If you were in charge of the Sonic franchise

[Ryannumber1gamer]

In terms of what I'd like to see, the first thing, as I've seen thrown around here - is the Freedom Fighters. I'm always one for expanding the lore and the world of the characters, and I think to pull that off, you need to have memorable characters who aren't always present in every single game, but make the occasional appearances. Think how Ratchet & Clank handled the world interactions in a lot of the original games, where you had a ton of bouncy, charming, and most importantly - unique characters, some appearing in later games as recurring characters, others who didn't but were just enough of a fun character to remain memorable.

I could see the Freedom Fighters slotting that role, and the Kingdom of Acorn giving us a general location that serves as a regular world, and not some over the top zone. The FF themselves I could see serving some good roles.

Even without the love interest portion, Sally is a really good foil to Sonic and his personality, and on top of that, serves a role that none of his other rival characters can fill. Sonic is cocky, extremely good in an action-filled situation, a bit egotistical, laid-back, cool, and often acts without thinking. Sally has a lot of times where she overthinks things, gets guilt-ridden over her mistakes, can be wound-up too-tight, is a very good tactician, prefers to have a plan laid out for a situation, and thinks through situations.

Sally in general is kind of the antithesis of Sonic, and I think that's interesting. Knuckles is a hot-headed egocentric numbskull a lot of the time, even with a sense of responsibility, and quick thinking at times. Shadow, especially in recent years is just becoming Vegeta, losing any kind of nuance he once had. Both of them fit the rival role, but often times, it's because they're in it for their own gain (Knuckles in his duty to protect the emerald, Shadow doing things his way no matter what) and because they share quite a lot of Sonic's personality traits, causing them to come into blows because their egos smash into each other.

The good thing Sally could bring to the table is the fact she'd be unique among Sonic's rivals. Sally will still ultimately have the same goal as Sonic in most cases, which is stopping Eggman, saving the planet, and doing the greater good, and she'd even share a lot of Sonic's morals, like sparing enemies, trying to reform them, and the like. But the two come to blows due to their different ways of handling situations, their differing personalities, and such.

You could have a arc very similar to how Archie tried to originally handle them, only severely reducing the love interest portion. Sally and Sonic came into conflict a good few times because of how they tended to handle things differently, with Sally getting annoyed with Sonic's ego and not thinking things through, while Sonic was annoyed by how bossy she was. However, the two also had a respect for each other, and the way they got things done, and deep down because of how they both wanted to do things for the greater good and help others.

A story like that could easily slot into the main games. Sally starts the game completely disapproving of Sonic's methods, and personality. Hell, you could even possibly interject a bit of Tangle in there by having her initially being a bit of a Sonic fangirl, thinking he's some legendary hero, and having this picture of Sonic in her head before realising how Sonic actually does things, causing her to have a fallen idol moment, and disapproving of Sonic, and that leading to them coming to blows, before eventually growing to respect each other, and have a friendship.

I really don't get how people say Sally could never fit into the main games, because to me, she's probably the other freedom fighter, bar Bunnie that fits in best. She has her own team that's similar to Sonic's own team, with their methods being completely different from each other, and Sonic/Sally's leadership skills/style being completely different from one another. She fits in perfectly as someone who can still be a friend of Sonic's but also come into conflict with him, leading to interesting scenarios. 

Rotor could fit in as a tech rival to Tails, which IMO would actually be really neat, because we'd have a non-villainous tech rival for Tails. Both working to help their retrospective teams, while also trying to one-up each other, or hell, maybe share notes, discuss ideas, and whatever. Antoine, someone in the last page mentioned that you could have him as a egotistical blowhard who boasts about made-up stories, and then has to put his money where his mouth is when danger actually arises, which I really love. Basically like King from One Punch Man, only Ant has no choice but to fight to back up his stories.

Bunnie works really well already IMO, especially given how Lost World introduced the concept of partial roboticisation when the D6 tried to turn Tails into a loyal cyborg to fight for them. You could potentially have a bit of world-building going on by having Bunnie be the prototype for that process that Eggman was testing, which worked initially, and she attacked the Kingdom of Acorn, only to be snapped out of it and rescued by the Freedom Fighters. Nicole could also be a good mission commander, although I admit she's the hardest to place in. But still, she's one of the best characters from the comics, and lord knows this series could be doing with more positive female characters.

I don't want to see the FFs in the games constantly, 24/7, but I think it'd be nice to have them as recurring characters in the series at the very least to flesh out the world, and make it feel a bit more alive apart from Sonic and co. It also ties into the second thing I'd like to mention, which is I'd like it if we could have more Hub like areas in the games. There's a recurring problem IMO where you've got the zones of the series, but no actual memorable locations, worlds, or what have you to flesh things out.

