Sonic Roster add or remove?

[LeviTheGreat]

Most Sonic fans know the roster of Sonic Characters is huge,but sometimes we don't always agree with their choices,many at first hated sonic 06 and blamed Silver and Blaze for it's downfall.Even i have a couple characters i would remove from the roster (*cough*)(Jet The Hawk).But who do you want removed i want to add or remove let me know in the comments below

[Johnster4]

It honestly depends on what type of game it is and how they can utilize each character, for example, if Sonic team can find a purpose for them then they should develop specific characters if they can find a purpose for them, but if it's a spin off like a racing game or a fighting game they should add as many character as they can from their entire history of games. Team Sonic Racing is a good example of when people complaining that "Sonic has too many friends"  don't seem to realise that they don't have enough characters for a spin off game, especially if they made a fighting game with the same roster size it would be the one character less than Street Fighter V at launch and that game was heavily criticized for having a lacking roster.

[LeviTheGreat]

On 12/3/2020 at 3:55 PM, Johnster4 said:

 don't seem to realise that they don't have enough characters for a spin off game, especially if they made a fighting game with the same roster size it would be the one character less than Street Fighter V at launch and that game was heavily criticized for having a lacking roster.

Totally true and what if sega brought back a game like a Sonic The Fighters game?#any ideas?

[KnuxDLX]

I want the Sonic Adventure crew back. It feels like the series has strayed too far from the old team and it feels like forever since they showed up in a solid game.

[Scritch the Cat]

In terms of characters simply existing, none of them bother me.  Jet the Hawk really does look like a butt-ugly fan-character from someone on DeviantArt, but hey; ugly people and creatures exist in real life so I’m not complaining, especially since in the vast majority of games I don’t have to look closely at him, if at all.

When it comes to gameplay mechanics, I have a lot stronger opinions.  I’d like the Wisps gone since they were invented just to make playing as other characters obsolete, and from the same sentiment I want some characters added back into a playable role.  Some meaning Tails and Knuckles initially; after they get those right they can consider others.  I’d like Amy to be playable though I think they need to find a way make her more competent while still feeling like Amy.

[KnuxDLX]

12 minutes ago, Scritch the Cat said:

In terms of characters simply existing, none of them bother me.  Jet the Hawk really does look like a butt-ugly fan-character from someone on DeviantArt, but hey; ugly people and creatures exist in real life so I’m not complaining, especially since in the vast majority of games I don’t have to look closely at him, if at all.

When it comes to gameplay mechanics, I have a lot stronger opinions.  I’d like the Wisps gone since they were invented just to make playing as other characters obsolete, and from the same sentiment I want some characters added back into a playable role.  Some meaning Tails and Knuckles initially; after they get those right they can consider others.  I’d like Amy to be playable though I think they need to find a way make her more competent while still feeling like Amy.

I actually think Jet is kind of cute. Sure he’s kind of like a green bird Sonic, but I liked Sonic Riders. 
 

[Coz483]

I think the cast is fine but they shouldn't add anymore characters anytime soon.

[Dr. Detective]

The main cast of heroes hasn't had a new addition to it since Silver hit the scene in 2006. As far as villains, we have very few and the last we can comfortably say have been permanent additions are the Deadly Six which came about in 2014 and since then haven't been used in their full capacity in a game outside of Lost World unless you count Sonic Runners.

This seems like a very odd time to wonder or worry about who to keep and who to remove as we're still trapped in a time where they're not being utilized at all outside of the IDW book. Speaking as someone who likes Jet, what would removing him actually do at this point? The most that would happen is that you'd have one less option to choose from a playable roster in a spin-off game. It's basically the same thing as demanding less content for no reason.

10 plus years of only Sonic in my 3D games hasn't had me looking back and wondering who else to remove. Conversely, the roster is an appropriate size and doesn't need anymore added to it as far as the heroes are concerned.

As such, I'd only really focus on adding to Sonic's rogues gallery. Let's see if we can give him some Batman villains to spice a few things up from time to time but that's about all I feel would be necessary. 

[Kuzu]

I wonder what it says that the series has been focusing almost exclusively on Sonic since 2008, it's 2020 about to go into 2021. That's a total of over twelve years, over a decade's time, that this series hasn't really utilized it's supporting cast in any real capacity outside of side material like comic books. With all of that said, we're STILL asking on whether characters should be removed or not? Have they not been gone for all of this time? Did they come back when I wasn't looking? 

