If you could change anything in the Sonic Universe right now, what would you change?

[Kagura_Nitrogat]

As the topic says, and no I don't mean such things as "Stop Robotnik and bring happiness to the land" I mean in terms of Characters and changing personality traits and such, or bringing something back from the original old skool series.

Right now I can only think of one thing, and thats Shadow's personality, It fit really well in Sonic Adventure 2 because he WAS a tragic brooding hero, but that was solved at the end of that and in all the other games (and TV series) he doesn't come off as a tragic brooding hero anymore, he comes of as a jerk that doesn't look at the big picture, all I have to say is this, Punching a 8-12 year old in the back of the head into a flight of stairs does not make you hardcore (Sonic X series 3)

But thats just my opinion, I'd be interested to hear what you would change =)

[hekturr]

I'd bring back the Freedom Fighters.

(Going back to a new cartoon idead maybe?)

Even a more in depth look at Mobius.

But i guess the Archie Comics kinda do all that.

And I still love Scratch and Grounder.

I'd like to see them remade ha.

FTW :]

[Kagura_Nitrogat]

I'd bring back the Freedom Fighters.

(Going back to a new cartoon idead maybe?)

Even a more in depth look at Mobius.

But i guess the Archie Comics kinda do all that.

And I still love Scratch and Grounder.

I'd like to see them remade ha.

FTW :]

They brought them back in the Archie comics about 10 issues ago...for one issue...but brought back none the less lol

[Solid SOAP]

Everything that happened from Sonic Adventure 2 - Sonic '06. I liked SA2's storyline, but it brought upon too much dark shit into the series. Sonic Heroes' story ranged from hilariously cheesy and kiddy to just lame attempts at continuing Shadow's story in SA2. Shadow's story felt extremely out of place in the Sonic universe (I don't like GUN or the aliens, at all), as did Sonic '06's. Sonic Unleashed feels like a true sequel to Sonic Adventure or Sonic the Hedgehog 3, with it's silly yet somewhat decent story and script (I wouldn't call it good, but it fits the Sonicverse more than "AN EVIL RENEGADE HEDGEHOG IS GOING TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD AND WANTS REVENGE OVER THE ONE WOMAN HE LOVED" etc), fun looking environments, etc.

[Leon K Fox]

I personally would as far as the storyline is concerned lose everything related to Shadow's story that was not Sonic Adventure 2. It was just a complete and utter mess for reasons that really need not be repeated any more due to how often they've been said.

I would like it if it stuck to just a few characters rather than introducing a bunch of one shots every damn game (I've said before that I consider every game character introduced after Knuckles to be a bit on the lackluster side to put it politely) and keep the stories more cartoony with just a tint of seriousness as Sonic Unleashed did.

[Rusty Spy]

For one, I'd change the whole alien business for Shadow and the Babylon Rogues. If there was one thing that I found most displeasing about Shadow's story was the introduction of the Black Comet and the aliens. And this is coming from someone who hardly has any gripes about the stories in the franchise. I just found the aliens very unnecessary to the story, especially since they're important to Shadow's past. I wouldn't have mind if they weren't actually involved in Shadow's creation, maybe if they were fooling everyone all along to persuade Shadow to work for them.

As for the Rogues, I could except their genie heritage, it actually made some sense, but the fact that they're revealed to be genies that are descendants of aliens was just lame and stupid. And it was revealed at the very end of the game, like it was so obvious all along. In fact, I don't like how they expanded on the Rogues' history after the first game in general. It was a fitting end after the first game, paving the way for a completely new adventure for the two groups.

And as for personality, I'd make Shadow less serious. It's really unneeded now and it just makes him look ridiculous and one sided.

[batson]

Id give Metal Sonic his sentience back. He could become to Eggman what Starscream is to Megatron.

And id give Tails a lot better parts in the stories. He needs to have more stories like the one he had in SA1, which actually made the player feel an emotional connection with him.

And id either get rid of Silver or make him a permanent resident of the present, so we wouldn't have to put up with any more of those stupid time-travel stories.

[lounge]

I'd change the way sonic's appearance is currently so that he'd look cool again, and not "cute".

I'd ask if Naka would like to be supervisor, so that he can still work at Prope. I really think the company needs his presence, even if only a little of it.

I'd make sure characters like Silver and Blaze stop popping out of their timelines. And I'd make sure the developer wouldn't be dismissing any continuity in the future. Exactly why I'd like Naka back somewhat.

