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Rounding out Sonic character's personalities


StaticMania

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I can honestly say that can apply to pretty much the entire cast; sure you have characters like Shadow who have large sweeping storylines, but once that has run its course, what else do they have to offer? A large problem with Sonic characters is that once they've had their fifteen minutes of fame, they're tossed into the background while Sonic is off to his next adventure. So all they really is just linger and don't have much to do, which doesn't exactly endear them to people. The worst type of characters are the ones who are onenote and don't offer much to the setting, and that's basically what's been happening since Unleashed. 

It's been a common idea, but having different supporting characters per game is a good way of keep things fresh. We don't always need the same Sonic/Tails/Eggman dynamic that we've been getting. I understand the desire to keep things simple, but that doesn't mean we need to stick with the same cast of characters in every game. Mix it up. Maybe have a game with Sonic, Espio, and Cream? Just something to mix up the monotony of having the same characters in the spotlight. 

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I don't really agree with any of the replies about Big. Big isn't a character I need to worry about relating to that much. He functions fine as the fun cameo character to me. I guess its up to the individual whether or not the specific reason he's making said cameo would annoy them or not but I would feel that I'm thinking entirely too hard about it if I ever got to that point. 

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1 hour ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

I don't really agree with any of the replies about Big. Big isn't a character I need to worry about relating to that much. He functions fine as the fun cameo character to me. I guess its up to the individual whether or not the specific reason he's making said cameo would annoy them or not but I would feel that I'm thinking entirely too hard about it if I ever got to that point. 

I highly doubt Big simply showing up as a cameo would annoy people.  His personality is basically where it ought to be for that, since a lazy and easygoing character isn’t going to try to hog the spotlight or distract players.  I reckon people are scrutinizing his personality mostly because SEGA has been stressing him as a personality-based joke again.  If their reaching out to the Game Grumps is any indication, they want Big to be a meme for the precise reasons that many people hate him.

It deserves to be stated that a HUGE part of his original hatedom was likely his original English voice.  I can’t speak on how his voice has been since Heroes, but if it’s indeed Big’s fate to be a simple, unenthusiastic dude with little personality, the better part of that might be not talking a lot.

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His voice has actually gotten worse...

He speaks slower now which matches the Japanese "simpleton" voice, but that along with being low and dopey is kind of annoying.

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I don't think it's actually 'relating' to Big as much as him having an endearing personality that isn't one gag. That needn't be tons of development and backstory, simply him having a feasible amount of characteristics. Truthfully I never thought Big was lacking that from the get-go really, generally spin offs like Chronicles and the mid-era Archie comics had to flanderize him to just be a one note stupid character.

I dunno, I just tend to prefer when characters like these aren't just perpetual 'duh duh idiot' types and actually have some level of a wholesome edge to them. Big kinda comes off like a guy that's meant to be comically simple but still have some dimension to him, his POV in SA1 wouldn't be entertaining if he didn't. Keep the random 'middle man' role of course, that's a lot of the fun to him, but that doesn't mean he can't have a full personality.

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It bares mentioning that stupid and simple aren’t synonyms.  Big in SA was simple in that he didn’t do much or aspire to much, but despite John St John giving him a voice that sounded stereotypically stupid, I don’t recall any moment in that game where he lacked the mental capacity to do anything he wandered upon.  I’m not saying that Big is smart, but then most Sonic characters are using physical abilities more than mental ones.  As a matter of fact, Knuckles was more a victim of poor judgment in that game than Big was.

So it feels like rather than any official mandate from SEGA to make Big dumb, John was thinking along the lines of American redneck stereotypes, and gave Big the sort of voice that implies he developed wrong due to inbreeding.  The result was really uncomfortable from many angles; Big’s story wasn’t really an inspiring case of an underdog cursed with limited mental abilities struggling through a tough situation, since again, not much in that story really gave him trouble, but it’s also not much of a joke for the same reason; nothing really goes wrong in comical ways due to the apparently stupid character trying to do things.  It’s just a character with an annoying voice on top of an already annoying slow movement slogging through a quagmire in the plot.
 

I can’t comment in every subsequent appearance, but it seems like SEGA’s gone the route of “idiot has comical mishaps because he’s an idiot” rather than even attempting to return Big to whatever simple but inoffensive type he was originally meant to be.