Maybe I'm going insane, but why are we still asking ourselves this? There's barely been an supporting cast, even in the two games they did show up in (Generations and Forces), they barely did shit. Shit, the series has spent less time on its supporting cast than it has focusing on them from 1998-2008. We're talking about removing something that hasn't existed for years. 

[LeviTheGreat]

@Kuzu you hit the nail on the head.end of story

[Multikaris]

On 12/6/2020 at 6:36 PM, Kuzu said:

I wonder what it says that the series has been focusing almost exclusively on Sonic since 2008, it's 2020 about to go into 2021. That's a total of over twelve years, over a decade's time, that this series hasn't really utilized it's supporting cast in any real capacity outside of side material like comic books. With all of that said, we're STILL asking on whether characters should be removed or not? Have they not been gone for all of this time? Did they come back when I wasn't looking? 

Maybe I'm going insane, but why are we still asking ourselves this? There's barely been an supporting cast, even in the two games they did show up in (Generations and Forces), they barely did shit. Shit, the series has spent less time on its supporting cast than it has focusing on them from 1998-2008. We're talking about removing something that hasn't existed for years. 

Forces’s Episode Shadow is an anomaly in this era. Mania and the Boom games are also havens for other playable characters.

[Lord-Dreamerz]

It isn't as simple as "add or remove" characters. Forcing certain characters into games if they don't fit the plot will feel like cheap fan service that does nothing more then say "Yup they still exist!"  And on the other side there is no point in fully removing characters from the franchise, especially if they were not being used much nowadays already. SEGA would never permanently delete anybody anyways. They will keep even characters they no longer care about away on standby if ever a need comes up again where using them is appealing.

Also the misguided idea some folk love to toss around where "the franchise has to many characters." ...Well what do you expect from a adventure based series about a free-spirit nomadic traveler who often visits new places full of new people? Nearly any adventure series are made for consistently new characters appearing. They normally just don't worry about using every character they ever created at once. To top it off, if no more new characters ever got made, then the series would get dull fast for many folks.

[Scar]

They need to actually do something good with their characters first.

The main cast (Sonic, Tails, Knuckles...arguably Amy) have been static since the 2010. The rest of the characters were so badly written between 2000-2010 that they've been shelved.

Make a good game first, then we can figure out what to do with the cast.

[Wraith]

To quickly illustrate how dumb I think the point about about removing characters is, imagine if whoever you chose was actually removed 10 years ago. What would that have that affected in the past 10 years of gaming? Unless you somehow landed on Sonic, Tails, and Eggman the answer is less than nothing.  Maybe TSR would be down one character at worst. 

Everyone's said that already though. That's not why I posted.

In terms of additions I think the "core" Sonic cast that they use for spinoffs is looking a little dated in some respects. There are technically new characters, but almost every one is designed to be ignorable or disposable which has lead to some of the most uninspired designs and personalities in the series. Functional, but not enough to get anyone invested. The long time fans that haven't left rally around the more complex characters like Knuckles Shadow, Silver and Blaze but they're tied to backstories that are 20 years old at this point. Probably not a huge issue with all the fan documentation of Sonic lore out there but I still wonder if it'll all need readdressing at some point. 

The female characters are beloved by me and endearing, but the small selection and less than ideal variety feels more and more like a gaping hole that needs to be filled by the day. A lack of new, exciting characters has predictably started to hamper the series's appeal and I think that it'll get worse unless some kind of shot in the arm happens there.

There's a reason why almost every AU offshoot and spinoff has to do some kind of legwork to round out the cast. Tangle and Whisper break the internet every time they're mentioned in an official capacity for a reason. It's filling a demand. A lot of people are just saying to air lift them and characters from other series like the Archie comics and Boom into the games and like, sure? That's a start. I'd like to see Sonic Team flex their creative muscles again though. Infinite proves they're still capable of good design work if nothing else. Even if the worst case scenario happens and we get another Silver I'm sure Ian and Evan will patch them right up. 

 Sonic's cast desperately needs expansion, not streamlining. 

[Kuzu]

You know what I find to be the biggest shame about the last ten years...everybody was so convinced that these characters were just horrible, abominations upon the series that needed to go, that Sega effectively completed a self-fulfilling prophecy; in streamlining and reducing the screen time of all of these characters, they've effectively validated all of those complaints. Now they actually are just a bunch wasted space who nobody should care about. And this is a mandate by Sega too if the comics are anything to go by, as they're basically enforcing that every character stay static and unchanging as possible. Sega honestly SHOULD do something with these characters, but there's quite honestly no reason for them to do so. Outside of the older vocal fans who still remember the stories surrounding  these characters, I honestly don't know anyone who really cares about these characters anymore. 

