

 

 

 

As for the stuff in Forces, most of those actually weren't too bad on their own. They were mildly believable things that the characters could have trouble with and had the story been much more thought through, we'd probably be singing a different tune.

Also, Silver really isn't that big despite what you'd think.

[G-Force]

I mean, it's not even a question.  Sonic's friends shouldn't be defenseless without him. 

Exactly how capable they are should vary depending on who you focus on, but none of them should be outright helpless.

[Mountaindewandsprite]

7 minutes ago, G-Force said:

I mean, it's not even a question.  Sonic's friends shouldn't be defenseless without him.

I know. It's just that in the past, I've read posts from people who justify the "defenselessness" with the "eponymous character" notion, claiming that Sonic is the titular character and that any feats from another less important character would shift attention from Sonic to said character. I probably should've used a different title.

[Eurisko]

Standing on their own two feet, but its gotta be consistent throughout 

 *COUGH - Tails in Sonic Forces 

 

 

 

[Kazhnuz]

I agree that's a bit of a false question, because there are a lot of other options and that "standing on their own two feet" is vague enough compared to the real problem that you are describing (as basically they fight against a whole army, the clone are supposed to be quite strong). About Infinite, he is supposed to be one of the more powerful creature with the help of the gameshark phantom ruby. So it makes sense that the only ones that fight against him are the nuclear powerhouse of the Sonic Universe : Sonic, Silver and Shadow that ARE supposed to be the most powerfull characters (Silver displaying fantasic powers in all the time he appears, Shadow being the ultimate life form, and Sonic being the hero and having already stand against both of them. And strangely Omega that seems to be classified in a similar level power). So I haven't a problem about "we need the most powerfull character to stand against that powerful ennemy".

I wasn't happy though that they said that the world was invaded because of the absence of Sonic : they should have said something about how it's Infinite powers that are the source of the easiness of the invasion.

 

TBH, my problem in Forces, isn't that Tails isn't a fighter, or wasn't able to fight against Chaos 0 (because Chaos 0 not being quite strong in Sonic Adventure was gameplay-wise, he is supposed to be quite powerful even without emerald in his other apparitions), it was more the writing that was painful. But Tails not being a battler ? Tails never fought alone a Chaos form, each time it was a way to basically say that "he was there and helped" during the battle, because without that the game would have had to use cutscene for each battle. He even during his cutscene said some of the stuff instead of Sonic. So I don't have a power with him being afraid of Chaos, if the frightening is well written and less cartoony because if he was actually terrified, reasonably thinking that that's it, it's over, with a well written cutscene, it would have made us more afraid for Tails (that is a young child trying to save a robot and being attacked by a replica of the god of destruction). That's actually more interesting imho what Forces tried (especially as he was quite the better strategist of the gang in Sonic Forces, as he was the one doing all the strategy that actually worked), to give him other kind of specificity. The problem is that as the writing wasn't good, we only percevied the nerfing (him being as a really lower level of fighting than other character), without perceiving the other type of change (because strategy wasn't that of a point before in the character). Thus the character arc of Tails wasn't visible, which is problematic as it's half of the character arcs of the game (the other being the avatar). And also making him having to cope with the loss of someone by giving him a "replacement"… NO, JUST NO, but that's another whole story xD.

TBH, I would really be happy if the actually continued that with a better writing : for me, they should continue having different level of power and some character not being able to hold-up power-wise with the most powerfull, that's not the problem. But they should make other kind of competences actually useful inside the story. Reusing other kind of stuff the character are able to do. They tried to do that a bit with Forces (as Rouge is the one discovering that Sonic is alive, all character helping plot-wise during the mission and discovering stuff, Tails doing all the smart strategy, Knuckles' charisma, the different missions that worked), but as the writing wasn't quite clever at showing stuff, everything wasn't obvious and was a bit drown in the most problematic stuff.

And that would be a better message, imho, and it would have especially in Forces make the message of "we need to work together to win" better, by showing how we need even people that don't fight to win a war. They tried to do it - and the Resistance did a lot of stuff without Sonic, with Sonic being more their "heavy weapon".

Generation was really bad on that point, though, with other character being relegated to just cheering Sonic.

