Anyone else bored of Eggman being the villain? Also the series should go back to basics!

[Multikaris]

6 hours ago, StaticMania said:

Eggman's too much of a coward right now to ever face Sonic directly anymore if it isn't in his ULTIMATE machine.

Ever notice how he rarely does that anymore?

He only ever does it in the 2D games.

What's the deal with airline food with that?

Even in the games where he wasn’t the main antagonist, he still faced you multiple times. The only exceptions to this thing today are Generations & Forces.

[StaticMania]

He faces you twice...at most.

In each 3D game besides Heroes.

[Dr. Mechano]

37 minutes ago, StaticMania said:

He faces you twice...at most.

In each 3D game besides Heroes.

Let's see, actually... Will bold all games that have more than two, just for funsies!

Sonic Adventure: 3 (Egg Hornet, Egg Walker, Egg Viper)
Sonic Adventure 2: 2 (Both Tails character battles)
Sonic Heroes: 0 (That was Metal Sonic, not Eggman.)
Shadow the Hedgehog: Only 2 unique boss mechs (Egg Breaker and Egg Dealer), but is fought 6 times
Sonic 06: 1. Eggman only fights you directly in the Egg Wyvern. Cerberus and Genesis are autonomous robots he sends after you.
Sonic Unleashed: 6 (Egg Beetle, Egg Devil Ray, Egg Lancer, Egg Dragoon, and two separate battles against the Egg Cauldron)
Sonic Colors: 1 (Egg Nega Wisp)
Sonic Generations: 3 (Death Egg Robot, Egg Dragoon, Time Eater)
Sonic Lost World: 1 (Final Boss)
Sonic Forces: 2 (Eggmobile/Egg Dragoon, ultimate Death Egg Robot)

So yeah, you're right. With very few exceptions, the 3D games limit Eggman to two battles or less, which pales in comparison to the wonderful variety of boss mechs he usually breaks out in the 2D titles.

[Kuzu]

I'm guessing since the 3D games are more story focused, they don't want Eggman's appearances to play themselves out. The flipside is that you see comparatively less of him

[Dr. Detective]

It's also important to avoid the danger of shaving down the quality and worth of Eggman's presence within the story to some calculated number of times you have a direct run in with him. If a story is more involved, how many times he appears to fight you will likely be affected by that. It could increase or decrease depending on what he specifically needs to be doing too.

It's not gonna be like "I've got a plan to talk over with Hades and Maleficent. It's very important but my robots just contacted me on my cell and told me Sonic's just finished a level. I need to go and fight him. Be right back."

[StaticMania]

Eggman's not got affiliates, that shouldn't be a problem...>>>

[Dr. Mechano]

2 hours ago, Kuzu the Boloedge said:

I'm guessing since the 3D games are more story focused, they don't want Eggman's appearances to play themselves out. The flipside is that you see comparatively less of him

SA2 managed to balance this, interestingly. He appeared pretty sparsely in the Hero story, taking a backseat to GUN's forces and even Shadow himself as Sonic's direct major obstacles - but can arguably be considered the main character and driving force of the dark story, being fully playable himself and actively directing the other two playable characters in a number of stages.

[Kuzu]

But as you said, him and Sonic never fight directly and Eggman only has one stage in the second half of the game after Prison Island to Shadow's two.

[DabigRG]

7 hours ago, Dr. Mechano said:

.

Sonic Unleashed: 6 (Egg Beetle, Egg Devil Ray, Egg Lancer, Egg Dragoon, and two separate battles against the Egg Cauldron)
 

The Devil Ray and Lancer are controlled by SA-55 via these little white robots outside the PS2 version. The Cauldron likewise is implied to be similar, only this time Eggman is giving orders as well. 

[Dr. Mechano]

2 hours ago, Kuzu the Boloedge said:

But as you said, him and Sonic never fight directly and Eggman only has one stage in the second half of the game after Prison Island to Shadow's two.

He still has more stages than Shadow, total, though. It's just that most of his are earlier on.

Either way, he is still given a lot lot of focus in the story and I maintain that t's one of his best appearances to this day, despite - and maybe partially because of - him not having the coveted final boss position.

[Wittymations]

21 hours ago, DabigRG said:

That's kind of a fair point.

Oh and Unleashed had him split the planet apart using Super Sonic's energy and harness Dark Gaia's energy(somehow) to finally build Eggmanland.

There's that. Yeah.

