Reimagining unpopular Sonic concepts.

[A super No.1 washedupgamer]

I'm in the minority with this and sonic mania plus is already a great game but...

Encore mode could've been a bit more challenging, at least with the boss fights. Give the surprise twists for veteran players like knuckles' bosses in sonic 3 and knuckles.

Green hill zone 1 Ex( The Death egg drones are 3 instead of 2.

Green hill zone 2 Death egg robo starts off in it's pinch phase making it so you have to beat it more quickly to avoid falling off the hill.

Chemical plant zone 1 The CP mini boss bounces faster

Chemical plant zone 2 The puyo boss plays is harder

Studiopolis zone 1 Heavy gunner shoots his bombs and middles more rapidly so you hardly have a break in between jumps.

Studiopolis zone 2 The weather machine reports a hurricane causing wind to blow from the side of the screen blowing you into those mic badniks. You have to run faster against the wind also while dodging storm clouds.

Flying battery 1 The big squeeze spawns ground badniks that get in your way as well as orbinauts.

Flying battery 2 Some of the spikes in FBZ's spider boss move up and down.

Press garden 1 The PGZ miniboss has an extra buzz saw that extends underneath it.

Press garden 2 Heavy shinobi starts off with his pinch phase and has a secret dash attack

Stardust speedway 1The SS miniboss has enemies that spawn during his giant laser attack.

Stardust speedway 2 Metal sonic's Kai phase moves faster.

Hydrocity 1 ...i got nothing for the HCZ mini boss. Eggman is screwed there.

Hydrocity 2 HCZ boss will stop midway during his attack and change course in the second phase of the fight, tricking the player.

Mirage saloon 1 There's two bead worm bosses in MSZ's mini boss fight.

Mirage saloon 2 In heavy magician's fight, Fang will spawn his hovercraft and attack the player. Bean throws a giant bomb at you. And bark will grapple the player and throw him if he gets too close.

Oil ocean 1 The OOZ miniboss will have spikes occasionally fall from the ceiling.

Oil ocean 2 Since the main OOZ mainboss is basically a harder version of the original's I got nothing here except, make the fireballs the turret shoots out ignite the oil when it touches it making it a difficult fight for players that forgot the fire shield.

Lava reef 1 I got nothing for the LRZ miniboss. It's already hard.

Lava reef 2a For heavy king, make him shoot an energy ball that chases you during the whole fight.

Lava reef 2b For heavy rider, make it throw the spike ball at you occasionally.

Metallic madness 1 The MMZ miniboss is fine. I got nothing.

Metallic madness 2 Make the MMZ main boss spawn more toys, maybe the spring yard zone boss?

Titanic monarch 1 Red eye in TMZ is fine. Nothing here.

Titanic monarch 2 For the final boss, make the hardboiled heavy rooms last a little bit longer. You have to reach enough hits to go back to the main boss fight. Maybe a secret suprise mecha sonic boss after it.

I know some of these are crappy ideas and it could probably be modded into the steam version. Feel free to quote me if you have anything on this.

[LegoFedora]

On 8/16/2021 at 11:02 PM, Dr. Mechano said:

So I think Shadow loosening up over time and adapting to earth's culture would honestly be really endearing. Keep that competitive spirit he has, sure. But let him smile and have fun a little more.

This is something I thought forces actually did somewhat well in his scenario. I loved his little "should have hired a defense squad for the defense squad, eh doctor?" line. Plus him seeming to rush when Rouge/Omega start weirding out was fun.

I wish episode Shadow was longer, the writing in that alone was more interesting than anything the main game had. Even the "weak" comment, considering shadow's past of realizing he isn't the ultimate lifeform but was a fake imitation of it (Sonic). Atleast going by the Japanese translation of sa2.

[DabigRG]

You know, from the moment I saw this topic was a thing, I've kinda struggled in thinking of anything to answer the challenge issued by the OP with. Mostly because, having been drawn into this franchise in elementary and possessing a decent appreciation/tolerance for many of it's disparate elements, I honestly have a low number of things I hate or even dislike enough to properly consider. The only things that come to mind in recent years are Zeena, Tangle, and the perpetual drag that is IDW Shadow--two of which actually got better eventually. 