 

So, TL;DR :

- I don't really agree that they are that "defenseless" without Sonic.

- Many of them not being able to treat some menace without Sonic/Silver/Shadow/Omega is quite logical.

- They should be able to do things of their own, but their OWN kind of things.

- Sonic Team are actually trying to make them stand on different ground, but the quality of the writing (and that fanbase are often more thinking only about big flashy attack instead of actual contributions) doesn't help to make that obvious and to 100% use this potential.

- Tails is cute so break it, but write these scenes better to make us empathize more with him.

 

( Gameplay-wise of course, especially if they are making a new RPG, Battle game or stuff like that, they should nerf probably powerful character and make less powerful more adapted xD. But there is a difference between gameplay and story )

[Diogenes]

I think too often people write off the contributions of characters just because they aren't as flashy or narratively impactful or centered in the story's focus as what Sonic does. The resistance in Forces doesn't win the war on their own but they're responsible for or integral to inspiring and supplying the avatar, breaking Sonic out of space jail, and holding back the army of villain copies while the playable characters do their business. They don't just sit around helplessly all game.

[Multikaris]

42 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

I think too often people write off the contributions of characters just because they aren't as flashy or narratively impactful or centered in the story's focus as what Sonic does. The resistance in Forces doesn't win the war on their own but they're responsible for or integral to inspiring and supplying the avatar, breaking Sonic out of space jail, and holding back the army of villain copies while the playable characters do their business. They don't just sit around helplessly all game.

Yeah, unlike Generations or even Lost World. I think Boom started with making the other characters somewhat helpful, while Lost World did some baby steps with Tails. 

[Mountaindewandsprite]

44 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

I think too often people write off the contributions of characters just because they aren't as flashy or narratively impactful or centered in the story's focus as what Sonic does. The resistance in Forces doesn't win the war on their own but they're responsible for or integral to inspiring and supplying the avatar, breaking Sonic out of space jail, and holding back the army of villain copies while the playable characters do their business. They don't just sit around helplessly all game.

Fair enough.

[DabigRG]

2 hours ago, Mountaindewandsprite said:

I know. It's just that in the past, I've read posts from people who justify the "defenselessness" with the "eponymous character" notion, claiming that Sonic is the titular character and that any feats from another less important character would shift attention from Sonic to said character. I probably should've used a different title.

Honestly, part of the reason that issue popped up is because Shadow and to an extent Silver were starting to get far more competence, relevance, and agency in the story than Sonic himself. 

It's another factor where the games were getting to into doing something and then the disaster of the series caused them to take the opposite approach and then overly cling to it. 

1 hour ago, Kazhnuz said:

 (And strangely Omega that seems to be classified in a similar level power).

I don't know about that, but if true, it's because he was revealed to be capable of and eventually would succeed in sealing Shadow in a possible future. And that itself is likely a cerberus explanation for why he was sealed away with him to begin with.

.

1 hour ago, Kazhnuz said:

 

Generation was really bad on that point, though, with other character being relegated to just cheering Sonic.

 

 

1 hour ago, Miragnarok said:

Yeah, unlike Generations or even Lost World. I think Boom started with making the other characters somewhat helpful, while Lost World did some baby steps with Tails. 

In the case of Generations, that was primarily because the story was so paper thin in what plot is actually there. It's an anniversary game where the big threat is just a weird monster that eats time and Sonic fixes things by collecting the Chaos Emeralds & running as usual. The friends(minus Omega, eventually Big, and initially Shadow & Silver) are also there because it's an anniversary game going "Remember these guys? Remember these things about them?" and have them cheering Sonic on because they're his friends and allies from over the course of the franchise.

With Lost World though, yeah, I definitely feel that game could've done more with what it had. The Lost Hex could've used some sort of legend explaining what it's supposed to be, The Deadly Six could've used some more context around who they are and what they were doing before Eggman conquered them, and characters like Knuckles & Eggman should've had a little more to do.

[DabigRG]

 

 

I guess 20 minutes is the limit, huh?