It's a cool intro. But seemed to be the extent of it. Nobody in universe seemed to really give a crap that all happened, much less Sonic. You'd think he'd be at least slightly bothered about the Super Sonic thing, but naw.

 

12 hours ago, Dr. Mechano said:

SA2 managed to balance this, interestingly. He appeared pretty sparsely in the Hero story, taking a backseat to GUN's forces and even Shadow himself as Sonic's direct major obstacles - but can arguably be considered the main character and driving force of the dark story, being fully playable himself and actively directing the other two playable characters in a number of stages.

 

The playable thing is what really does it. He can afford to not play Big Baddie up so much when you're literally playing him.

Personally, this is also why I want a Sonic and Eggman game. Where you play those two characters alone, have a few boss fights too with each other. Some Sonic win, but some Eggman win. Would establish them as equal footing.

[Multikaris]

12 hours ago, Dr. Mechano said:

SA2 managed to balance this, interestingly. He appeared pretty sparsely in the Hero story, taking a backseat to GUN's forces and even Shadow himself as Sonic's direct major obstacles - but can arguably be considered the main character and driving force of the dark story, being fully playable himself and actively directing the other two playable characters in a number of stages.

Also, at least Colors and 06 had a number of autonomous machine bosses Eggman would send after you, and Heroes’s boss machines were implicitly stolen from him. The problem didn’t get really bad until Lost World, I think. 

[DabigRG]

15 minutes ago, Miragnarok said:

Also, at least Colors and 06 had a number of autonomous machine bosses Eggman would send after you, and Heroes’s boss machines were implicitly stolen from him. The problem didn’t get really bad until Lost World, I think. 

On that note, the mechs used by most of the Deadly Six were explicitly created by him in tandem with somehow honing their abilities.

[UpCDownCLeftCRightC]

15 hours ago, Kuzu the Boloedge said:

I'm guessing since the 3D games are more story focused, they don't want Eggman's appearances to play themselves out. The flipside is that you see comparatively less of him

I actually think it has more to do with the increased difficulty in designing a nontrivial boss for sonic in a 3D space. It's much easier to design bosses in a 2D plane with a smaller battlefield and fixed camera view. In a sense it is easier to exploit such a set up for different iterations of a boss coming emerging from somewhere off screen to attack you in a set pattern and then dip away.

3D sonic has none of these constraints and thus you must take all of them into account while still trying to create a boss that is a markedly different experience than the last. 

[Multikaris]

1 hour ago, DabigRG said:

On that note, the mechs used by most of the Deadly Six were explicitly created by him in tandem with somehow honing their abilities.

Then again, these machines were usually secondary to the actual fight. Zik also does not have a mech. 

[DabigRG]

1 minute ago, Miragnarok said:

Then again, these machines were usually secondary to the actual fight. Zik also does not have a mech. 

I know.(Outside of the 3DS version)

Which is interesting.

[Roger_van_der_weide]

Welcome StarwarsSonic, our dear timetravel from the year 2006!
Welcome to the world of tomorrow in what I like to call "2019!"
What's that?
You want Sonic to go back to basics?
Like only Sonic and Tails playable, back to classic style gameplay, green hill zone, back to the roots?

Boy

do I

have

great

news

for you.


Now do me a favor and wake me up when one of these alleged "All Sonic's shitty friends are playable and there's a deep complicated dark story and Dr. Eggman is super over the top" games shows up, thanks. Everyone seems convinced they're all over the place but I can't find them.

I agree Team Sonic racing was way too generous with giving Sonic's friends a playable role. Blaze AGAIN? Come on Sega, she had 2 entire playable appearences 15 years ago, don't over-do it. Team Sonic racing would indeed have been superior if it only had 15 diffrent incarnations of Sonic playable. Finally time for "Sprite from Sonic spinball" to get its well deserved time in the spotlights.

Sarcasm aside, I too am tired of Eggman, but not because he's too over the top. Au contraire, it's because he's dull and bland, either an ineffectual clown making dad jokes or bland bad guy man.
I'm all for Dr. Eggman if they give him his old intensity back.

[Dr. Mechano]

To be fair, I thought he was plenty intense in Mania.

He even got betrayed by one of his minions but didn't get sidelined as the true final boss - instead turning the big ultimate final fight into a three-way tussle between Sonic, Eggman, and Heavy King. That's an interesting way to do a new antagonist on equal footing with Eggman without having to go totally knock him aside.

[Kuzu]

Its about as intense as anything he did in the Classic games. 

