General Sonic The Hedgehog thread

Both Rushes are worth playing. I will say that Sonic Rush is a bit harder to get into due to all the bottomless pits and some of the bosses being a little cheap, but it's easier to master because the stages are more linear and have quite a bit of parts where you have to hold one direction. Rush Adventure is easier to get into, but the stages are harder to master because there's less holding in one direction and less linearity.

I think I'll like Adventure better.

Keep?

Sonic, Amy, Knux, Tails and Eggy of course. Chatotix and Dark, Metal...TBH I wouldn't remove anyone except guys like Chip/black doom/cubot/dark gaiaGUN commander, in fact I'd bring back the fighters guys and Fang, but I wouldn't try to force everyone in every game, just sort of rotate the cast each game and give them some better development. I wouldn't add anyone new though.

edited 5th Apr '13 11:59:49 PM by Vertigo_High

Just think of what gameplay styles Bean could bring to the table.

And I've been wondering what Mighty could do. Nowadays, whatever he did Sonic can do, and then some.

I view him not being as quick as sonic or as strong as Knuckles, but rather being the tougher to hurt, with his shell being indestructible and allowing him to No-Sell most attacks with it by rolling into a ball(maybe even with his own take on sonic's insta-shield move), and having a a lot of endurance. Wheras sonic is the fastest thing alive, Mighty would be the toughest thing alive. Having him as a pure sonic clone would be boring and take away from Sonic himself.

Characters to keep, outside the obvious Sonic/Tails/Knuckles/Robotnik quartet, I'd say keep it down to the Chaotix team (Espio, Vector, Mighty [YES. Mighty], Charmy), Metal Sonic and perhaps Amy (I for one actually kinda like her bubbly joyful persona and huge freaking hammer, but by god give her a good voice actress that can make her sound badass and that'd be fine by me).

That's about it. Anyone else, meaning pretty much every character they added from Adventure 1 on the Dreamcast onward is expandable to me. I'd prefer they concentrate on making the above list more fully developped rather than add a ton of additional characters like they've been doing for the past twelve or so years.

The characters I like are Sonic, Tails, Amy Rose, Metal Sonic, Knuckles, Vector, Espio, Charmy, Shadow, Rouge, Omega, Cream, Blaze, Silver, Big, and Dr. Eggman. Minor and one game only characters such as Prof. Pickle, Chip, Sonic the Werehog, Elise, Mephiles, Classic Sonic, Classic Tails, and Classic Eggman I also like. Do you think there will be individual games based on the cast like Amy Rose or groups like Team Chaotix and Team Dark? They could be short like the Sonic Storybook series which is probably going to have a third game like how Sonic Unleashed could get a sequel. I like the large amount of characters which is something Pokemon and Mario also have, it feels less lonely to me.

I want the core cast herds back. Hero team of the Big Three plus Amy, Chaotix Team plus Mighty and Ray, Newcomers Team of Shadow, Cream, Big, Pothead the Porcupine I mean Silver, who will still smoke a J before destroying you with his brain, and Blaze.

... Eh, I can do without the cast herds, really.

I honestly think that every character has the potential to be awesome in the hands of competent writers, especially Omega, who I find to be severely underappreciated.

Hell, they managed to make Big likable in Chronicles.

Archie Comic Omega is hilarious.

Especially this quote: "I like you. Let us burn things together!"

edited 6th Apr '13 8:38:36 AM by Boxen

I'd say a few more side games for the other members of the cast. I love what Chronicles did for the characters themselves.

For the main ones(Sonic, Knuckles, Tails, Amy, Metal Sonic, and Eggman), definitely regular main games.

Side games do include any of the racing/sports with Stories. Like Sonic Riders and Rivals. Or the Mario and Sonic DS ones.(since some have Story mode)

I'd like the teams of three to return. That way they can put story focus on three characters at a time without having to worry about each individually.

The problem with that was there tendancy to do the 'one main character and two interchangable sidekicks' dynamic with only one member of the team getting any real development and spotlight. Remember what happened when they reduced Knuckles to Sonic's second tagalong.

