Rev Up Those Sonic Cycles

[Garamonde]

What about Silver's design isn't cool, hmm?

[Iceman404]

What about Silver's design isn't cool, hmm?

The whole thing.






















Okay, except the boots. The hair on the chest and rings on the arm idea is pretty much Shadow.
But really, does character design make a good character? No.
The reason silver receives hate is because he's yet another hedgehog with a very Un-Sonic-ish type of play-style and is a total trunks rip-off. But mostly because there's enough hedgehogs.

[Garamonde]

Well I never said the design alone makes a character cool. Big doesn't have the coolest design but I like him anyway because the Sonic series needed a doofy character even if he wasn't used much in the series. His best moments were in SADX.

[Iceman404]

Well I never said the design alone makes a character cool. Big doesn't have the coolest design but I like him anyway because the Sonic series needed a doofy character even if he wasn't used much in the series. His best moments were in SADX.

Mighty Jetters, please give the us a brief description of why you are in love with this seemingly horrible Sonic The Hedgehog Franchise character. Maybe then, some people will understand.

[Garamonde]

It's called opinion, just like how I don't understand how you say he's awful. Really he's just cool all around. In short I love all Sonic characters, no matter what anyone says.

But let's drop this issue we're all just gonna keep arguing about it.

[Rökkan]

This is a game about a cartoon, Walt Disney-esque hedgehog called Sonic who runs fast and curls up into a ball, making him go through all sorts of pinball-ish structures of his lively, pop-art world. He uses his speed and spinning techniques to destroy the evil robots built by a goofy doctor named Dr.Eggman that loves machines so much he wants to make the whole world out of them.

This hedgehog is a loner because nobody can keep up with his speed, until this little fox with two tails, who kept following him around, earned his respect for being able to run as fast as he can. Normally, nobody can be as fast as Sonic, but thanks to the fox's ability to spin his two tails like helixes, that gives him an extra speed boost when running, he's able to keep up with him. Miles Prower admires so much Sonic that he does whatever Sonic needs to have done to destroy that menacing Dr.Eggman.

