Sonic Frontiers - Teaser Trailer

[CertifiedNobody]

17 minutes ago, Wraith said:

I'm 99% sure the answer is no. Sonic Team usually likes to make each game a fresh start outside of direct sequels and Rangers probably isn't going to look or play much like forces. I think we're looking at a fresh cast.

...But the 1% in the back of my mind is saying the mandates that are apparently around him and not literally any other iconography in Forces are...strange. If it went over their heads that he wasn't that popular and they used him again, I wouldn't be surprised. It wouldn't be the first time.

Silver got a lot of hate due to his boss fight in 06 but he still came back time after time. Besides, the Sonic series is pretty lacking in Villains and they can't really afford to immediately drop one. Personally, I want Infinite to return so he can be done correctly this time.

[Wraith]

3 minutes ago, CertifiedNobody said:

Silver got a lot of hate due to his boss fight in 06 but he still came back time after time. Besides, the Sonic series is pretty lacking in Villains and they can't really afford to immediately drop one. Personally, I want Infinite to return so he can be done correctly this time.

I'd rather they didn't. It'd be better if this game was as fresh a start as possible.

[Sega DogTagz]

1 hour ago, CertifiedNobody said:

 And I'm certain Sega has plans for Infinite, otherwise he wouldn't be off-limits for the IDW comics right now

That doesn't amount to much. Nega was off limits for years and Sega never did diddly squat with that guy. 

 

1 hour ago, CertifiedNobody said:

I hope the game is long. Although I love Colors and Gens, and don't hate Forces, I'm tired of short budget games. I want Rangers to put Sonic on the same level as Mario Odyssey and BOTW. Preferably the 40-50 hours you'd expect from other open world games.

Sonic games have never been long in the traditional sense and just by the nature of the character you honestly can't expect some thing like that without the bulk of it being some alternate game style that is designed to eat your clock (chao garden).

Sonic games will never reach the kind of time milestones that other platformers can reach just because it's impossible to lay out enough track for something that can move that fast. 

We can hope for a few more additions to make the process more meaty though. A return to SA2 missions, some kind of multiplayer functionality, heck you can go the Yakuza route and throw another game in there entirely, like Sonic 2 or Sonic Runners. 

 

But seriously, can you imagine how big an open world would have to be to contain Sonic for 50 hours? There is no way a dev could fill something that big with content. It would just be giant expanses of nothing to eat up 

[Multikaris]

5 hours ago, Jack-al said:

Another topic I want to talk about: Infinite. Do you think there is a chance he comes back? Whether we like him or not. He ended in a mysterious note in Forces, the teaser has hints of digital blur with tiny blocks, and according to early leaks, Infinite's theme played during a boss, it was likely a placeholder music but what do you think about it?

Given Zavok returned in supplemental media and as an illusion in Forces despite being dunked in lava, not to mention Erazor’s return in Runners, I feel like it’s quite possibly anything goes concerning that. 

[CertifiedNobody]

2 hours ago, Sega DogTagz said:

That doesn't amount to much. Nega was off limits for years and Sega never did diddly squat with that guy. 

 

Sonic games have never been long in the traditional sense and just by the nature of the character you honestly can't expect some thing like that without the bulk of it being some alternate game style that is designed to eat your clock (chao garden).

Sonic games will never reach the kind of time milestones that other platformers can reach just because it's impossible to lay out enough track for something that can move that fast. 

We can hope for a few more additions to make the process more meaty though. A return to SA2 missions, some kind of multiplayer functionality, heck you can go the Yakuza route and throw another game in there entirely, like Sonic 2 or Sonic Runners. 

 

But seriously, can you imagine how big an open world would have to be to contain Sonic for 50 hours? There is no way a dev could fill something that big with content. It would just be giant expanses of nothing to eat up 

Nega was likely the result of them trying to avoid confusion regarding characters and timelines. They also made a rule about there being only one Metal Sonic, too.

They've never been too long, but 06 managed to be around 16 hours long, and the Adventure games/Unleashed were long enough to feel satisfying.

The world doesn't necessarily have to be massive for him, assuming Sonic is less Boost, more Adventure, that is. Platforming challenges, NPC quests, collectables, and minibosses could be used to make the world more dense with content. And there's nothing wrong with using the Metroidvania technique of locking areas behind upgrades.