I suppose I was stewing on how to address what was wrong with Zeena for so long that I accidentally forgot much of it, but can always recall it with enough concentration. Especially since Tangle was such a messy web of middling that I don't think it could be fixed directly, if she needed to be at all; Shadow is similar, except fucky.

 

On 8/16/2021 at 10:59 PM, BadBehavior said:

 

But to tweak a concepts that seems to be popular: the wisps. Everyone compares them to mario powerups and I'm like "No?" Mario doesn't lose the fire flower after blasting one fireball. He doesn't lose the Tanuki leaf after some arbitrary amount of time. So I thought what if wisps actually did function like Mario powerups? Actual, meaningful additions to Sonic's moveset and not something that Conker's Bad Fur Day parodied 20 years ago with Context Sensitive buttons? Assuming the framework is exactly like your standard Boost game.

Laser. Allows him to do a Lost World style chain homing attack.
Cube. If you have it, you can jump on cube platforms. If you don't, you don't. No slow stomp switching bullcrap.
Spike: Allows you to go up certain steep surfaces when boosting. (Or maybe allows you to stick to ceilings if Sonic Team thought we needed some nostalgia pandering for 06 ;P)
Burst: Can do infinite jumps so long as he has to speed to maintain them. Basically the Cape feather from SMW (or Ray from Mania + to the cultured among us). As a bonus, maybe the flames light up dark levels.
Hover: since Burst has taken what Hover can do, Hover just restores access to the light speed ring dash. And not for context sensitive trails either, for all trails like from Adventure-Unleashed.

That's all I can think of right now.

That might've been really cool and natural, actually. 

Not only would it have added another dimension to the game's replayability, but it would've addressed the occasional criticism of some Wisps having abilities Sonic has had in the past.

[DabigRG]

On 8/17/2021 at 12:36 AM, CrownSlayer’s Shadow said:

I’m not sure where this lies on the popularity spectrum, but one other idea I had in mind was Soleanna being a remnant of one of the Four Great Civilizations like the Echidnas. It would explain their worship of the sun, their science involving time travel to correct the world’s sins, and the Solaris god could have been an ancient super weapon created by the pre-Soleanna civilization.

I would have also tied this into Blaze’s dimension, being the same part of that civilization but in another dimension like the Lombaxes were to Ratchet in the Ratchet and Clank Future series. (and I still haven’t played Rifts Apart yet, so no spoilers plz.) 

Heirlooms like the Jeweled Scepter and maybe the Sol Emeralds were made to control Solaris among many other added features, hence why the Duke of Soleanna couldn’t fully control Solaris in his own dimension. And since they were so powerful, they chose a specific person to act as the guardian, which eventually turned into the royal family that Blaze is the current successor of.

This would require a re-write of much of Sonic 06, but that game could use it anyway.

 

On 8/17/2021 at 1:59 AM, charmsb said:

A connection between the Sol dimension and Solaris and Soleanna seems so obvious that it makes me mad its not real lol.

Hopefully we get some more info on the dimension itself later down the line instead of "Yep, it sure exists alright." In the IDW Metal Virus arc,

  Hide contents

Sonic was transported to the Sol Dimension through some fuckery with the warp topaz and chaos control probably. Thing is, they were dumping the metal virus into the Sun... and Sonic happens to show in the Sol dimension for a spell. I wonder if this was intentional? I'd love to ask Flynn himself.

 

There's a collection of videos on a particular YouTube channel that basically does that.

[charmsb]

1 hour ago, DabigRG said:

 

There's a collection of videos on a particular YouTube channel that basically does that.

I feel like this is an obvious hint but I have no idea what you're referencing.

[DabigRG]

8 hours ago, charmsb said:

I feel like this is an obvious hint but I have no idea what you're referencing.

It's the same channel that did a rewrite of the Deadly Six

I'm not as fond of this one or maybe the one for Forces, personally, but it is topical.

 

 

 

[Cosmos Rogue]

So from what I've seen and heard the "Eggman actually takes over the world" plot was completely wasted in Forces. I've also seen lots and lots of complaints about how Forces revisits Green Hill Zone for the umpteenth time. I don't have any ideas for how to fix Forces itself, but Sonic Team could have made better use of the "Eggman wins" plot by using it in Sonic Generations instead. Sonic games have never had all that much world building*, so just saying Eggman has taken over the world doesn't mean that much. Sonic's world is made up of the levels he runs through, so the best way to show what it means when Eggman wins is to revisit old levels, but recontextualize their themes to reflect Eggman's victory. City Escape could be shut down by martial law, with robots that resemble riot police and barricades blocking the streets, forcing Sonic to take new paths through the level for example. Forces actually touched on this idea by putting Green Hill Zone through desertification.