----

Shadow is a hedgehog created artifitially by a doctor that lives in a space colony to cure his daughter of AIDS. He uses genes from the chief of an evil alien race he had met by coincidence and made an agreement with, called Black Doom, to create this alien, antropomorphic, hedgehog. This doctor made it so that this alien hedgehog can use the powers of seven mysterious gems called Chaos Emeralds, that holds within almost infinite power when together, to transform into a more powerful form called Super Shadow. This alien hedgehog becomes best friends with the doctor's daughter, but a kid that also lives there at the colony gets jealous of an alien, antropomorphic hedgehog, being so intimate with this girl that he likes. The colony is raided by a military that fears the power of one of the doctor's creations - an artifitial giant lizard that is immortal that lives inside that base. They raid the colony, destroying some of the doctor's scientific creations, arrest and kill some scientists there, and kill the doctor's daughter, who, sends Shadow off to Earth in a space shuttle to protect him. That special military gets a hold of that space shuttle, hides him and freezes him. Then, the doctor's grandson decides to raid that military base, releasing the alien, antropomorphic hedgehog, from his slumber. Shadow says that the doctor's grandson can have one wish, as if he suddenly became the genie of the lamp. The doctor's granson wants world domination! The alien hedgehog says to him that he should collect the seven mysterious gems and meet him at the space colony he came from. He realizes he has amnesia though, as he can't remember anything other than the doctor's daughter dying in front of him. He then promises revenge on all humankind, despite the doctor's daughter being human too, by destroying a whole island, robbing a bank, and so on. But because of this amnesia, he doesn't know if his memories are real! After all, he was created artificially, his memories could have as well be artificial! Then, when they get a certain amount of these mystical gems, they put it in this cannon that the space colony has - yeah, a space colony has a cannon, and the military didn't bother destroying that cannon or anything, just the giant lizard thing. Anyway, they blow up the moon with that cannon and make the world hostage, telling the world population that if they don't do what they say, they'll blow up the Earth! They finally get all of the gems, but the cannon doesn't fire (weird, it did fire last time!), and the colony begins to set course on Earth, trying to destroy both the Earth and the space colony itself. It apparently was the work of the doctor, who, in jail, could program a self-destruction system on that space colony, but that apparently only works when someone decides to bring all of those mystical, rare gems there, that holds infinite power. Why would someone use such powerful gems to just activate a self-destruction system? Why putting less of these gems actually makes the cannon fire? Oh, anyway, suddenly, the alien hedgehog snaps a bit out of his amnesia, remembering that the doctor's daughter had a last wish before she died - that he should protect the humans, and not kill them in revenge! He cries a bit and then runs off to try to deactivate this self-destruction system. However, the giant lizard is apparently alive! He tries to beat the giant lizard off, who is protecting the place that he needs to go to deactivate the self-destruction system, but it uses the power of those gems to teleport and mutate itself into the cannon, somehow, bringing the colony down to Earth, even when they deactivated the system that does that. So Shadow transforms into Super Shadow and tries to beat the giant lizard there. But then, the colony is too close from the Earth, it's getting pulled in! So he uses his powers that the gems gave to him to teleport the colony away, but with a cost - he falls down to Earth. R.I.P.
But he mysteriously re-appears! The doctor's grandson rescued him, who didn't die by crashing from the space to Earth, and did a bunch of robotic clones of him, for no real reason, since the robotic clones doesn't have any of his powers, just his appearance... But anyway, he has amnesia again, and he again doesn't know if he's real or not, since the doctor have so many robotic clones of him, he might just be one of those! He goes to the doctor's grandson to clear things up and destroys everything that the doctor's granson built, without getting any response or answers from him. Then, the alien race that he was originated from comes down from the skies, and promises him to reveal his past if he obeys them and help them to conquer the world! He decides not to be his allies, but then the military are after him because they think he's with them. But the real reason they're behind him, is that the boss of the military is the little kid who envied the alien, antropomorphic, hedgehog, for being so close with the doctor's daughter, whom he loved, and now, blames the doctor's daughter's death on him, and wants to get Shadow killed for revenge, and also because he believes that Shadow is the leader of the alien army who is invading Earth. Then Shadow blows everything up with bazookas, machineguns and UZIs, and then the doctor's grandson comes and says that he's just a clone and that the original Shadow is dead, and therefore, he should obey him! Shadow though begins to find out about his past, destroys the aliens that are invading Earth, sends them home, clears things up with the boss of the military, and finally gets an explanation from the doctor's grandson, who admits that he is the original Shadow, and not a robotic clone. That he is an alien, antropomorphic hedgehog, created artifitially to cure AIDS, using alien genes, that can achieve unlimited power, is immortal, and rides on motorcycles and blows things up with guns - revolvers, machineguns, bazookas, the works.
---

Do I need to explain what's wrong with the character again? I didn't even go into Sonic 2006.

And yes, the Chaos Emeralds hold infinite power, Shadow is immortal, and Maria suffered of a disease called NIDS (Neuro Immunodeficiency Syndrome), which is basically just "fictional AIDS" or "AIDS - but we can't have this for kids, let's give it a slightly different name".

[Proton]

Okay, well lets never add more characters to a series and just let it become stale :p

Right, I forgot how fresh Sonic those recent Sonics are.







































ohwait.

I guess adding characters is the only way to make something fresh.
Seems to be Sega's philosophy.

Look at all those great Sonic games in the past 5 years.
:1



Rush was pretty fun.
But it wasn't Marine or Blaze that made it so.
Especially Marine. Made me not like the game as much.

Colours was fun and received as "genuine Sonic" .
But it wasn't the alien things that made it so.
And I do remember that games cast.


Are you seriously telling me all these added characters, like Shadow, Amy, Silver, Charmy, etc.,
makes Sonic good?

[Azure-Tranquility]

You'd have to have a'lot of love for a character to type up such a huge wall of text, Rokkan.