[Red Hot Jack]

Zavok returned and he's even more hated than Infinite. Infinite is not that hated actually, he did okay in popularity, teens who admire anime villains kind of liked him? Compared to the D6, again that's a low bar but still.

If the Zeti returned... yeah, maybe SEGA is interested in having a rogue gallery for Sonic? Recurring villains, plus all the mystery surrounding Infinite's lack of new appearances since Forces leads me to believe there might be plans after all. I dunno.

I did see this game as a fresh start and SEGA does like to have individual games that stand on their own, but still, I'm perplexed on this. Not sure.

There is also, as you guys mentioned, the Chaos Emerald origin thing from Ian Flynn, and this game according to leaks has Sonic collecting the emeralds again? Maybe it's connected too?

[expansivelovestories]

Yes; so far it is hard to tell if the shapes in the reveal trailer are a language or a reference to the open world, but it seems more likely to be a language than just a design motif?  If it is a language it does look like one that would be connected with the strangeness of the emeralds and their origins! 

[Jango]

I wish we could get a trailer soon. Maybe at TGA? It's in december.

[CertifiedNobody]

11 minutes ago, Jango said:

I wish we could get a trailer soon. Maybe at TGA? It's in december.

We'll definitely get more info on Rangers once Sonic Movie 2 hype starts

[Multikaris]

11 hours ago, Jack-al said:

Zavok returned and he's even more hated than Infinite. Infinite is not that hated actually, he did okay in popularity, teens who admire anime villains kind of liked him? Compared to the D6, again that's a low bar but still.

If the Zeti returned... yeah, maybe SEGA is interested in having a rogue gallery for Sonic? Recurring villains, plus all the mystery surrounding Infinite's lack of new appearances since Forces leads me to believe there might be plans after all. I dunno.

I did see this game as a fresh start and SEGA does like to have individual games that stand on their own, but still, I'm perplexed on this. Not sure.

There is also, as you guys mentioned, the Chaos Emerald origin thing from Ian Flynn, and this game according to leaks has Sonic collecting the emeralds again? Maybe it's connected too?

Though to be fair, Zavok only returned as an illusion and again in a spin-off racer, while the others have only recurred in supplemental material, most notably IDW. 

[Roger_van_der_weide]

The thing that makes a returning Infinite interesting to me is that I always got the impression that the infinite we "know and love" was a very last minute change and he was never really intended to be a proper character. 
Reading the early dtory drafts of Forces, or heck, just playing the main game ignoring Shadow's episode, and they treat him like he's just an unremarkable machine Eggman made that happens to be powered by an important power source.
It's the Phantom Ruby/ Voltron stone that gets all the focus while Infinite is usually dismissed as an Eggman machine, with Infinite clones being created in a lab (Still happens in the finished game, in the final level you pass trough a room with science tubes, with Amy lamenting Infinite was created here and never had friends as a result or something. A story element that doesn't really match with the backstory Infinite gets in Episode Shadow)
I really get the impression Infinite was never meant to be a proper character but merely a Metal Sonic esque Robot, to be cloned and destroyed and dismissed with no thought.

This is all headcanon, but I'm willing to bet that the art designers made infinite look "too cool" and the popular theme song made Sonic Team reconsider Infinite's position as throwaway Egg robot and awkwardly added Shadow's episode at the last moment to suddenly give him a more proper "character" context in the story rather then him just being a dismisable generic robot.

So in that regard, I'd be curious what they'll do if Inifnite comes back. Since his part in Forces was not written with the later added backstory in mind, we'd get a proper story written for him as a character.


Not that I have much hope with that. With exception of Shadow, whenever a deeper story element returns in a later game, it's usually dumbed down or completely broken. Heck, Shadow's both an exception AND a victim of this, depending on the game.

[CertifiedNobody]

6 hours ago, Roger_van_der_weide said:

Not that I have much hope with that. With exception of Shadow, whenever a deeper story element returns in a later game, it's usually dumbed down or completely broken. Heck, Shadow's both an exception AND a victim of this, depending on the game.

To be fair, a lot of that was just due to SEGA hiring Pontaff as the writers and trying to make the series more accessible to younger audiences. With Pontaff gone and what we've heard of Rangers, that era seems to be both beginning and ending with Colors.

If you watch the Bumblekast, Ian Flynn was asked not too long ago if Infinite would stream/play video games, and his interpretation of infinite as a very dry and uncharismatic person who hates Shadow worked.

