Is there good reason anymore to have 2 Sonic designs?

Well either way works to me. Some seem seriously against blue arms. It’s kinda funny that such a minor variation would be that bad.

I’ve always really liked the green eyes. It does give him more character. I wonder how the movie would have colored them if they didn’t have Modern Sonic to go by.

 

IIRC, Uekawa's reason for turning Sonic's eyes green was because Sonic was always running through places with a lot of greenery, like Green Hill, and he wanted Sonic's eyes to be a reflection of that. In a sense, he made Green Hill part of Sonic's character design, lol. Is it a weird choice and reason? Maybe, but that's just how it is.

The reason Sonic's arms aren't blue in the games is because his arms would blend in with the rest of his body on his 2D sprites in the Genesis games. It's pretty much the same reason Mario was given a mustache for Donkey Kong/Super Mario Bros. He would've looked weird with blue arms in-game back then.

Those things just kind of stuck with his design afterwards.

 

I think part of it is that blue arms debuted with Boom Sonic, and there was such a negative reaction to that design that "THEY EVEN CHANGED THE COLOUR OF HIS ARMS" became a bit of a rallying cry.

That's not to say that at least some people don't have a legitimate distaste for them, but I do think it maybe got blown out of proportion.

 

There were a lot of memes popping up over those designs too, especially in regards to Sonic's lankiness and Knuckles looking radically different, along with them having a lot of sports tape.

 

I remember. To be fair, my own reaction was/is very negative, to the point that the blue arms wasn't something I even noticed for a long time, because I was like "ugh SPORTS TAPE BUFF KNUX".

 

I personally don't like the Boom designs for Sonic and Knuckles that much, but I just kind of got used to them, I guess. Boom's dead in the water now, though, so people will forget about it eventually (if they haven't already).

 

I always preferred Classic Sonic and Modern Sonic to be one. I thought they stayed on that route from Sonic Adventure to Sonic Generations, with Classic Sonic being a younger more childish Sonic, and with Modern Sonic being the more older and adult Sonic. Then Sonic Forces came along, and said they are both from two completely dimensions. With Modern Sonic making a cringy pun when he saw Classic Sonic again. "It's been generations since I've seen you" ugh. It's just not a thing I was expecting, nor wanting.

 

I never separated Classic Sonic from Modern Sonic. And, honestly, I don't get why people do so.
I always took it as an aesthetic change rather than an aging thing. And I was a kid back then! xD

Nowadays, yes, I think Sonic could get a new aesthetic change, one that mixed elements from Classic, Modern & Movie Sonic.
That is, of course, if my dream of a reboot of the series, with a more cohesive and progressive timeline, were to ever happen xD

 

Anybody ever notice that Boom Sonic was given blue arms, but Amy's are still tan? A strange creative choice if you ask me.

EDIT: I also think it's worth mentioning that Sonic's tan arms match his tan belly. None of the other characters who have colored arms have tan bellies.

 

Found the exception.

 

There's always gotta be that guy, uh?
( ̶m̶a̶y̶b̶e̶ ̶e̶s̶p̶i̶o̶ ̶w̶a̶s̶ ̶a̶ ̶B̶o̶o̶m̶ ̶c̶h̶a̶r̶a̶c̶t̶e̶r̶ ̶a̶l̶l̶ ̶a̶l̶o̶n̶g̶)

 

Another exception

 

I actually forgot about Espio, so yeah, there was one exception. I don't think Ray counts though, because he has wings attached to his arms. From a character design standpoint his arms have to be the same color as his body.

 

Yeah, that's how it always seemed to me. I remember the Sonic 4 thread where it seemed to me this whole "design" debacle came to a head in the first place, and people took a render from Unleashed and slowly turned it back into the old design. A lot of good points were being made about timelessness, simpler characters having more focused/appealing designs, how appropriate it'd be if the game called Sonic 4 actually looked like Sonic 4...

"GREEN EYES" seemed like a strawman to me, to make it seem like people who preferred the old design were being ridiculous instead of engaging with or considering where they were coming from. It'd be like claiming that everyone's problem with DmC came down to SHORT HAIR or something. Yes, that's part of it, but there's WAY more nuance to it than that.

Either way, yeah, I don't think fans, or SEGA, would've ever started making the distinction if the reputation of the series hadn't gone so far down the toilet. Back in the day, I think most fans saw it similarly to early Mario sprites having black eyes; most people were perfectly fine seeing green-eyed, longer-limbed Sonic as an evolution of the same character. In fact, I was seen as a MASSIVE WEIRDO for trying to argue the Adventure games were in a separate continuity in like 2001. Well WHO'S LAUGHING NOW, MOOGLE CAVERN!? *cough*

 

Oh crap. You are right. I forgot Ray even had wings on his arms. O_O

 

Now that you mention it think I remember hearing that about the eyes. I just forgot. It’s kind of a clever reason for deciding on green I guess.

 

I share the sentiment many people do here that many franchises have different designs for the same character without there being any issues.

The problem with Sonic is that not only do Sega treat classic and modern as different characters, but also because every design is associated with and era (Classic, Adventure, Modern...) and this fandom is probably one of the most divided i feel. Like, i don't know if it's just me, but when i look at Mario fans, Zelda fans, it seem that they like every era almost equally, of course there are exceptions, but the rule seems to be that they are "Mario fans", "Zelda fans", etc... It seems most fandoms like most of the games. With Sonic there's more of a tendency of having "Classic fans" "Adventure fans", "Boost fans", and so on. It's just more divided, the designs reflect that and, in my eyes, work in this divisive nature's favour.

Personally, i'd like if we had just one Sonic, that releases games every once in a while, each with his own identity, but not to the point of being treated as a totally different thing, you know, similar to the franchises i've mentioned. I think a new, unified design, along side a reboot of the series, could help with that. But then again, a lot of fans would disagree with me about the need of doing things in this specific way, especially the reboot part.

I really liked CynicalSonicGuy's art from a couple of pages back, the whole mixing of the designs thing. Reminds me of Richard Elson's Adventure Sonic, which i adore.

Don't know if it adds to anything, but this whole design talk inspired me a litte: https://www.deviantart.com/maruankaled/art/Sonic-The-Hedgehog-My-Redesign-Concept-837213063

 

I personally don't have a preference for either, but if one or the other would be dropped, I would miss the many different takes on environmental design and enemies.

 

If they want to have the 'modern' gameplay, yes. There's no reason to associate classic Sonic with boost.