*The Adventure games probably do the most world building in the series, but they can't even be bothered to tell us what country the President is President of. All they do is sketch out that Sonic's world resembles our own and allow our imaginations to fill in the rest.

[Johnny Boy]

On 8/16/2021 at 10:19 PM, CrownSlayer’s Shadow said:

I’d take the Deadly Six and expand their background so that we know why the D6 was formed and became what it is, as well as that of Lost Hex.

The question is how, and that can go from many different ways: an mercenary organization that grew to embody their vices, remnants of an ancient civilization who are the sole keepers of the lost art of technomancy, or a group of demons banished to the floating world they now call home. Maybe even have them fight the echidna civilization in the past after Chaos had already devastated their numbers 4000 years ago, explaining further why Knuckles is the last of his kind and why they’re only six of them. Fuck, they could be Knuckles enemies out of tribal history of bad blood!!!

Really, it’s surprising the many ways they could’ve developed the Deadly Six beyond just punch clock villains who exist because...eh? They really didn’t need to be made as lame the way they were, and had they put the same effort they put into Chip in Unleashed, they might’ve been more well received.

Making the deadly six into Knuckles’ enemies and the reason why Pachacamac has hell bent on using the Master Emeralds power would be pretty sick if done right.

[Mr. Ion]

Another thing from the series I thought of:
I don't like the concepts of Shadow the Hedgehog. Full disclosure, I've never played the game, so I can't comment on the gameplay itself, but what I can comment on is the story, general concepts, and aesthetics. 

I think Shadow the Hedgehog would have been interesting as an anthology. We follow Shadow through different points in his life: maybe a few with Maria on the ark (not unlike Lost Impact, but maybe more interesting), missions involving Gerald Robotnik, missions showing how he came to work for G.U.N., or basically anything that we didn't see. These could be used to great effect to trace his development and better expand his character, and would also probably allow for a greater variety of environments other than "grungy city".

Another thing is that the game would do well with a unified aesthetic. This is something that I appreciated with Forces, though its aesthetic choices are another thing. It could go with a military vibe, or the kind of emo underground vibe from the early 00s, but it needs to be striking and interesting.

I think Shadow should've utilized its characters more effectively. A bunch of them appear but don't really do much. You could use them to explore Shadow's nature as a sort of anti-hero or just have unique characters to play off his personality. 
I think Shadow the Hedgehog just had a lot of potential to capitalize on.

[Multikaris]

I’ll provide my two cents on a game mechanic/move I could see being given a makeover; the charged jump from Secret Rings. Simply have it so that Sonic can still move while charging his jump, and when he does unleash a charged jump, not only does it go higher, it also deploys an Insta-Shield blade to attack enemies. It would also be able to enhance any elemental shield ability Sonic has if you perform it out of a charge jump (or even just charge that shield in mid-air), similar to the charged weapons in the X series. 

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

On 8/29/2021 at 7:42 AM, Johnny Boy said:

Making the deadly six into Knuckles’ enemies and the reason why Pachacamac has hell bent on using the Master Emeralds power would be pretty sick if done right.

Hell, just the thought of that alone already makes the Deadly Six more interesting.
 

After seeing them in Lost Worlds, it would be a major step up in how threatening they would be if they were the reason Pachacamac needed the Master Emerald’s power. And they might’ve even been able to give the Nocturnus Tribe business if Chronicles were canon.

[Johnny Boy]

7 hours ago, CrownSlayer’s Shadow said:

Hell, just the thought of that alone already makes the Deadly Six more interesting.
 

After seeing them in Lost Worlds, it would be a major step up in how threatening they would be if they were the reason Pachacamac needed the Master Emerald’s power. And they might’ve even been able to give the Nocturnus Tribe business if Chronicles were canon.

