Should Tails, Knuckles, and Amy have their own stories in the next Sonic game?

[SticksSuperFan14]

In Sonic Frontiers, each character expresses desire to do their own things once they leave the Starfall Islands. DLC will make them playable, and I think it's been implied by Kishimoto that they may be playable full stop in the next game. If that ends up being the case, would it make sense to give each character their own story in order to stay true to what Frontiers established?

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

I don’t see why not. But why stop at just Tails, Knuckles and Amy post-Frontiers?

If you’re going to open the door for that, other characters should have tHe opportunity as well.

[Waveshocker Sigma]

I think starting small and keeping it to those three would be the better option. They can work their way up to having 6 again. But yes, I think it's a good idea. I'd like for the supposed split from the end of Frontiers to mean something.

[Sega DogTagz]

I wouldn't mind shuffling the deck a little. These three don't actually need to have their own stories to have the narrative pay off. Tails spending time outside of Sonic's shadow doesn't have to be on screen 24/7.  In fact, his absence could actually have more of an impact. The same can be argued for Amy and Knux. Maybe bring back 2 of the 3 and swap in someone new.

 

There are a bunch of characters who are chomping at the bit to get back into the playable roster. Mix in Blaze (for those Burning Blaze titan fights) or Metal Sonic or Shadow and keep everything fresh.

 

[MetalSkulkBane]

Generally speaking, yes I want more Sonic characters to be playable. Not even Core Cast, but I guess we need to start somewhere.

But keep in mind 06 shoe-horned extra playable "amigos" characters and it only made the game even worse.

 

[Rabid-Coot]

I think thats the plan, the DLC later this year is going to be used to test gameplay for a future game.

[Red Hot Jack]

Sorry for spamming, but YES YES YES.

I do think Frontiers sets the stage for those 3, be it them having their own arcs in the main plot as NPCs here, or being playable in the third update as a "gameplay test".

The next game if they want to follow up will definitely let us play more as them but nevertheless Sonic will be "playable in most stages" but that's how it should be, I still want more than a presumably short DLC for the friends.

2 hours ago, MetalSkulkBane said:

Generally speaking, yes I want more Sonic characters to be playable. Not even Core Cast, but I guess we need to start somewhere.

But keep in mind 06 shoe-horned extra playable "amigos" characters and it only made the game even worse.

Having too many characters can result in a mess honestly, Sonic 06 was rushed as hell but really? It might just have been too ambitious for their time and resources, they barely implemented them well there, but also having 9 (10 if you include Sonic & Elise) characters is a lot to ask.

I still believe the "amigos" was a good idea, they should have their own stories and arcs and FULL stages, not just mini sections, but Sonic should be playable more, as it is in Sonic Adventure and 2 for example, that is if they have their own stages, if it's like in 2D games where you can just play the whole game with little changes for any character, that's a different story.

[MGA_Gamer]

3 hours ago, Sega DogTagz said:

I wouldn't mind shuffling the deck a little. These three don't actually need to have their own stories to have the narrative pay off. Tails spending time outside of Sonic's shadow doesn't have to be on screen 24/7.  In fact, his absence could actually have more of an impact. The same can be argued for Amy and Knux. Maybe bring back 2 of the 3 and swap in someone new.

There are a bunch of characters who are chomping at the bit to get back into the playable roster. Mix in Blaze (for those Burning Blaze titan fights) or Metal Sonic or Shadow and keep everything fresh.

But I don’t want Tails to be absent from the next Sonic game, Not without giving him a spin-off title at least! 

[sonicclaasic]

6 hours ago, SticksSuperFan14 said:

In Sonic Frontiers, each character expresses desire to do their own things once they leave the Starfall Islands. DLC will make them playable, and I think it's been implied by Kishimoto that they may be playable full stop in the next game. If that ends up being the case, would it make sense to give each character their own story in order to stay true to what Frontiers established?

I think that's a great idea having thier own stories In the next Sonic game like you mentioned Sonic Frontiers established. It could possibly worked and could be Interesting as well.

