Spoiler Thread - SONIC X SHADOW GENERATIONS (SPOILERS!... Obviously.)

My take on Amy's case is that current western views on feminine ideals in videogames are far from her original personality in the franchise.
She was the stalker-ish, obsessive and damsel-in-distress fangirl of Sonic, only growing in prowess during the "shounen anime" era of the franchise.
Much of her was either reduced (girly side) or heightened (tough side) to accomodate current public sensibilities (which I deem crappy and pointless).

She can have the current toughness while retaining her original sweetness, don't you think?

 

Amy discourse is so funny to me, because I remember once upon a time some people got mad that Amy from the classics suddenly became "just" a hammer. Now it's happening again with tarot cards, which... haven't even appeared outside of cyber space yet, and had at one point been the contextualization for why Amy is able to chase after Sonic to begin with.

Beyond that, I don't really see much difference between how the fandom/creatives have reacted to her and other characters like movie Princess Peach. People had been begging for decades that Peach get more independent roles and embrace a more girlboss portrayal, and now that it's happened, other people want to overcorrect and lambast movie Peach (and influence on stuff like game Peach's voice direction) as "not allowed to be Peach" anymore. If she gets kidnapped, she's not being allowed to be an independent woman. If she becomes independent, she's "not being allowed" to be feminine. There's a conflict between parties that want to represent her as a genuinely good representation in their eyes, (not counting any weirdo male-driven movements that might/probably have kickstarted this outside of the feminine fandom) but they just fundamentally disagree on what that representation should be, and have deemed the opposite of what they value as anti-feminine in the process, which is both ironic and depressing.

 

It wasn't. No one said that.

I think people take issue with how she acts like she's always used the tarot cards and it's now a super magical power she has and/or has always had. I wouldn't flinch at it at all, in fact would LOVE it if it were just one of the fun little things she did and/or had it be a part of her personality, but it became a massive part of her identity so instantly that you can't blame anyone for being put off by it.

As for the "no personality" complaints, I imagine comes from her not having her usual chipper or silly attitude, but that can be partially pinned on Frontiers's super low-key/somber storytelling approach. There's also her making vague statements about what "love" is and spreading it, which feels like them trying to awkwardly workshop a replacement for a motivator on her adventures. It feels pretty forced and strange, but could feel less strange if actually worked into later games. Still, again, pretty out of nowhere if you'd known any of the stories to major Sonic games beforehand.

I think the issue people have with the "girlboss" angle is that it's still playing under the rules that outward femininity = bad or incompetent. It's that classic "I'm not like other girls" classic Hollywood schlock. What's wrong with Amy being really feminine or cutesy? In fact, what was even wrong about Amy crushing on Sonic? Or being into romantic things? Nothing, if you ask me. Them overdoing it and making it her only personality trait wasn't good, sure, but to pretend it's not there feels less like course-correction and more like internalized shame over her character.

 

The topic of femininity and what's "acceptable" doesn't feel like a topic we should be having on a forum about Sonic the Hedgehog.


That being said, Amy has always been kind of a confusing character imo, particularly because she's written by adult male both in her old and new incarnations. Female characters written by male adults never really ends well, because let's be real, we (because I am not immune) have a very skewed perspective on what constitutes a good female character and I think that's informing a lot of these misguided decisions with the character.

 

Her portrayal in Heroes and Battle were absolutely flanderized. Especially after Adventure had her choose to make Sonic chase her instead of the other way around. She was reduced to being mad and crushing on Sonic, fighting him to get him to marry her.

The tarot cards came from Sonic CD. Origins is literally depicting the original story. They did not add it there, it was already there.

To the others: Amy hasn't stopped being cutesy or feminine? One thing they play up recently is her affinity for animals and compassion, which are stereotypically feminine traits. Even her temper could be considered part of this, though I'd say the new games change it so she is more justified and "tranquil" in her anger, instead of exaggerated and violent.

