I don't actually dislike Elise that much. If 06 had better writing and they made sure the friendship with Sonic was a platonic one instead of romantic overtones, I think she would've worked fine. A girl whose only known responsibility and loneliness meeting Sonic and his attitudes rubbing off on her? I think that's a solid character premise. (Very anime, too.
)
But that's 06 in a nutshell. Solid premises, (usually) weak follow through.
That wouldn't have done anything. The romance was not an actual issue. The issue was much more complicated than that;
- Elise falling in love immediately is a rehash of Amy's story. Without later proper character development, even though that took many games. But this game is much longer. They could've spent more time with that than just Eggman kidnapping her a lot.
- Speaking of, the kidnapping was overdone. It got old very fast. There was little reason why in Sonic's story that Eggman went after her. That was pretty much in Shadow and Silver's story.
- She didn't do much by being Amy 2.0, just without developing into a crazier version. She mildly matures throughout the story, but it's barely there too. Worth noting on the other hand, Amy is handled quite well overall. She finally shows real maturity since Adventure 1.
- Something brought up later to note; the romance was too short and one-sided. Nothing developed. It's a crush that Sonic isn't designed to really reciprocate. This is a problem with its writing in itself. Elise could've certainly developed in the final story to realize that there needs to be more than a one-sided crush, though. This also makes the event Trial of Love fruitless because it cannot develop into anything in the story itself.
Just give Elise more development throughout the story and fix the damn gameplay. The rest is good. The villain actually is done well by being consistent. Mephiles is the brains(this is why he's so easy to defeat) and Iblis is the brawn(he's a far harder boss fight in every version). Solaris however maybe could be made more challenging in some way, just not "fake difficulty" instead(it's surprisingly a lot better done than some previous games, as Adventure 1, 2, and Shadow had iffy Super fights with eh controls. Adventure 1 does work a bit better than the other two, though).
Edited by Irene on Mar 2nd 2023 at 8:44:39 AM
Shadow?So, Elise would be an athlete in this illustration.
Exactly what we need, Elise is joining the roster of Sonic's Olympics team and her training arc with Silver!
Edited by taotruths on Mar 2nd 2023 at 7:28:58 AM
I actually thought of that first, but I tried using LAD as a way to get Sega's attention because A, I don't know what's their stance on point-n-clicks and Telltale kinda burning themselves out of business might be a red flag to them regarding the genre and B, LAD is a big priority to them, so I figured saying "it's like LAD" would get them to think "go on."
Maybe if the Chaotix game did a little of both.
Beat-em-ups segments sprinkled around the open world like in LAD 1-6 while being able to interact with people and items like your usual point-n-click game. And also tailing people like in the Judgment games.
Just spitballing.
That's right, our choices are Elise from the Kingdom of Soleanna or Merlina, the court Wizard!
Okay, I would say "nature is healing", but this feels like a lot more than that. How about we call this moment "nature is healing and reinforcing its immune system"?
Regardless, holy cow on them acknowledging Elise and Merlina after so many years!
DONT VOTE FOR ELISE! I WANT TO SEE MERLINA AGAIN! HELL I WANT TO SEE SIR GALAHAD WITH HER IF THAT'S EVEN A CHANCE PLEASE!
DONT LET ELISE WIN! T_T
Merlina already got her redemption in her game, clearly it's Elise's turn to get redeemed in the eyes of the fandom. Or I guess the preferred term is "to get vindicated by history?"
And hey, we never got 2D art for Elise or for humans in general aside from that one lady in that one episode of TailsTube, so either way, the time is ripe to see how humans get illustrated in the Modern Sonic art style of the 2020s.
(Besides, I voted for Elise. Heheheheh.
)
Edited by TargetmasterJoe on Jul 24th 2023 at 9:16:29 AM
A Chaotix game could actually be broken up Judgment-style, but like each character has a segment. Like each member of the Chaotix is a Decomposite Character of Takayuki Yagami.
Vector could be a hyrbid of Kaito and Yagami, where his fighting style is more like Kaito's brutal physicality with Tank and Brawler, exploring the streets of...Central City(?) and is essentially kinda the face of the agency, going out and visiting each client and case while also being confronted by various thugs and neerdowells. He can also take out Vanilla the Rabbit on dates (it's okay though, most romances in LAD are non-canon anyways, so Sega won't have a problem with it).
