Is Shade the Echidna worth salvaging?

If they were ever to revive the RPG genre for Sonic, I think they should continue with the whole thing Battle and subsequently Chronicles came up with because it's actually interesting. What happened to the Echidnas? ...Well, Chronicles told us that, but I think that would be interesting to expand upon ever further. Just the whole Nocturn tribe or whatever and the powers they possess for whatever reason. It's good deep stuff for an RPG. In that case, I can see Shade being brought back. But right now she really doesn't need to be. She's just another slow friend character, and that's the last thing we need implemented into a new Sonic game. Would it be cool to see her in the Olympics or something? I mean, sure. Other than that, though, I don't really see her being of much use, as strange as that is to actually type.

 

As interesting as she is as a character (At least far more interesting than the one she's based off of) salvaging her would only work if the specific continuity she existed in was salvaged as well.

 

No.

 

Didn't Adventure already tell us what happened to the Echidnas? That is what I don't like about Chronicles. It does something nobody asked for. We already knew Chaos wiped out the whole Echidna tribe. There was no need to bring them back and make things even more confusing.

It would've made more sense for them to bring Tikal back and go into detail on Knuckles backstory and the Master Emerald. How did he survive all of that and how was he able to guard the Master Emerald? The most important question is how did he know he was supposed to guard it?

 

Adventure told us about the Knuckles Clan and how they were wiped out. It didn't tell us anything about the whoever or whatever it was that they were fighting against during the events of SA1, and that's exactly where Chronicles comes in. Sure, up until Chronicles happened there was no reason to believe that there were more echidna's than the Knuckles Clan, but I personally love the story that Chronicles copied from the comics came up with. Connecting the pre-established lore of Battle into the whole thing really interested me. The Nocturnus Clan is the group that drove the Knuckles Clan to taking the Chaos Emeralds, thus angering Chaos and causing their own demise (I can fully accept that "a few survived" and eventually died off, leaving just Knuckles). Then there were the Gizoids created by the Nocturnus Clan, with Emerl himself being something particularly special, which then triggered the downfall of the Nocturnus themselves by the hand of Argus. Chronicles' story is worth salvaging.

Now as for Shade? It's hard to say. While Chronicles' story sounded good on paper (to me at least), it did a terrible job of presenting it. As a major new character for the game, Shade was incredibly dull. She was all super evil until one second when she suddenly decided wasn't evil anymore and become boring guide character devoid of any personality. And there's her name... urgh. We already have Shadow as a dark and serious character, did we really need another? Her design is cool both with and without her helmet, as is her story. But Chronicles didn't sell her very well.

Chronicles is in a pretty unique position for a Sonic game. It was developed entirely by a third party outside of Japan and was presumably given blessing as canon blessing by Sonic Team; it ties up events in multiple games and the Nocturne Gate appeared the 2010 Winter Olympics. But then Penders had a paddy and now SEGA wants to forget that the entire ordeal ever happened. Kind of a shame. I mean the game itself was kind of bad and it's soundtrack a million times worse, but I loved where it was going.

 

I don't think many people cared who the Knuckles clan was fighting to that extent. Honestly, there were more people simply asking for a game to explain Knuckles past and the Master Emerald during that time. They could have focused on that, which is why I disagree with the whole approach of that game. We were already too deep in the series to pull stories from the comics. They tried to force something that would not fit in the main Sonic series.

Edit: Knuckles character in the comics is also more powerful than the one in the games so plots like this can't hurt his character. When you add a plot like this in the video games, it is a completely different story. You are basically taking a dump on one of Sonic's most popular characters and saying he's weak compared to these other Echidnas. People will instantly think "well Knuckles is not that important anymore". He has been around since the early ages of the series and was a huge part of the evolution of Sonic. That is no way to treat his character but at least now Iizuka said it was non-canon. They have an opportunity to redeem themselves or just leave Knuckles as he is right now, which isn't a bad idea either.

 

The most important question is why Knuckles is canonically 16 if he's been guarding the Master Emerald for centuries - or, if he's not been guarding the Master Emerald for centuries and thus really is only 16, who was guarding it before him?

 

At first I snorted a dismissive "naw" upon reading the thread title, but then I remembered she's essentially a better Julie-Su and I loved her when I was a kid. So I guess it could be cool. Sonic doesn't really do the whole "story-driven" thing anymore, which is proooobably a good thing, but a new Adventure styled game written by someone who knows what they're doing and can strike the right tone (Ian Flynn yo) and polished gameplay would really float my boat. Something to do with Shade and her clan would fit well since they tie into the mythos established in the first two Adventure games (Knuckles fuckery and Gerald Robotnik fuckery, respectively). I've been replaying the first two Adventure games lately; they're flawed for sure but I see a lot of potential in that playstyle and I think it's worth revisiting and nailing it for the first time in a modern take on it. Now that Sonic Mania is a thing and it's made my dreams come true I need something else to aimlessly wish for, so...

 

I don't remember the series stating he guarded the Master Emerald for centuries. He did say he has been guarding it as long as he can remember in Sonic Adventure.

 

I was always under the impression it was canon at first because Sonic Team might've given them the story premise to develop. Kind of like the Rivals series and Lost World.

The reason I say this is because of this old Sonic fan site that reported what the premise of the next Sonic game was going to be a little while after Sonic Adventure 2 came out for the Dreamcast but before the Battle port came out for the GameCube. I remember some of the stuff they reported was used in Sonic media in one way or another.

In the little summary they gave they said this:
-Another Echidna tribe comes back and kidnaps Knuckles. They demand the emeralds for his return. (Chronicles)
-After the SA2 events, the emeralds are spread out throughout the universe because of the space battle. Tails builds a ship to go into space and stages were supposed to be different planets. (Sonic X)
-Shadow comes back but there's the question of him being the real one or a clone. He also has amnesia. (Heroes and Shadow)
-Metal Sonic is a constant enemy that's pursuing Sonic. (Heroes)
-Another alien race is also another adversary (Sonic X and Shadow?)

Now, I don't remember what the site was and it's something that I tried to hunt down every once in a while. And there's a really strong possibility that either they got lucky or I'm just remembering wrong. But once Heroes, Shadow, Sonic X and Chronicles came out it always made me remember that post.

Like Sonic Team had this pre-Heroes idea they were shopping around for but decided to scrap it and use it later in other projects.

 

It didn't really have to state it, it was pretty obvious given the state of technological advancement the echidnas had made when Pachacamac had the bright idea of invading Chaos's temple that it was several centuries ago compared to the state of tech in Knuckles's current day - dating no later than Spain reaching South America (or whatever passes for it in Sonic's Earth), and potentially much earlier.

If Knuckles was around to "survive" Pachacamac's comeuppance as you suggest, there's no way he's only 16, not without some sort of explanation.

 

Oh yeah I did say "how did HE survive" haha. That was a grammatical error. I must've been tired when I typed that. I meant to say his ancestors. Knuckles definitely was not born yet when Chaos wiped out the Echidna Tribe.

 

I wanted to post this the second i saw the topic title but i thought thatd get me sent to trash :')


When sonsidering if any character's ever worth "bringing back," you have to wonder 2 things:


1- does the character add anything of substance to the world?
2- Does the world have any damn substance to begin with?

 

I'd say there's plenty of other interesting, more fun characters worth salvaging before her.

 

Perhaps it's better to keep Knuckles' ancestry a mystery just like Sonic and Tails.