Character Development/Progression

[StaticMania]

There's something to be said about the existence of "character arcs" in an indefinitely running series like Sonic the Hedgehog.

What really is the point when all of a character's development is done in a single game, what is the point yet again when future games never really follow up on said character's development?

Depending on the arc itself, where then does a character even go once that arc comes to an end?

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Recent talks about Tails' character piece in the latest game: Sonic Frontiers has got me interested in this topic, for 2 reasons.

1 is because some people don't seem to like that the story somewhat justifies the poor handling of Tails in Sonic Forces.

2 is because some others don't really like that the conclusion reached in Frontiers seems like a retread of the development he got in Sonic Adventure.

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The small arc Tails goes on in Sonic Frontiers is a fine course correction, but even disregarding Sonic Forces...Tails development had stagnated by SA1 and by  Sonic Unleashed it appeared to regress. I remember people didn't really like how Tails was cowering from the Dark Gaia monsters (after flying away no less), stuff like that even goes against the idea SA2 set up...that Tails could handle things on his own in place of Sonic. It's one thing to be independent, it's another to take charge and actually be the hero.

That's what Tails' arc in SA1 was though, to be independent. Not rely on Sonic as much. Overcome his fears, beat Eggman on his own.

But what happened after that and SA2? Sonic Heroes, he's just Sonic's sidekick again...none of his character development matters for this game.

Sonic Rush, Sonic Nex Gen, Rush Adventure, or Unleashed? He's not the focus of any of those games, he's still just Sonic's sidekick.

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I feel like what happened to Tails in Forces wouldn't be a problem (outside of the general writing of the game) if SEGA didn't shoot their wad on stuff like Tails' character development in the very first game to have a proper narrative.

It was an actual mistake to give Tails an arc like that, because he can't really go anywhere as a character anymore. It's not like Tails' other thing was being insecure in his ability to build things (a common trope for the child genius character) or being treated as too young to do things on his own (a common trope for kid characters in general). His thing was just general fear and co-dependence.

What happens in Frontiers may be a retread of what came before, but what came before was so long ago and ignored by pretty much every game since...it doesn't really matter. If they actually allow Tails to have a solo story of his own or any kind of focus at all...they might just follow up on his development for once.

[GX -The Spindash-]

Bluntly, I'd just say that Frontiers is much more interested (and/or obsessed) with the story beats of the last three decades than... pretty much any prior game (save for Sonic Chronicles, which had a similar obsession at the time). There's certainly details that occur that... yeah, I should probably spoiler this...

Spoiler

If Sonic were a shounen anime, Frontiers' ending would be the signal that there's going to be a time skip. Absolutely not saying there will be one, but by god the resolution signals it.

Adventure through Forces are games that are gameplay first, tone second, and actual story a distant third. And the result of that is that characters fall back on their archetypes. What is happening now and the tropes that the characters fall into are prioritized over thoughts on what is supposed to come next.

However, Frontiers' dialog, and the franchise as a whole in the past year, from Tails Tube to them looking for a Lore maintainer, has seemingly set a mission to string together disparate (though not entirely conflicting) stories into something cohesive, which... let's be real, isn't an elegant task. What's canon now? Everything is canon, from... Okay, I guess Frontiers spoiler again:

Spoiler

From Team Sonic Racing, to the in-game confirmation that Sticks exists in that world.

Sonic Team, I dare you, DARE YOU, to canonize Danica Patrick. Do it you cowards.

So yeah, the series wasn't built around character development across games, and we still don't know if there will be. Frontiers is trying something, but doing so is a messy process, and that's what we're seeing now. It will be interesting to see how consistent this new direction will be.

[StaticMania]

17 minutes ago, GX Echidna said:

Adventure through Forces are games that are gameplay first, tone second, and actual story a distant third. And the result of that is that characters fall back on their archetypes.

Despite the focus of my post being Tails.

I think this point specifically was what did the most damage to Knuckles as a character through the years.

The stories he's in never justify him being there, but he had to be there.

[GX -The Spindash-]

6 minutes ago, StaticMania said:

The stories he's in never justify him being there, but he had to be there.

I'd personally say Shadow moreso. He's around because he's popular, not because he has a particularly established place or purpose in the game's world after Sonic Adventure 2.