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3 hours ago, Scritch the Cat said:

I highly doubt Big simply showing up as a cameo would annoy people.  His personality is basically where it ought to be for that, since a lazy and easygoing character isn’t going to try to hog the spotlight or distract players.

That's basically what I said, yeah. It's up to the individual whether the specific reason he's making said cameo would annoy them or not and if the fact that he's looking for the frog all the time bothers you then all I can do is shrug my shoulders at that really. I personally don't think it matters at all why he shows up to make his cameos. 

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2 hours ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

That's basically what I said, yeah. It's up to the individual whether the specific reason he's making said cameo would annoy them or not and if the fact that he's looking for the frog all the time bothers you then all I can do is shrug my shoulders at that really. I personally don't think it matters at all why he shows up to make his cameos. 

I think things matter more or less depending on how much they’re crammed down players’ throats, though every character is prone to that.  Sonic collecting rings should be among the most innocuous things to this fandom, but even so many fans found it annoying in RoL how often Sonic gabbed about collecting rings.  The difference, though, is Sonic isn’t really singleminded.  His interests aren’t the most broad ever but he can talk about more than one thing, when he talks at all...and his voice is generally bearable.  Big’s dialogue is widely despised because neither of those are true.  Froggy being present doesn’t annoy me, but Big talking about him does.  Many people agree.  Many people feel the same thing about Amy and her Sonic obsession.  All things considered, this isn’t such a big deal in a franchise not largely about plot and dialogue, but unfortunately it was playing up such things at the same time as it was focusing on a lot of characters, so some wound up a lot more hated than others.

On the subject of Amy, while her Boom incarnation is inconsistent, I generally feel it’s loads better than the game-verse Amy while also feeling like an overall viable evolution from what she was in the Adventure era.  Her most visible trait in that era was her obsession with Sonic, but she also is into shopping in Sonic Adventure, and Fitness in Sonic Battle, and it seems like Boom took those balls and ran with it into making her a yuppie.  That term is used with disdain by some, and sure, there’s stereotypes involved, but I think it did fine at making Amy a believable and balanced personality.  She’s the busybody who wants to look good to everyone else, and this leads her to embarrassing mishaps but also some genuine accomplishments, such as heightened athleticism and a willingness to at least try defusing conflicts psychologically.

I feel this would work for what Amy is in most of the modern games, because, well, she isn’t doing much in them, and a character who has a relatively normal, human-like lifestyle works as that.  But it also would make for a more competent and interesting character if they made her a playable protagonist again.

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9 hours ago, Scritch the Cat said:

I can’t comment in every subsequent appearance, but it seems like SEGA’s gone the route of “idiot has comical mishaps because he’s an idiot” rather than even attempting to return Big to whatever simple but inoffensive type he was originally meant to be.

Well in TSR and reboot Archie he sorta regains his 'simple not stupid' characterisation, as in he does bungle and miss the point, but isn't JUST an imbecile, and is sometimes prone to saying things that are downright logical that the more intellectual but convoluted thinking characters may overlook. Again I think it's only spin offs that tended to just write him down as an idiot gag.

I definitely agree on that whole theory and I think it's a writing trap loads of works tend to foul up in (Crash Bandicoot and Spongebob for example are other characters who depending on the writer are either written as simple minded but functional characters who can sometimes even one-up their more academically smarter counterparts, to just being toxic incompetent imbeciles uncomfortably nearing mentally handicapped). It's something I also find a shame they didn't try more with Boom's Knuckles. Dumb Knuckles IS funny, but I think just going for him JUST being stupid in every scene made him limited.

5 hours ago, Scritch the Cat said:

IOn the subject of Amy, while her Boom incarnation is inconsistent, I generally feel it’s loads better than the game-verse Amy while also feeling like an overall viable evolution from what she was in the Adventure era.  Her most visible trait in that era was her obsession with Sonic, but she also is into shopping in Sonic Adventure, and Fitness in Sonic Battle, and it seems like Boom took those balls and ran with it into making her a yuppie.  That term is used with disdain by some, and sure, there’s stereotypes involved, but I think it did fine at making Amy a believable and balanced personality.  She’s the busybody who wants to look good to everyone else, and this leads her to embarrassing mishaps but also some genuine accomplishments, such as heightened athleticism and a willingness to at least try defusing conflicts psychologically.