I'd make sure they stop making the characters influence an annoying saturday morning cartoon show.

[Rusty Spy]

I'd change the way sonic's appearance is currently so that he'd look cool again, and not "cute".

I think you have it backwards. Sonic's appearance in the early days was a lot cuter than how he is today.

Unless your referring to his Adventure style compared to his Unleashed style, if so, I somewhat agree.

EDIT: Goddammit, the pictures are gone! >=/

Edited July 2, 2009 by VirgoTheCougar

[PSI Wind]

Amy's personality. Nuff said.

[Kagura_Nitrogat]

Amy's personality. Nuff said.

What personality? *burn* lol

[Leon K Fox]

What personality? *burn* lol

Damn, beat me to it

But yeah, she's good for a kiddy reomance gag here and there but doesn't really provide anything character in my personal opinion. If anything, I find her incredibly annoying.

Edited July 1, 2009 by Leon K Fox

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

A lot of things:

For one, I'd change up every character's personality, because EVERY SINGLE ONE of them suck nowadays...okay well Sonic and Eggman have done some major improvements, but other's not so much.

I'd also change up their roles, because we all know how silly it is to shove every character in a game when it could do better without them or if they should be doing something else that actually concerns them instead of running around where they want. The only characters I see that are versatile enough to be in every game are Sonic and Eggman, and to a slight extent Tails and Amy. Shadow and Knuckles should stay the hell out unless they actually have some use in the game, and throw any argument you want at me for having them around because I will tell you like I tell everyone else that the same can be said for Cream, Vector, Rouge, and everyone else.

The whole Shadow/Alien dilemma? Gone, never existed. I'll gladly keep Shadow around because I see good use for him and many other characters, but the whole Black arms invasion was uncalled for, poorly executed, and above all should never have happened in the first place.

And overall make things interesting so folks will want more...That's it.

[BlazingTales]

"Boy, just what we need! A 'How some ignorant Sonic fanboys/girls will save the Sonic series rant topic!'" *is shot* OK seriously though...

This is a toughie. I guess I'd go back to 2003, before Heroes was realeased, and fix that up. Heroes just seemed like a turning point for the series. While I'm not bashing Heroes, I'm just saying that the games got worse and worse from there. Heroes would have better design and control, not to mention and story that makes more sense, and gives the Chaotix and Metal a reason to come back, and exclude Shadow. I would re-introduce Shadow in a more thought-out way in ShtH. His absense for several years would get everyone excited about a fan-favourite returning.

By fixing Heroes, all mixtakes from today would most likely be elminated (Fans wouldn't say "We want a darker storyline", thus preventing 06's abomination, Sonic wouldn't be such a laughing stalk in the gaming media, Shadow would be liked more, etc.)

Damn, beat me to it

But yeah, she's good for a kiddy reomance gag here and there but doesn't really provide anything character in my personal opinion. If anything, I find her incredibly annoying.

On the flip side, when her persoanlity does show, I love her. She has such potential (see SA-2, SC, a bit in Unleashed), I just wish SEGA would take advantage of that.

Edited July 2, 2009 by BlazingTales

[azoo]

Characters:

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

These are the four things I recommend the main characters to have happen to them:

1) Keep Sonic from Unleashed. He was done just about 100% correctly.

2) Bring back the more serious Eggman (as seen in SA2 & Nextgen). This Eggman was extremely calm, dapper, collective, threatening, calculative, and meant serious business; however, he still maintained to have an inner-child by throwing tantrums and still was very egotistic. I also wouldn't mind them bringing back his Nextgen design either (not that it matters, I would prefer it though).

3) Take Chip. Now, copypaste the personality of said Chip, and paste onto Tails. I believe Chip was exactly how Tails should've been acting this entire time, and Sega proved they could make a properly cute & goofy sidekick. However, instead of giving it to the beloved fox that deserves this characterization reboot, they give it to yet another one-shot character.

4) Remove this idea that Knuckles is supposed to be a brawny idiot. Bring back his original personality: a clever, strong, silent, loner echidna. And last but not least, make sure he stays on Angel Island unless the storyline calls for the Master Emerald somewhere in it (of course, it seems that Sega caught onto this in Unleashed).

Now, these should be the series' only major characters... period. All these characters made 1999-afterward have mainly been somewhat decent one-shot characters, or have been a thorn in the side of the series for a long time, such as Shadow, Rouge, Cream and others (and even though she's a classic character, I'm counting Amy -- she's now only really useful for, as said before, a long-time and very annoying running gag). The only characters I believe should probably remain would have to be Blaze (for being an actually good female character and has lots of potential for development), although she would still end up only appearing every-so-often, because of the whole "alternate dimension" thing.