How is she "the Girl", which implies that she is reduced to just the fact that she is female, but also that they removed her cute and feminine traits? That's the contradiction I don't get. Isn't she the Girl because she's feminine and cutesy?

And if that's what Amy is supposed to be, then... she hasn't changed, has she? She has always been the Girl. I mean, she was literally the only female character of note in the games until... Sonic Adventure? SA2 if we count playable characters.

She obviously has changed, all of her traits have different volume levels, but it seems that the biggest sticking point is her crush. Is that what made her cute and feminine and more than just the girl? Obsessing over a boy? I don't agree.

I can see if people think she's too downplayed. But it also seems like there's hostility to the attempt to give her something more... or perhaps, the suggestion that there was nothing there to begin with?

My take is that if Amy needs the crush to be interesting, she never was. That's why I want them to go lean on the magic aspect of her. I like the tarot cards, but I would love it if it was part of a set for a magical, compassionate, spiritual Amy eho happens to be into Sonic but she doesn't need him all the time or anything.

 

Not gonna lie, even putting my complete disdain for pre Lost World Amy aside (Though she wasn't bad all the time. I actually did like her in Unleashed), her line in the original when Modern Sonic saved her was probably the 2nd most cringe inducing thing this franchise ever put out, beaten only by... Ugh, Baldy Nosehair in Colors. Seriously Amy? You were frozen in time and the thing you were most worried about was not being able to flirt with Sonic? Ever heard of a little word? It's called "Priorities", get them straight. The only thing I don't like about the new scene is that Sonic's animation not really matching what he's saying, but that's it. Man though, I really gotta ask, why was it Generations of all games that got a redub for it's remaster? Colors Ultimate sure as hell could've used it. At least it would have something going for it.

 

Amy and her relation to Sonic felt like a natural progression up through SA2. In the classic games she was kind of a fangirl that just hung onto him sometimes, to equate that with her mid-late 2000s personality is kind of disingenuous. Once you hit Adventure, she's become more forward, but without any real hint of weirdness beyond the inherent awkwardness of trying to push a romance with Sonic the hedgehog. Her arc in that game, even if it does culminate in her love for Sonic, shows her getting stronger and more independent. In SA2 she's acting on her own (however little sense it makes), and her motivating Shadow at the end is completely divorced from anything Sonic does. Her attitude with him in that game is also starkly more casual and like two old friends who are kind of over the run-and-chase thing, with Sonic generally rebutting or ignoring it and Amy not being all that bothered by his dismissal.

If you went from SA2 directly to Forces, I really don't think it would feel like much of a shift at all in terms of her writing. She's gotten the strength, her relationship with Sonic is the least awkward it's ever been, but outside of the one game where everyone is a bit sad, she really hasn't lost her enthusiastic demeanor at all. She hasn't stopped loving Sonic, she is only "boring" by the standards of someone that would have found the more laid-back approach from prior games boring to begin with. It's only an issue if you swear up-and-down that the true Amy is the one from Heroes, Battle, Rush and Sonic X. It's also why I hate people calling this version "2000s Amy", because SA2 was in the damn 2000s and I wasn't bothered by her there, because she wasn't threatening to attack a small child for suggesting she tone down the Sonic obsession!

Anyway I don't have any particular thoughts about the cutscene leaks. We went from meh to still kind of meh. It's not "disrespectful" to the original any more than literally any other artistic change in a remaster, but if anything it's just too little too late. What Generations needed from a story refresh is new plot beats, new events, new character interactions, not to just siphon some mistakes or cringe lines from the dialogue. If anything, Forces is the game they should have done that to, since "he's been tortured for months", "Tails has just lost it", "none of this is good Vector", and "True dat" are just embarrassing, but all of them save the last are in menu dialogues that never synced anything to begin with.

 

I'm only really okay with Generations being rewritten because I genuinely think there's nothing to the story as it was originally being presented. Even if the changes are fundamentally as "nothing", it is at least an attempt to do something.

