How would you redesign Sonic the Hedgehog?

I'm pretty sure Mario has several cartoons, movies, and a few manga and such. :v:

 

3 cartoons, 4 OVAs, 1 Manga series (Still going), 1 Live Action movie, and some comic of Super Mario World.
...Just saying.

 

And Mario isn't Mickey Mouse. What was your point again?

 

Wow, it's like you really know nothing about Mario and his status, or heck his history.


also no, keep the disgusting comics and cartoons separate from the games. the games are trying to recover, not get ridiculous to the point where God is a panda or w/e

 

Well, I stand corrected. Only saw the one Mario cartoon (Or was it a CDI game?) Anyway I'm not a Mario fan, and hate most of it, so I really would like Sonic to stay as far away from it as possible.

And I like the comics, I think they have a much better story than the games, and I'd vote Flynn to head the writing any time, and there's nothing disgusting about them to me, but whatever. Haters gonna hate, haters.

Anyway, I just finished my craptastical redesign, but since I'll be embarrassed to be seen in public if I post it anywhere, I'll just redraw it when my hand stops hurting. (Haven't drawn anything in far too long.)

 

Well, Sonic is blue. I don't think they went for colour coded for convenience. However, I love that Knuckles is red, it's so fitting of the fiery red head stereotype.

There was no Knuckles backstory, but a Echidna civilization, Master and Chaos Emerald backstory. The island's formation and the guardianship is still a mystery though. As is the Echidna civilization besides that incident and Knuckles' role in all of this. How did he become the guardian and why, when he has no recollection of anyone or nothing that made him guard the rock. He just does, as far as he could remember. He's the last as well. He has thought about this I'm sure and he worries, but it was never shown either. There's still a lot to explore as far as Knuckles is concerned. However, mystery is half the story with Knuckles, at least for me. I might what Chronicles or Archie did with him, but I love Fleetway's backstory. Flawless for me, but since we already know about it, Knuckles isn't as mysterious. Half of the charm is gone.

Tails... he doesn't need a scene where he's being bullied for us to know that this is the most likely scenario. His characterization only cements this. He's shy and insecure and likes machines a lot. Laying it more thick won't make it more meaningful.

I agree that blatant backstory isn't needed. For the most part, I like the mystery and the endless possibilities. I still cling to Gerald being mad and the chance of Shadow's memories being fake.

I can't see how you're going to fit most of backstory into the games either, besides a slight passage or mention. It just doesn't fit the premise. Maybe in a new show or something.

I agree with this. Panda God was not cool. :v:

Flynn might not be as mediocre as Penders, but he still makes the characters rather bland. Personally I prefer the games' characterisation and stories. At least there are no Panda Gods.

 

I'll just agree to disagree, this is the Sonic fandom after all. But I do have a response to this:

Foxes are famous for their beautiful fur, and have always been a popular animal. (I guess for their appearance, in part.) I saw the fur color as a stereotype of the species, like how Sonic has always had spines as a stereotype of his species. A lot of what characterized his species was lost with the newest design, including the fur color. (Though I think the breed of fox that comes from Japan is more brown or golden than red, Sonic was made to appeal to the West originally and has always been a Western favorite, even now. And we here recognize the red fox more than any other species.)

I'm not trying to change your mind by the way, only elaborate that I have actually thought about why a fox being the wrong color would bother me in a world where echidnas are red, cats are purple, bees are the size of a human head, and hedgehogs are every color in the rainbow. (I also would have never minded Tails being yellow from the beginning, it's the fact that he did, at one point, portray the species so accurately and now doesn't that I have problems with.)

And yeah, Knuckles' colors are a pretty good depiction of his personality. Seems like that trend ended past SA2. I wish they would focus on the color a little more when deigning a character. Silver's color seems random, and I thought he was originally supposed to be orange, which seemed even more random, and I think Blaze is purple for the sake of species consistancy. Am I the only one that's thought she should be green or red and any point?

 

I could imagine, it being the 90's and all, that Sonic is blue because he's "cool blue" or something. As for Tails, no idea why he's yellow/orange. If he was just plain Yellow, perhaps it would make sense if he was a coward - being "yellow" as they say down south.

 

He's yellow/orange because it contrasts well with Blue.


Which with that, are we really debating over realism of a character when he stands next to a blue hedgehog?

