You could say SA2 had some jokes at Amy's expense, but the Adventure had a quite a few humorous moments at various character's expense. Like SA1 had Sonic prodding Knuckles after they find he got tricked again, Sonic falling and getting his head buried in the sand, and Tails remembering last second he forgot to give his plane a landing gear just before him and Sonic crash. And SA2 had Knuckles almost killing everyone in the space shuttle, and Tails going full surprised Pikachu face over realizing how dumb he was to fall for the old "because you just told me" trick.
On whether Amy's character changed with Heroes onward, I never found her to be a complete joke character or anything. But there's something interesting I'm reminded of. I once read someone on another site complain about Cream and how makes Amy look worse because their dynamic together is that Cream is the straight man to Amy acting up. And that's definitely a thing, and I think you could argue that Amy is at her most comedic as a character in any game where Cream is around a main character, such as Heroes, Battle, Rush, and Free Riders.
Amy used to have three core character traits:
Being the feminine character, being the non-action character in an action cast, and having a massive, unapologetic crush on the hero. Those are pretty simple traits, but together they formed a complete character.
And instead of developing Amy's character, they just unceremoniously dropped core character traits. She dropped her non-action trait starting in Heroes (and long-term starting in Sonic Boom), and she dropped her unapologetic crush in Sonic Lost World.
Which of course means that her only remaining personality trait is "being feminine", which is nowhere near enough to make a fleshed out character. From a logistic standpoint you can't really "undo" having action capabilities, but having her crush on Sonic be so downplayed that it dips between being hesitant to say it and just not mentioning it at all is unjustified and ridiculous.
Even if they wanted to stop the "Amy chasing Sonic" dynamic they had, they could easily just make Amy a tiny bit more restrained and Sonic a tiny bit more appreciative of her presence.
I think this would be a different discussion if Amy had her inexplicable time freeze powers from SA 2 multiplayer.
She didn't have time freeze powers...
Unlike Sonic and Shadow actually using chaos control to stop time, Amy's thing didn't actually freeze her opponents...
Her ability just took away control of the character, it wouldn't stop the character from continuing any action they were already doing.
Edited by randomness4 on Jan 16th 2023 at 10:50:21 AM
Rules of the Internet 45. Rule 45 is a lie. Check out my art if you notice.Yeah, Sonic and Shadow froze everything but themselves for 5 seconds. Amy took away the controls of her opponent for HALF A FUCKING MINUTE.
Basically, the one way to beat Amy involved getting ahead of her and grabbing every single ring... provided that Amy wasn't just jumping off the level to get to the more recent checkpoint you passed complete with pity powerup.
She also got her power up at every 10 rings, instead of 30.
Rules of the Internet 45. Rule 45 is a lie. Check out my art if you notice.Amy was supposed to be slower than Sonic/Shadow and Metal Sonic and have low ring thresholds to compensate...
Except in practice she's better than the other three because she will literally spam all of her special attacks and there is nothing you can do about it.
Edited by BlackYakuzu94 on Jan 16th 2023 at 11:05:49 AM
A lazy millennial who's good at what he does.I don't know...
20 seconds is a pretty long time.
Rules of the Internet 45. Rule 45 is a lie. Check out my art if you notice.Sonic and Shadow's Chaos Control lasted from a range of 10 - 25 seconds (and you could mash the face buttons to make the timer go faster)
Shadow (specifically) had a costume that made Chaos Control last 5 seconds, with the "benefit" of being able to use it every 20 rings instead of 30.
Edited by randomness4 on Jan 16th 2023 at 1:21:50 PM
Rules of the Internet 45. Rule 45 is a lie. Check out my art if you notice.The special costumes feel like slightly gimped versions of the characters in general. Sonic/Knuckles and Shadow/Rouge are locked into their attacking and time stopping powers respectively, Tails runs faster in the short as hell shooting stages and Eggman loses his lock on for Power Laser spam.
Do not play Eggman's alt costume on the PC version of SA 2 with mods. You will find yourself frustrated trying to complete his levels.
Tails costume pretty much only works for those 2 racing stages that...exist.
Rules of the Internet 45. Rule 45 is a lie. Check out my art if you notice.The alt costumes had differences? Cool!
(Which of the shooting game and treasure hunting characters were best? I feel like those weren't really looked at as much as the others.)
The Protomen enhanced my life.Tikal was quite good even with the nerfed radar, because she was just fast (Chaos 0 on the other hand had a massive advantage in fistfights).
The Dark Chao Walker would basically end things fast but couldn't really get out of a tight spot by anything but tanking the hit, while the Chao Walker was the best at dodging stuff.
And I'd argue that Amy in Heroes wasn't even that bad. For most of the game, Amy's her usual compassionate self, just a lot more headstrong so as to effectively lead Cream and Big (two very inexperienced adventurers, even compared to Amy by this point). Like, Amy was certainly motivated to find Sonic in Heroes, but she was just as motivated to help Cream and Big find and rescue Chocola and Froggy, and raised their spirits to keep them moving forward whenever they got discouraged. It's just that one stupid cutscene that had Amy exaggerated for the laughs, which was for the sole purpose of justifying a boss fight between Team Sonic and Team Rose, just like all the team battle cutscenes. And I have to say, it's insanely annoying how everyone writes off Heroes!Amy as the character's worst portrayal because of a single cutscene, completely disregarding everything else in that game.
As for Battle, Rush, and Free Riders, I can concede that those three were not flattering for Amy at all. But then, Battle had Knuckles being a hot-headed dumbass whom everyone takes the piss out on, so Amy was hardly alone in being done dirty in that game. And likewise for Rush, where I'd dare say the only well-written characters in that game were Sonic and Blaze, with everyone else being one-dimensional versions of themselves. Amy was an extra violent Clingy Jealous Girl, Knuckles was even more of a hotheaded dumbass, and Cream being a particularly clueless and helpless child despite being established as Down To Earth and far from helpless. Cream was also further mischaracterized by her intro in Rush being essentially stalking Blaze and then dragging the cat to her house despite Blaze's clear protests. And Free Riders had everyone being complete assholes, with Tails and Cream being the sole exceptions. Like, Amy's is definitely the most noteworthy, but then we also had Shadow and Rouge completely disregarding the well-being of their robotic teammate because "who gives a fuck?".
I'm just saying, Cream isn't responsible for Amy becoming Flanderizied for the laughs. Cream's debut just coincided with SEGA taking the whole series in a new direction, which saw Amy and Knuckles particularly suffering from fumbled writing. The person you saw complaining about Cream (whose identity I think I already know) clearly does not see this distinction.
That one cutscene...
The cutscene where she says the thing? That's not that bad, though out of all the reasons for a character battle to happen...it was no more stupid than the others.
Rules of the Internet 45. Rule 45 is a lie. Check out my art if you notice.Yes, that cutscene. And I honestly agree; it's no more stupid than the other team battle cutscenes. But with how badly it impacted people's perception of Amy in Heroes, and her character as a whole, I can only regard it with the utmost disgust. Fuck that cutscene and everyone involved in its creation.

It's that way in Heroes and Battle, but in Shadow and 06, she still was The Heart. The latter game, she was also an action girl too. They introduced more female characters, so she wasn't the token girl as much anymore, which can explain why they don't have her the most girly there. She had others to talk to.
It's mostly Heroes/Battle they wanted to stick with a lot, if only cause it gave her more lines, I guess? Though to be fair, Heroes was written pretty badly, while Battle was very comedy-based a looooooot of times.
Shadow?