Boom Amy's lack of overt declaration of love for Sonic also generally allowed for more variable dynamics with him with the situation called for it. The crush was there but it didn't dominate the nature of how they interacted all of the time so them working together or bickering felt completely natural.
My favorite is that one sequence where the two were trying to enter into a building, and start bickering between which plan was better: the one with pizazz, or pizza.
It was an amusing sequence.
To win, you need to adapt, and to adapt, you need to be able to laugh away all the restraints. Everything holding you back.I mean, I think one comment I saw that has good point is that Amy's interest in fortune telling has come up like three times in manuals of various games and only once appeared on screen in anyway.
I think that is pretty good example of whats up with Amy and series in general: There just aren't much of "characters doing their own thing outside of adventures" nor does Amy often get shown up in other context than crushing on Sonic. So like... What do Sonic and Tails do together on freetime? Thats another thing i saw commented on that almost everytime you see them meet up in games they are like "long time no see" which kinda implies gang goes on their seperate ways between games
(which honestly wouldn't be off too much with the "Sonic is free spirit that wanders around when nothing important is going off" thing)
Amy's tarot card reading is only mentioned in Sonic CD's manual...
It has never been referenced again, because it had no reason to.
Of course making it one of her interests is a fair deal, but how would you really work that into a story?
Sonic Origins showed it off because it was just following CD's manual, it's why she goes to Little Planet.
Rules of the Internet 45. Rule 45 is a lie. Check out my art if you notice.It was referenced in Sonic Battle. But that game also gave her a full story mode again(that's more focused on her than Sonic Heroes would be, as it's got a very different premise) with a massive amount of dialogue and characterization. She was still obsessed with Sonic, of course, but they heavily talked about how she deals with it(her Boxercising) as well as had her friends be worried about her. Being this game seems to take place before Sonic 06 but after Shadow the Hedgehog, her gaining some character development offscreen is more or less the closest to what happened. It also didn't help that Amy was completely different in Shadow as well, fully emphasizing her friend to all living things while removing her obsession with Sonic.
Not the only odd continuity thing in Battle, though.
Shadow?Amy also had a Tarot card based move
in Sonic Chronicles.
Edited by WillKeaton on Nov 20th 2022 at 3:17:27 AM
Yeah. It doesn't really make much sense when she's already been calmed down and starting to slowly become a much more logical person/less obsessed with Sonic after said game and Heroes(Heroes doesn't do it nearly that much, of course, but while it might be one moment, it's still notable because it's still a core part of hers that she has yet to actually grow out of at the time).
This of course is just the case of them writing Sonic Battle with only at most Heroes in mind. Shadow was the first game to actually completely tone her down among the console main games, with it also being the case in 06 and even done better in Unleashed.
Shadow wouldn't have been in production and her being "obsessed with Sonic" was still her core character trait whenever proper interactions came up. She didn't really have an arc to grow out of that phase. It's all offscreen. On the other hand, she didn't interact with Sonic really at all(in Shadow, if that's less clear), so her obsession wouldn't be relevant. Meaning it doesn't at least contradict Sonic Battle making her insane. Maybe. It kind of depends how the writing concepts and thoughts, though. That said, 06 definitely toned it down to a massive degree to the point where she's a loving and caring hero but also protective of him in a friendship-based way. She's still clearly in love with him, but she respects him a lot more. She's no longer insane about it, and as shown in the final ending, despite him being kissed by another girl, she shows no signs of going nuts and knows the situation. And if it was the case Elise was going to be who he fell for in the end, the way it's written implies quite well she'd have respected that. Obviously the storyline erases a bunch of history, so that doesn't matter anymore.
Then Unleashed uses her in a great light, showing she cares about him deeply as a friend too, and less obsession. She's not used much, no doubt, but I felt once that game hit, they finally removed her crazy traits enough to return her to back to her development, "friend to all living things." I don't remember what she was like in Chronicles, though. And to my knowledge, its canonicity is questionable or something? I know Sonic 06 is canon(but the story was written out as well due to the time shenanigans. With at most slight memories returning to Blaze due to the Time Eater).