Stuff like Central City, and such. Places where villagers and other inhabitants of the world live. This would greatly make the world feel more populated and alive. I loved how Unleashed handled it with the different countries around the world, with their own inhabitants that you could interact with, and I really like how Archie Post-Reboot handled it as well, taking the Unleashed locations, as well as adding it's own locales. 

Last thing I'd mention is getting rid of stupid stuff that exists just to split off the universe. I can deal with the two worlds thing, even if I personally dislike it, but gating off Classic/Modern is absolutely terrible to me, since it bars characters like Mighty, Ray, and the Hooligans from appearing in Modern stuff, and vice versa. It's unneeded, and serves to just kill any possible lore, or fun interactions, like having the Hooligans meeting the Babylon Rouges and such. 

So yeah, that's basically what I've got so far at least, for lore/story stuff.

[Heckboy]

Add characters if they actually serve a purpose and can be fun to play as, not just cuz deep lore.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

12 minutes ago, Ryannumber1Scarer said:

Rotor could fit in as a tech rival to Tails, which IMO would actually be really neat, because we'd have a non-villainous tech rival for Tails. Both working to help their retrospective teams, while also trying to one-up each other, or hell, maybe share notes, discuss ideas, and whatever.

Ya know, now that you bring that up, I wanna throw a curveball to this and add Chris Thorndyke to that rivalry.

I’m not a fan of him as he was in Sonic X, but if we’re going this extra mile, I’d use the opportunity to rework him into something better. To spice up that rivalry, I’d make him more aligned to GUN and fulfill the place Hope Kintobor did in pre-Reboot Archie. Hell, it be interesting seeing a different dynamic with him and Team Dark in a more friendlier and professional sense than he did in the cartoon.

[Meta77]

1. Make it earth, but not our earth. That way sonic can run into humans and animals and all be right

2. Have some comedy but make Eggman a threat like he was in 06 and more villains based around that. No more "goofy" things like the zeti. That said id like Eggman/whoever is the main threat in the game to crack a joke or two but noting to the zetti extreme

3. More CGI cutscenes rather than in game ones

4. Keep Classic sonic far FAR away from modern

5. Take my time on making sure the game runs well. Like Mario odyessy. Do something like that for sonic

 

[Wraith]

3 minutes ago, Heckboy said:

Add characters if they actually serve a purpose and can be fun to play as, not just cuz deep lore.

what if I just like them though

[Dr. Detective]

1 hour ago, Conquering Storm’s Servant said:

Ya know, now that you bring that up, I wanna throw a curveball to this and add Chris Thorndyke to that rivalry.

I’m not a fan of him as he was in Sonic X, but if we’re going this extra mile, I’d use the opportunity to rework him into something better. To spice up that rivalry, I’d make him more aligned to GUN and fulfill the place Hope Kintobor did in pre-Reboot Archie. Hell, it be interesting seeing a different dynamic with him and Team Dark in a more friendlier and professional sense than he did in the cartoon.

Holy fucking shit. You just said what my idea for Chris was, word for word, in my head. You must be made of magic. 

I said a page or two ago that I had an idea for Chris but I didn't say what it was and this was the idea. I even said "like Hope Kintober from Archie" in my mind. A little genius kid who works in the science division for GUN. 

I wish I had gone ahead and said it now. Christ almighty. How wonderful. 

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

32 minutes ago, Dr. Franken-Mike said:

Holy fucking shit. You just said what my idea for Chris was, word for word, in my head. You must be made of magic. 

I said a page or two ago that I had an idea for Chris but I didn't say what it was and this was the idea. I even said "like Hope Kintober from Archie" in my mind. A little genius kid who works in the science division for GUN. 

I wish I had gone ahead and said it now. Christ almighty. How wonderful. 

I just like to be open to ideas. Anything can be remade well so long as you put some heart and effort.

This is all the more reason why I hate this enforced division between alternate settings, because it prevents these potentially unique and colorful interactions from characters who haven’t been in the same world.

I can imagine Rotor and Tails having a friendly rivalry until Chris shows up with his own contending project, with Nicole evaluating each one. They have brief bickering a between each other, but they’re still friendly enough to work together when things get tough.

Now imagine these three minds putting their all when Eggman goes Sonic Forces on the world...which when actually thinking about it, makes the original Forces plot look stupid when these three could hold off a sizable chunk of Eggman’s Forces by technology alone. Which I suppose is also why Eggman has Infinite (and the Egg Bosses) as a means of countering their use of tech.