[Kuzu]

1 hour ago, Diogenes said:

I think too often people write off the contributions of characters just because they aren't as flashy or narratively impactful or centered in the story's focus as what Sonic does. The resistance in Forces doesn't win the war on their own but they're responsible for or integral to inspiring and supplying the avatar, breaking Sonic out of space jail, and holding back the army of villain copies while the playable characters do their business. They don't just sit around helplessly all game.

I think this is the problem in and of itself; what the resistance does "matters", but it's given no focus to really have any impact on the player. Telling and not showing basically.

 

 

This is kind of a loaded question though; it kind of goes without saying that everybody should be able to contribute something, but there are only a handful of main characters the game will focus on. The resistance aren't the focus of the story...at least anyone outside of Sonic, Classic, and the Avatar anyway. Those are the main characters and the ones the story is about, so it kind of goes without saying that they would have the most weight on the narrative. 

Now if this specifically about how nobody but those three contributed much to Forces...well...like I said "telling and not showing" is in full effect here. And really, its just one of the many problems with Forces` narrative, but I'm not here to talk about that. 

[G-Force]

2 hours ago, Diogenes said:

I think too often people write off the contributions of characters just because they aren't as flashy or narratively impactful or centered in the story's focus as what Sonic does. The resistance in Forces doesn't win the war on their own but they're responsible for or integral to inspiring and supplying the avatar, breaking Sonic out of space jail, and holding back the army of villain copies while the playable characters do their business. They don't just sit around helplessly all game.

Ok, sure, credit where it's due, but this just makes it seem like the resistance had everything they needed to get these jobs done, and yet completely failed to do so until they had a random shmuck and/or Sonic to do the heavy lifting for them.

That doesn't really seem better to me.

[Diogenes]

Why does everything always have to be all-or-nothing? Either the resistance is useless or they could've won on their own...is there no room for "they were slowly losing ground in a protracted war but Sonic/the avatar tipped the balance in their favor"?

[knuckles20]

You can never convince me that the non-Sonic characters can’t be independent heroes kicking ass. Because I’ve seen what they’re capable of in previous games and the comics and to reduce them to helpless infants who can’t do anything without Sonic is just irritating. 

[DabigRG]

3 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

Why does everything always have to be all-or-nothing? 

You can ask that to SonicTeam in general. 

 

Anyway, it's implied that the Resistance was doing well enough for a while, but with only Silver as their heavy hitter and most of the Eggy Six as the Eggman Empire's, they were gradually losing ground and the people were likewise losing hope. It was with the Rookie joining up, Rouge discovering that Sonic is still alive, and later Tails & Shadow joining back up after disappearing that they started winning. 

[knuckles20]

2 hours ago, Mountaindewandsprite said:

I know. It's just that in the past, I've read posts from people who justify the "defenselessness" with the "eponymous character" notion, claiming that Sonic is the titular character and that any feats from another less important character would shift attention from Sonic to said character. I probably should've used a different title.

Everytime I see that regrading Sonic I can’t help but think that Sonic has a narcissistic fragile ego who can’t handle other people taking action. 

[Shadowlax]

Depends on the character I guess. Like I dunno, Shadow, knuckles, blaze , amy should probably be proactive in...whatever they are doing. Cream or charmy maybe not so much

[DabigRG]

8 minutes ago, knuckles20 said:

Everytime I see that regrading Sonic I can’t help but think that Sonic has a narcissistic fragile ego who can’t handle other people taking action. 

Is that where all that Sonic is too smug and/or perfect stuff comes from? 

[knuckles20]

9 minutes ago, DabigRG said:

Is that where all that Sonic is too smug and/or perfect stuff comes from? 

Well from my experience the smug comes from not taking Eggman as a serious threat and treating him like an grade school brat.

As for the too perfect, well I’ll just say I’m not fond of the games since Colors for reasons I’ve discussed before.

[DabigRG]

4 minutes ago, knuckles20 said:

Well from my experience the smug comes from not taking Eggman as a serious threat and treating him like an grade school brat.

As for the too perfect, well I’ll just say I’m not that fond for the games since Colors for reasons I’ve discussed before.

I was primarily referring to people complaining about it last year, but okay. 

[Ryannumber1gamer]

1 hour ago, G-Force said:

Ok, sure, credit where it's due, but this just makes it seem like the resistance had everything they needed to get these jobs done, and yet completely failed to do so until they had a random shmuck and/or Sonic to do the heavy lifting for them.