Edited by Irene on Nov 20th 2022 at 4:39:51 AM
Shadow?@Known Unknown: I know, that is what the comment I was referring to was commenting on, that Frontiers uses that tidbit like its well established character fact when its not that.
Edited by SpookyMask on Nov 20th 2022 at 12:47:02 PM
I really don't understand the struggle with characterizing Amy. She had a clear-cut character as a fun and friendly Genki Girl who is compassionate but also has a fiery temper, owing to her passionate personality, and a hardcore optimist. Sonic Adventure established her as being bored with mundane life and wanting to be alongside Sonic, not just because she loves him but because she desires a life of adventure that he's always living. And then Sonic Heroes had Amy form her own team, wherein she demonstrated herself an effective leader. You can't tell me that's not a compelling character right there, with the one problem being that the writers ended up focusing much more on Amy's love for Sonic after Heroes, turning her open crush on him into an obsession. But that's easily remedied by simply dialing back the "love for Sonic" into a healthy open crush instead of a creepy obsession, and have those other traits just as present.
But instead, Amy's love for Sonic and her Genki Girl personality have been effectively neutered into nothingness, turning her to a generic girl character who's singular trait is being compassionate. And now she's going to be characterized after either Sally Acorn (IDW) or her Boom incarnation, the latter of which I always found to be an overrated take on the character that attempts to reinvent Amy when a simple adjustment of her 2000's self would be a true improvement.
Problem is that SEGA didn't seem the type for simple adjustments in the 2000s, given how their response to the disaster of 06 was to throw the Adventure Gameplay with the bathwater and do a new style of gameplay.
Post unleashes offered a reprieve...and then it happened again with Lost World/Boom/Forces (mostly the latter)
Edited by MorningStar1337 on Nov 20th 2022 at 2:55:35 AM
Actually, after Heroes(release game order, not storyline order), she didn't massively crush on Sonic(at least in the mainline games). Her only moments of that were a little bit in Adventure 1(which is what she grew partially out of to be more about her caring personality), one moment in Adventure 2(which was a bad joke, all things considered), a massive part of her character in Battle, and a slight bit in Heroes(one cutscene, and part of why she was finding Sonic. That's actually part of her original team up motivation. It's just overstated that's all there was to it, cause she wanted to help her friends find the people they cared about. She's just the only one strictly in love with said person she cared about, which is why they gave her that cutscene).
She was literally created as a love interest for Sonic, so yes, that was her core personality. It's all she really had in Sonic CD, her game introduction after her manga appearance. The genki girl thing came up after she was given a young teenager appearance in the Modern games. Her first two 3D appearances was still her Rosey self. A cute little girl with a hammer with a crush on Sonic for saving her life.
This isn't a constant otherwise outside of stuff like the anime, where she's completely insane, similar to her Sonic Battle self. The only other one, which I can't remember, might've been Chronicles, but she isn't obsessed with him in Unleashed, Colors, Generations, and so on. They also barely used her either, outside of at most a quick moment of noting how caring she is. 06 actually was the last game to give her any real screentime among the core games too(and a pretty good bit about showing her in love with Sonic, while showing her caring and understanding side). After that, due to being a very underused NPC, she never had a real story arc again.
This isn't counting her counterparts in Boom or the Storybook Games, as they're overall different characters. Though I do like the Twitter Takeover used her Boom version instead of her normal version. It was funnier.
Shadow?It's the best possible read on Amy's character in Frontiers to say that she's "maturing" because her crush on Sonic doesn't show up at all...
All Sonic characters are just inconsistent, even in regards to the few character traits they do have.
This inconsistency is so bad that fans are surprisingly unaware what problems were introduced when.
—-
Amy went through an entire arc in Adventure that displayed her crush on Sonic as inspiring her to do things on her own and be independent/gain his respect. Which every game (and Sonic X) since then has backpedaled on in favor of making her just "the girl" (when she doesn't interact with Sonic) or a flanderized version of herself (regardless of who she interacts with).
Sonic Heroes sure is a case of following up on that Adventure development, where she's helping out Big and Cream to find their friends, too bad that she's convinced Sonic is the culprit of kidnapping Froggy and Chocola...and uses that as an excuse to chase him for half of their story and again at the end.