Oh man that would be amazing. But since the nocturnus tribe can’t be used anymore (thanks Penders), the six would be a perfect substitute for Pachacamacs motivation. Helps that the six are centuries old and who knows? Maybe Zik would’ve been the leader of the zeti at the time they attacked the clan. And Knuckles and Zavok if written well could have a T’Challa and Namor esque rivalry.

[Diogenes]

Eh. I feel like giving the ancient echidnas a defined and genuinely dangerous enemy would hurt SA's story a bit, making Pachacamac's actions seem more justified as opposed to him just being a power-hungry warmonger.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

15 hours ago, Diogenes said:

Eh. I feel like giving the ancient echidnas a defined and genuinely dangerous enemy would hurt SA's story a bit, making Pachacamac's actions seem more justified as opposed to him just being a power-hungry warmonger.

You act like there’s no middle ground with this.

He can still be a power-hungry warmonger with justified actions toward his enemies. It’s not black and white thing given he would still trample over Chao to achieve it (and still resulting in his tribe wiped out by Chaos)—being justified over something doesn’t mean the actions done to achieve it are an inherently good thing. Real life history and a book’s worth of other fictional villains can attest to that.

[Diogenes]

6 hours ago, CrownSlayer’s Shadow said:

You act like there’s no middle ground with this.

I mean I said it would weaken the story a bit, not destroy it entirely. It changes the story from Pachacamac being unambiguously in the wrong, to one where one could argue he was doing the right thing to protect his people, and we'd gain basically nothing for it.

[Wraith]

I think any rework of the deadly six should lean into their absurdity. The wild colors, exaggerated features and the 'oni' influence are what set them apart from other sonic characters. Grounding them to a society or trying to give them too many human reasons for their behavior feels like a mistake when their defining traits are that they are purely chaotic creatures. 

Tying more lore to the echidnas also just makes Sonic's world feel smaller. Not everything has to go back to them, or the emeralds. 

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

4 hours ago, Diogenes said:

I mean I said it would weaken the story a bit, not destroy it entirely. It changes the story from Pachacamac being unambiguously in the wrong, to one where one could argue he was doing the right thing to protect his people, and we'd gain basically nothing for it.

The road to hell can be paved with good intentions.

Even if you could argue he was doing the right thing to protect his people, you can still portray it as him doing it in a way that’s wrong. Such a person could be called an imperialist who only cares about his people and will conquer, subjugate, or wipe out anyone else not part of it whereas someone like his daughter Tikal has a heart for those who aren’t part of their tribe. You’d basically be making Pachacamac more three dimensional by giving him more motive to being greedy, power-hungry, and expansionist, yet still not a really good person.

If anything, it just makes events more connected to one another and the characters it affects in the past and present.

Like, really, nothing is being taken away here, for the echidnas or the Deadly Six. It’s just a nuance to why they’re the way they are.

3 hours ago, Wraith said:

I think any rework of the deadly six should lean into their absurdity. The wild colors, exaggerated features and the 'oni' influence are what set them apart from other sonic characters. Grounding them to a society or trying to give them too many human reasons for their behavior feels like a mistake when their defining traits are that they are purely chaotic creatures. 
 

I really don’t think you understand the point regarding reworking the Deadly Six.

First off, nothing about giving them human reasons would make them less chaotic. Human beings themselves can be vain, wrathful, gluttonous, slothful, prideful, greedy, spiteful, or any vice you can already identify in the Deadly Six themselves. I know each and everyone of you have at least met a few people in your lifetime that has the personality of one of the Six—we don’t have to go into specifics, but the point is that we’re not trying to make the D6 anything they’re not. Only defining why they are the way they are more than “just because.”
 

Second, giving them a society also wouldn’t make them less chaotic—if these characters are defined by how chaotic they are, then why wouldn’t the first thing you think of in doing that not be to make the society itself chaotic and entrench why the D6 or any more like them are like that as something they value, and why they’ll be at odds with the heroes and other villains most of the time? We don’t have to value or agree to what the D6 does, neither do any of the other characters—and indeed, that’s where the conflict with everyone else would still be generated. But be we can still see more of why they are the way they are beyond just 2-dimensional punch clock villains defined only by their appearance and personality.

It just sound like a quick excuse to dismiss an idea, especially considering that a good chunk of the cast aren’t humans themselves.

