YMMV / Sonic Prime

• Accidental Aesop:
  • Get to the damn point. The entire mess with the Paradox Prism and a good chunk of the problems the cast face afterwards are due to the characters wasting time floundering about before/instead of getting their point across immediately, in where by then the damage was done. Tails didn't tell Sonic that Eggman isn't present at the start, which unearthed the Paradox Prism. Shadow neglected to give Sonic critical information about said jewel along with why Nine cannot be trusted in Season 2. Thorn Rose jumped straight to her hammer without simply telling the Scavengers that they were taking more than allowed.
  • Don't project your loved ones onto someone else. Sonic repeatedly projects his friends onto their Shatterverse counterparts, leading to friction and mistrust in their relationships, something Shadow had warned him about. In Nine's case, all this ultimately led to the fox betraying Sonic and Shadow over frustration that Sonic couldn't see him as his own person.
  • A little cooperation goes a long way, and fighting shouldn’t always be the answer. At the end of Season 3, Nine and the Shatterverse heroes are prepared to continue their war even as reality teeters on the brink all around them, but a weary, desperate Sonic puts his foot down and begs everyone to stand down before it's too late to save diddlysquat (Dr. Deep even concedes that Sonic has a point). Even the conflict that started throughout the season was due to both sides refusing to talk things out.
• Accidental Innuendo:
  • Sonic stops himself from punching Thorn Rose at one point, under the reason that he "can't smash her".
  • Knuckles' repeated line "I don’t need the details. Just tell me who to smash!" became a meme for this exact reason.
• Anvilicious: "This deforestation and commercial construction is really starting to tick me off." —Sonic, after seeing buildings have formed in Boscage Maze.
• Ass Pull: Rusty Rose's life being solely dependent of the Birdy powering her with no alternative was heavily implied throughout the show, as it was with any other badnik made by Eggman. However, the climax of her fight with Grim Rose Alpha in Season 3 has her suddenly state that it is all a lie to keep her in check and she releases it without any consequences, making it look as if the writers resorted to this to avoid dooming a major protagonist.
• Awesome Art:
  • The squash-and-stretch animation is very well-executed, and is often cited as a reason to watch the show. The vibrant color palette also helps.
  • The action scenes are a rather faithful translation of the fast-paced nature present in the games, and are also a consistent high-point.
• Badass Decay: One of the reasons this version of Sonic has been controversial is due to how flawed he is. If this is the Sonic of the games (or a version who went through a similar story), then he became emotionally needy, vulnerable, and naive, something that doesn't reflect the cool and confident character from the Adventure duology. Some commentators even lamented that, for Shadow to be written correctly, Sonic had to become a fool of himself in the process.
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • This incarnation of Sonic himself has become rather contentious within the community. Some love Sonic's upbeat and energetic personality and actually commit to giving him a character arc by deconstructing his common traits, something he usually lacks in the games and other adaptations, often being a Static Character in someone else's story. Detractors, however, will argue that Sonic suffers a severe case of Badass Decay, making numerous mistakes with disastrous consequences (The entire premise gets started because he accidentally destroyed the Prism Shard despite his friends' warnings) and being much less smart, often needing others (namely Shadow) to reign him in. It doesn't help that the producers have stated this series is canon to the mainline games, the last of which that came out had a Sonic at arguably his most empathetic and most competent.
  • The Chaos Council. Fans of the show love the approach of making Eggman The Dividual, finding it a nice change of pace, enjoying the council's bickering and infighting, without diminishing their threat. Detractors meanwhile see the council as a Replacement Scrappy for Eggman Prime (who ends up as an Advertised Extra in this show) disliking them for their undercooked origins of all being from the same dimension, despite earlier hints to the contrary. These detractors also believe that their comedic traits hurt their threat level and never going beyond one-note stereotypes (Dr. Don't is an antisocial Gen Z gamer, Dr. Deep is a millennial obsessed with looking cool and doing yoga, Dr. Done-It is old and infirm, etc.), giving the group a lot of negative comparisons to The Deadly Six, who are generally unpopular in the fandom.