 

No, we're discussing the wonders of this mighty blue earth.

 

Sonic blue because it's the trademark colour of SEGA. As well as this, SEGA wanted to have a colour which was universal, cool, like the colour of the ocean. His red and white sneakers also compliment his blue, giving meaning by giving the character a 'western' feel, which is what the team wanted.

 

You misinterpreted my meaning, "Realism" isn't what I was talking about, the recognizable aspect of it was. Besides, blue and orange compliment each other. I'm thinking when Knuckles blew into the picture they wanted to make the "Primary Colors brigade" or something, but since Knuckles is hardly ever seen anymore, seems like a lost cause. (And he's more brown lately... It makes him look like he needs a shower. Edit: Could that be intentional? He sits on an island all day...)

I thought Sonic's colors were for the American flag and the fact that blue is a cool color. I'm surprised SEGA hasn't redesigned his colors, actually, to be more of the representation of cool, but I guess that really wouldn't fly well with the fans. (If the SA2 shoes didn't. :v

 

My point still stands

 

Y'know, before I came to Retro I didn't even notice his fur was a different colour. It's a slightly lighter shade of the same colour it was before, so what's the big deal?

 

This always disturbed me. Don't americans have world history class or something? Or it's just blatant arrogance and disregard for the rest of the world? Many big countries have the blue, red and white scheme: America, United Kingdom, France, Russia and Australia to name the bigger, then there's Costa Rica, Croatia, Chile, Cuba, Holland, Iceland, Luxemburg, Korea, Norway, Paraguay, Puerto Rico, Taiwan, Thailand... and there are much more as well.

You might say it's the red and white stripes, but again, both UK and Australia have stripes. Using such logic, a japanese could say it's just blue as Sega and the shoes matched their flag or something. Maybe an australian saying that since their flag main colour is blue and Sonic's main colour is blue, that Sonic was based on their flagm especially because the guy was born on Christmas Island, which is australian territory. Yet I've never seen anyone making such claims but just americans. This is nothing against you guys, but what's wrong with you?

As a side note, Sonic is blue because it's Sega's colour and his red and white shoes were inspired by Michael Jackson Bad album cover, Santa Claus and because it looked great on motion:

http://kotaku.com/5420201/sonics-shoes-ins...michael-jackson

 

Right, because all Americans are totally one person. :v:

Anyway, it's pretty cool that Sonic's shoes are based off of MJ. It seems MJ is brought up a lot when dealing with classic Sonic.

 

Before you went off on that tangent, you should have done some research. Sonic's colour scheme WAS ALSO based off the American Flag, according to that same interview with Naoto Oshima. He wanted Sonic to appeal to Americans.

 

I've read that interview.

So what if it is true? It doesn't change any of what I said. Volpino and many others always made this assumption, before that interview ever happened. They assumed it was true because they shared the same three colours, completely disregarding other countries also share the same colours, when the natural assumption would be he was designed with these colours in mind because a) many flags have them and b) these are the most popular colours in the west. I said before that I never saw any australian or UK citizen say that Sonic was based on their country flag, before or after that interview, and they had the same reasons to claim so, maybe more.

Oshima says Sonic as a game was aimed at the US market, not the idea behind his design. Then he says that Sonic as a character is more suited to America than NiGHTS. That's arguing semantics and was not what I was saying. I don't care if he was designed with just the US in mind. The assumption with no logic behind it was what bothered me.

 

You assumed I had no logic behind what I was saying. I made that assumption because I read about his development in the fucking wiki.

While it doesn't mention the flag, it does mention taking inspiration heavily from American culture. Including the president. Not sure where I heard the American flag bit, but the character itself was heavily inspired by American pop culture.

Before that, I never even thought about his colors. I thought he was blue for cool and his shoes were red for speed or like the design of a race car. (The stripe), I never even knew he always had buckles before I read that article, and never associated Sonic with pop culture. (Probably because I don't keep up with it.) A lot of the info is pretty new to me actually since I just started browsing the wiki over a year ago...

 

I always thought, which was what you said in the other post, implies that you've done for a long time ago. Clearly always is not just less than one year ago, which is the time the Character Conception part was introduced in the Retro wiki.

Let's drop the matter though. This won't go anywhere nice.