[Diogenes]

I know a bunch of people won't agree, but Frontiers gave me no confidence in Sonic Team knowing what they're doing with the series, in gameplay or story, and adding in 3 more playable characters with their own stories when you don't even have a handle on the basics is the wrong move.

[SynthSt0rm]

A lot of people have been waiting a VERY long time for playable characters besides Sonic in the meta era games. It was likely SEGA/Sonic Team we’re too scared to try implementing different playable characters because of 06, but they really need to move on from 06, or even try to revisit the amazing parts of 06 and take notes from that, and what they did wrong with the formula.

 

But in general, it’d be awesome if we could play as more characters again, since it has been a long time coming.

[Red Hot Jack]

2 hours ago, Diogenes said:

I know a bunch of people won't agree, but Frontiers gave me no confidence in Sonic Team knowing what they're doing with the series, in gameplay or story, and adding in 3 more playable characters with their own stories when you don't even have a handle on the basics is the wrong move.

Like it or not, I'd personally rather not spend another 2 decades in "trying (and failing) to get Sonic right first" I just want more characters as I said.

Oh and one more thing I wanted to add: glad they are not doing "playable Sage" instead of the friends trio, we've been through this with the Werehog, with Classic Sonic and the Avatar, I'm tired of the main cast getting the shaft in favour of the first gimmick that randomly shows up.

Sage is a cool story character, I don't want to play as her (outside of a minigame).

[Sega DogTagz]

4 hours ago, MGA_Gamer said:

But I don’t want Tails to be absent from the next Sonic game, Not without giving him a spin-off title at least! 

 

Every mental image I have with a game without Tails is literally Sonic finding 47 different ways to discover that this would be so much easier if Tails was here.

Lol

Addition by subtraction. 

 

 

2 hours ago, SynthSt0rm said:

It was likely SEGA/Sonic Team we’re too scared to try implementing different playable characters because of 06, but they really need to move on from 06, or even try to revisit the amazing parts of 06 and take notes from that, and what they did wrong with the formula.

Honestly, they didn't get as far away from that as you'd think. They still continued to experiment with the genre roulette, they just tried to wrap everything in a sonic hue'd package to try and avoid the obvious finger pointing at the extended cast. 

[Kuzu]

It honestly depends on what the focus of the next game is going to be; if they have no plans on doing anything with the extra cast, then I wouldn't really expect much. 

People are hyping up Frontiers as a return to form for them and expect big things from the cast in the next few games, but eh... you can call me cynical all you want, but it just sounds like lip service to me. I personally wasn't very impressed with Frontiers and felt it left a lot to be desired. But seeing how my opinion isn't really the popular one, I kind of expect for them to either double down on the things they did for Frontiers, for better or worse, without really addressing any of its fundamental issues beyond a superficial level. And given Sonic Team's penchant for cutting corners to reach their deadlines as of late, I kind of just expect the bare minimum when it comes to the extra playable characters in the DLC and subsequent games. 

It won't necessarily be bad per se, but I'm not expecting anything that really impresses me either, but then I've been pretty out of touch with what Sonic fans want out of this series for over a decade now. The character fans that have been obsessively asking for other playable characters will probably be satisfied no matter what they do, and honestly, that's all Sonic Team really have to do to get in the fandom's good graces. Just let Flynn write some nice character interactions and have the characters merely be functional, even if they're just skins of Sonic. 

[tailsBOOM!]

It seems highly likely that this will happen considering the various things that Kishimoto-san has stated.  The bigger question imo is whether or not we return to everyone having a dramatically different playstyle or do we have a centralized style with everyone having their own movesets.  I personally have a preference towards the latter, but we'll have to see.

4 hours ago, Red Hot Jack said:

Like it or not, I'd personally rather not spend another 2 decades in "trying (and failing) to get Sonic right first" I just want more characters as I said.