  • Chaos Sonic, who is made to stand out from prior robotic doubles in the franchise by mimicking the way Sonic acts, or rather how the Chaos Council view Sonic, an annoying quipster. Fans of this find it a fun approach that gives Chaos Sonic a unique identity rather than being yet another silent robot that enforces Eggman's will (or in this case Eggmen). Detractors, meanwhile find Chaos Sonic's design to be rather garish and find it hard to take the robot as a credible threat when it's constantly making quips. There's also a third camp who loves the concept of Chaos Sonic, but feel the execution is fumbled because they already find the way Sonic is written in this show to already be annoying, making Chaos Sonic come off as a Redundant Parody for this group.
• Character Rerailment: Most of the cast has been given this treatment.
  • After being reduced to a Non-Action Guy Exposition Fairy in many of the later games, Tails is once more written as competent and actively involved in Sonic’s battles with Eggman, while the character of Nine takes it even further and demonstrates (and interestingly deconstructs) how self-reliant and downright badass Tails can be when left to fend for himself.
  • After steadily devolving into a Dumb Muscle Butt-Monkey, Knuckles is once more portrayed as a formidable and serious-minded fighter who serves as a Foil to Sonic and shares a friendly rivalry with him.
  • After fans had grown increasingly annoyed at Shadow's Flanderization into a generic Stock Shōnen Rival antagonist with very unclear goals and motivations besides fighting Sonic, Prime finally gives him a solid direction as a proper Foil for Sonic and working to restore the Prime dimension and antagonizing his blue rival for very justified reasons, bringing him back to his more anti-heroic yet well-intentioned roots.
• Crosses the Line Twice: Shadow sucker-punching Sonic in their first encounter is a mild version of this. On its own, it's not that funny, especially since he did it while Sonic was expressing worry over his friends going up against Eggman without him. But Shadow's sardonic line about him needing to pay more attention directly after the punch? It loops back around to hilariously dickish.
• Ending Fatigue: Several people think that Season 3 dragged on for way too long, with three episodes dedicated to Sonic, the Chaos Council and other friends constantly fighting Nine and his army, with progress in stopping him failing due to the repeated Serial Escalation, with any attempts to reason with them failing until the penultimate episode.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: After initially appearing in only two episodes, Knuckles the Dread quickly became one of the most popular new characters. This is likely due to his cool pirate design and unhinged, yet charming personality, making for a very unique take on an alternate universe Knuckles.
• Epileptic Trees:
  • With the reveal that the series would involve the multiverse, many fans are hoping for an appearance from Scourge the Hedgehog or an Expy of him. While Sonic being a Paradox Person josses this, a metal copy of him appeared in Season 2 as Chaos Sonic.
  • Given that Sonic Prime is owned by WildBrain, which holds the rights to Sonic's first three cartoons, many hope to see any of those shows be referenced in Prime or even have an outright Intra-Franchise Crossover. Sonic X, Sonic Boom and many other incarnations of Sonic are also subject to this.
    • Unfortunately, any possible representation of the Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM) series has been rendered Jossed by an interview where an animator bluntly confirmed their non-presence in the series.
  • The timeframe of the series within the game continuity. Given Sonic is acting more like his less mature self during the 2010s, it could take place before the events of Sonic Frontiers which explains a lot. Ian Flynn would later state on his Twitter that Prime does take place before Frontiers, but it's because it also takes place after Sonic Advance 3.
• Esoteric Happy Ending: While Sonic gets his happy end, we have no idea what's going to happen to the rest of the Shatterverse inhabitants, that is if they even exist anymore and weren't wiped by the Cosmic Retcon. Worst of all, Nine's character arc doesn't get a closure - the Paradox Prism is gone so he can no longer reshape the Grim like he originally wanted, Sonic, the only person who cares about him, is gone, the rest of the Shatterverse doesn't trust him after he nearly destroyed the world, he's completely alone in the Grim and essentially back at square one.
• Evil Is Cool:
  • Rusty Rose (before her Heel–Face Turn in Season 2) has been praised for being a surprisingly dark twist on Amy, and also a legitimate threat to Sonic (possibly even more than her superiors) that takes an impressive amount of effort to beat down.