[StaticMania]

The games at least tried to give Shadow a reason to be around related to his character development, the games were also just really focused on him around that time.

It would apply more in games since Free Riders.

[Sega DogTagz]

1 hour ago, StaticMania said:

1 is because some people don't seem to like that the story somewhat justifies the poor handling of Tails in Sonic Forces.

 

 

I think that's a backwards way of looking at it.

If a sports team comes into a match flat - gets its doors blown off and the coach uses that horrible performance as fuel to motivate the team to a dominant showing in their next game, that in no way, shape or form "justifies" the poor performance in the first game. No matter how you want to spin it, its something that should have never happened.

Tails characterization in Forces follows a similar beat. It was a disservice to the character and a capstone blight on a near decade of backslide. What Ian pushed forward in Frontiers gave those actions a purpose;  in serving as fuel for Tails to recognize his own shortcomings and understand a need to move past them, but that doesn't justify what past handlers did to the Kit. This wasn't some master plan spanned out over multiple games. This was a new writer grabbing the helm who understood the character and took advantage of the spotlight to refocus him back in the right direction.

 

 

[Kuzu]

I feel like the best workaround for this is to have stories that are smaller in scope, but focus on new character dynamics and interactions. 

But yea, as much as fans cry about the writing inconsistencies of the series, it mostly comes down to the fact that plot and characterizations are simply not the priority of these games. Story is in service to gameplay because its a gameplay-focused franchise at the end of the day. A franchise that's meant to go on indefinitely at that. 

This kind of screws over certain characters who are defined by their stories first and foremost, as after those stories are finished...then what? Sure you can just say "Well new stories about them", but like I said, gameplay comes over story. Knuckles had a reason to be around in his debut game because that's where the game took place, but you can tell by Sonic Adventure that they were already struggling with justifying his presence. Shadow has a similar problem, but less so since most of the games after his debut were about him anyway. When the games stopped focusing on the stories surrounding characters like Knuckles and Shadow, it led to the "flanderized" versions of them we have now. Without their establishing stories, those characters just aren't very interesting unless they're interacting with Sonic in some way. 

Really, the only way for these characters to progress in a meaningful way is to get their own spin offs; the main games will always be focused on Sonic no matter what, so nobody is really able to stand out unless they're also playable alongside him. 

 

Its also very similar to Comic book writing hilariously; characters in comics aren't really able to progress in huge ways, not without the status quo being restored eventually. Since Comics are also meant to go on indefinitely, they have to have an established status quo for future writers to work with. Sonic is in a similar boat. So it's a matter of how much can Ian Flynn change about this series without actually changing anything. 

[StaticMania]

4 minutes ago, Sega DogTagz said:

Tails characterization in Forces follows a similar beat. It was a disservice to the character and a capstone blight on a near decade of backslide. What Ian pushed forward in Frontiers gave those actions a purpose;  in serving as fuel for Tails to recognize his own shortcomings and understand a need to move past them, but that doesn't justify what past handlers did to the Kit. This wasn't some master plan spanned out over multiple games. This was a new writer grabbing the helm who understood the character and took advantage of the spotlight to refocus him back in the right direction.

The problem is that people seem to think that even if the last decade of stories didn't exist...Tails could suddenly just smoothly continue on from his arc in Sonic Adventure as if nothing had happened since then.

Being re-written to using Tails' portrayal in Forces as a way to rerail his character and effectively start his arc over is the better outcome...not just because it's "realistic" for something like this to happen, but also allows the continuation of his arc to be natural.

It'll start from "this game" and not from the 22 year gap since Adventure.

[Fieryfurnace]

I previously wrote a small essay about the depiction of the characters in Frontiers. I hope it's okay if I post it here too. I'll keep things hidden and in sections, for those who don't want to be spoiled.

Since I've completed the game, here's my thoughts on the characterisation of the core cast. I hope I don't come across as too critical, because this is absolutely the best dialogue a Sonic game has had in years, but there are a few niggles here that either confuse me or hinder my enjoyment of the writing. For somebody familiar with Flynn's writing, some of the dialogue here is written in a style that I've never seen him use for these characters in the Archie and IDW comics. 