Even for Forces, I'd raise an eyebrow, even if they did basically redo it from the ground up. But that's just more "eh, just make a new game".

But if I was actively asked "would you want Sonic Generations to be rewritten", it'd say ehhhhh nah, leave it alone.

But they did do that, and I am at worst ambivalent to the changes, so it's just, alright.

 

One thing I don't see many people point out is that it's not just Frontiers informing fans at the moment, but Dream Team as well. Carrying the sentiment of Boom Amy forwards is making the same mistake people made with Shadow's characterization, but all of those games combined can at least explain why previous fans of Amy are disgruntled over it more than just Frontiers.

That's not entirely accurate; Adventure still ended with her resolved to someday "make him turn around", (script difference, shocker) and both of the writers for the game, Nishiyama and Maekawa under him, went on to write Rush, and SA2/Heroes, respectively - all games that continued the Amy chasing Sonic trope instead of the other way around.

It goes even further than that though, which reinforces just how much regional differences have been at play here: While the English dub makes a point about her stating that she needs to become more independent, it's surprisingly missing an entire saddened facial animation from the Japanese dub, which itself is missing that resolved statement to begin with.

Battle was 100% flanderized in just how much Kikuchi pushed it, in the same way Maekawa pretty much did with Heroes to a lesser extent, or Sonic X might have, but it's not exactly abandoning the direction they set out to have to begin with. It's just the peak of the flanderization.

 

Talking about games with no stories, does Dream Team even have enough charcterization to make any conclusion from?

 

I liked Heroes and Battle Amy​

 

Okay, I get it. There was a really long period in popular culture where male writers were under the impression that feminism is when you write a female character with masculine interests. You can make the character as sexualized, objectified and devoid of agency as humanly possible, but it's progressive as long as they like fixing cars and hate the color pink.

Pushback against these types of characters is 100% understandable and justified, especially from women. But I do not think that said pushback should boil down to "Anything associated with femininity = good and feminist". I have no idea what it is about Amy and Peach in particular, but these two characters have very passionate fanbases of extremely defensive young women, who are often very eager to insist that any changes made to these characters are done for purely misogynistic reasons, even if said changes are stuff like... giving the characters more agency and making them less reliant on men. I'd totally get these complaints if Amy were to show up in the next Sonic game wearing daisy dukes and a tight top while drinking beer, listening to AC/DC and making pin-up poses on the hood of a pickup truck, but that obviously is not and never will be happening, so instead these complaints basically boil down to "It's misogynistic not to equate femininity with helplessness and reliance on men", even if that was not their original intention. It's especially ridiculous when people complain that Boom Amy is "written by men for men who never liked Amy" - she is the one incarnation of the character who has been written by women the most!

Anyway, that was my two cents, and I seriously hope that I did not accidentally start a heated debate whose subject matter goes way too much beyond Sonic the Hedgehog.

 

I just think that Amy attacking Sonic just to get him to marry her was her lowest point not just in Heroes but in the series as a whole.

Stalking? Whatever. But violence is a bit too far. And yes, I'm aware that Amy attacked Sonic other times too, but that was usually because Sonic either hurt or offended her in one way or another. But her outburst of violence in Grand Metropolis had no excuse and made her look like some kind of yandere psycho.

 

Based Caveman Amy

 

It was just poor dialogue...she could've said anything else in that situation and it would've been better.

We already know that Heroes has flimsy dialogue excuses to make the characters "fight"...but that's a problem with the game's structure. In a more creative game...a situation like that wouldn't even lead to "Any" of the characters fighting. They'd just be unique levels.

 

Not sure if this was posted, but Roger's delivery is so forced.

 

Spanish Dub will fix this
I hope

 

Ian Flynn's never beating the references guy allegations holy shit.

 

Hey now at the very least "faker" was left out of it this time

I had a huge smile on my face when I read Shadow's line in the initial leak, but there's another one later in the scene that I groaned at, the + - Heroes "date to die for"   quote. Ah well...

 

Sonic looks like he's looking like his '05-self.