3 hours ago, Wraith said:

 

Tying more lore to the echidnas also just makes Sonic's world feel smaller. Not everything has to go back to them, or the emeralds. 

 

Sonic’s world isn’t even fully defined, even before the whole Two Worlds thing came in and made a mess. Adding more lore to the echidnas isn’t going to shrink it one bit.

[Diogenes]

2 minutes ago, CrownSlayer’s Shadow said:

The road to hell can be paved with good intentions.

Even if you could argue he was doing the right thing to protect his people, you can still portray it as him doing it in a way that’s wrong.

I am well aware of that. As I've said, I'm not arguing that it breaks the story entirely. But why go back and repave that road in a way that makes the warmonger look better?

2 minutes ago, CrownSlayer’s Shadow said:

Such a person could be called an imperialist who only cares about his people and will conquer, subjugate, or wipe out anyone else not part of it whereas someone like his daughter Tikal has a heart for those who aren’t part of their tribe.

Well I mean he also had his army trample his daughter so care for his people doesn't seem to be the biggest thing on his mind.

2 minutes ago, CrownSlayer’s Shadow said:

You’d basically be making Pachacamac more three dimensional by giving him more motive to being greedy, power-hungry, and expansionist, yet still not a really good person.

This kind of intersects with something I've thought about a lot lately, those villainy tier list sort of things, that judge "evil for evil's sake" villains as bad writing and "basically practically a hero" villains as good writing. But in the real world a lot of people are just shitty, they don't have noble intentions that have gone off course, they have self-serving lies and baseless fears. So I don't think a retcon that would make Pachacamac's actions more justified would necessarily make him more three dimensional, or more realistic, or better written in any sense.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

21 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

I am well aware of that. As I've said, I'm not arguing that it breaks the story entirely. But why go back and repave that road in a way that makes the warmonger look better?

Well, for one, we wouldn’t be making him better. Just understood. You don’t need to be sympathetic to be understood.

Second, to make him more three dimensional. We know what he did, we’re just understanding why—and even then, we don’t have to agree with it.

21 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

Well I mean he also had his army trample his daughter so care for his people doesn't seem to be the biggest thing on his mind.

His daughter is just one person of his tribe. For all we know, he could still go full Omni-Man on his daughter and not care about her entirely for being and valuing the exact opposite of the kind of daughter he wants: peaceful and pacifistic over strength and power.

21 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

This kind of intersects with something I've thought about a lot lately, those villainy tier list sort of things, that judge "evil for evil's sake" villains as bad writing and "basically practically a hero" villains as good writing. But in the real world a lot of people are just shitty, they don't have noble intentions that have gone off course, they have self-serving lies and baseless fears. So I don't think a retcon that would make Pachacamac's actions more justified would necessarily make him more three dimensional, or more realistic, or better written in any sense.

I’d say “shallow” writing in this case, not necessarily “bad.”

A three dimensional character is defined by their appearance (how they look), their backgrounds (how they came about, or history, so to speak), and their personality (how they think, which is influenced by their background). None of this says anything would make a villain “practically a hero” in the slightest—it just gives an understanding of the character, hero or villain. Even the most evil of characters, a complete and total monster, can be a three dimensional one—they’re still a monster, we  can just see why they are; and while we can understand them better, we still don’t have to sympathize with them.

We’re not giving Pachacamac any sympathy by making his actions more nuanced and understood, we’re just giving him substance that entrenches why he took the actions he did—and part of his character could be his “my way or the highway” attitude that makes him unwilling to see any alternatives due to his greed and lust for power, even if he can justify doing so for the sake of his people (plenty of dictators exactly like him have done just that).

[Kuzu]

It all really comes down to what you want out of your "villains"; in modern times, villains with "depth" and complex motivations are the norm as a result of how villains were basically cardboard cut outs with no real nuances to them. I'd say Pachacamac falls into the latter category. 

And like, I can get attempting to flesh him out, but for what purpose? He's not really all that important of a character besides being the catalyst for the Chaos incident. His character and motivations are ultimately irrelevant there. Tikal is the main focus of the flashback sequences and she's ultimately where our sympathy should lie. 

If fleshing out Pachacamac was for the intended purpose of fleshing out TIkal's relationship with him, fine. But doing that just for its own sake doesn't make much sense to me. 