  • Thorn Rose also gets this treatment, for being a badass Wild Child and Deconstruction of Amy's love of nature, along with providing a unique challenge for Sonic as a Tragic Villain he aims to redeem without directly fighting. He succeeds, but it takes a lot of effort.
  • Chaos Sonic for being both a very entertaining villain that upstages Sonic in sheer boastfulness, cockiness and quippiness, while still being a very genuine threat who manages to be a real challenge to Sonic.
• Fandom-Specific Plot: There are a lot of fics about Sonic and Shadow reuniting after the events of the finale, which usually go in a shipping direction.
• Fan Nickname:
  • After Season 2 had copious amounts of Sonic/Shadow moments, fans who shipped the two dub the series "Sonadow Prime".
  • In general, giving it a name that parodies Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse due to both works featuring multiverse versions of various characters. It seems like Netflix caught on to this, as it briefly had the tag "like ''Into the Spider-Verse''."
  • "Nine Inch Tails" for Nine, thanks to being a Darker and Edgier version of Tails.
• Fanfic Fuel:
  • With the creation of the Shatterverse, there's ample room for any number of creative fans to make their own Shatterspaces and populate them with new versions of Sonic's friends, even those not part of the show's cast.
  • What if someone else broke the Paradox Prism instead? What would the Shatterspace versions of Sonic be like?
  • What Shadow is going to do with the Paradox Prism after he escapes with it at the epilogue.
• Fanon Discontinuity: As well-received as the series is, when the producers of the show stated it was being treated as canon to the mainline series, this did not go down well with certain fans, believing much of what appears in the show appears to contradict what the games state, such as Green Hill being stated to be the home of Sonic and his friends. Probably the most egregious change is a flashback that shows Sonic and Knuckles' first meeting in Hidden Palace Zone (which, while there is a boss fight with Knuckles in that stage, the two meet much earlier). By the time Prime ended, contradictions between the show and the games had become increasingly prevalent to the point that many fans were unable to tolerate them anymore, and combined with both the more negative reception towards Season 3 and the reveal that the finale effectively wipes the show's events from the timeline, many fans have chosen to disregard official statements and instead declare Prime to be a complete Alternate Continuity to the games.
• Growing the Beard: Season 2 builds from what Season 1 took its time to set up, gives Sonic a concrete and linear goal (finding the Prism Shards and returning them to Ghost Hill), is more action-heavy, and plays with its setting by having the Chaos Council interact with the other alternate versions of Sonic's friends, introduces Chaos Sonic, and develops Rusty Rose's Heel–Face Turn and Nine's Face–Heel Turn; as such, it's even more well-received than the first season.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: The Season 2 finale has Sonic and Shadow fighting a giant version of Dr. Eggman created by the Chaos Council, which has a large pink mustache. Fast forward five months later to the mobile game Sonic Dream Team, which has a Final Boss in the form of Nightmare Eggman, a giant Eggman who, coincidentally enough, has a large pink mustache.
• Ho Yay:
  • The fandom saw quite a bit of this between Sonic/Shadow. Sonic's more Keet-like personality clashes even more with Shadow, with the former constantly snarking and teasing the latter. One of the few times Shadow expresses himself is when he's fighting Sonic in the Season 2 premiere, and during the Season 2 finale, after Shadow claims to regret saving Sonic from the Eggforcers, Sonic replies "I heart you too, Shadow" and making a heart symbol with his hands. Note that other localizations than English have Sonic flat-out say "I love you too, Shadow," with the Thai dub even having Sonic make kissy noises at him for good measure.
    • Not to mention another scene where Sonic saves an unconscious Shadow from falling into the mysterious bottom of the Void by carrying him to safety, bridal style.
  • There’s also quite a bit of this between Sonic and Knuckles the Dread. Before he even meets Dread he does the heart hands and says "I love captains". After meeting Dread Sonic likes his friendly fun-loving personality and calls him his "favorite Knuckles ever".
    • There's also two instances where Sonic saves Dread, both by bridal carrying him: first time when he moves him away from laser shots; second time when he breaks his fall.