[Wraith]

20 minutes ago, CertifiedNobody said:

To be fair, a lot of that was just due to SEGA hiring Pontaff as the writers and trying to make the series more accessible to younger audiences. With Pontaff gone and what we've heard of Rangers, that era seems to be both beginning and ending with Colors.

 

No, it started when they brought Metal Sonic back and turned him into a megazord. 

Or when they decided Rouge's only role would be as a bland satelite character for Shadow. 

Or when Blaze was dropped into Sonic 06 in a completely different role that didn't have any of the nuance the character was portrayed with initially. 

Or when Knuckles became Sonic's backup dancer completely divorced of the lore that defined him originally 

Or when Sonic himself slowly but surely  had his attitude shaved clean off and became a bland friendship preacher in the 2000s. 

[CertifiedNobody]

48 minutes ago, Wraith said:

No, it started when they brought Metal Sonic back and turned him into a megazord. 

Or when they decided Rouge's only role would be as a bland satelite character for Shadow. 

Or when Blaze was dropped into Sonic 06 in a completely different role that didn't have any of the nuance the character was portrayed with initially. 

Or when Knuckles became Sonic's backup dancer completely divorced of the lore that defined him originally 

Or when Sonic himself slowly but surely  had his attitude shaved clean off and became a bland friendship preacher in the 2000s. 

That wasn't Metal Sonic being dumbed down, they just made him the monster of the week rather than leaving him in obscurity. If anything, it made him more interesting as it established his ability to evolve and surpass his master.

Considering a lot of people actually like the direction they went with Rouge, I wouldn't say it ruins her. What direction would you prefer? Her being a thief isn't incompatible with her current role in Team Dark.

Considering Sonic Rush and Sonic 06 came out so close together, I don't think that this is comparable either. Besides, while Blaze isn't the star of 06, she has a purpose in Silver's narrative and gets a good sendoff, seeing as she was the one to save Silver's future.

That's a dilemma that's most noticeable in the comics. People love Knuckles and they want to see him working with Sonic and being a hero, but they'll also get upset if you ignore his established role as Guardian of the Master Emerald. There are only a few solutions. Either ignore his role as guardian, give that role to someone else temporarily (or even permanently in Archie's case), or involve Angel island or the Master Emerald in the story. Ignoring it worked best with how little story Sonic Heroes had, especially when it was established in the previous game that Knuckles could shrink the Master Emerald and take it with him.

And yet, when they tried giving Sonic more of an attitude in Rise Of The Wisps, a lot of people were upset at him not being sympathetic to the Jade Wisp. Nobody can agree on how much attitude Sonic should have.

 

[Diogenes]

Just now, CertifiedNobody said:

Besides, while Blaze isn't the star of 06, she has a purpose in Silver's narrative and gets a good sendoff, seeing as she was the one to save Silver's future.

Which doesn't matter since the last story undoes the whole thing. She "dies" to clean up Silver's mess, gets removed from the story entirely despite timespace fuckery bringing every other relevant character together, and it doesn't even matter. And nobody even knows why she was there in the first place. It's a complete mess.

[Wraith]

47 minutes ago, CertifiedNobody said:

That wasn't Metal Sonic being dumbed down, they just made him the monster of the week rather than leaving him in obscurity. If anything, it made him more interesting as it established his ability to evolve and surpass his master.

Considering Sonic Rush and Sonic 06 came out so close together, I don't think that this is comparable either. Besides, while Blaze isn't the star of 06, she has a purpose in Silver's narrative and gets a good sendoff, seeing as she was the one to save Silver's future.

 

 

You're missing the point. There's nothing in Sonic Heroes that justifies using Metal Sonic over just creating a new Eggman Robot, and there's nothing in Sonic 06 that justifies including Blaze. They were so divorced from their previous appearances that they might as well have been new characters. That's the problem. This is how Sonic Team "completely breaks" previous story elements...

Quote

That's a dilemma that's most noticeable in the comics. People love Knuckles and they want to see him working with Sonic and being a hero, but they'll also get upset if you ignore his established role as Guardian of the Master Emerald. There are only a few solutions. Either ignore his role as guardian, give that role to someone else temporarily (or even permanently in Archie's case), or involve Angel island or the Master Emerald in the story. Ignoring it worked best with how little story Sonic Heroes had, especially when it was established in the previous game that Knuckles could shrink the Master Emerald and take it with him

And this is how they dumb them down. "Well, either we shove them into the game or we respect the story we wrote before and don't do anything with them!" There are more elegant ways to navigate these things. Why is "Let's have this character return and follow up on the momentum we built with them before" Never an option? It worked for SA1.

