Do you think Sage will be a recurring character in Sonic games after Sonic Frontiers?

[Scritch the Cat]

This character seems to be getting surprisingly little discussion here, though unsurprisingly fanart has taken to her in a big hurry.  But there have been remarks that her creation is a big part of SEGA's push to make Sonic Frontiers appealing to a Japanese audience.  She's essentially another "moe" character along the lines of Tails, Cream and Cosmo, but with a bit more of a dark edge to fit with the game's more serious and mature presentation, and has a famous voice actress.  While presented as the villain, based on everything that's come out so far, it seems likely she will either have a redemption arc or just be revealed to not be a villain.  (People who want to clarify by mentioning leaks, please either hide that in a spoiler tag or just put in the leaks thread.)

So what then?  Not every character created for a new Sonic game has lasted past that game, but aside from Jet it seems like every character whose original function is as a Sonic rival has stuck around, and again, with this game being noted as a big charm offensive to Japanese gamers in general, it seems unlikely that they'll just waste this character on one game.

But what say you?  Am I right?  Why or why not? And if I am, then how do you think they'll use her in subsequent games?  Again, take care not to drop spoilers without spoiler-tagging them.

[King Conne]

All I know for the moment is that she is my only deception : I would have prefered her to be an animal!!...
And I hope the ancient civilization will be an animal civilization!!...
Sometimes, when I watch videos with Sage, her "special effects" make me think of Infinite and I hope to see him again in FRONTIERS...
I'm sure the game and its story will be very good... but the ancient civilization will probably not be as inspiring as the one we discovered in SONIC ADVENTURE (or SONIC CHRONICLES)!!...

[Scritch the Cat]

14 minutes ago, King Conne said:

All I know for the moment is that she is my only deception : I would have prefered her to be an animal!!...
And I hope the ancient civilization will be an animal civilization!!...
Sometimes, when I watch videos with Sage, her "special effects" make me think of Infinite and I hope to see him again in FRONTIERS...
I'm sure the game and its story will be very good... but the ancient civilization will probably not be as inspiring as the one we discovered in SONIC ADVENTURE (or SONIC CHRONICLES)!!...

Let's be real, this is just going to be another Planet of the Apes.  In fact given how obviously they're deriving from BOTF, I wouldn't even consider that revelation a twist.

[mayday2592]

ATM I'm assuming that she's similar to Tikal/Chip/Shahra/Merlina in that she's a one off character whose story arc ends in this game. Especially since so far she seems closely tied to the Starfall Islands, a locale that may only be in Frontiers.

[SticksSuperFan14]

6 minutes ago, mayday2592 said:

ATM I'm assuming that she's similar to Tikal/Chip/Shahra/Merlina in that she's a one off character whose story arc ends in this game. Especially since so far she seems closely tied to the Starfall Islands, a locale that may only be in Frontiers.

The best I could see is the occasional cameo, like Tikal, if she ends up being well-liked, or banished to the void if she ends up being hated/heavily criticized, like Infinite.

[Diogenes]

She's gonna get all tied up in the islands' cyberspace/ancient civilization business and either sacrifice herself or stay there as its guardian/overseer or something. I think it's pretty clear that she's not the villain in all this, but I don't see her as the type of character to stick around as an ally; she's not really suitable as a playable character and I expect she'd be redundant as a friendly NPC outside this game's context. I think the one chance she has to stick around is...actually I guess this gets into leaky-spoilery territory?

Spoiler

She's an AI created by Eggman, so she could make nice-ish with Sonic just until they stop the bigger threat, then go back to Eggman and be the canon version of Eggette/Omelette.

 

[Scritch the Cat]

1 hour ago, Diogenes said:

She's gonna get all tied up in the islands' cyberspace/ancient civilization business and either sacrifice herself or stay there as its guardian/overseer or something. I think it's pretty clear that she's not the villain in all this, but I don't see her as the type of character to stick around as an ally; she's not really suitable as a playable character and I expect she'd be redundant as a friendly NPC outside this game's context. I think the one chance she has to stick around is...actually I guess this gets into leaky-spoilery territory?

  Hide contents

She's an AI created by Eggman, so she could make nice-ish with Sonic just until they stop the bigger threat, then go back to Eggman and be the canon version of Eggette/Omelette.