I think individual spotlight works when moderated. Omega seriously needs some lone development.

edited 6th Apr '13 10:35:57 AM by Psi001

But it's not like they have to do the sidekick thing. That was more of a case of Heroes' poor writing in general.

I think the overall negative thoughts I get from this thread and the Kataang tag on Tumblr is going to give me a stress aneurysm.

I generally don't care about characters; as long as they don't break the game's general mood, I tend to enjoy them. The concept of "cast-culling" strikes a nerve with me, because it's like you're taking someone's creation and stripping it of its purpose, or invaliating its existence.

Myself, I like the Core 4 (Sonic, Tails, Knuckles and Eggman) and most later additions (Amy, Shadow, the oneshot characters Chip and Merlina) - I can't speak for Big, Mighty, Charmy, Espio and Vector, because I've not played a game with any of them in it. I find Silver really Narmy so far from the Sonic 06 LP; his voice needs to be deeper, or at least more regulated and under control. I generally can't speak for Blaze either; the only game I've played with her in it is Sonic And The Black Knight, and if "Gawain's" personality is to be believed, her character isn't really Blaze in that game so much as it is a slight caricature.

Still, I am a firm believer in every character having its purpose. Were Big's levels in Sonic Adventure tied to the story? If so, that might be a mis-step; if not, Big is the stress relief minigame guy of the game. Dislike Elise? ...Well, she served her purpose for the game, and had the game been finished she might have been better than what we got, and pivotal to the reboot.

The Sonic series has a large cast of characters, but I really don't think characters should be culled or retired. Just cycle through them from game to game.

Yeah, agreed. Sega needs more character-focused side games. Even Riders which I found fairly bland had a entertaining story and great cutscenes. I still maintain Amy, Rouge, Blaze, and cream deserve a girl-centered spinoff.

I think the fandom kind of tainted the idea of other characters aside from the core 4. The problem wasn't the amount of characters, rather trying to shoehorn as many as possible in one game with thin writing as a result.

The trio system of Cast Herds just needs to be used to portray the three characters as equals. That would be the best way to use as much characters as possible without putting one over the other.

^^ I agree, about the second one. Honestly, compared to some other series Sonic doesn't even have all that many characters - compare it to Mario, for instance. But certain games tried to use them in very ill-advised ways, and though the series' writing has moved on from that point there's still this unnecessary hate for having too many character.

Though I don't think stick to a trio system is the best way to deal with them, at least not in the way Heroes did the trio system...

edited 6th Apr '13 2:49:28 PM by KnownUnknown

Sonic may not have that many characters compared to some series, but think about how many characters in those series appear in more than one game.

The number is still much lower than some others - Mario is again a very good example.

It's not about the fact that the characters are recurring, it's how those characters are used in those repeat appearances.

edited 6th Apr '13 3:02:45 PM by KnownUnknown

Now I see what you mean. Sonic still had a lot of main characters (different from recurring characters) during the Dreamcast era; about 10-13 depending on the game. By comparison, Mario only has four (Mario, Luigi, Peach, Bowser), Mega Man has four (Mega Man, Proto Man, Dr. Light, Dr. Wily), Zelda has three (Link, Zelda, Ganon). Sonic only started cutting back to the 3-5 average that most series have by the Modern era.

How come there are so many people that say Unleashed is lacking in alternate paths? Even though I haven't played either version of the game, I can plainly see entrances to alternate paths in every gameplay video of both versions.

Honestly, I'm just advocating culling the cast because most of the extraneous characters don't really do much of anything anymore. Like, all the characters besides Sonic/Tails/Robotnik are basically there to stand around and show off their one personality trait. Rogue is kind of flirty. Knuckles is angry a lot. Cream is annoying. Blaze can't make friends. Shadow is there because people liked Sonic Adventure 2 a lot. Things like that.

There is the potential that they could be expanded and made into useful characters again with a competent writer, but other than that, I'd rather the lot of them stay as cameos. Or at least boss fights, since the boss fight against Silver in Generations was probably the best thing he ever did.

edited 6th Apr '13 5:36:11 PM by Bobinator