Characterization in the Sonic Franchise

His memories of Maria were key during the events of SA2, but the knowledge of the truth that he achieved in Shadow, amnesia and all, shouldn't be underestimated. When Eggman awoke him from his slumber he was full of revenge, but along his way he found a deeper meaning, which eventually lead to him sacrificing himself and amnesia. Then, as if that wasn't bad enough, it turned out that he wasn't just chasing fata morganas of the past. It was Black Doom who revealed the truth about his creation, Gerald and the ARK. I imagine that what drives him is all the misconception of what he thought was right. Was Maria really the person who he thought she was? Is there anyone or anything he can trust besides his powers? All this doesn't matter any more, but it was an important lesson that though he's a loner at heart, there at least were people that cared for him!

 

His role really shouldn't be that hard to write; how hard is it to write a rival/foil to the main character? There are literally a million of those. Even if his backstory is no longer relevant to the current iteration of the series, its not really difficult to write him as an opposite to Sonic, while still being a caring person in his own way.

Like Wraith said, Sega and his detractors are just so preoccupied with his backstory and how convoluted it is and trying to "fix" it, rather than just moving on from it while acknowledging the effect it had on him. Everyone is so quick to just say he should have died, or that he's better off as a shallow parody of himself because its "funny" but nobody really cares about just letting the character be...himself.


Its not even just Shadow to be honest; we're at a point where the people who don't like or care about certain controversial elements of the series are the ones dictating it's direction.

 

Which'd be fine if his recent portrayel was an evolution.

It isnt. If anything this one note brawn-over-brains Knuckles-tier chunderhead personality is a devolution

 

Most of them come the Comic book writers and how Sega are currently involved with the IDW comic book. That's the only word we have to go by, but its still secondhand information, even if its coming from an official source.

 

This is the part that confuses me the most. If the past decade and some change has been any indication. More earnest depictions of the characters , gameplay styles , visual aesthetics ect are the things that tend to go over the best. But they are till doing this, making things for people who very clearly have no interest in the thing. Instead of making specific characters, stories games products ect for the audiences that desire them and showing newcomers why they are valuable. Its why mania...works. Its just what it is , very well done retread of classic territory. Its why the crash games did well.

They have a weird idea that this will magically fix things?

I find that alot of these decisions seem to be obfuscating sega's desire to not do something. Sometimes its invest in sonic itself, sometimes give the developers more time to actually work on the product. Now it seems like its to avoid actually doing market research and changing things according to what works for your demographics. Like it really seems like they would prefer to have one broad market instead of a bunch of markets that they have cultivated over time through longevity and being able to create new things that interest people. The latter of which a thing IP would die for, some have, that sega is actively running away from.

I actually think the alien part has a lot more potential in terms of character expansion than any other part of him. But even then that speaks to your point. Sega just have to accept some people aren't going to like everything. And work from there.

Its strange. He's not like this in japanese. For example TSR, so i'm more inclined to think its the west wanting something specific. But at the same time Japan has had wild not great ideas and they could want him to be this way in English.

 

I'm reminded of tale of how the sauce company Prego hired someone to focus test their customers to find the perfect pasta sauce, only his research turned up that they all liked different things, so there was no perfect pasta sauce, only perfect pasta sauces. Plural.

If Sega had even a modicum of sense, they'd make a whole bunch of products laser focused to appeal to all their disparate audiences. But they're not willing to dish out the cash for 3 or 4 games when it could be spent on 1 game. So we're gonna keep getting unappealing rancid garbage like Forces in perpetuity.

 

It mostly just comes down to the fact that Sega have no confidence in Sonic as a brand, likely due to the lackluster reception the series has been having for the past twenty years. So they'd rather play it safe than actually take a risk and potentially lose money.

 

I want to note , shadow could be fine in the next game. This could be sega just not wanting any outside media influencing the character before they take the next step with him. He could be different and totally good in the next game. Sega doing no brand synergy whatsoever because they want to be controlling weirdo's to their own detriment is very sega and something they have literally done before, with shadow infact. Reminder shadow was barred from being in everything during the 00's period.

I would genuinely love to have whoever wants this sit down and explain to me why. I wouldn't be rude, yell. I might not even respond. Just, I wanna know what the thought process is behind running away from how every other major franchise in the modern day makes money.