Older classic fans don't give a shit about anyone outside of Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles and there's probably an entire generation of children who have no idea who Blaze even is. 

And I cannot tell you how much it bothers me to see that; this series, for better or worse, always carved out its own niche and went the extra mile in getting you to care about these characters beyond just being video game functions. I know why the characters were controversial, but the solution wasn't to just exorcise them and any and all personality they had. And I hate how nobody else really seems bothered by it aside from a small but vocal group of people.  That people would just prefer that these characters remain as one-dimensional background noises who don't contribute anything is the biggest annoyance I have with some of their most vocal critics. 

[SBR2]

"The roster is huge!" ...Is it though? I mean not counting Eggman the mainline games consist of like 14 characters total. If you throw Spinoff Characters in it's still not that much the Rogues push it to 17 that's not "Too many characters" that's a cast. Most of them aren't even used that much and a lot of characters are one shot.

[Red Hot Jack]

It's less about how many there are and more about the quality of how they use them. It's dumb to say maybe but that is what it is.

Of course if less characters appear, there is more of a chance that all (or most) will be used properly in a game. 

Forces, for instance, had 20 characters I think, and they sucked, they were generic soldiers that had no role or personality. In an ideal world we would get 20 characters in 1 major game with the personality they had even in Generations. Generations is a weird case because each supporting character was a cheerleader barely, but they still showed great personality in their cutscenes (the ones where they are saved). 

So I would like a decent amount of characters but actually use their personality, SEGA! That's what makes them great, they are full of traits IMO, if you know them. Instead, at the time, because as @Kuzu said critics and gamers were against the cast, and SEGA decided to be shy about them, eh. Now they have thankfully realized that this cast has a huge following. Despite them writing characters like shit in the games (Forces, Lost World), they are still very popular, as the reaction to Tails in the movie showed... yeah, even Tails despite recent games writing is still fucking loved. So the point is, SEGA can and should use the cast.

Now after years of fans complaining of them using only the trio Sonic-Tails-Eggman, SEGA seems to have started using them again, they just need good writers and allow them to express themselves. It's literally only the games that have had shitty writing, IDW is great, those manga from Sonic Channel were great, the japanese script is apparently great, Boom tv show was still well written, the movie is well written and very popular, the shorts were super fun. Literally just Pontaff and SEGA's rules were ruining the writing. IMO.

My ideal thing would be around 15-18 characters in a main game, between playable, supporting and bosses. But with personality. That's my wish.

[Multikaris]

2 hours ago, Jack-ted said:

It's less about how many there are and more about the quality of how they use them. It's dumb to say maybe but that is what it is.

Of course if less characters appear, there is more of a chance that all (or most) will be used properly in a game. 

Forces, for instance, had 20 characters I think, and they sucked, they were generic soldiers that had no role or personality. In an ideal world we would get 20 characters in 1 major game with the personality they had even in Generations. Generations is a weird case because each supporting character was a cheerleader barely, but they still showed great personality in their cutscenes (the ones where they are saved). 

So I would like a decent amount of characters but actually use their personality, SEGA! That's what makes them great, they are full of traits IMO, if you know them. Instead, at the time, because as @Kuzu said critics and gamers were against the cast, and SEGA decided to be shy about them, eh. Now they have thankfully realized that this cast has a huge following. Despite them writing characters like shit in the games (Forces, Lost World), they are still very popular, as the reaction to Tails in the movie showed... yeah, even Tails despite recent games writing is still fucking loved. So the point is, SEGA can and should use the cast.

Now after years of fans complaining of them using only the trio Sonic-Tails-Eggman, SEGA seems to have started using them again, they just need good writers and allow them to express themselves. It's literally only the games that have had shitty writing, IDW is great, those manga from Sonic Channel were great, the japanese script is apparently great, Boom tv show was still well written, the movie is well written and very popular, the shorts were super fun. Literally just Pontaff and SEGA's rules were ruining the writing. IMO.

My ideal thing would be around 15-18 characters in a main game, between playable, supporting and bosses. But with personality. That's my wish.

Actually, the Japanese scripts are allegedly also pretty boring, though not as obnoxious as the English ones, according to Roger.

 

They also hadn’t fought in years, which is why seeing them as generic soldiers is a relief after all this time.