[Rökkan]

This is his story. I couldn't trim pieces of his story that makes it even more ridiculous than it is. I needed to show how it just rambled on unnecessary stuff, trying way too hard to be ridiculously edgy.

I went on more little details on Sonic and Tails' story than I did with Shadow's tbqh.

[brandman1996]

Well. All previous posts go overboard in nerdyness. :/

Not that that's a bad thing, but seriously, going to all that trouble to say shadow is horrible? Not gonna do it.

Well, since characters are now in discussion I'll throw in my 2 cents. Adding characters is fine if done in moderation and doesn't go overboard (aka 10 new characters per game). To be honest they shoulda stopped adding new ones with knuckles. Not to say they shouldn't add new ones later but right there would have had sega set for a while. And why did sega ruin tails for me? Sonic had seen his better days with the genesis, one of the greatest consoles ever.

[Garamonde]

I dunno, maybe Shadow doesn't the have the best personality in the series but he's a chill, respectable character, and they've all have had their star moments, and they've added just a little something more to their respective games. I really can't see them just suddenly reverting back to just Sonic Tails and Knuckles. No matter how much fighting we do no one's going to win. We're all gonna think differently of things.

[brandman1996]

I really can't see them just suddenly reverting back to just Sonic Tails and Knuckles.

They should. 0.o

[Garamonde]

They really should have Tails playable like in SADX, that was so much fun. SA2's Tails was fine, but riding in a mecha gets boring after a while.

[Shadowth117]

Okay, well lets never add more characters to a series and just let it become stale :p

ohwait.

I guess adding characters is the only way to make something fresh.
Seems to be Sega's philosophy.

Look at all those great Sonic games in the past 5 years.
:1...

...Are you seriously telling me all these added characters, like Shadow, Amy, Silver, Charmy, etc.,
makes Sonic good?

Yes, because that was what I said and implied.

Personally, I think a lot of Sonic characters COULD have been done without, but not purely because there would be too many characters, though that's part of it, but they aren't done well. Some were just overused and not done well in consecutive games...

... As for how the characters play out, they add variety to the gameplay though sometimes most of the time nowadays Sonic Team perverts the gameplay of other characters into another style of game completely. I am completely fine with having the option to go "huh, I wonder how this level plays someone who can fly" or something. I actually would love to see a return of the Sonic Advance 3 character system as a gimmick simply for that reason.

We were talking about how characters added to the game in that argument if I recall so I don't feel its out of place to mention how they *can* improve a game and to leave out other possible improvements to a game. Notice the "can" there. I also touched on how Sonic Team uses them to disrupt games. By warping the gameplay of a character to be completely contrary to what the series is supposed to be about (adding guns, painfully slow characters, characters that play like there from something other than a platformer game AKA Big's gameplay in SA1).

On the other end of the spectrum, recent characters that play differently but offer good gameplay because their design fits well with the game in my opinion would be characters like Amy in Sonic Advance 1 and 3 who plays like a more difficult version of Sonic, Cream in Sonic Advance 2 and 3, and the characters in general in Sonic Heroes to an extent though they could have been more different. I can't say there are a whole lot of good examples because there honestly aren't, but I'm just saying it CAN be done well.

I'm not even going to start a conversation on how Sonic can be improved because there are FAR too many things to go into with that and I'm sure everyone has heard them all before by now.

[Omegajak]

Okay, well lets never add more characters to a series and just let it become stale :p

Right, I forgot how fresh Sonic those recent Sonics are.







































ohwait.

I guess adding characters is the only way to make something fresh.
Seems to be Sega's philosophy.

Look at all those great Sonic games in the past 5 years.
:1



Rush was pretty fun.
But it wasn't Marine or Blaze that made it so.
Especially Marine. Made me not like the game as much.

Colours was fun and received as "genuine Sonic" .
But it wasn't the alien things that made it so.
And I do remember that games cast.


Are you seriously telling me all these added characters, like Shadow, Amy, Silver, Charmy, etc.,
makes Sonic good?

You can always play Sonic CD and 1-3 right?