First - the thing with Knuckles:

Spoiler

Knuckles' characterisation here is odd, and feels like a retooling of his personality to retroactively justify his role as commander of the Resistance in Sonic Forces. I believe that Flynn has expressed on the Bumblekast in the past that he felt Knuckles being the leader of the Resistance was strange, given that he's a loner who grew up isolated on Angel Island, who doesn't have any notable leadership skills, who's never been shown to be skilled at managing others, and who doesn't possess any knowledge of large scale military tactics - why would he, as the lone Guardian of the Master Emerald on an uninhabited island? So here, Flynn gives Knuckles a new personality trait to rationalise his sudden shift to Resistance Commander Material. He's now a military leader who directs combat units and clicks his heels together and gives salutes (the heel-clicking and saluting in particular is something I would more readily associate with Antoine than Knuckles). The memory tokens we collect for Knuckles are military medals with his chest emblem on them. This choice of token for Knuckles is especially strange because the other tokens represent something intrinsic to the characters we collect them for. Amy's tokens are love hearts because she's full of love, not just for Sonic, but for the world - her defining traits are her passion and empathy/kindness. Tails' tokens are spanners, because he's a whizz-kid with a love for tinkering and machines, and they're coloured yellow and white, with the two white tipped ends of the spanner representing his two tails, that he was bullied for and, well, define his nickname. But Knuckles' tokens represent something supposedly intrinsic to the character that we've literally never seen before Sonic Forces. They show that he's... a good military leader I guess (what a weird thing to say about Knuckles lol), and more abstractly, a sense of duty? I know Sonic Team wants Knuckles to be taken more seriously now, but I don't think this new military commander direction feels like a natural extension of his character.

Also, the part where he tells Sonic "you're too trusting" when Sonic defends Sage from him is especially tone-deaf, considering the main joke with Knuckles for like 15 years was how gullible he is. (Was?) I'm surprised Flynn didn't have Sonic point out the hypocrisy of it in a joking way, with all the references to past games he's making. Is this intended to be character development? It would have been nice to have Knuckles reflect on his previously trusting nature, and spell out some progression for his character, if that's the case. As it is, it just feels weird.

Second - the thing with Tails:

Spoiler

While I do appreciate Flynn acknowledging the inconsistencies in Tails' game portrayal in his typically on-the-nose way ("then I'm... wildly inconsistent!"), and the overall independence arc Tails seems to be heading towards could be promising, (if not a retread of the Adventure era, which will, in all likelihood, only amount to a comic book side-story - I'd love to be wrong about this though) the actual interaction-by-interaction dialogue with Tails feels strangely... robotic? Flynn's usually avoided writing Tails as this overly verbose 'intelligent science geek' who won't stop spouting scientific jargon in everyday talk when he knows his friends won't understand him. Flynn mostly has comic Tails speak like, well, a normal person - a smart, knowledgeable kid who can make observations about and create mechanical and technological marvels, but still a quite down-to-earth and humble boy who talks like most of the other characters. Here, the way Tails talks feels much more Pontac and Graff-esque: a typical geek spouting jargon so Sonic can say "uh, can you repeat that again in English?" - or in-game the version we hear is "those sure are words you said just now!" Tails even has a smarmy smile after Sonic says that, like it gives him a little ego boost when he has to 'dumb down' his speech so Sonic can understand him, which is consistent with his snarky, braggart portrayal by Pontac and Graff (that Flynn observed on the Bumblekast - "he's just a smaller, smarter version of Sonic now") but just sucks as a Tails fan. He's so overly verbose that his dialogue becomes stilted. He can't just say "the ground cracked open!". He has to say "it revealed a subterranean pathway!" When Tails is talking about how he feels in his digitised form he says "this is not an ideal working condition. If I had my body, I could be so much more efficient!" This is robotic dialogue - it's like something Emerl would say before he learnt how to talk more naturally. Let Tails talk like a normal kid and simmer down with the jargon. It's so weird because this is the first time I've felt like this with Flynn's writing of Tails.