  • Nine is very possessive of Sonic and has some very Yandere-ish lines in Season 3 that would make mid-00's game Amy blush even with context.
    Nine: Shadow thinks he can take Sonic away from me!?
    • As Nine tells Sonic and Shadow that he's still missing some prism energy, he looks Sonic up and down with an evil smile and half-lidded eyes, which (rather humorously) can be viewed as flirtatious rather than threatening.
• I Knew It!: When the voice cast was revealed, many people guessed that, due to typecasting, Ashleigh Ball would voice Tails, Shannon Chan-Kent would voice Amy, and Kazumi Evans would voice Rouge. These were all proven to be correct when the trailer was released.
• Inferred Holocaust: After Sonic and Shadow reach Green Hill at the epilogue, it turns out that Sonic got sent back to the moment before he broke the Paradox Prism. So he changes things by not breaking it and allowing Shadow to Chaos Control it away safely. However, since the Shatterverse is heavily implied to exist because of the shattering in the first place, suddenly their entire existence has come into doubt.
• Jerkass Woobie:
  • Nine definitely qualifies as this. He's what Tails could have become if Sonic wasn't there to save him from his bullies, and it hurts to see how jaded and misanthropic he's become.
  • Rusty Rose also qualifies. It’s hard to believe someone as sweet and compassionate as Amy could be turned into an emotionless killing machine who has no control over her own actions.
  • Shadow fits the bill as well. Even with his aggression towards Sonic from the start, it DOES have a reason, as he foresaw what would happen when Sonic destroys the Paradox Prism. He ends up becoming a fair bit more sympathetic once he reveals the prime reality that he and Sonic hail from has been seemingly destroyed because of what Sonic did. It doesn't excuse him, mind, but it does paint him in a more sympathetic light.
• Just Here for Godzilla: Even the show's detractors admit it has the best characterization Shadow has had in a long time, and many watch it just for that.
• Like You Would Really Do It: Season 3 has Mangey and Sails supposedly vaporized due to being too close to their own bomb's explosion, Rusty Rose going to be offline due to releasing her Birdy power source, the original universe's restoration being heavily implied to be at the cost of the Shatterverse and Sonic himself fading out of existence due to him losing his Paradox energy. Obviously, all of this doesn't stick. Mangey and Sails were later revealed to have just flown offscreen. Rusty Rose can somehow work normally without her Birdy power source. The Shatterverse can somehow exist alongside the source universe unless you go with the worst possible implications of the ending. Sonic himself would obviously make it to Green Hill as he is the mascot.
• Love to Hate: Despite Chaos Sonic having an extremely exaggerated version of Sonic's personality to the point even Sonic gets annoyed by him, with plenty of fans sharing that sentiment, it's because of this constant annoying, chaotic evil Troll energy that fans online have grown to love the robotic doppelganger.
  • Some fans went as far as to compare Chaos Sonic to Shard the Metal, the original Metal Sonic-turned-protagonist from the original Archie Comics continuity. Franchise writer and series consultant Ian Flynn openly disagrees with this comparison, aggressively denying the similarities on Twitter.
• Memetic Psychopath: Many fans have joked that every single one of Amy Rose's paradox versions are among the most murderous and bloodthirsty of the characters so far, in complete contrast to Prime Amy, who even Sonic describes as a sentimental sweetheart.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • TALL AMY ^ExplanationThe Second Teaser gave us our first look at Rusty Rose, who many were quick to point out was much taller than the regular one, and consequently the rest of the cast. In the show proper, it's actually her ability to extend her limbs, although she is factually at least a little taller than most.
  • Shadow's "roller skates" ^ExplanationShadow insists on referring to said footwear as "air shoes" after Sonic introduced them as otherwise.
  • sonic wake up! you fucked up big time ^{Explanation (Spoilers)}Shadow is revealed to be the only living member of Sonic's original world when the Shatterverse was created, forcibly stuck in the Void Between the Worlds. His constant communication through Sonic's Prism Powers and his Wham Line at the end of S 01 E 08 has brought back relevance to what was originally Knuckles' line in the infamous Tails Gets Trolled.
