The Great Sonic's Friends Debate

[evilromero]

However Mania did it was perfect. The unique character abilities presented lots of opportunities for approaching the levels.
It also helped that they didn't talk and have goofy character designs.

 

[Roliq]

Can't believe I forgot about Tangle and Whisper in my earlier post; yes please. Would love to see them be playable in a main series game.


Knuckles was never a villain; Eggman tricked him into believing Sonic wanted to steal his Master Emerald.


She's at least got that appearance in official art to let us know she CAN appear in Classic Sonic media.




Just a shame that she can ONLY appear in Classic Sonic media now; same for the Hooligans. They really need to let go of those mandates; Honey's appearance in the short lived Archie Sonic reboot was great.

Click to shrink...

Still sad that the comic got cancelled when it did as she was going to apper in next issue

 

[Jimnymebob]

The more playable characters the better for me. The issue with a lot of them is that they're either in self contained segments with completely different gameplay that is worse than the Sonic stuff, or they're similar to the core Sonic gameplay but with unique abilities, and are in brokenly glitchy games like Heroes and 06.

 

[Yasuke]

Including Amy with Tails and Knuckles is pure nonsense.

Spoiler

I say everyone in certain games. I like his friends. *shrug*

 

[Combichristoffersen]

Sonic, Tails and maybe Knuckles.

Fire the rest into the sun.

 

[mute]

There are bigger problems to fix before worrying about too many characters in Sonic games. All you would have left is a sonic-only game that is still not fun to play. So until they can figure that out, anyone and everyone is welcome imo.

 

[Grain Silo]

Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Amy, Blaze, and Shadow being "main" characters and I'm good.

The Chaotix, Bark, Bean, Cream, and Big are cool being tertiary. Wouldn't mind seeing modern versions of Mighty and Ray too.

 

[Ashes of Dreams]

The "Sonic's friends are bad" mentality is mostly only spread by people who really liked that decade+ old image of "The Sonic Cycle" and just want to keep posting it despite it never really being true/relevant, especially not in the past 15 years or so. But even if you want to analyze "the problems" with some of the bad Sonic games, the inclusion of "the friends" has nothing to do with it. Sonic 06 would not have been good if it had just been Sonic, and Sonic Colors would be just as good as it is now if you could also play as Shadow.

Also, anyone who says things like "only Tails and Knuckles" are part of the problem because you're admitting that the idea of "other characters that provide a twist/gimmick on top of the core gameplay" is good, but you're demanding they never expand on that concept and only keep giving the same old stuff.

 

[Man God]

They all suck besides Amy.

 

[DaToonie]

The "Sonic's friends are bad" mentality is mostly only spread by people who really liked that decade+ old image of "The Sonic Cycle" and just want to keep posting it despite it never really being true/relevant, especially not in the past 15 years or so. But even if you want to analyze "the problems" with some of the bad Sonic games, the inclusion of "the friends" has nothing to do with it. Sonic 06 would not have been good if it had just been Sonic, and Sonic Colors would be just as good as it is now if you could also play as Shadow.

Also, anyone who says things like "only Tails and Knuckles" are part of the problem because you're admitting that the idea of "other characters that provide a twist/gimmick on top of the core gameplay" is good, but you're demanding they never expand on that concept and only keep giving the same old stuff.

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There's a veeery clear demographic of people who very specifically only like the era of Sonic before the Dreamcast, and will go out of their way to say that any character born in that era is acceptable, but great characters who came later, like Blaze, aren't welcomed. It feels so arbitrary to me, when Sonic has--for a good minute before 3D--had a large group of extra friend character besides him, Tails and Knuckles. =/ The characters aren't the problem, the lack of direction in how they control is.

(This is coming from someone who is a pretty big "Classic Sonic > Modern Sonic" type, but mostly due to the fact that I find the character design/art direction/animation direction of modern Sonic games to be rigid, awkward, and kind of boring to look at :x)

Ultimately, for me, all of the extended cast should have a shot at being playable (not all in one game, just use thematically appropriate ones going forward). I just feel that the best way of getting this to work without relying on a whole bunch of different gameplay styles (like the Adventure games), is to establish the original momentum based gameplay in 3D. Make something that can control like the fan project Hero or Sonic Utopia, and I feel like any character could be slapped on top of Sonic with their own unique abilities and it could work.

 

[SykoTech]

Why even put Blaze into the same option as goddamn Silver? She is the best Sonic friend of the 3D era and was a joy to play as in Rush. She's popular too, so I am puzzled she never made her return.

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Yeah. I wanted to give Blaze a vote, but I definitely do not want to vote for Silver. I'm pretty neutral on Rouge and Shadow as well.

So then I was going to vote for Tails and Knuckles, but I've never cared for Amy when it comes to her being a playable character.

Guess I just won't vote then, haha.

 

[Ginger Hail]

I think Mania proved there's still a place for alternate playstyles in Sonic games, the stages in the boost formula games just really aren't conductive to supporting it. I wouldn't mind them spicing things up and making a few characters playable. 06 trying so hard to include 9 different characters who would play somewhat uniquely between each other was a bit overkill. If they kept the playable roster a bit slimmer and made each of the playstyles fun, I don't see any issue with including more characters again regardless of who.

 

[Fj0823]

Non Shitty Friends:

Tails
Knuckles
Amy
Blaze
Shadow
Rouge
Silver

Shitty Friends:

The rest