Also, throw in Wave for a fourth technology specialist on Extreme Gear and see how that goes.

[DabigRG]

Funnily enough, I actually had a different idea for Chris in line with what the New252 did with Aosth. 

Is there a thread for reimaginings, BTW? 

[Dr. Detective]

1 hour ago, Conquering Storm’s Servant said:

I just like to be open to ideas. Anything can be remade well so long as you put some heart and effort.

This is all the more reason why I hate this enforced division between alternate settings, because it prevents these potentially unique and colorful interactions from characters who haven’t been in the same world.

I can imagine Rotor and Tails having a friendly rivalry until Chris shows up with his own contending project, with Nicole evaluating each one. They have brief bickering a between each other, but they’re still friendly enough to work together when things get tough.

Now imagine these three minds putting their all when Eggman goes Sonic Forces on the world...which when actually thinking about it, makes the original Forces plot look stupid when these three could hold off a sizable chunk of Eggman’s Forces by technology alone. Which I suppose is also why Eggman has Infinite (and the Egg Bosses) as a means of countering their use of tech.

Also, throw in Wave for a fourth technology specialist on Extreme Gear and see how that goes.

Way back when I had my start on these boards, I remember suggesting a game idea where Game Sonic would go from dimension to dimension with Tails and each dimension would be a different Sonic show or continuity. The response I got from just throwing out the idea was that I wanted a game full of endless "cringe" or whatever. I wasn't even claiming that I necessarily wanted a game like that. We were just throwing out ideas. Sometimes I think it's fun to do that. People get so upset when you suggest something and it doesn't line up with their perfect interpretation of how things go so I hesitate to do it sometimes. 

Now, with all that said, if I were in charge, I'd just make my focus about fixing up the game's continuity only. I wouldn't be concerned with taking characters from the comics or cartoons and adding them in. The absolute closest I could see towards doing something like that would maybe be Tangle, Whisper, and Dr. Starline. Or the Eggman's Dozen from the Archie Reboot. All of those guys were great. 

At the end of the day, though, I do find that I'm the most comfortable with the general settings and cast of characters we have now. Really, we're all just talking in a matter of who you like and who you want to see show up. That's not going to line up across everyone here. 

That said, it would be hilarious to see Sonic's reaction towards finding out he had a long lost brother and sister in Sonia and Manic. 

[Wraith]

I'd like if there was a villain team like Eggman's Dozen but I'd want it to be completely separated from Eggman in every way just to have an opposing force in this series. 

[Multikaris]

4 hours ago, DabigRG said:

Which one? 

There's also the reveal concept art with them and Sonic. 

Of the box-art version of him. 

[DabigRG]

14 minutes ago, Miragnarok said:

Of the box-art version of him. 

And where was that presented? 

[Shadowlax]

The idea of forcing shadow and team dark back into gun and shoving chris in there seems horribly tone deaf and possibly offensive to me. But that's just me take

Also while sega's mandates as of late have been uh... not great. The shift made from the preboot to the reboot was great. There doesn't need to be a hope knotibor, type thing for shadow and team dark. For shadow primary and to connect this to the topic itself , I would have shadow just move on with his life. Which they are kind of having him do not... just really poorly.

Shadow while deciding to help people is largely an isolated individual, instead of keeping held up in gun , which was always a bad idea and i'm glad its officially gone, or tyring to find him a surrogate maria. He has to like...be a person and deal with life and shit, and see who he is without those crutches to his identity . And in my hypothetical handling of the franchise , that is what a 2nd shadow game would be. Sort of like yakuza where you kinda meet people see what they are about and help them and go on wacky adventures. While I enjoy what shadow's truma does for him, maria really isn't that interesting and the desire for surrogate humans wont fix that. And him being a part of gun was always weird.

But him being some guy who goes out on his own and helps people to me fits the bill of the character and considering his stern disposition would allow for wackier characters he would find to play off him well. Like kiryu from yakuza, who if i'm being honest is just human more stoic  shadow the hedgehog.

 

[Wraith]

1 hour ago, Shadowlax said:

 

But him being some guy who goes out on his own and helps people to me fits the bill of the character and considering his stern disposition would allow for wackier characters he would find to play off him well. Like kiryu from yakuza, who if i'm being honest is just human more stoic  shadow the hedgehog.

 

Yeah this has been my idea for Shadow 2 for years. A bunch of borderline episodic adventures of him helping people on a wider trip around the world for the sake of self discovery. A lot lighter in tone than most Sonic games with him in it but he'd still have to deal with his reputation and the fact that he tried to destroy the earth.