  • Drowning selfie ^ExplanationA promotional image for the second season featured a shot of Shadow and Sonic underwater with the former holding the latter down while stealing his tech. However, some fans have noted that due to how the characters are posed, it looks like Shadow is taking a selfie while in the process of drowning Sonic.
  • Sonadow fans are eating good right now.^ExplanationThe numerous amounts of Ho Yay between Sonic and Shadow has not gone unnoticed, with the most well known moment being Sonic's "I heart you too, Shadow" complete with a heart sign when Shadow saves him from missiles.
  • Shadow's "It's over, Nine." (he was telling Nine he lost) was compared to Vegeta's "IT'S OVER NINE THOUSAND!", partly because Shadow is an Expy of Vegeta.
  • "Calm down, Nine! We're your friends!" "Shut up, Sonic, I'll kill you!"^{Explanation (spoilers)}Following Season 3's release and the fanbase's far more negative reception to it, fans have written exchanges along these lines as summaries of the season's plot and pacing, riffing on Aaron Fraser-Nash's "Woody Sings a Song" in the process.
  • "Just think of the hundreds more stories to be told using the same eight characters and four locations!"^ExplanationA self-deprecating line in the season one finale of Sonic Boom that people have noticed perfectly applies to Sonic Prime and use it to poke fun at it.
  • "The Sonic Prime Clubhouse" ^ExplanationComparing the show to Mickey Mouse Clubhouse of all things has been used by detractors to get a rise out of people. While this became a Discredited Meme after some time, it got reignited after it, along with a sheer resurgence of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse footage online, led into a heavy Hilarious in Hindsight case along the lines of Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures' intro going viral leading to Pac-Man World getting a remake, as Epic Mickey would eventually be announced to get a remake in the midst of the resurgence, with people calling this whole situation and Sonic Prime being a target of it a worthy sacrifice.
• Misblamed: People blame Ian Flynn for the rather vague suggestion of the timeline of when Prime is set, even though 1) Ian Flynn was not a writer of Sonic Prime. He was a consultant. 2) The Lore team weren't the ones that decided to make Prime canon. That's a matter that's decided by Sega's higher-ups. Likewise, any inconsistencies are the result of the writing team, who likely didn't research every detail of the series' characters and lore, either due to time constraints or due to overlooking certain details.
• Moe: Many fans have agreed that Mangey Tails is absolutely adorable. It helps that he can't speak clear sentences apart from grunts and laughs.
• Narm: Thorn Rose's backstory about how she became a "monster". While prior dialogue had suggested the scavengers have been harvesting the forest too much for awhile, the flashback that we do see shows that she just randomly snapped when the Scavengers started tearing down a few trees, making her look humorously psychotic instead of tragically sympathetic.
• Narm Charm: Amy and the others 'giving' Sonic a palm tree in a flashback. While Amy goes on to explain that the tree symbolizes the memories created around it, it's an incredibly strange gift and it's easy to understand why Sonic doesn't really get the point of it; it's the equivalent of 'giving' someone a Local Hangout spot. However, the intention behind it is incredibly sweet and Amy is so earnest as she tries to get Sonic to understand that it loops back around to being heartwarming.
• Older Than They Think: This is not the first time Sonic has caused problems due to his impulsive nature and inability to listen to others. In Sonic Lost World, he causes the Deadly Six to gain control of Dr. Eggman's tech after he ignores Tails' warnings and impulsively kicks the conch controlling the Deadly Six out of Dr. Eggman's hands. His impulsiveness in the same game also leads to Tails getting captured by the Deadly Six after Tails stops him from getting trapped in a Capsule.
• Padding:
  • Many believe that Unwelcome to the Jungle and Barking Up the Wrong Tree could have easily been condensed into one episode. The arc focuses on the conflict between Thorn Rose and the Scavengers, the former attacking anyone who enters the jungle to try and protect it, the latter just trying to survive Thorn and feed themselves in a harsh environment. However, this story thread repeats itself multiple times, and it takes several one-sided fights and desperate explanations from Sonic to try and convince Thorn that the others are starving because she's barring them from getting food, and all it takes for Thorn to realize the error of her ways is seeing how the plant life is suffering beneath the canopy she created to keep the others out, and the thread is resolved really quickly.
