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Abandoning characters from Modern Sonic games

Discussion in 'General Sonic Discussion' started by raphael_fc, Jul 25, 2020.

What characters would you abandon for good?

  1. *None of them*

    7 vote(s)
    10.4%
  2. Big the Cat

    18 vote(s)
    26.9%
  3. Blaze the Cat

    6 vote(s)
    9.0%
  4. Team Chaotix

    5 vote(s)
    7.5%
  5. Cream the Rabbit

    10 vote(s)
    14.9%
  6. The Deadly Six

    58 vote(s)
    86.6%
  7. E-123 Omega

    12 vote(s)
    17.9%
  8. Rouge the Bat

    9 vote(s)
    13.4%
  9. Shadow the Hedgehog

    7 vote(s)
    10.4%
  10. Silver the Hedgehog

    13 vote(s)
    19.4%
Multiple votes are allowed.
  1. raphael_fc

    raphael_fc

    Overthinking Sonic timelines. Member
    I was reading this article about Sonic's worst friends. Not that I agree with the list (I don't), but it got me thinking: which recurring characters from Sonic games shouldn't be returning? Either because they are bad, or because they have nothing more to offer in terms of development, or for any other reason.

    I am only including the most recurring characters in the poll (due to the limit of choices), but I'm not including Tails, Knuckles, Amy, Eggman and Metal Sonic, because they are the main ones. So we have Big the Cat, Blaze the Cat, Team Chaotix, Cream the Rabbit, the Deadly Six, E-123 Omega, Rouge the Bat, Shadow the Hedgehog and Silver the Hedgehog.
    What characters would you abandon for good?
     
  2. Sid Starkiller

    Sid Starkiller

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    Just Big and the Deadly Six. All of the others have at least a little worth.
     
  3. BlackHole

    BlackHole

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    Hey hey hey. Big is great, especially when he's not being held back by slow fishing. Done right, I can imagine this huge cat tethering a robot with his fishing line, pulling it in and punching it into pieces, for instance.
     
  4. SuperSnoopy

    SuperSnoopy

    I like Sonic Advance Member
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    Beside the forced memes, Big brings nothing to the table save the worst playstyle in series by far. The deadly six are...the deadly six, I don't think I need to elaborate further.
    The rest are cool, I like them. 'specially Cream and Blaze, the bromance (sismance?) they have in Rush is pretty entertaining.
     
  5. Laura

    Laura

    Brightened Eyes Member
    Big's levels in SA are awful, but he's a really fun character and I will defend him to the death :V
     
  6. Ayu Tsukimiya

    Ayu Tsukimiya

    UGUU~ Member
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    Memes aside, Big (as a character) does have his fans.
    Can't really say the same for the deadly six though.
     
  7. Gestalt

    Gestalt

    Sphinx in Chains Member
    Hey, where are the Babylon Rogues? :V

    Just kidding, none of them, actually.
     
  8. BlackHole

    BlackHole

    You're going to need MORE than help. Member
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    Indeed. They can all fit into the Sonic series, so long as they're used right. Big can play akin to Sonic Heroes, or even be more ranged by using his fishing rod as a grapple. The Deadly Six could easily be a third party player in the Sonic v Robotnik conflict. Etc.
     
  9. Beamer the Meep

    Beamer the Meep

    Better than Sonic Genesis... Member
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    All of them have their place in the games, but The Deadly Six needs to go for reasons listed in their recent thread.
     
  10. Starduster

    Starduster

    Can bench press at least two Sonic the Hedgehogs Member
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    Honestly I wouldn't abandon any of them. Sure, I may not like all of them, but I feel that almost every single "main" character brought into the Sonic games (with exceptions generally occurring from 06, ShtH and the storybook games) bring something to the table that wasn't there before and, even characters who I feel to be shallow, should at least be allowed to exist for the sake of fleshing out the world and adding texture to it. Charmy for example grates on me but at the the end of the day he's still part of the Chaotix and really helps bring that team together to form a balance of these characters (that even by Sonic standards are zany) in terms of how their personalities play off each other. It's for this reason that I'm a huge advocate for bring characters that have been rebranded as "Classic only" back into the main games. I think getting rid of characters or restricting where they can show up diminishes both their own potential but that of the wider setting and the kind of stories and interactions you can create with them.