I feel this would work for what Amy is in most of the modern games, because, well, she isn’t doing much in them, and a character who has a relatively normal, human-like lifestyle works as that.  But it also would make for a more competent and interesting character if they made her a playable protagonist again.

I think, besides the closested crush on Sonic, early Boom Amy was actually an okay compromise, since she kept that cheery sometimes outside dippy spunk and energy about her, while playing with the aforementioned 'yuppie' persona that was hinted to in previous works. I like the idea of Amy having some actual ambitions besides Sonic, like keep the crush, but her having some 'everygirl' type interests like being an entrepreneur or just taking up wild hobbies that are somehow given an amusing life and vibrancy via her own character, things that make her more than just another card carrying hero and someone with some sort of character driven desires. These also shown that Amy had a brain, if still an eccentric fun loving one.

As time passed on however, she started to lose any element of her childish side and became more an adult curmudgeon who looked down on everyone. Closer to what I'd find a comedic version of Sally to work like. I feel like Amy was meant to be more like Big in this regard, in that her lifestyle was down to earth but not her character, she was meant to be a bubbly happy child without being downright brainless. I don't see why there's an insistence on making every female character a level headed genius who loathes nonsense of any kind. The biggest redeemer was that, unlike Sally OR Amy's newer counterparts, Boom Amy kept getting dragged into the silliness regardless or shown up for being a 'not so above it all' hypocrite, so maintained SOME level of flaws and vibrancy, even if maybe not one as well linked to her old personality.

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4 hours ago, Scritch the Cat said:

Amy could get pretentious in that show, but I don’t recall her looking down on others.

Closed Door Policy has her doing such in a rather on-the-nose way (and Sticks getting rightfully ticked by it :P).

Sort of the condescending 'looking out for poor simpletons who don't know any better' type.

 

This isn't really a bad trope when it's called out and repented like it was in said episode (she does NOT get any slack over it :P) but again I'm not sure games Amy is like that. Not to the same intensity anyway. She can be pushy and haughty sometimes (even to the same plain out rude level), but I never really saw her a Lisa Simpson-esque snobby activist.

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Big was only really comedically stupid in Chronicles. He was fine in Adventure and TSR as pointed out, and he didn't do much of anything in Heroes, that was Amy's story and he and cream were along for the ride. I think voices definitely impact how people saw the character. As someone who first saw big in X, where his voice actor was doing a bad Goofy impression, I just got the impression that he was comic relief to take a break from the seriouser stuff.
 
Big's problem's are mostly related to his voice and bad gameplay in SA1. Without those, he's a fine character, and it shows in mediums where those don't exist, like X, Archie, and the IDW comics. I wouldn't change his personality, Big's just a normal guy in weird scenarios, the best way to use him is to make those scenarios more absurd, like him somehow getitng trapped in the storybook in secret rings.

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23 hours ago, Scritch the Cat said:

It bares mentioning that stupid and simple aren’t synonyms.  Big in SA was simple in that he didn’t do much or aspire to much, but despite John St John giving him a voice that sounded stereotypically stupid, I don’t recall any moment in that game where he lacked the mental capacity to do anything he wandered upon.  I’m not saying that Big is smart, but then most Sonic characters are using physical abilities more than mental ones.  As a matter of fact, Knuckles was more a victim of poor judgment in that game than Big was.

So it feels like rather than any official mandate from SEGA to make Big dumb, John was thinking along the lines of American redneck stereotypes, and gave Big the sort of voice that implies he developed wrong due to inbreeding.  The result was really uncomfortable from many angles; Big’s story wasn’t really an inspiring case of an underdog cursed with limited mental abilities struggling through a tough situation, since again, not much in that story really gave him trouble, but it’s also not much of a joke for the same reason; nothing really goes wrong in comical ways due to the apparently stupid character trying to do things.  It’s just a character with an annoying voice on top of an already annoying slow movement slogging through a quagmire in the plot.
 

I can’t comment in every subsequent appearance, but it seems like SEGA’s gone the route of “idiot has comical mishaps because he’s an idiot” rather than even attempting to return Big to whatever simple but inoffensive type he was originally meant to be.

Apparently, he came up with that voice as a joke and the director said it was perfect. Cue a wot 

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