Espio could be used during the tailing missions or segment, as he is the Ninja of the group. He can also be the fragile speedster, where he can use Yagami's crane style, mixed with Majima's Mad Dog style (cause knife and kunai).
Charmy can partake in drone segments or the drone races, along with playing the minigames.
Edited by taotruths on Mar 2nd 2023 at 8:31:27 AM
Its Thursday post Shadow dancing
Shadow is so out of touch,am I right?
have a listen and have a link to my discord serverReally Elise was an interesting failure at the time because she managed to appeal to virtually no one. Sonamy shippers had obvious reasons to dislike her, fans of the story/lore were appaled at how poorly she was conceived as a character, those into the usual cast weren't thrilled about her getting so much focus, casual fans in the West were busy cringing or laughing at the faux romance with her, and even those focused on gameplay saw little value with her that regard. That's not even getting into whatever Sat AM fans still left that were displeased with her mere existence given their preferred princess character.
The 15 plus years since have sanded down a lot of that antipathy though, and that Sonic is doing quite well, is likely moving back into more competent semi-serious narratives, and is less defined by 06's failure? It means people can look back at Elise a bit more softly and I suspect outside the lazy joke in You Tube list videos, the divisiveness to her will dial down even more over time.
Edited by BorneAgain on Mar 2nd 2023 at 5:45:04 AM
Yeah. It's especially funny that people were so hostile to Elise when her own story ended with no reason for her to appear again.
Retconing her own debut game from the timeline did nothing at all.
One Strip! One Strip!Just like Chris Thorndike.
Makes sense; its the same reasons the humans in Transformers adaptations get hated. They're not who people engage with the material for.
They're characters created explicitly for the creators.
Edited by BlackYakuzu94 on Mar 2nd 2023 at 6:10:16 AM
A lazy millennial who's good at what he does.This is a generalization, but non-Eggman human characters can work with a mass audience via the right combination of likability, understandable purpose in the narrative, and not overshadowing the core characters long term. Your successful ones like Maria and Donut Lord pull that off, your Thorndykes and Elises, not so much. That Helen and Topaz ending up being so liked in Sonic X is proof that fans were willing to embrace such characters if they were in the right context.
That's true.
Though I think humans in Transformers have been getting better.
Sari is well liked.
The Prime kids I think were popular as well (even Miko got pretty good after kinda starting out as a deliberately annoying character), and they didn't have to be half cybertronian like Sari turned out to be.
(I put that last part in a spoiler for those who never watched Transformers: Animated.)
The kids are much younger in Earthspark, but it does have prominent adult characters in their parents for the first time in a long time. Like, Dot and her husband are much more part of the action than previous parents were, barring Sparkplug.
One Strip! One Strip!Chris and Elise isn't a very good comparison. Chris's problem is that he was a permanent member of the cast who only existed because the creators of Sonic X thought there needed to be a human kid there to act as an audience surrogate. He added nothing by being around and people generally always find those "audience surrogate kid" characters to be annoying because people would rather focus on the cool characters they came here for rather than the useless kids who's meant to be (You).
Elise was only every meant to be around for one game, the game's storyline makes that obvious, and she doesn't eat up that much screentime given that she's only really around in Sonic's story and the final story. Functionally, she's meant to be new character for Sonic to bounce off so that someone in the story has a character arc, which makes her more 06's equivalent to characters like Shahra in Secret Rings or Chip in Unleashed.
Sonic and Shahra at least have a dynamic...
They actually built a friendship over the course of the game and in-game chatter means they have more interactions than just from the cutscenes.
Elise barely talks in the 2 levels you carry her in and it's usually just telling you where to go like all the other in-level dialogue.
Edited by randomness4 on Mar 2nd 2023 at 6:32:51 AM
Rules of the Internet 45. Rule 45 is a lie. Check out my art if you notice.![]()
But the key with Elise is that (fairly or unfairly) she became the biggest symbol of everything wrong with 06, and in the minds of some fans, what went wrong with Sonic in general. Stuff like the kiss gets the most attention, but when more people looked more into the game via stuff like reviews and let's plays, just how poorly conceived she was became more and more apparent. Her design, her constant damseling, the (largely perceived poorly thought out) role in the plot; etc it all added up.