  • Season 3 has almost four episodes that repeat the same cycle of "Sonic and friends fight Nine and the Grim Robots, win, and the situation escalates so Nine uses more power to build better or bigger robots so he wins and Sonic and Rebel have to adapt and think of a new plan; then repeat". As a result, the series' pacing noticeably slows down. The series at least appears to be aware of this as Mangey and Sails hide after an explosion almost kills them, and hijack the Big Robot later on to deliberately subvert the third repeated battle. As far as padding goes however, it at least has some cool action sequences and character moments to break the cycle up a bit, so it's not as repetitive as the above example was. Many had expressed that the season could've been shortened by a further episode which would've kept the above problem of pacing and repetition in check.
• Questionable Casting: While most of the recasts are liked, or at the very least had fans accepting them due to how they sounded roughly like the game's cast, Adam Nurada's take on Knuckles has been criticized for sounding overly deep and not much like any of Knuckles' previous actors. Some have questioned why Knuckles even has two voice actors to begin with and why Vincent Tong — who voices all of Knuckles' dimensional counterparts — didn't also voice the main Knuckles to begin with.
• Ron the Death Eater: While Nine really did turn against Sonic and take the Prism Shards, a lot of fans were quick to call him evil and ignore that Nine had legitimate reasons to do so. Sonic didn’t consider what might become of Nine if The Prism got fixed. At Best, Nine wouldn’t be able to live in the Grim anymore and would be forced to live wherever Sonic leaves him. At worst, the Shatterverse and everyone inside, like Nine might cease to exist as they came into existence by the originals breaking. There have also been a lot of accusations that Nine was only helping Sonic to use him, while in actuality, Nine is one of the few who didn’t do that. People also claim Nine is destroying the Shatterverse on the purpose whereas Nine’s dialogue heavily implies that it was an accident. There have also been claims of him being a Hypocrite when he calls Sonic out for only using him to get Green Hill. While Sonic didn’t mean any harm, it is a valid interpretation from Nine’s perspective as Sonic broke multiple promises, refused to help the Grim and instead implied that he was just hoping that Nine would like Green Hill. Whereas Nine, asked Sonic about what he wants and usually listened to Sonic’s criticisms in a attempt to meet Sonic halfway. His behavior and reactions to others during Season 2 also implies that he was taking a level in kindness until his fight with Sonic. Not helping Nine’s case, however, is that he is possessive of Sonic, has a temper, is morally grey and as of Season 3, mentally unstable.
• Slow-Paced Beginning: The first two episodes have odd pacing issues, since they mostly focus on introducing major elements (the Paradox Prism, the Chaos Council, Nine and Rusty Rose, etc.) while Sonic slowly pieces together his situation as a Fish out of Water (usually through some retellings that are not always in chronological order). The first episode is double-length, which helps things a bit, and the show improves its pace considerably around the third episode, after Sonic figures out his main objective of gathering the Prism fragments.
• Special Effect Failure: While the series looks solid overall, certain fluid rendering effects look primitive, with liquid flowing off of models in artificial-looking chunks.
  • While the Retraux-style flashbacks have seen mixed reception before, the flashback in "No Escape" quickly received flack for a rather harsh mishap: using the "Classic-style" Sonic and Tails sprites in a Sonic Advance 3 style flashback, even including the exact GBA sprites for the Sunset Hill world and boss, leading to a really bad sprite-style clash, not to mention the really stiff animation overall compared to both eras that the sprites emulate/originate from. The reused sprites for Eggman also mean Gemerl shows up with zero fanfare or purpose, only to be unceremoniously destroyed alongside the mech he was piloting as the detail of him surviving most of the boss fights in Advance 3 was left out.
• Suspiciously Similar Song:
  • The show's credits theme sounds like a different take on Sonic 1 and Sonic 2’s title themes.
  • When Sonic and Shadow battle in Season 2's premiere, the music playing during parts of their fight is remarkably similar to "Supersonic" by Bad Religion.