Oh and one more thing I wanted to add: glad they are not doing "playable Sage" instead of the friends trio, we've been through this with the Werehog, with Classic Sonic and the Avatar, I'm tired of the main cast getting the shaft in favour of the first gimmick that randomly shows up.

Sage is a cool story character, I don't want to play as her (outside of a minigame).

(My browser won't let me add this quote to my post so sorry if double post)

This is also an extremely valid point, especially if you remember the super poor marketing that started the whole "meta era" that tried WAY too hard to appeal to the critics, something SEGA is seeming to hard reverse on:

https://web.archive.org/web/20100117070210/https://www.blogs.sega.com/usa/2010/01/15/project-needlemouse-character-countdown-finale-and-concept-art/

[MGA_Gamer]

Honestly, my biggest fear is what Sonic Team will do to the main cast depending on how well the DLC is received.

If the DLC is handled well and gets a good reception, then great! Expect Tails, Knuckles and Amy to have a much larger presence in the games going forward.

BUT...

If it all goes wrong, and the DLC is handled poorly because they don't play well at all, then it may convince Sega to push them further into the background, or even worse, permanently retire them altogether.

I don't want the latter to happen. I'm not sure I want to be a part of this series if Knuckles, Amy and especially Tails are no longer part of it!

Or if they are not going to be part of the main game series in the medium-to-long term, then maybe give them different spin-off games with different genres.

[SticksSuperFan14]

1 hour ago, tailsBOOM! said:

It seems highly likely that this will happen considering the various things that Kishimoto-san has stated.  The bigger question imo is whether or not we return to everyone having a dramatically different playstyle or do we have a centralized style with everyone having their own movesets.  I personally have a preference towards the latter, but we'll have to see.

(My browser won't let me add this quote to my post so sorry if double post)

This is also an extremely valid point, especially if you remember the super poor marketing that started the whole "meta era" that tried WAY too hard to appeal to the critics, something SEGA is seeming to hard reverse on:

https://web.archive.org/web/20100117070210/https://www.blogs.sega.com/usa/2010/01/15/project-needlemouse-character-countdown-finale-and-concept-art/

Oh I was definitely imagining the latter, just instead of each "story" being the same story from different perspectives, it would be different individual narratives for each character, though I wouldn't mind a few slight adjustments to the gameplay of some characters (ex. Knuckles gets his shard tracker from the Adventure games (in any order like Adventure 1), treasure hunting could lend itself pretty well to open zones, I'd say, but the collectables can be found at your pace throughout the whole campaign instead of different levels under time limits).

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

With regard to the way Sonic 06 used multiple characters, the problem with that was less the number of characters and more the game switching your character mid-level despite the fact that you didn’t pick that character.

Essentially what SA2 did, but worse. An egregious case being, you selected Sonic to play at the character select, but then at a specific point the game switches you to play Silver, who himself has his own campaign to play.

This wouldn’t be as big a problem (not that people wouldn’t find some other way to complain about it anyway, for good or ill) had they 1) Not did that and kept you as the character you chose from start to finish, and 2) gave you the optional  choice to play the other characters from the character select, again without switching mid-level to a completely separate character.

That also goes without saying that the game isn’t a unfinished beta. That was what really ruined them, not really the number of them.

These days, with better planning and timing, nine characters in a game isn’t really all that much in itself. Compared to games like Genshin Impact (ignoring its gacha mechanic), nine characters is actually pretty small.

[Red Hot Jack]

To be honest, I think the amigo system > Heroes team system, instead of having 3 characters that run together where you have to switch depending on the section, you get mini sections with side characters, it wasn't a bad idea in my opinion, because you still have Sonic as the central character, and the others as side characters, but yes, it is more correct if the side characters get their own mini story that is optional or just extra stages, makes more sense.

The fact that you played in a Sonic stage and had to switch to Silver and vice versa during Kingdom Valley when they already had their own full stories really made no sense however...