Thorndyke was disliked by many the hardcore fans while Elise managed to baffle the broad audience. Her being human in the grand scheme of things was probably incidental to her flaws, but it became an easy thing for a lot of people to point to of how the series lost its way, especially when Silver wasn't written much better, but came out more unscathed long term.
Edited by BorneAgain on Mar 2nd 2023 at 6:39:28 AM
Now that I'm home, I can explain why you can't remove the romance part on Elise's without changing the entire story. It's worth noting a better story would be nice, but you can't "write it better" because the romance is actually key.
- The former reason also makes a lot of sense. She isn't going to cry over losing a pet goldfish, or a friendship going awry. These aren't emotionally strong in itself. She's sealed with Iblis. It's going to take a lot to break a powerful seal logically.
- The romance on her part is what creates this emotional impact required to release Iblis. Mephiles is a sadist. He's going to make her cry over something big regardless. This is the only big thing in her life at this point, as she leads a dull one.
- This also means you have to remove the entire crying bit, which completely changes the past and forces a story change... in all 4 stories. Sonic's already is completely rewritten. Shadow and Silver's has it changed up to a lesser degree. The last story can't even happen because you need an all new reason.
- It's that specific love that Elise feels that actually gives the Chaos Emeralds the power to revive Sonic. You need to beyond change two stories to be nothing alike and minorly change the other two.
So it's not "write it better", it's "make an entirely different story from scratch" in comparison. This is why I say she needs development as a character. She's boring. They don't even force her to be with Sonic either, as he can choose Amy just fine(and if it wasn't for the timeline reset, it would lead perfectly into Unleashed's data he had planned. He would've chosen her anyway).
Besides, this is the first time Amy doesn't go crazy and she acted rather mature about the situation. People were expecting her to go crazy lately since she's obsessed with Sonic, but she played her part by being someone who cares about him, is his friend, while still being in love. This wouldn't really work very well since Sonic can no longer be the key to Elise releasing Iblis. So it affects Amy's entire interactions with Elise, since they have no reason to bond at all. Sure, it's an awkward reason when it's realized, but that's why Sonic has the Trial of Love too, to kind of make sure it isn't a cat fight. Well-written? Eh, no. But it does make sense to try and ease it in.
Overall, Elise could've been better handled by not having her as a shut-in, stop with the extreme amount of kidnapping(it made sense the first time, but having her constantly escape didn't work well. If she was more like Paper Peach, in that she could help or even have various development before escaping? Mucccccccccch better).
Yeah, I agree the story is meh. But they actually put it carefully together where every part plays a key. Shadow, Silver, Sonic, they all have unique roles with coupled with other characters that the only things you could remove are certain side characters without too much of a big deal. Tails, Knuckles, and... that's it, actually. Rouge plays a key role with the Scepter of Darkness and is part of the reformed G.U.N. Omega seals Shadow in the future, as well as saves him in the past. Blaze becomes the new home of Iblis(albeit, to be fair, this was a poorly done part, but she is still a key part of the factor in the story. And as shown, she doesn't suddenly reappear, meaning it's something that can't be done). Amy is the core reason Silver can't kill Sonic, but also is the one to help Elise realize her feelings better which both is the reason Sonic... gets killed, but also the reason she's able to save him. Ironically.
Which does make it funny that Sonic doesn't do much during his story... yet is a big key to the whole thing too. Welcome to hell, population: All But Blaze.
I would've been annoyed at Elise if Amy's only point was... to be a tsundere/jerkass/rival to her, though. But she wasn't. They weren't even real rivals. They were legitimate friends, and stayed that way. That's why I liked Elise. She didn't push Amy actually aside. Sonic didn't actually fall for Elise in general(it's a one-sided crush). But he did treat her just like Amy, a friend by default. The fact you could choose Amy is what's key to me. Sure, it doesn't affect the ending(besides the fact that Elise won't be dating Sonic if it was even possible in the timeline) much at all, but it was a nice touch.
Sonic never even had another love in the games, so I definitely didn't see anything about the SATAM stuff mattering. Blatantly different canon as is.
Shadow?

Uh, Sonic and the Black Knight cutscenes are 2D. It would be a first time for Elise.
To win, you need to adapt, and to adapt, you need to be able to laugh away all the restraints. Everything holding you back.