I would be more likely to assume that if that was the case, she'd be

Spoiler

more like Gamma.  Maybe not dying at the end but still not serving Eggman.  Actually, I kind of would expect her to not even know who Eggman is since so far he doesn't seem to be in control of much in the game.  Most likely, this will be about his robots and programs developing minds of their own after he goes missing.

 

[Shade Vortex]

Honestly, based on everything we know thanks to all the stuff we shouldn't know, my answer is gonna be a hard "no".

Spoiler

I'm pretty sure Vandalize is about Sonic and Sage's dynamic, and that song is pretty clearly not about a happy ending to a relationship. It's about a toxic one. And Ian Flynn already confirmed that he was "picking up what they were putting down" when it came to the song lyrics, and that the lyrics will make a lot more sense once we've played the game. That leads me to fully believe that there'll be a major heel-turn moment for Sage where she has to sacrifice herself for the greater good, or something. Or Sonic has to destroy her for a similar reason. Some shit is gonna go down between those two, is all I am certain of.

 

[Wraith]

46 minutes ago, Shade Vortex said:

Honestly, based on everything we know thanks to all the stuff we shouldn't know, my answer is gonna be a hard "no".

  Hide contents

I'm pretty sure Vandalize is about Sonic and Sage's dynamic, and that song is pretty clearly not about a happy ending to a relationship. It's about a toxic one. And Ian Flynn already confirmed that he was "picking up what they were putting down" when it came to the song lyrics, and that the lyrics will make a lot more sense once we've played the game. That leads me to fully believe that there'll be a major heel-turn moment for Sage where she has to sacrifice herself for the greater good, or something. Or Sonic has to destroy her for a similar reason. Some shit is gonna go down between those two, is all I am certain of.

Ian was talking about "I'm Here." Not Vandalize. Vandalize wasn't made for the game

 

 

[Scritch the Cat]

50 minutes ago, Wraith said:

Ian was talking about "I'm Here." Not Vandalize. Vandalize wasn't made for the game

And oh my, thank fuck for that.  The "toxic relationship" that "Vandalize" is about is presumably a sexual one, and in an era when people still can't stop cringing at Sonic's suggestive relationship with Elise, the last thing we need is any implication that Sonic was in a sexual relationship with an underaged human girl.  Well okay, maybe she isn't, but she sure looks like one so the notion of Sonic being into that is a bullet to be dodged by a mile.

Incidentally, has anyone ever noticed that Japan doesn't really write anime or video game songs?  They write songs that are probably meant to be the theme songs for anime and games, but they always have more generic lyrics that don't require understanding of the game or anime plot, so they can be played on the radio as well.  Sometimes that can backfire pretty hard when there was a romance angle, but I'm glad to learn this is not one of them.

Also, I get the feeling the bad relationship in the game that they will actually tie this to is between Sonic and his friends.  You can't really do a song about Sonic and Sage's relationship going bad if they have no relationship beyond that of enemies.

[Diogenes]

5 minutes ago, Scritch the Cat said:

Also, I get the feeling the bad relationship in the game that they will actually tie this to is between Sonic and his friends.  You can't really do a song about Sonic and Sage's relationship going bad if they have no relationship beyond that of enemies.

Third option: Ms Mystery Voice that's ordering Sonic around.

[Rabbitearsblog]

It depends on how well she is received and what kind of story arc she has.  If Sage has a story arc that's meant to last for several games, then she'll be around for awhile.  However, if her story is meant to start and end in Sonic Frontiers, then she won't show up in any future Sonic media, unless she becomes a very popular character like Shadow and Knuckles.

[Scritch the Cat]

7 minutes ago, Rabbitearsblog said:

It depends on how well she is received and what kind of story arc she has.  If Sage has a story arc that's meant to last for several games, then she'll be around for awhile.  However, if her story is meant to start and end in Sonic Frontiers, then she won't show up in any future Sonic media, unless she becomes a very popular character like Shadow and Knuckles.

Silver's story arc concluded in his debut game, and both he and that game were widely despised.  Somehow he still came back.  Same with Zavok.

[Rabbitearsblog]

4 minutes ago, Scritch the Cat said:

Silver's story arc concluded in his debut game, and both he and that game were widely despised.  Somehow he still came back.  Same with Zavok.

That is true.  A far straighter example would be Shadow the Hedgehog.  He was originally supposed to die for good in Sonic Adventure 2.  But because he got so popular, they decided to bring him back in future games (for better or worse).