Quote

Considering a lot of people actually like the direction they went with Rouge, I wouldn't say it ruins her. What direction would you prefer? Her being a thief isn't incompatible with her current role in Team Dark.

There are people like the pontaff games out there too. That doesn't mean anything to me. My problem is that she had an independent streak before that had her playing both sides. That was something that made her stand out as a character, and it was scratched out so she could join the bland hero squad with the rest.
 

[CertifiedNobody]

35 minutes ago, Wraith said:

You're missing the point. There's nothing in Sonic Heroes that justifies using Metal Sonic over just creating a new Eggman Robot, and there's nothing in Sonic 06 that justifies including Blaze. They were so divorced from their previous appearances that they might as well have been new characters. That's the problem. This is how Sonic Team "completely breaks" previous story elements...

And this is how they dumb them down. "Well, either we shove them into the game or we respect the story we wrote before and don't do anything with them!" There are more elegant ways to navigate these things. Why is "Let's have this character return and follow up on the momentum we built with them before" Never an option? It worked for SA1.

There are people like the pontaff games out there too. That doesn't mean anything to me. My problem is that she had an independent streak before that had her playing both sides. That was something that made her stand out as a character, and it was scratched out so she could join the bland hero squad with the rest.
 

But what is the problem with Metal Sonic being used this way? I don't see how it breaks what came before. Blaze being in 06 made sense when it was meant to serve as a reboot to the series, but fell apart when they dropped that idea immediately. Though it wasn't really that bad until games like Generations and Colors DS tried to have their cake and eat it too by making both stories canon.

How would they involve Knuckles in Sonic Heroes then? If you say "Neo/Eggman has the Master Emerald" then it's going to beg the question of why he waits until the final boss to utilize it, and makes Knuckles look like an incompetent guardian as it's the third time in a row he's failed to guard the Master Emerald.

Rouge isn't any less interesting now that she has teammates to bounce off of or an organization giving her orders. In fact, considering that's how she was introduced, pretty much nothing has changed. We never really see her acting independently in the games, as from her introduction she's allying with Shadow and serving Eggman/GUN, even if it's temporary at the time.

[Kuzu]

4 hours ago, CertifiedNobody said:

But what is the problem with Metal Sonic being used this way? I don't see how it breaks what came before. Blaze being in 06 made sense when it was meant to serve as a reboot to the series, but fell apart when they dropped that idea immediately. Though it wasn't really that bad until games like Generations and Colors DS tried to have their cake and eat it too by making both stories canon.

How would they involve Knuckles in Sonic Heroes then? If you say "Neo/Eggman has the Master Emerald" then it's going to beg the question of why he waits until the final boss to utilize it, and makes Knuckles look like an incompetent guardian as it's the third time in a row he's failed to guard the Master Emerald.

Rouge isn't any less interesting now that she has teammates to bounce off of or an organization giving her orders. In fact, considering that's how she was introduced, pretty much nothing has changed. We never really see her acting independently in the games, as from her introduction she's allying with Shadow and serving Eggman/GUN, even if it's temporary at the time.

You're missing the point; if you liked those story elements or whatever, fine. That's not what Wraith is getting at. The point being made is that Sonic Team have been breaking their story and simplifying their cast since the 2000's, and wasn't just a recent trend like so many fans seem to think. 

Rouge got tied to Shadow relatively early in her conception, and she was a supporting character in her debut, so its not as egregious. But there's absolutely no excuse for Metal Sonic, Blaze, Knuckles.  The only thing you can say Heroes elaborated on was giving him a good motivation for wanting to best Sonic, but besides that there's literally nothing that connects his Heroes incarnation with his Classic incarnation besides the name; there's no transition from "Robot duplicate that wants to beat Sonic" to "Evil overlord that wants to take over by turning into a giant Dragon". If you thought that was cool, fine but that's not the issue at hand here, but the lack of consistency.

