I think they should have just had Silver get stuck in the past from one-way time travel early on so they wouldn't have this issue. He would just always be around and you wouldn't have to come up with reasons for him to keep coming back or deal with the implications of easy time travel existing.
Zelda isn't remotely unpopular in Japan at all, it's ludicrous that people even think that. Every Zelda game sells well there, games like the original and OoT are considered classics there the same everywhere else. The only reason I can think that people say this is because Skyward Sword sold significantly less in Japan than other regions, but that's the only game that really happened with and it still sold well just not amazingly. I don't understand why news of that one game not selling as great there sticks in peoples' minds to the point that they think it applies to the entire series. And even if there was truth to this in the past, Breath of the Wild sold amazing in Japan the same as everywhere else, so it's even less true now.
Even Metroid isn't as unpopular in Japan as people say it is. 2D Metroid games have always sold decently well there, and similar to the above Metroid Dread sold well there like everywhere else. It's mainly just Metroid Prime that sold like shit in Japan. Even as far as Samus being an iconic character, she may be more so in America but I think it's mostly because people don't know of any other female characters from that old period of games. In Japan Samus has a lot of competition with lots of playable female characters from old games that are obscure in the West, a lot of which are more Moe and easy to attract attention than Samus is.
Meanwhile, 90% of Sonic games have sold really poorly in Japan. Sonic Adventure 2 Battle is only game to really sell well there, and some of the games around it also sold decently, and now Frontiers has sold pretty well. Nothing else has particularly notable sales numbers, the Mario & Sonic Olympics games sell way more and make Sega a lot more money in Japan off the back of the Mario name.
I don't believe Ian has the allowance to do this, but I'd simply have it so that Silver returns to the future, sees that it's a utopian paradise now, but discovers that due to retcons nobody in his home time has ever heard of him, so then he returns to Sonic's time because that's where his friends are.
Him, Blaze and Knuckles are all equally in a similar situation where they have duties elsewhere, but they've given themselves permission to enjoy life and spend it with friends, who happen to be Team Sonic.
But yes, in terms of in any given hypothetical future sonic game, people I expect to be playable, ranked by likelihood is pretty much
Sonic (a given) > Tails, Knuckles, Amy > Shadow > Rouge > Silver, Blaze > the Chaotix, Cream, Big, Omega, Eggman.
As long as you keep Silver tied to the future, anything you do with him is gonna be a retread.
There's only but so many times you can do the "Silver returns from the future cuz of a new threat" before it gets played out...if it hasn't already.
There's a reason they don't really use the "Knuckles gets tricked by Eggman to fight Sonic" plot anymore because it was used pretty excessively in such a short amount of time.
A lazy millennial who's good at what he does.If Sonic games had decent writing...the fact that the final time Knuckles got tricked wasn't by Eggman but actually because Rouge wanted him to go with her to an Interstellar Amusement park would've been a clever send-off to that bit.
Edited by randomness4 on Apr 30th 2023 at 1:48:29 PM
Rules of the Internet 45. Rule 45 is a lie. Check out my art if you notice.There is something about Silver that is bugging me. Since Silver changed the past so his original present doesn't exist wouldn't it mean that the Silver that Sonic meets is erased from time each time he time travels?!
This is Sonic CD and the "Sonic Terminator" story all over again! They don't make sense if you change the past don't you erase the present?!
Edited by neoamon on Apr 30th 2023 at 7:40:24 PM
"May your heart be your guiding key"![]()
Maybe the Silver we saw in Generations and Forces wasn't the one from Rivals, but instead the same Silver from '06, thanks to the Time Eater somehow accessing that erased timeline, and he's been Trapped in the Past ever since because his home time retroactively never existed again while he was busy cheering Sonic on and identifying things that look like homing shots?
Edited by TrashJack on Apr 30th 2023 at 5:22:11 AM
"Cynic, n. — A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be." - The Devil's DictionaryFrom what I know about them both Archie Sonic (pre-IDW) and Sonic The Comic went for more Complete Monster Eggman concepts, owing to both series being Darker and Edgier than the rest of the franchise - especially so in Sonic The Comic's case.
Blame the 90's, I guess.
Edited by KnownUnknown on Apr 30th 2023 at 4:24:04 AM
Didn't one of the comic continuities eventually have the twist that there were Eggman and Robotnik were separate, and one of them was a Complete Monster?
Eggman as a Complete Monster doesn't sound possible to me, not without drastically altering his design. His base design is intended to be humorous, he's an egg-shaped man who pilots round mecha. He's a more comedic version of Dr. Wily, more cartoonish and bumbling, and he has been since the very beginning.
One of the Complete Monster criteria is that they have to be taken seriously at all times, and Eggman is not.
Edited by PushoverMediaCritic on Apr 30th 2023 at 4:29:31 AM
The tricky part to me is that a complete monster villain is a tough one to keep as a recurring nemesis, and especially one that the hero keeps allowing to live despite the clear damage they do. The IDW Eggman skirts that line already and taking away the few semi-flattering aspects he does have wouldn't really work.
I've noticed most fics use him as a Sacrificial Lamb to make way for a "darker" villains.
Yea Eggman isn't very popular outside the older demographic it seems...which is on point for a mostly teenaged cast but lol.
Edited by BlackYakuzu94 on Apr 30th 2023 at 8:19:12 AM
A lazy millennial who's good at what he does.

I'd just cut the middle man out and move Silver to either Earth or the Sol Dimension after erasing his main timeline like what happened to Future Trunks in Super.