[DabigRG]

12 minutes ago, Dr. Mechano said:

To be fair, I thought he was plenty intense in Mania.

He even got betrayed by one of his minions but didn't get sidelined as the true final boss - instead turning the big ultimate final fight into a three-way tussle between Sonic, Eggman, and Heavy King. That's an interesting way to do a new antagonist on equal footing with Eggman without having to go totally knock him aside.

Yeah, I was actually thinking about that recently.

[Wraith]

The heavies are largely indistinguishable from Eggman in terms of style, personality, goal etc. As much as I'm happy to have a quirky set of minobosses to fight the game would have hardly been any different had they just been Eggman's creations. 

 

I essentially felt like I was playing an Eggman centric, Eggman dominated game anyway.

[Dr. Mechano]

Sonic having a proper rogues gallery of recurring villains - of whom Eggman would be one of many - could address some of these concerns.

As it stands, any time a new villain does come along, they almost always get killed/sealed/redeemed/otherwise neutralized and never come back as a villain ever again.

They could always dig up some of the classic non-Eggman villains like Witchcart, Great Battle Kukku, or Fang. Or the next time they introduce a new one, have them actually get away so they can come back for future schemes.

One-and-done villains don't really have time to grow or develop an identity within the greater series. 

[Sonic Fan J]

One of the things I've pondered about as of late is revisiting the Industrialization vs Nature aspect of the franchise and visiting it more so from a wider spectrum than the industrialization bad, nature good. Just off of the top of my head sticking to anthros and nature's reaction to technology, you have nature which embraces and depends on technology (Lyric actually fits this and snakes being a natural enemy of hedgehogs should have created better chemistry between him and Sonic that brought out Sonic's serious and philosophical sides), you have nature that takes advantage of technology for itself (I still think a villain who repurposes Eggman's tech, or even GUN and other abandoned tech for a mishmash look, would be a fun character and I can see Starline doing so in IDW if he splits with the doc though I also like to think of Fang being able to fill the role just as he likes money and selling and using old tech plays to that. that and his care of the Marvelous Queen makes him look like he has some engineering skills that could be expanded upon), you have nature that tries to exist and appease those who use technology (Infinite falls into this role in the games and I think it would be fun to see him constantly trying to regain favor in the future while taking out the rage of his failure on Sonic and everything he holds dear), and you can have nature that tries to imitate technology for its own ends. That alone keeps you in theme, allows for around four other villains, and aside from distinct imagery from Eggman you also have characters who challenge Sonic and the different aspects of his personality. And that is just playing on the nature side. You could introduce a rival to Eggman who uses their own technology to bait and battle Sonic just to try and prove that they are the superior tech villain, and that isn't even accounting for GUN having the occasional need to go after Sonic for allowing, and occasionally enabling, Eggman and these other vilains. They would become an enemy just by the nature of believing that Sonic needs to be neutralized (Industrialization trying to replace Nature is a theme that can come from this and be explored) as his existence is a threat that brings instability. And none of this is even touching the mystical side and the dangers of drawing out the mysticism of nature. I can already imagine Sonic having to protect the industrial side from a vengeful shaman who desires to destroy it all while promoting that tech and nature can coexist. There are just so many possibilities that can take advantage of so much and expand beyond just Sonic, but also help give the supporting cast more defined roles.

Anyway, sorry about that rambly wall of text, but it was kind of a hard thought process to break down with the little time I currently have to type it. But, while I'm not bored of Eggman (I just wish he was more world threatening because he's competent despite being a goof rather than he's a goof who endangers the world) I do see merit in growing Sonic's rogues gallery as long as it stays in theme (something I feel the Deadly Six fail at). So I guess looking at it like that I fall into the I'm good with Eggman but wouldn't mind more and need a return to basics only so much as it allows the expansion of Sonic's world through the exploration of the Industrialization vs Nature stance.

[Dr. Mechano]

44 minutes ago, Sonic Fan J said:

One of the things I've pondered about as of late is revisiting the Industrialization vs Nature aspect of the franchise and visiting it more so from a wider spectrum than the industrialization bad, nature good.

Sonic CD is a great example, actually.

All the Good Futures are still more technologically advanced than the present; but use clean technology that exists in harmony with nature, rather than at its expense as in the Bad Futures.

CD really was a great example of positive industrialization, and fairly early in the franchise's history to boot. 

[Meta77]

Give me IDW eggman and ill be fine. Segas writing is horrible lately