Third - the thing with Sage and Eggman:

Spoiler

I like the idea of Eggman becoming emotionally attached to one of his creations, and it makes sense that it would happen for Sage. She has a higher degree of emotional intelligence and empathy than Eggman would ever be capable of creating himself, because she's integrated into Cyber Space, containing the hopes and dreams and feelings of the Ancients, which affects her programming and dramatically changes the scope of what she's capable of. But I don't think Eggman's role as "father" really feels earned in the story. Eggman calling her "my daughter" just sounds odd when we're barely shown what times they've spent together. The dramatic, sad montage of Sage seeing the brotherly bond between Sonic and Tails and thinking about the family she wishes she could be for Eggman just doesn't have the emotional impact it should do. In fact, it's kind of funny, with the sepia coloured flashbacks literally just being a few scenes of Eggman and Sage standing around talking to each-other and nothing else. I understand that Flynn tried to set up Eggman's yearning for family in the Egg Memos (though it really should have been in a cutscene); he laments all the affection shown for the long-dead Maria in his own family when he was "right! there!", which suggests that he felt emotionally neglected growing up. It's the most we've gotten about Eggman's past since Adventure 2, where he speaks about looking up to his grandfather because of all the great things he accomplished in his life. On paper, the idea of Eggman forming a deeper emotional connection to Sage sounds good, but the execution here just falls flat because there's not enough presented to us. I also don't think Sage is particularly interesting, because her story really is just a generic 'robot learns about emotions and faith and not seeing the world through data and simulations' - which has been told thousands of times, and before in the Sonic franchise itself. Only Sage's development and her desire to be a daughter, despite being spurred by her observations of Sonic, takes place almost entirely divorced from his knowledge, to the point that Sonic himself doesn't really seem to care about Sage by the end. She seemingly dies and we get no reaction from Sonic, and he doesn't even wonder where she is afterwards. He's just like "okay guys, new adventure awaits!" - the girl he travelled to space with is now missing? Who cares I guess lol - she was Egg Tech anyway, don't gotta wonder where she is.

Those are my thoughts immediately after finishing Sonic Frontiers. I don't think the writing in this game is as fantastic as many other fans seem to - I'd say it's "pretty good" at most. I do love that when Flynn becomes writer, we start getting references to the 90s cartoons. Sonic says "let's do it to it" multiple times, Eggman says "I hate that hedgehog" in the Egg Memos, Sage calls Sonic "the fastest thing alive", that's nice (but ultimately off-topic - don't wanna derail this discussion, oops).

Edited November 13, 2022 by Fieryfurnace

[StaticMania]

9 hours ago, Fieryfurnace said:

Here, the way Tails talks feels much more Pontac and Graff-esque: a typical geek spouting jargon so Sonic can say "uh, can you repeat that again in English?" - or in-game the version we hear is "those sure are words you said just now!"

Tails only spoke like that in Colors.

I do get it though, Tails (in the games) never really spoke as the "smart guy"...he was just good at building things.

[Sega DogTagz]

12 hours ago, StaticMania said:

Tails only spoke like that in Colors.

I do get it though, Tails (in the games) never really spoke as the "smart guy"...he was just good at building things.

 

[StaticMania]

What actually is the end goal of Knuckles' character journey in Sonic Frontiers?

Sonic at one point suggests to him to take a break from his responsibilities and enjoy life, so like...is he just gonna keep doing what he's been doing in  the games?

Ya know, never really being on Angel Island or guarding the Master Emerald, but now there's an actual reason for it addressed by this game's narrative?

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I feel like this actually doesn't really move Knuckles anywhere, it's not a step forward or even a step backwards...this doesn't do anything except explain why he'll continue to be around.

But he's never needed a reason before, so why now?

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Knuckles probably didn't have to be in this game, the type of journey he goes through here would've been better suited for a story that actually focuses on his past and why he feels like he (still) needs to stand guard over the Master Emerald. Why he feels like he can't live Sonic's carefree lifetstyle and have the same freedoms. Something a bit more personal and character based. (like Sonic Adventure)

This is the first game to even directly address that part of Knuckles' character and it seemed like that's what would be the focus based on the prologue, but it doesn't go anywhere interesting.

A satisfying conclusion to such an arc regardless of how predictable it is would be to see him actually choose to leave Angel Island and the Master Emerald behind as he no longer feels an obligation to protect it just due to the actions of his extinct tribe.