  • During the flashback to Sonic Advance 3 in Season 3, while the boss and victory themes are kept as is, the Sunset Hill music is altered to keep the same general notes in a way which also removes the Green Hill song that Sunset Hill was built upon. This is likely due to the music rights complications surrounding the first two games.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: Fans are used to Sonic having different personalities in different works (Sonic Boom, the live-action movies, the comics, etc.), and often are able to separate said personalities from the mainline games. However, the reception to Prime Sonic's personality is more mixed due to statements that this series is supposed to be connected to the games. And this show was released fresh off the heels of Sonic Frontiers, where Sonic's characterization was praised for being more mature and knowledgeable while still being the snarky Blue Blur fans know and love. As a result, several fans are baffled to see a Sonic who's more immature, hyperactive, and impulsive as his character flaws, and have thus questioned how Prime Sonic and the games' Sonic are supposed to be the same person where there's very little overlap.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Despite both characters being ostensibly billed as part of the main cast and the former being promoted to part of Team Sonic, Rouge and Big get very little screentime or focus across the entire show. Both characters only get a small portion of screen time early on before being replaced with their Shatterspace versions, and unlike Tails, Knuckles, or Amy, neither of them get Shatterspace worlds specifically focused around them, with their counterparts in the others' worlds essentially being background characters with little development or screen time. Some have questioned why either of them were in the show to begin with.
  • The five members of the Chaos Council, ruling dictators of New Yoke City, can best be described as Eggman at different ages. Are they literal representations of different stages of Eggman's life? Are they a collective of Eggman from different universes? No. Aside from singular character-defining traits such as Dr. Babble being a baby and Dr. Done-It being a tired old man, the 5 Eggman are barely any different from one another, are just normal unrelated people, and all of them originate from New Yoke City. The show's writing even goes out of its way to establish that there isn't anything special about them by the Council's own admission.
  • Chaos Sonic, who is for all intents and purposes the show's version of Metal Sonic with a unique spin of mimicking Sonic's personality, is only seen for a single prolonged fight before dying and is forgotten by the Chaos Council afterward, with Nine's mass-produced copies carrying none of his personality and being reduced to generic cannon fodder.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: At the climax of the series, Rusty frees the incarnation of Birdy trapped in her torso, denying its existence as her power source as yet another lie of the Chaos Council used to control her. Rusty SHOULD have gone offline after doing this, as since the franchise's inception animals have been used as organic batteries to power Eggman's robots, being the core element of E-102 Gamma's story climax in Sonic Adventure. The very idea that Birdy was the source of Rusty's life had been the source of much speculation by fans that her story would have a tragic ending since the series began. However, after freeing Birdy, Rusty continues to function as if nothing has changed, disregarding the entire point of the setup.
• Unexpected Character:
  • Many were surprised that Rouge is billed as part of Team Sonic, considering she's traditionally been portrayed as an Anti-Hero that's played hands-off with Sonic and friends unless the stakes get high enough. Turns out that's still the case here, though, as she shows up to provide information about the Paradox Prism, a gem she's been hunting down for years, because she heard Eggman was after it himself for nefarious purposes.
  • Even more surprising than Rouge is Big the Cat, a character who, outside of Adventure and Heroes, is relegated to cameo appearances in most games, and whose only animated appearance prior to Prime was in Sonic X.
  • While Metal Sonic is well known in the games for his role as The Dragon to Dr. Eggman and a recurring rival throughout his many appearances over the years, nobody was expecting him to make a surprise appearance at the end of the trailer for Season 2 given Rusty Rose had been effectively fulfilling his usual role already prior.
  • Gemerl's cameo in the "No Escape" flashback comes completely out of left field, to the point some people think it might've been accidental since this is a character that rarely gets remembered in other media (with the exception of the IDW Sonic comics).
• The Woobie: While he's more of a Jerkass Woobie Nine still qualifies. It's hard not to feel sorry for him growing up alone and friendless in a dystopian world, even if it made him cynical and bitter to everyone who isn't Sonic. Until the end of Season 2 where Nine finally sees that Sonic sees him as just another version of the "real" Tails, not seeing him as his own person.

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