However, some of the other older characters can return. Fang / Nack would no longer be blocked by Shadow's gun-toting or Rouge's treasure hunting, Metal Sonic can finally make a return as Sonic's true hardcore rival (which Shadow, well, "overshadowed" the other characters with), Sega can finally make use of both Bark and Bean, and the Chaotix can return from their mysterious disappearance since ShTH (and yes, Mighty can come back too).

As for the game's enviornment, I wouldn't mind if Sega would bring back the checkered hills and other classic-game nods, but I'm actually rather content with how most of the world is in Unleashed. I'd just like to see more of the world also filled with the Flickies and woodland creatures again; maybe even some (non-important to the storyline) anthropomorphs as well.

As for the stories? Hmm...

First off, lets forget Shadow's story stuff (SA2-ShTH) completely. All it did was make the series a brooding, narmy mess that shuns the lighthearted feeling the Sonic series is supposed to give off (Nextgen would be counted along with this, but it doesn't matter about that stuff since it technically never happened).

Like how CSS said, keep them interesting enough for people to want more (as long as Eggman is the only main villian and there's no gimmicky twist).

[Sean]

I'd give Big a heroic alter-ego a la Sogeking and have him wittingly save the day before Sonic can, all in secrecy.

[Leon K Fox]

Forgot to mention earlier, I would also give Tails a bigger role than what he was, he's just been the local inventor and brainy kid for so long, I miss the days when his friendship with Sonic was actually a key if not core element to both characters and the series on the whole.

I'd rather see him than all these stupid one shot characters to be honest.

[Badnik Zero]

Reintroduce Mighty and Fang as sworn enemies, with a story involving both of them.

Cut the cast of main characters to FIVE maximum for any given game, and the rest can cameo only where necessary. That means Rouge and Shadow, the Chaotix, especially Silver and Blaze, all Amy's friends, and maybe even Knuckles stay the hell out unless you need them. And keep playable main story characters to THREE max. The exception being party games, of course.

Relating to that, I'd make Metal Sonic more visible in the character roster. That guy just disappears for a few years at a time.

[The-Master-Board]

For one, I'd change the whole alien business for Shadow and the Babylon Rogues. If there was one thing that I found most displeasing about Shadow's story was the introduction of the Black Comet and the aliens. And this is coming from someone who hardly has any gripes about the stories in the franchise. I just found the aliens very unnecessary to the story, especially since they're important to Shadow's past. I wouldn't have mind if they weren't actually involved in Shadow's creation, maybe if they were fooling everyone all along to persuade Shadow to work for them.

As for the Rogues, I could except their genie heritage, it actually made some sense, but the fact that they're revealed to be genies that are descendants of aliens was just lame and stupid. And it was revealed at the very end of the game, like it was so obvious all along. In fact, I don't like how they expanded on the Rogues' history after the first game in general. It was a fitting end after the first game, paving the way for a completely new adventure for the two groups.

And as for personality, I'd make Shadow less serious. It's really unneeded now and it just makes him look ridiculous and one sided.

So true!

Aliens are a lame fallback idea when you cant be bothered coming up with decent story, and it completely ruined the backstory for Shadow AND the Babylon Rogues, not too mention Sonic Chronicles.

If I could change anything....I'd take out the realism, make Sonic all about the whimsical fantasy world, like it was in the classics and Sonic Heroes. I'd disown Sonic Unleashed, give the characters like Tails and Knuckles more game time and presence, stop shovelling in new characters, I'd definately bring Nack back, make Eggman back into a proper threat and not a lame joke of a character, and stop making stupid olympics crappy games.

Also Sonic would need his attitude back, not always frowning or being cheesily lame.

[SuperStingray]

Let's see, things I would change...

-Shadow would be dead and not revived/cloned. I've grown fond of Shadow in certain games such as Battle and 06, but bringing him back just took the drama right out of his character and replaced it with narm. Same case with Chip and Emerl; great characters, but keep them deceased for their sake unless there's an absolute necessity for story purposes. But he's here to stay I suppose and the best thing I feel they can do with him now is make him just lay low like in Chronicles.