@tailsBOOM!the reason I am convinced that in the Frontiers DLC and future games each character has their own sections/stages is because... it has been like this forever in 3D games, it's not like in Mania or S3&K or Origins where you can freely select a character, since Sonic Adventure each character had their own set of stages designed differently, I don't know why it is so impossible for them to create stages that accomodate a general gameplay, but yeah in general each character in 3D plays so differently from each other and level design has to suit that moveset. Although it's not that wild compared to other 3D platformers, Crash 4 also has Crash and Coco that are 100% the same and then the 3 amigos that have their own stages and sections, meanwhile Super Mario 3D World has every character in every stage although they barely have differences.

[Iko]

I think they should have their own story, or at least I would like to have the ability to select a character and play the whole game as that character, like I could in the classics and advance games.

At the very least, if they have to share the same story, make it like Rush Adventure where you select the character before entering a level (assuming there's a "level" structure, which given the succes of the open zone, is pretty unlikely for the next 3D game)... don't force me to play as random characters against my will; I could only tolerate it if it's an Encore Mode case where characters are treated as lives.

Regarding the amount of characters, I don't want them to buff it up too much... I would just like if the other characters, the ones who aren't playable in that game, still appeared with other roles when it made sense. Kinda like how Big the Cat in Frontiers owns the fishing minigame... more stuff like that.

What I would also like is that they gain the confidence to break the notion of "core cast" and use the characters more creatively: Sonic, Tails, Knuckles and Amy don't need to be the main heroes all the times... you can have a game with just Sonic and Tails, just Sonic and Knuckles, Sonic and the Chaotix, Sonic, Blaze and Silver as a trio, etc... even full spin-offs without Sonic, such as a smaller scale game that's a Chao Garden with also platforming gameplay (to gather resources for Chao) where you play as Cream, or a sequel to the "murder" visual nover where you play as the Chaotix.

On 5/9/2023 at 4:32 PM, Red Hot Jack said:

Oh and one more thing I wanted to add: glad they are not doing "playable Sage" instead of the friends trio, we've been through this with the Werehog, with Classic Sonic and the Avatar, I'm tired of the main cast getting the shaft in favour of the first gimmick that randomly shows up.

I agree with this so much.

[Scape]

3 hours ago, Iko said:

Sonic, Tails, Knuckles and Amy don't need to be the main heroes all the times.

when are they ever? when is that lineup ever given equal respect and purpose?

[Iko]

1 hour ago, Scape said:

when are they ever? when is that lineup ever given equal respect and purpose?

Obviously Sonic gets a bit more attention even just because his name is on the logo of the game, but there's plenty of times when Tails, Knuckles and Amy are treated equally.

Sonic Drift 2, Sonic Shuffle, Sonic Advance and Advance 3, Sonic Pinball Party, Sonic & Sega All Stars Racing & Transformed, the Sonic Boom series, and even Sonic Frontiers. There are probably more.

[Ghelatlishol]

What about making levels as neutral as possible, or going the other direction and making certain parts of them accessible only if you are using a specific character? Understandably that's a whole lot easier in 2D, but I could easily see a very open-world like game where maybe up to 4 characters can explore/do the level in their own way. That would really help with replay value. 

Also, different endings depending on which character you use in the level.

That might be a really awesome way to include more than just Sonic. Perhaps starting with the original four: Sonic, Tails, Amy, and Knuckles.

[Kuzu]

Having a "core" cast makes sense on paper for a sense of familiarity and identity for the series. 

But it also kind of works against the core premise of Sonic being a nomadic adventurer. Logically speaking he shouldn't be running into the same characters all of the time if he's constantly moving.

[Ghelatlishol]

34 minutes ago, Kuzu said:

Having a "core" cast makes sense on paper for a sense of familiarity and identity for the series. 

But it also kind of works against the core premise of Sonic being a nomadic adventurer. Logically speaking he shouldn't be running into the same characters all of the time if he's constantly moving.

Honestly, never really thought about the nomadic adventurer part! That explains the insane amount of Sonic characters and why a lot only appear once.