[Wraith]

26 minutes ago, CrownSlayer’s Shadow said:

 

I really don’t think you understand the point regarding reworking the Deadly Six.

First off, nothing about giving them human reasons would make them less chaotic. Human beings themselves can be vain, wrathful, gluttonous, slothful, prideful, greedy, spiteful, or any vice you can already identify in the Deadly Six themselves. I know each and everyone of you have at least met a few people in your lifetime that has the personality of one of the Six—we don’t have to go into specifics, but the point is that we’re not trying to make the D6 anything they’re not. 
 

Second, giving them a society also wouldn’t make them less chaotic—if these characters are defined by how chaotic they are, then why wouldn’t the first thing you think of in doing that not be making the society itself chaotic and entrench why the D6 or any more like them are like that as something they value, and why they’ll be at odds with the heroes and other villains most of the time?

It just sound like a quick excuse to dismiss an idea, especially considering that a good chunk of the cast aren’t humans themselves.

None of this changes the fact that Sonic's universe is filled with power hungry warmongers and and has a pretty strong allegory for how the cycle of revenge is bad already. The only angle I can see with the six that justifies even having them continue to show up in the first place is doing something different, and taking advantage of the fact that they're "pure" in their embodiment of their respective vices would set them apart. It's why Zazz always came off as far and away the best member to me.  There's zero spin. He's just a cool, wacky looking demon guy who loves to fight. Ever since they threw the Hooligans in the dumpster, there aren't that many villains that exist to stir shit for it's own sake. Characters that you can drop into a scenario to crank up the madness without a bunch of preamble to justify them getting them involved. If they're going to stick around, take advantage of what makes them different.

This isn't even getting into the fact that they're really pretty silly characters at their core. Tying them to one of the more tragic moments in the series reads as tone deaf, and modifying them so they'd fit saps them of their standout traits. It just reads like a bad move to me.
 

26 minutes ago, CrownSlayer’s Shadow said:

 

Sonic’s world isn’t even fully defined, even before the whole Two Worlds thing came in and made a mess. Adding more lore to the echidnas isn’t going to shrink it one bit.

It's not about physically shrinking the world, it's about making it feel smaller by tying too many concepts to the same origin point. I know it's tempting to write worldbuilding this way with the way shared universes are taking off. The dopamine rush of realizing this thing is connected to that other thing you like. But this stuff doesn't make characters more interesting, and trying too many of these larger than life concepts to the echidna or the chaos emeralds make them feel like they're the center of the universe.

I don't like to shoot down an idea without offering an alternative so despite my general distaste for these characters I'll throw my own pitch in.
 

Spoiler

I mostly hate their designs, but I think the bigger problem with them is that they have these kind of exaggerated traits that only really make sense to give to a character if you exaggerate the artstyle and movement too, so you don't think too much about them. Sonic characters have a bizarre amount of realism to how they move and emote, and it never hit harder than when I first saw these guys in game. It just doesn't fit. Sonic Lost World should have cranked up the zany across the board if these are the designs they wanted to go with.

Lore-wise, I think they should move them even further away from humanity than they already are. I don't get why Zeena's basically just a normal girl with a horn or why master zik is modeled after an eastern kung-fu master. Zomom's whole food bit is obviously just a joke but i think that was kind of a mistake too. Make them more alien. Divorce them from popular culture and tropes we enjoy.

As far as their personalities, I don't think anything in particular sticks out about them. first I figured that they should be reflection of humanity's vices but honestly...Sonic doesn't have a huge focus on social commentary. Any time they've done NPCs they're usually pretty kind, so it feels weird to try and take that angle now.

So why not make them reflections of specific Sonic characters vices? I don't mean literally changing their designs just to base them off the characters, but their personalities. Zazz can reflect Sonic's tendency to get into the mix of things and look for cheap thrills. Zor has some of Tails's former self confidence issues. Zeena could be modified to be more like any specific Sonic character at all instead of just being "the girl." If you wanted to be funny, you could pit Zomom against Big etc.

The only problem with this is that there's a temptation to match everybody up with their Zeti counterpart, and Sonic Lost World already had more characters than it knew what to do with. They seem to be sticking around though so I guess you could have saved some of those confrontations for later games instead. Big vs Zomom will have to wait until Rangers, I guess.