[Shadowlax]

23 minutes ago, Wraith said:

Yeah this has been my idea for Shadow 2 for years. A bunch of borderline episodic adventures of him helping people on a wider trip around the world for the sake of self discovery. A lot lighter in tone than most Sonic games with him in it but he'd still have to deal with his reputation and the fact that he tried to destroy the earth.

If he's gonna be the protector of the planet(s) it might do well for him to know and understand the troubles of the people who live on it besides " well i'm sure they value being alive I'll save them from the big thing " . And from a writing stand point it allows him to be functionally out of the picture whenever you want. Obviously if something super big and you want the team up , you call him in and shows up. But you can actually have an explanation on where's shadow of when stuff goes down, and he's " helping the little people and seeing the world " . It never needed an explanation, but that sort of continuity is kinda nice. And hey if sonic and co go around the world again, they can hear tells of some mopey guy who helped a buncha people then vanish.

[Heckboy]

13 hours ago, Wraith said:

what if I just like them though

Nobody can like things. I won't allow it.

[Multikaris]

I'd give the greenlight to a Sonic/TMNT crossover fighter by Lab Zero Games. With features like Desperation Moves at low health, a notched lifebar to indicate when you can do that, snapbacks, and tag team mode.

[Wraith]

9 hours ago, Shadowlax said:

If he's gonna be the protector of the planet(s) it might do well for him to know and understand the troubles of the people who live on it besides " well i'm sure they value being alive I'll save them from the big thing " . And from a writing stand point it allows him to be functionally out of the picture whenever you want. Obviously if something super big and you want the team up , you call him in and shows up. But you can actually have an explanation on where's shadow of when stuff goes down, and he's " helping the little people and seeing the world " . It never needed an explanation, but that sort of continuity is kinda nice. And hey if sonic and co go around the world again, they can hear tells of some mopey guy who helped a buncha people then vanish.

That and Maria always talked about wanting to see the planet so I feel like this is the natural follow-up for SA2 that never really happened. 

I imagine it as something like Sonic Unleashed with the tone and the stakes even lower but with a lot of smaller stories that can vary in tone in each location. Some of them can lean a little toward melancholy or tragic and others can just be really silly shit that throws Shadow way out of his element and asks him to deal with it lmao. 

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

I just remembered something else now that this was brought up.

I’d completely remake Unleashed, but I’d bring the whole cast. I find it silly that the entire world broke into several pieces, but only Amy and Tails were present while characters like Team Dark and even Knuckles had no involvement when this was the perfect opportunity for them to do so.

And for all the bonding Chip and Sonic did, you’d think that if Sonic was going to take a trip around the world with him that he’d introduce Chip to all his friends, which would in turn give Chip an even greater motive to take his position of Light Gaia and save the world and the people he come to get to know. Archie Comics sort of did this, but they kinda dropped the ball a number of times with Chip interacting with everyone.

[StaticMania]

9 hours ago, Shadowlax said:

If he's gonna be the protector of the planet(s) it might do well for him to know and understand the troubles of the people who live on it besides " well i'm sure they value being alive I'll save them from the big thing " . And from a writing stand point it allows him to be functionally out of the picture whenever you want. Obviously if something super big and you want the team up , you call him in and shows up. But you can actually have an explanation on where's shadow of when stuff goes down, and he's " helping the little people and seeing the world " . It never needed an explanation, but that sort of continuity is kinda nice. And hey if sonic and co go around the world again, they can hear tells of some mopey guy who helped a buncha people then vanish.

A game focused on this would be pretty cool. Think it can be like...what Sonic Nex Gen was going for with Elise and Sonic but expanded into a full game and I think it'd be certainly more fitting of a Shadow the Hedgehog game because he actually has a motive for traveling the world unlike Sonic the Hedgehog who is just a nomad.

Before recently, to me this is something I could totally see Shadow doing. He could be a friend to all da children and like that one Sonic X episode, make a friend who reminds him of Maria.

There was going to be more to this...but I forgot.

[Shadowlax]

1 minute ago, Wraith said:

That and Maria always talked about wanting to see the planet so I feel like this is the natural follow-up for SA2 that never really happened. 

I imagine it as something like Sonic Unleashed with the tone and the stakes even lower but with a lot of smaller stories that can vary in tone in each location. Some of them can lean a little toward melancholy or tragic and others can just be really silly shit that throws Shadow way out of his element and asks him to deal with it lmao. 

Actually the stakes don't have to be that low actually. At least in my mind part of the reason this is going on is because shadow is kind of at war with himself. I always like the idea of shadow's like alien DNA manifesting more powers as time goes on an even a transformation. So while this story or stories are going on with various levels of seriousness, he's kind of dealing with notion that he's going through freaky alien puberty and he doesn't want to hurt anyone. And you could tie it in the narrative itself, apparently there are black arms ruins just about so  he could find an ancient cult that tries to revere him as a god, he's not into and they get violent and try to threaten him . Or its a raj al ghul situation.