That doesn't really seem better to me.

 

1 hour ago, Diogenes said:

Why does everything always have to be all-or-nothing? Either the resistance is useless or they could've won on their own...is there no room for "they were slowly losing ground in a protracted war but Sonic/the avatar tipped the balance in their favor"?

I'd frankly argue even that didn't really do much of anything. When they had Sonic and the Avatar playing for them, it was still pretty clear that Eggman was still vastly outpowering them. They tried some coordinated attacks on various Eggman stations, but even then, Eggman didn't really lose tons of ground, and even successfully baited Sonic and the Avatar into getting themselves trapped in Null Space. The game tries to tell you that you're making a difference and taking the world back bit by bit, but it doesn't really feel like that much at all.

The thing that really tipped the scales against Eggman was the prototype Phantom Rubies not being properly disposed of. The avatar getting ahold of one, and being able to utilise it to stop Eggman's final plan to completely obliterate the Resistance was the point where the tables shifted and the Resistance finally made leeway against Eggman's plans, destroying the main ruby once and for all. Had they not gotten ahold of that prototype, the resistance would've been wiped out, and Eggman would've been free to continue his rule (assuming that he didn't stupidly wipe himself and the planet out as well).

As for the topic question, I mean everyone else put it best, it's a loaded and frankly obvious question - no, they shouldn't be useless. If they just exist to be extensions of Sonic's character (or rather, existed to boaster him) rather than be their own characters, no one would like them. It would fall into the DBZ trap of having the extended cast be interesting enough, but ultimately worthless, and stuck waiting around for Goku, or Vegeta, or Gohan to appear and save their asses from the big bad of the arc.

[Multikaris]

I also find Sonic's friends being defenseless to be redundant with the prescence of truly helpless creatures like the Animal Friends, Chao, humanity, or the Wisps around. Lost World actually made the right call by not having characters around if they weren't to do anything with them (except poor Knuckles).

[DabigRG]

On the topic of what each character should be capable of, we actually did discuss each character's strength, intelligence, and speed a few months ago.

If we want, these subjects can be reevaluated and pitched around here.

1 hour ago, Ryannumber1gamer said:

 

I'd frankly argue even that didn't really do much of anything. When they had Sonic and the Avatar playing for them, it was still pretty clear that Eggman was still vastly outpowering them. They tried some coordinated attacks on various Eggman stations, but even then, Eggman didn't really lose tons of ground, and even successfully baited Sonic and the Avatar into getting themselves trapped in Null Space. The game tries to tell you that you're making a difference and taking the world back bit by bit, but it doesn't really feel like that much at all.

The thing that really tipped the scales against Eggman was the prototype Phantom Rubies not being properly disposed of. The avatar getting ahold of one, and being able to utilise it to stop Eggman's final plan to completely obliterate the Resistance was the point where the tables shifted and the Resistance finally made leeway against Eggman's plans, destroying the main ruby once and for all. Had they not gotten ahold of that prototype, the resistance would've been wiped out, and Eggman would've been free to continue his rule (assuming that he didn't stupidly wipe himself and the planet out as well).

As for the topic question, I mean everyone else put it best, it's a loaded and frankly obvious question - no, they shouldn't be useless. If they just exist to be extensions of Sonic's character (or rather, existed to boaster him) rather than be their own characters, no one would like them. It would fall into the DBZ trap of having the extended cast be interesting enough, but ultimately worthless, and stuck waiting around for Goku, or Vegeta, or Gohan to appear and save their asses from the big bad of the arc.

This is indeed a very good, crucial point.

I'll admit that I almost forgot about that.

[Mountaindewandsprite]

2 hours ago, knuckles20 said:

You can never convince me that the non-Sonic characters can’t be independent heroes kicking ass. Because I’ve seen what they’re capable of in previous games and the comics and to reduce them to helpless infants who can’t do anything without Sonic is just irritating. 

This is basically what I'm trying to get at. In past games (mainly the Sonic Adventure series), the supporting cast were capable and competent, but not in a way that drew attention away from Sonic.