    With all of that said, I want to know who voted for Blaze. We're gonna fight someday, you can't disrespect the best Sonic character and expect to not suffer the consequences.
    (ง'̀ -' ́)ง
     
  11. Mana

    Mana

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    Most of these characters barely show up to begin with anymore so I don't see how a topic about abandoning them when SEGA has tried their hardest to in the first place exists.

    You're just reminding me how varied and wide the cast used to be compared to now and it bums me out.
     
  12. Jay T.

    Jay T.

    It takes an idiot to do cool things... Member
    The fact the Deadly Six is on there just made people's decision a whole lot easier. :V

    But seriously, I'd abandon none of them. Just about every character listed (and some who aren't) has fans, even the Deadly Six, even if it's mainly toward specific ones like Zavok or Zeena. I feel like getting rid of certain characters without a proper send off is just taking the easy way out. While not all, some can be improved without completely altering their character. Comes down to it though, it varies from person-to-person. Least how I see it.

    More or less what Starduster said, basically.
     
  13. The Joebro64

    The Joebro64

    SAY HELLO TO MY CHOCOLATE BLEND Member
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    I chose Big and the Deadly Six because as they are in the games right now, they serve no gameplay purpose and don't expand the lore at all in meaningful ways. We'd lose nothing by cutting them.

    HOWEVER, I do think that Sega could definitely turn them into good characters with a little effort. It's definitely not impossible. I mean, Ian Flynn was able to fix up quite a few of Ken Penders' abominations, so anything could happen.
     
  14. raphael_fc

    raphael_fc

    Overthinking Sonic timelines. Member
    Most of them shown up in Forces, even if non-playable.
     
  15. Mana

    Mana

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    Does barely mean "not at all" now? They still have made very limited appearances in the last decade outside of the comics and it's upsetting that when they do it's usually not even that great ala Forces the game you mentioned.

    I don't think any of them should be abandoned and it'd be nice to see them back again regularly really.
     
    Last edited: Jul 25, 2020
  16. Dark Sonic

    Dark Sonic

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    Out of this whole list, I think all of them can be redeemed EXCEPT the deadly six. They need to go, permanently. If you want some new sub villains, use Fang, Bark, and Bean. They fit in the universe and have at least some potential. Especially because of how "Mario" Lost World was trying to be, we don't need Not Bowser and his 5 Not Kooplings infecting the series.

    That being said the other characters either need to be playable or show up less. I like the Chaotix, Blaze, hell even Silver has potential (I've said it one I'll say it 1000 times, give Silver his move set from the Generations rival battle and he'd be so much fun to play as). But they don't do anything. At all. They say shit and cheer for Sonic. They don't contribute anything useful. Like Silver is cool, but if he's from the future and just showing up to say "HEY GO SANIC" then him showing up just causes more problems than it solves.

    I've said this before but I'd much prefer they pick and choose specific side characters for each game, or only have some characters interact with certain characters. Like, what if a game had Sonic and Shadow and most of the intel was from Tails and Rouge. Maybe Espio does some spying for them. That's it though. Or I had an idea for a like made up concept game. You play as one of 3 teams, Sonic & Knuckles (Tails is their intel narrator), Mighty & Ray (Chaotix are their intel narrators), and Shadow & Rouge (Omega is their intel narrator). They don't mix and match though, so no Omega cheering Sonic on because they aren't friends, Tails isn't giving Mighty advice because they don't know each other, etc.
     
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  17. raphael_fc

    raphael_fc

    Overthinking Sonic timelines. Member
    Yeah I like Silver, but if he constantly time travels to the present to fix things, then Sonic and friends are constantly failing.
     