I'm all for throwing shadow out of his element. Shadow a great strait man for that sort of thing, again, he's furry kiryu. But I think it also be connected to some larger plot that's going on with himself that can connect to and create bigger story lines. One of the things I have always been curious about is like " wait what the black arms have been here thousands of years ago... is that possibly implying gerald may have...found shadow or at least the person shadow was made from " this journey of discovery can do some weird funky stuff with his character.

I see like the alien invovled stuff being the series bits and the stuff dealing with the world being lighter in tone. Representing the two halves of himself. And maybe they switch up sometimes. Maybe he see's some unyielding cruelty with the animal people and he learns not all the aliens were bad actually. At the end of this journey he becomes a whole new person. Still grumpy and stoic but far more confident in who he is and what's he's about. And I dunno give him like a new transformation, or something. Make it like a devil trigger. 

Gotta keep with the two same first letter theme. Slicing shadow, striking shadow? I dunno

[Wraith]

4 minutes ago, Shadowlax said:

Actually the stakes don't have to be that low actually. At least in my mind part of the reason this is going on is because shadow is kind of at war with himself. I always like the idea of shadow's like alien DNA manifesting more powers as time goes on an even a transformation. So while this story or stories are going on with various levels of seriousness, he's kind of dealing with notion that he's going through freaky alien puberty and he doesn't want to hurt anyone. And you could tie it in the narrative itself, apparently there are black arms ruins just about so  he could find an ancient cult that tries to revere him as a god, he's not into and they get violent and try to threaten him . Or its a raj al ghul situation.

I'm all for throwing shadow out of his element. Shadow a great strait man for that sort of thing, again, he's furry kiryu. But I think it also be connected to some larger plot that's going on with himself that can connect to and create bigger story lines. One of the things I have always been curious about is like " wait what the black arms have been here thousands of years ago... is that possibly implying gerald may have...found shadow or at least the person shadow was made from " this journey of discovery can do some weird funky stuff with his character.

I see like the alien invovled stuff being the series bits and the stuff dealing with the world being lighter in tone. Representing the two halves of himself. And maybe they switch up sometimes. Maybe he see's some unyielding cruelty with the animal people and he learns not all the aliens were bad actually. At the end of this journey he becomes a whole new person. Still grumpy and stoic but far more confident in who he is and what's he's about. And I dunno give him like a new transformation, or something. Make it like a devil trigger. 

Gotta keep with the two same first letter theme. Slicing shadow, striking shadow? I dunno

Shadow technically has a couple of transformations already but some Devil Trigger half alien type shit would be kinda dope tbh

Like, I was pretty shy about confronting the Alien stuff but honestly it's better to acknowledge it than to run away from it and you might be able to do something fun with it as shadow learns about his father's "History". Maybe not a death cult but he finds a weapon in the ruins that bad guys want to use.

[Shadowlax]

1 minute ago, Wraith said:

Shadow technically has a couple of transformations already but some Devil Trigger half alien type shit would be kinda dope tbh

Like, I was pretty shy about confronting the Alien stuff but honestly it's better to acknowledge it than to run away from it and you might be able to do something fun with it as shadow learns about his father's "History". Maybe not a death cult but he finds a weapon in the ruins that bad guys want to use.

Acknowledge it , turn into something cool. And i kinda want that for a lot of characters actually, allow them in their own ways to go on thier own paths and in the end come out with their special forms and abilities. Make em more unique in that regard.That would be my goal shy why these characters have value, expand upon it .

WAIT , Black Dooms final form is called Devil Doom right?

They could just make a direct reference and call it something like

Shadow Devil Install.

[Wraith]

3 minutes ago, Shadowlax said:

Acknowledge it , turn into something cool. And i kinda want that for a lot of characters actually, allow them in their own ways to go on thier own paths and in the end come out with their special forms and abilities. Make em more unique in that regard.That would be my goal shy why these characters have value, expand upon it .

WAIT , Black Dooms final form is called Devil Doom right?

They could just make a direct reference and call it something like

Shadow Devil Install.

Black Shadow

Devil Arm Shadow

Devil Sword Shadow

Can we give him wings?

 

[Shadowlax]

1 hour ago, Wraith said:

Black Shadow

Devil Arm Shadow

Devil Sword Shadow

Can we give him wings?

 

You out your mind if you don't think he has four wings that point out from his back at four separate points like an X so its extra edgy