Whether or not Amy's crush on Sonic showed up, exaggerated or not, depended on how much focus she got in the story. It had nothing to do with continuing her development or people complaining about it.
Her crush is being toned down now, due to complaining and less character development...which is an obvious course correction because they have yet to actually replace her existing traits with anything else.
Edited by randomness4 on Nov 20th 2022 at 6:09:43 AM
Rules of the Internet 45. Rule 45 is a lie. Check out my art if you notice.![]()
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Definitely feels like this was the case. One of the issues is that Amy as the "lovesick follower of Sonic" personality reached an infamy that wasn't necessarily true of her entire character; but especially to casual audiences that's all she seemed to be. Like other members of cast, the nuances that the hardcore fandom viewed her with weren't really recognized outside it and the subsequent course correction was likely done as a way to polish the broader perception.
Especially given how much the extended characters were pared down after 06, and Amy had to be kept around as one of the few prominent female figures in the franchise, a major toning down of the elements about her that had become notorious was probably seen as necessary to make her still work in the series. Likely the same with Sonic Boom, where the inversion of how public she was about her Sonic affection made sense as a way to differentiate that version in a semi-positive way (or in the case of the TV series, because it was funnier to make it the worst kept secret in the show).
Edited by BorneAgain on Nov 20th 2022 at 6:08:23 AM
Beat Frontiers, didn't get the bullet hell boss phase people have been talking about, looked it up and realized I needed to be on Hard mode to get it for whatever reason, and after some thought decided I didn't really care enough to redo it if there's no additional cutscenes attached.
The boss fights in general in this game have been rather lackluster anyway imo (the minibosses, on the other hand...), and I find myself doubting that adding another phase to one will either improve or hurt the last one in any way. Though a shift in gameplay to close out the game is nevertheless customary for the series.
Edited by KnownUnknown on Nov 20th 2022 at 11:07:54 AM
There is an extra scene for beating the game on hard mode, not just the extra boss.
Rules of the Internet 45. Rule 45 is a lie. Check out my art if you notice.I was playing Frontiers while sleep-deprived, on one of the stages that was originally Classic Sonic's, and muscle memory kicked in...
You can press down to roll in the 2D Cyber Space stages.
My god, I played this game for dozens of hours and completed it on two platforms before I ever realized that.
I don't really feel like there's a struggle to characterize her so much as fans thinking one version of her character from years ago deserves resurgence. Yeah Sega starts and abandons trends quickly, but I'm not upset that Sonic doesn't talk about eating chili dogs or that Knuckles isn't questioning his role on Angel Island anymore. Those are just earlier depictions of their characters that got phased out or muted.
I've taken her transition from a Damsel in Distress Genki Girl to an E-rated Lovable Sex Maniac the to less love-crazed leader type occasionally Not So Above It All as a modernization of her character, out of universe, and Amy simply maturing, in-universe. Which is neat to see rather than Amy just being the same person she was in Sonic Adventure.
In a franchise that's been around for decades, cutting the parts that work and the parts that don't is probably necessary too.
Edited by FOFD on Nov 21st 2022 at 8:08:43 AM
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Knuckles has never questioned his role as the guardian of the Master Emerald past Sonic Adventure...
Not acknowledging it was the problem with his constant appearing and...not guarding it during the early 2000's, plus having no real role in any story he was placed in.
Sonic will probably still talk about eating Chili Dogs because they chose to make that a canon interest he has and there's no reason why, with Ian Flynn at the helm, that'd stop being a thing.
Rules of the Internet 45. Rule 45 is a lie. Check out my art if you notice.I wonder if they are going to do a DLC for Sonic Frontiers at some point. Like improve the gaming controls in the game. I prefer that they fix up the game mechanics for this game rather than move on to the next Sonic game so that way Sonic Team would at least have a gameplay mechanic that they have perfected so that way, if they want to use the same move set in the next game, they would already have enough experience with the gameplay to perfect it.
I love animation, TV, movies, YOU NAME IT!Free content updates are coming next year
, but I haven't heard anything about control patches. I'd prefer it if they fixed the controls and physics first, but good luck with that. Here's hoping they make the final boss an actual boss.