-No gimmicks for a while. Emphasis on for a while. The only reason people think Sonic needs a break is because there are so many twists in turns in the series, its lost its identity. I don't want this series to be stuck in an endless loop of mediocrity but I don't want to see it in one of pure classicism either. I want it to evolve and take advantage of its true merits rather than try and create new ones.

-No new characters. Also for a while, but for a very long while. This series already has a larger cast than it know what to do with. A lot of them have tons of potential (except the ones that have used up all of theirs, namely Shadow) but none of them can have a chance to shine if they're being balanced out with everyone else. It's fine if they keep the cast they have, I just don't want to have twelve (mandatorily) playable characters in one game.

-A game plan. The transition in tone and gameplay from Heroes to Shadow and 06 to Unleashed is about as subtle as Elmo being a playable character in GTAIV. The only way this series will get any better is if they just get an idea of what they want to do with it. I guess it's hard at this point seeing how torn up this fanbase is, but the developers just need to understand where the appeal comes from, not who they're appealing to.

Oh yeah, and that alien thing too. I mean, "Black Doom?" I couldn't think of a more generic name for a villain. Except for maybe "Dark Evilord Supreme X."

Edited July 2, 2009 by SuperStingray

[Leon K Fox]

Cut the cast of main characters to FIVE maximum for any given game, and the rest can cameo only where necessary. That means Rouge and Shadow, the Chaotix, especially Silver and Blaze, all Amy's friends, and maybe even Knuckles stay the hell out unless you need them. And keep playable main story characters to THREE max. The exception being party games, of course.

They did that in Sonic Unleashed, characters like Shadow and Rouge did not appear (thank god) because they had no role to play in the story, same with Cream and even Knuckles, all of them were absent from that game because they had little role to play, and I appirictaed that, as much as I like Knuckles.

[The Conductor]

I would have Eggman take over Angel Island and turn it into a battleship, not only would this at least give Knuckles an actual fucking reason for being Sonic's lap dog but it would also give Eggman a kind of permanent base, and I like it when that happens.

Like in the Archie (and Fleetway) comics, Knuckles didn't give two shits about Eggman untill he started fucking about with his Island, if that mechanic was transferred from the comics that would be neat.

(I would like to see the series have reboot and returns as a pentology (the first game covering Sonic 1, 2 and CD. The second covering 3&K, Knuckles Chaotix and Sonic Triple Trouble, the third covering Sonic Adventure and SA2, the fourth; Rushes, 06, Rivals and the final dealing with Heroes, Battle and Shadow's return/origins. Obviously these games would only loosely follow the plot of the aformentioned games).

Edited July 2, 2009 by Arron

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

I'd also like to add, SA2's ending.

If Shadow was going to come back a few things should've happened:

1) Show a second part to the ending where a meteor-like object dips out of the atmosphere and impacts the ground, showing how he survived. This series has tons of unrealistic things along with the realism, so don't tell me he wouldn't have survived.

2) Keep his stay a mystery to the audience and make sure he isn't mentioned for a few games. No one would know if he was around for a while and would make a scene showing that he's around and kicking.

3) something that wasn't as ridiculous as Eggman revealing that his robot saved him.

I don't expect anyone to change their views on Shadow, but if the above had happened, it wouldn't been a lot better than having no explanation how he survived and then the Black Arms invasion occuring afterwards.

Also, Sonic 06...well, I think we know what needs to be fixed.

Also folks, how would a retcon work for this series? Would anyone follow with it, or keep their stance despite what they tried to fix?

Edited July 3, 2009 by ChaosSupremeSonic

[Phos]

One thing that has always bugged me about SA 2's ending is that Sonic fell from orbit in Sonic 2, Sonic 3 (if you only have the Chaos Emeralds), Sonic Advance 2 (Tails doesn't even catch him this time). He fell from the stratosphere twice in Adventure 1 and that didn't even slow him down. Simply put, Sonic can survive a landing traveling at his terminal velocity. It's just another example of the crappy anime tropes and tendencies they keep adding to Sonic, in this case, it's the mistaken idea that Earth's gravity well is like some kind of cosmic quick sand.

[SuperStingray]

It's just another example of the crappy anime tropes and tendencies they keep adding to Sonic, in this case, it's the mistaken idea that Earth's gravity well is like some kind of cosmic quick sand.

Of course it's not like that in real life. In reality, Sonic's bones would shatter at the speeds he runs at if his entire being didn't spontaneously catch fire. I'll agree that Shadow's "death" is an inconsistency in that regard, but video game logic isn't meant to be taken at face value. Edited July 3, 2009 by SuperStingray