Blaze literally started off as the secondary protagonist in her debut with a story focusing on her, only to lose out to Silver and be demoted to a supporting role literally a year later  with none of the stuff that they established about her in Rush. And because Rush is over 15 years old and nobody outside of the fanbase really cares about it, Sega have more or less just kept Blaze as a supporting character in favor of Silver (Guess who got the Rival battle in Generations and one of the few action-orientated cutscenes in Forces, spoiler: It wasn't Blaze) 

And Sega chose to sacrifice Knuckles` entire story in favor of just making him another one of Sonic's sidekicks due to his popularity, and that's been happening as far back as Sonic Heroes. Its honestly not that difficult to find a medium between respecting his story while also giving him a major role, but Sega took the easy way out and decided to strip Knuckles of everything that made him interesting to justify keeping him around.

 

And all of these things happened long before 2010 with Pontac and Graff showed up, and I don't see them changing anytime soon just because they're probably gone.

[Multikaris]

7 hours ago, Wraith said:

No, it started when they brought Metal Sonic back and turned him into a megazord. 

Or when they decided Rouge's only role would be as a bland satelite character for Shadow. 

Or when Blaze was dropped into Sonic 06 in a completely different role that didn't have any of the nuance the character was portrayed with initially. 

Or when Knuckles became Sonic's backup dancer completely divorced of the lore that defined him originally 

Or when Sonic himself slowly but surely  had his attitude shaved clean off and became a bland friendship preacher in the 2000s. 

Yup. But the Colors/Boost Era is a whole new level of this. A lot of stuff had already built up over the dark era, but this was the nail in the coffin. A lot of characters that were DESIGNED to be supporting/satellite characters, like Omega and Cream, slowly vanished from the series. The Dark Era also tended to focus on new one time characters like Chip, whereas the Boost/Colors era basically only focuses on Sonic, Tails, and Eggman, with newly introduced characters being undeveloped and inconsequential, like Yacker, making them even less memorable than the one-off Dark Era characters. The Meta Era does try to return focus to other characters, but only a limited number of them, resulting in something similar to the Dark Era AT BEST. For example, flanderized Shadow wasn’t shoved in people’s faces until this, and they started lumping in the undeveloped Boost/Colors era characters into the rest of the more developed cast, without trying to make them fit in with the previous characters. 

[Kuzu]

I mean, Omega was in Forces. He was completely inconsequential and had no direct impact on anything, but he was there. 

RIP to Cream fans though, y'all are starving. 

[CertifiedNobody]

16 minutes ago, Kuzu said:

You're missing the point; if you liked those story elements or whatever, fine. That's not what Wraith is getting at. The point being made is that Sonic Team have been breaking their story and simplifying their cast since the 2000's, and wasn't just a recent trend like so many fans seem to think. 

Rouge got tied to Shadow relatively early in her conception, and she was a supporting character in her debut, so its not as egregious. But there's absolutely no excuse for Metal Sonic, Blaze, Knuckles.  The only thing you can say Heroes elaborated on was giving him a good motivation for wanting to best Sonic, but besides that there's literally nothing that connects his Heroes incarnation with his Classic incarnation besides the name; there's no transition from "Robot duplicate that wants to beat Sonic" to "Evil overlord that wants to take over by turning into a giant Dragon". If you thought that was cool, fine but that's not the issue at hand here, but the lack of consistency.

Blaze literally started off as the secondary protagonist in her debut with a story focusing on her, only to lose out to Silver and be demoted to a supporting role literally a year later  with none of the stuff that they established about her in Rush. And because Rush is over 15 years old and nobody outside of the fanbase really cares about it, Sega have more or less just kept Blaze as a supporting character in favor of Silver (Guess who got the Rival battle in Generations and one of the few action-orientated cutscenes in Forces, spoiler: It wasn't Blaze) 

And Sega chose to sacrifice Knuckles` entire story in favor of just making him another one of Sonic's sidekicks due to his popularity, and that's been happening as far back as Sonic Heroes. Its honestly not that difficult to find a medium between respecting his story while also giving him a major role, but Sega took the easy way out and decided to strip Knuckles of everything that made him interesting to justify keeping him around.

 

And all of these things happened long before 2010 with Pontac and Graff showed up, and I don't see them changing anytime soon just because they're probably gone.

But how is Metal Sonic being Neo Metal/Metal Overlord "breaking and simplifying the story"? And his transformation is absolutely consistent considering he did the same thing back in Knuckles' Chaotix. Besides, the classic games had numerous examples of Sonic-based robots evolving with each version.