 

[Diogenes]

3 minutes ago, CrownSlayer’s Shadow said:

Well, for one, we wouldn’t be making him better. Just understood. You don’t need to be sympathetic to be understood.

I understand him well enough as it is.

3 minutes ago, CrownSlayer’s Shadow said:

We’re not giving Pachacamac any sympathy by making his actions more nuanced and understood

You're making him sympathetic by deciding that his enemies are big scary monsters that justify him trying to take the emeralds by force.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

3 hours ago, Wraith said:

None of this changes the fact that Sonic's universe is filled with power hungry warmongers and and has a pretty strong allegory for how the cycle of revenge is bad already.

...

This isn't even getting into the fact that they're really pretty silly characters at their core. Tying them to one of the more tragic moments in the series reads as tone deaf, and modifying them so they'd fit saps them of their standout traits. It just reads like a bad move to me.

I said they would be ancient enemies, not the ones who wiped out the Echidna tribe (that would still be Chaos’s doing). They could be an added motive as to why the echidnas wanted an edge for their own empire, and neither one would necessarily be good guys.

Really, nothing you said would even go against it. They Zeti could still be silly, yet powerful, chaotic entities fighting an equally powerful group of warmongers for the control of whatever part of the world they were on for their own sake—one just made a fatal mistake in trying to get an edge on the other and got wiped out while the other was reduced to six (somehow, which is another discussion entirely) or just consisted of six from the start who had nothing left after they got what they wanted until Eggman came along.

So instead of a cycle of revenge, it’s a cycle of greed.

3 hours ago, Wraith said:

It's not about physically shrinking the world, it's about making it feel smaller by tying too many concepts to the same origin point. I know it's tempting to write worldbuilding this way with the way shared universes are taking off. The dopamine rush of realizing this thing is connected to that other thing you like. But this stuff doesn't make characters more interesting, and trying too many of these larger than life concepts to the echidna or the chaos emeralds make them feel like they're the center of the universe.

We’re just talking two different concepts out of the literal dozens out there being connected together. I don’t see how that makes anything the center of the universe when nothing else we’ve discussed about them connects to other parts. It wouldn’t connect to Soleanna, it’s too irrelevant to matter to the events of the ARK massacre or the Black Arms (maybe?), has nothing to do with the Ancient Babylonians, the Gaian Shrines, Little Planet, or the Wisps.

That, and it was just one of several ideas I offered that took the most interest. The other ideas, mercenaries who succumbed to their vices, a banished society of demons, or the sole keepers of the art of technomancy, were completely unconnected to echidnas.

 

3 hours ago, Diogenes said:

I understand him well enough as it is.

Good for you. I like to understand characters a bit more than that.

3 hours ago, Diogenes said:

You're making him sympathetic by deciding that his enemies are big scary monsters that justify him trying to take the emeralds by force.

That’s a strawman if there ever was one after I just told you, more than once, that he’d still be a power hungry dictator without sympathy.

The initial point was that Echidnas and the Zeti were ancient enemies at war with each other in the distant past (the reason for that still being undefined beyond greed and power), so let’s not slip back into the habit of twisting people’s words, shall we?

[Diogenes]

You don't strip him of all sympathy just by saying he's not sympathetic. By portraying his enemies as powerful and dangerous monsters, putting him in a situation where he "needs" the emeralds, you inherently make his situation more sympathetic, compared to when he's using his military might to crush tribes similar to his own and his lust for power is what leads him to try to take the emeralds by force.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

18 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

You don't strip him of all sympathy just by saying he's not sympathetic.
 

He tramples over his own daughter, massacres a group of Chao, and attempts to steal a powerful power source that was never his to begin with.

How in the blue hell would you remotely call that sympathetic?

18 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

By portraying his enemies as powerful and dangerous monsters, putting him in a situation where he "needs" the emeralds, you inherently make his situation more sympathetic, compared to when he's using his military might to crush tribes similar to his own and his lust for power is what leads him to try to take the emeralds by force.

No we don’t. Because for all we know they could have been evenly matched, and Pachacamac wanted an edge to wipe out the Zeti like the rest of his enemies before Chaos did him in.

Like seriously dude, put more thought and read what is being said instead of twisting it into what you want it to mean.