  18. Swifthom

    Swifthom

    A Friend Remembers... Member
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    So....
    The Deadly 6 got my vote immediately.

    Silver, is fine, but they've never explained satisfactory 'why' he is back after his original intro said he was from a future timeline that now no longer exists. Does it bother me? Not a lot but it does a little.

    As for the rest, no need to abandon them per say, but I would like them used more sensibly. Forces 'everyone (but Big) is here' approach meant nobody was used satisfactory IMO
    And therefore no need to vote for Big because he already has been abandoned
     
  19. DigitalDuck

    DigitalDuck

    Arriving four years late. Member
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    All of them except Big. I'm serious.

    Big has a great role in comic relief. Being able to see him in various random places in Sonic Adventure 2 made it actually worth playing sometimes. Similarly, in Heroes, his using a tiny umbrella to float across the sky is hilarious.

    Every other character's role is a copy of one of the main cast.

    Blaze is just "alternate universe Sonic", which works for the occasional game but makes her superfluous in any game that's not about universes colliding.
    Cream the Rabbit is just "annoying kid", and Amy is bad enough there.
    Omega is a generic robot and never adds anything to the story. In all of his appearances he's been there so Shadow and Rouge have a third.
    Rouge is just "anti-Knuckles", but Knuckles should be doing his own thing anyway.
    Shadow replaced Knuckles as "ex-antagonist but now does own thing and helps out occasionally", which is a role Knuckles should keep; he started off as "Sonic but bad", which is already Metal Sonic's shtick.
    Silver is a little interesting but they have to explain why he keeps coming back from the future, and have some sort of reason for him to be there (which they don't).
    Team Chaotix are great spinoff characters that don't do anything in a Sonic game. At best they're comic relief, but then you have three characters required to do something which one character (Big) is already adept at.
    The Deadly Six don't do anything that Metal Sonic and/or Eggman himself don't also do, so they're not needed.

    The only cast members that can fill actual roles are Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Amy, Metal Sonic, Eggman, and Big. For specific games, Blaze, Rouge, and Silver have some merit, but it depends on the story they're doing.
     
  20. Starduster

    Starduster

    Can bench press at least two Sonic the Hedgehogs Member
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    My take on actually utilising these characters would be to a game that takes cues from Shadow the Hedgehog, Kid Icarus Uprising and Mighty No. 9 of all games. Make each Zone 2 acts and have one character help out Sonic through each Zone, perhaps including the boss too. The starting Zone would of course feature Tails, who could brief Sonic on the latest events as he rides by in the Tornado which could provide some flight segments when Sonic runs out of road in the Zone. In Act 2 he could drop out of the Tornado and follow Sonic on foot, perhaps even utilising the air lift from S3&K. The boss would of course be a straight fight, all rather vanilla.

    However, this would really become interesting when you create environments and setpieces fitted to each character's skillset, which is where the MN9 influence comes in. Amy could function similarly to Generations but more like an on-demand spring for Sonic that would allow him to access hidden routes and collectables and potentially sequence break a bit; Silver's telekinesis could be triggered to bring disparate groups of enemies together so Sonic can clear them out quicker (and if beefier enemies like the Egg Hammers were to return he could hold them in place for Sonic to whale on; Gemerl using his abilities to interface with technology provides potential for a very exciting fight with a suped up Metal Sonic and so on so forth.

    Of course, this method wouldn't be able to incorporate every character, but you could mix things up by having Team Chaotix all appear at once for example. Furthermore I think it would require slower-paced and more combat/traversal oriented gameplay similar to the Adventure games (though with level design philosophy drawing more from the classics and control affordances from the boost games), but if pulled off well it would not only make these characters relevant again in an organic way (as well as allowing for more dialogue and character exploration with them), it would help downplay Sonic being overpowered as of late as his friends would tangibly be contributing towards progress in levels. Most importantly, it would allow for gameplay variety without forcing in radically different gameplay styles such as the Werehog and Classic Sonic. At least some characters could have an action the player could trigger on demand that is used to change how levels can be approached.