[Shade Vortex]

6 hours ago, Wraith said:

Ian was talking about "I'm Here." Not Vandalize. Vandalize wasn't made for the game

While yes, it wasn't made for the game they wouldn't pick a song that has no relevance to the games theming or its story. And I'm Here has similarly somber vibes, anyways. And the censored version of Vandalize has no overt sexual references, and therefore is just for a regularly toxic relationship.

For I'm Here, these lyrics: "Leave the life you knew before. See a new world worth fighting for. Find the truth of who I'm meant to become. Another path I must now walk on".

This to me still implies something major is going to happen to change Sonic and put him on a new path in life. And usually, such major changes that happen to a person aren't sparked by wholly positive events. I assume a bittersweet ending at best.

There's also this bit:

"With my life I fight this fear. In my hands I hold the ones I love" which further implies a direct confrontation which has Sonic's friends lives at stake, and we know Sonic's the type to do just about anything he can to save his friends.

 

Edited September 29, 2022 by Shade Vortex
Further elaboration.

[Scritch the Cat]

15 minutes ago, Shade Vortex said:

While yes, it wasn't made for the game they wouldn't pick a song that has no relevance to the games theming or its story. And I'm Here has similarly somber vibes, anyways. And the censored version of Vandalize has no overt sexual references, and therefore is just for a regularly toxic relationship.

For I'm Here, these lyrics: "Leave the life you knew before. See a new world worth fighting for. Find the truth of who I'm meant to become. Another path I must now walk on".

This to me still implies something major is going to happen to change Sonic and put him on a new path in life. And usually, such major changes that happen to a person aren't sparked by wholly positive events. I assume a bittersweet ending at best.

Call me a conspiracy nut, but at least a part of me is thinking Sonic is never meant to leave the world of this game.  That they plucked him and the other most iconic Sonic characters out of their messy incoherent world and stuck them in this one with their moe anime OC specifically so this could be the world of Sonic going forward and they could scale down the narrative to something more manageable and and retool it into something more "modern", possibly more Japanese.

This publicity shot really rubs me the wrong way...

https://twitter.com/SonicOfficialJP/status/1562318789475065856?s=20&t=kIXmk_I7-nXlHlX-hWroRw

[LegoFedora]

I doubt it. Sonic Team seems to like having Eggman as the only recurring villain. I do think she could stick around through direct sequels (honestly, I feel like Frontiers is a sa1 deal where the next few games will be related to/build off the story that frontiers gives us with the starfall islands). But outside of that, no.

Every other major villain was either thrown away after their debut game, or relegated to spinoffs. Zavok? Stuck to Lost World (maybe forces if you count him being relevant for a whole 10 minutes). Infinite? Forces, and not even good enough to make it into spinoffs. Mephiles with 06. Black Doom with shadow, etc etc.

ST seems to enjoy their one-offs, and Sage is just looking like another one of those. What would she do otherwise? She wouldn't really add anything by sticking around.

[frugaljoker8]

I think she'll get the whole sacrificing herself or staying behind treatment that all of sonic's one game sidekicks get, but there's a non-zero chance she does become recurring especially if she ends up being well-liked in japan. We'll just have to see how people respond to the story.

Edited October 2, 2022 by frugaljoker8

[TheFunsterTime]

I'm not sure but she might get the same treatment as Chip, Cosmo or even Infinite based on her role and portrayal. I don't know too much about her since the game isn't out but we'll just have to see! I'm really excited to see Frontiers! 

[Johnny Boy]

I doubt it. She seems to have “one off character “ written all over her.

[King Conne]

Maybe her Replicas will become the fourth Challenger character in SONIC FORCES : SPEED BATTLE...

[DaddlerTheDalek]

I think it would be fun to have her in future spin-off games. 

[Whatever the WhoCares]

 

Spoiler

 

There’s two ways I see they could go with her character:

A: She adopts the Eggman agenda and becomes a less emotionally volatile version of Eggman 

or

B: She doesn’t really have a vested interest in Eggman’s agenda, but she will do whatever she can to protect him. That’s her first priority, above all other life. Hopefully they go with this one because that’s way more interesting. 

 

 

[DaBigJ]

Nope, she'll just be used for references that only fans will recognize, brief cameos, and mobile game fodder. If we're really lucky she might appear in an Olympics game or the comics but that's about it.

[Rabbitearsblog]

I don't know why SEGA introduces new characters and then do nothing with them afterwards.  It just seems like wasted potential to me.