It would literally be safer to let things like shadow be , and only advertise him to the audiences that want that. That's why this its confusing. They could literally do nothing and it would be better than what they are doing now

 

Honestly? I would rather NOT have Shadow in the series going forward if they are going to keep him as this Vegeta wanna be. It pains me to say that as he is my favorite Sonic character, but boy! Did Sega completely destroy what he was about, to play up to generic Shounen tropes. It's why as many said the last time he was a great character was in 06, the game that changed the general view of Sonic in the eyes of non Sonic fans. Now his character is just...ugh. Instead of being the Vegeta wanna be he is now? He should be more like Riku from Kingdom Hearts. A character who has risen beyond his past antagonistic ways and be by his friends side always. And that was how Shadow was in 06, but because that game caused such a negative storm Sega doesn't want to do anything that involves that game, even when the things that involve that game are good.

 

I know this is tangentially character related. But apparently the M.E does nothing. Why is it worth guarding? What is the point? Why is knuckles trapped on an island unable to interact with other characters for a giant rock that does nothing. And it doing nothing isn't true, because chaos in the master emeralds. For SA1 and 2 to occur it has to do things.

What is the point of having this related to knuckles's character at all? What does knuckles do now? Is he just big and dumb, is that all it is?

 

I'm making a guess, but I'm assuming because it has the power to stop the C.E's, that it must be protected so no one can have complete control over it. If some power hungry nut were to take the C.E's and M.E (Like Eggman for example) then they would have all the power of the C.E's plus the M.E, meaning no one can stop the C.E's. That's the best I can come up. Honestly SA1 did a pretty bad job of explaining Knuckles ancestral origins and job as guardian of the M.E. Remember on the Egg Carrier of Knuckles story when he had that flashback of his own tribe getting genocided by Chaos and after he saw that he was like "Man. That was such a weird dream. Anyway back to Angel Island to restore the M.E"? It just made no sense for him not to have a much bigger reaction to that.

 

No, Trickster is being pretty literal. That's according to Ian Flynn where Sega claimed the Master Emerald "does nothing" and he had to remind them of the fact that yes, it does in fact have a function within the world beyond just keeping Angel Island afloat.

 

They also had to be reminded that Silver was from the future, hence the Forces tie in comics to hastily justify his appearance.

 

Ah crap. My bad. Well yeah that definitely makes no sense if Sega claimed that. Really shows how much they don't care about the lore of Sonic, because it definitely doesn't just keep Angle Island afloat. Then again this is the same Sega that retconned Classic Sonic being Modern Sonic from the past to Classic Sonic being Modern Sonic from another dimension so, at this point they can just change and rewrite anything to fit what they see Sonic today.

 

He doesn't really have a backstory at this point either. Silver just kind of exists.

Its really strange that " streamlining the characters" at this point means stripping everything interesting away and making them less likable.

 

It really does show how much Sonic 06 effected Sega. It's to the point now where they don't care about the characterization of ANY of the characters pre 2010s. They will keep them all as one note tropes to avoid trying to write them as actual characters again. Can't go having another "dark age" now. That apparently was the "worst days" of Sonic prior to the 2010s.

 

I see this all as an extremely misguided attempt at appeasing the complaints about the controversial parts of the characters and series in general. On paper, it makes sense to downplay or remove the parts that are getting criticized. But in practice, all they're doing is just taking away but they're not ADDING anything to replace what they've removed.

So yea, Shadow no longer has his convoluted mess of a backstory, but now he's basically an entirely different character because oops, his character pretty much falls apart without key parts of said backstory.


And what's even more headache inducing is that for ten years I had to be convinced that this was a "good" thing for the series.

 

At least a lot of those people went away or with mania got the game they wanted and no longer really care to have a take on the 3d stuff. If you want another headache though, ultimately it was pointless. After colors the games clearly lean more and more in on adventure nostalgia (and nostalgia in general) to sell themselves. The games after colors until very recently weren't doing that great and that's really generations and mania. Ultimately the push for that sort of change kind of failed. And they could have just tanked 06 and moved on. Yet they still persist with some of these changes out of this weird desperate desire to seem "normal" whilst simultaneously trying to please core fans making no one happy.

So it was all kind of pointless especially after a bunch of folks got the classic game they desired. And they are still going for it despite this ultimately being pointless.