The series isn't about Blaze. Sometimes she'll be the central focus and sometimes she won't. Besides, 06 isn't really a good example to use as to how the franchise typically is or how they treat their characters. And yeah, what a shock that they'd give a rival battle to the hedgehog rival that's more recognizable and would have a more interesting boss fight. If we're going to make that complaint, then why didn't they give Knuckles the classic rival battle instead of Metal Sonic? And tell me why Blaze would be fighting in a war in another universe that she isn't even aware of?

I'm not going to reiterate my point that it's hard to balance Knuckles' roles as Guardian and hero, but either way, they didn't "strip Knuckles of everything that made him interesting to justify keeping him around" that's a massive exaggeration of not talking about the Master Emerald for a game.

Considering how these are the best examples of how it's SEGA rather than Pontaff that are the issue, I'm not too worried about the franchise's future.

[Kuzu]

12 minutes ago, CertifiedNobody said:

But how is Metal Sonic being Neo Metal/Metal Overlord "breaking and simplifying the story"? And his transformation is absolutely consistent considering he did the same thing back in Knuckles' Chaotix. Besides, the classic games had numerous examples of Sonic-based robots evolving with each version.

The series isn't about Blaze. Sometimes she'll be the central focus and sometimes she won't. Besides, 06 isn't really a good example to use as to how the franchise typically is or how they treat their characters. And yeah, what a shock that they'd give a rival battle to the hedgehog rival that's more recognizable and would have a more interesting boss fight. If we're going to make that complaint, then why didn't they give Knuckles the classic rival battle instead of Metal Sonic? And tell me why Blaze would be fighting in a war in another universe that she isn't even aware of?

I'm not going to reiterate my point that it's hard to balance Knuckles' roles as Guardian and hero, but either way, they didn't "strip Knuckles of everything that made him interesting to justify keeping him around" that's a massive exaggeration of not talking about the Master Emerald for a game.

Considering how these are the best examples of how it's SEGA rather than Pontaff that are the issue, I'm not too worried about the franchise's future.

>Character starts off with a complex and dynamic motivation.

>Is instantly thrown out in subsequent sequels and reduces to their role

It doesn't matter if the series isn't about Blaze, Metal, Knuckles, or whoever the fact of the matter is that they established a story surrounding them and chose to toss it out in favor of putting them in a much supporting role.  That is the literal definition of simplifying something my dude.

You're accusing the newer games of doing this, but completely ignoring the fact that it was happening long before then because you liked them more I guess. 

 

Like I said, I don't really care if you liked the 2000's games more, I really don't. But just because Sonic and Shadow were fighting eldritch gods every other game back then didn't mean the stories were necessarily more well-written than the stuff post-Colors.  

[Wraith]

34 minutes ago, Snowragnarok said:

Yup. But the Meta Era is a whole new level of this. A lot of stuff had already built up over the dark era, but this was the nail in the coffin. A lot of characters that were DESIGNED to be supporting characters, like Omega and Cream, slowly vanished. 

The characters not being around is a completely different problem than the one we were just talking about.

[CertifiedNobody]

4 minutes ago, Kuzu said:

>Character starts off with a complex and dynamic motivation.

>Is instantly thrown out in subsequent sequels and reduces to their role

It doesn't matter if the series isn't about Blaze, Metal, Knuckles, or whoever the fact of the matter is that they established a story surrounding them and chose to toss it out in favor of putting them in a much supporting role.  That is the literal definition of simplifying something my dude.

You're accusing the newer games of doing this, but completely ignoring the fact that it was happening long before then because you liked them more I guess. 

 

Like I said, I don't really care if you liked the 2000's games more, I really don't. But just because Sonic and Shadow were fighting eldritch gods every other game back then didn't mean the stories were necessarily more well-written than the stuff post-Colors.  

With the exception of Shadow, every character in the series gets more of a supporting role after their character arc is completed. It's not simplifying, it's moving to another focus.

None of this makes them poorly written either. I like the 2010s games and even grew up with most of them, and am even willing to defend Lost World, Forces, and Infinite as being okay or ideas with potential, but you're comparing Sonic's personality shift in Colors and several major characters getting sidelined to these comparatively minor issues.

[Kuzu]

Look, I said my piece already and I really don't want to go back and forth about this; this series has always had a problem of utilizing it's cast properly and fleshing them out. This is not a recent trend like so many fans crying on Twitter or Reddit would have you believe, and has been going on since at least 2005.