How exactly is Mephiles unfitting for the Sonic series?

[Almar]

17 hours ago, DonWaffleleven said:

Didn't you know? Mephiles doesn't fit because this is a franchise with "a blue hedgehog, a 2 tailed fox fighting an egg shaped man. It could never fit in a million years!"

OFF-TANGENT RANT ALERT.

Seriously, I hate the "blue hedgehog" excuse to dismiss something a particular fan doesn't like. "Humans, Dark plots and biolizards? In my game where a blue hedgehog fights an evildoer called Eggman? Burn the heretics!"

You know it works both ways. "Why does a crystal entity who can travel through time not belong in a game with a blue hedgehog, knuckled echidna and a floating island in the sky that powers the dragon balls?" It's a fantasy world where stuff can just happen. Why do we suddenly care about consistency when we don't like what's being added?

It being fantasy doesn't mean anything goes. Up to that point, we didn't have villains like Mephiles (both edgy and no one he interacts with provides difference). Chaos was Eggman's sidekick until he turned on him, Biolizard was just a final boss. Mephiles just goes total edgelord with nobody to play off of.

[Diogenes]

19 hours ago, DonWaffleleven said:

Seriously, I hate the "blue hedgehog" excuse to dismiss something a particular fan doesn't like. "Humans, Dark plots and biolizards? In my game where a blue hedgehog fights an evildoer called Eggman? Burn the heretics!"

You know it works both ways. "Why does a crystal entity who can travel through time not belong in a game with a blue hedgehog, knuckled echidna and a floating island in the sky that powers the dragon balls?" It's a fantasy world where stuff can just happen. Why do we suddenly care about consistency when we don't like what's being added?

Consistency always matters. Even a fantasy world should be self-consistent.

[Salamander]

I've never been a big fan of the series at its most fantastic.  To me, Sonic isn't really a fantasy.  Cartoon science and technology should be at the fore where possible.  Even the Chaos Emeralds can be dealt with rationally; see how admirably Eggman integrates the Master Emerald into his S3&K final boss!  More of this; less of the characters whose abilities and nature are, essentially, "magic."

[Diogenes]

The series has always been something of a mixture between the two. Eggman's stuff is obviously clearly rooted in sci-fi, but I don't think you can get around the fantasy aspects of magic gems that turn you into a super saiyan, floating islands, time travelling planetoids, ascended water spirits, and ancient ghosts.

[Salamander]

I don't deny the problem, but I'd still lean on the side of much of the early and best fantasy-leaning material being more "mystic" than "magic."  Another way of putting it might be "fantasy is heroic, sci-fi is villainous"; a cartoonish extension of "nature versus technology," if you like.

[DabigRG]

4 hours ago, FFWF said:

I've never been a big fan of the series at its most fantastic.  To me, Sonic isn't really a fantasy.  Cartoon science and technology should be at the fore where possible.  Even the Chaos Emeralds can be dealt with rationally; see how admirably Eggman integrates the Master Emerald into his S3&K final boss!  More of this; less of the characters whose abilities and nature are, essentially, "magic."

So, where does the Zeti fall on that scale?

[Salamander]

Nowhere because there is nothing to judge when neither they nor their home have anything resembling a backstory.  For what there is, though, then my gut instinct is that their weird fantasy ogre designs don't belong in Sonic; on the other hand, I like that their electrokinetic powers tie them together with villainous technology, and the Lost Hex is along similar lines to Angel Island.  Let the comics go nuts with them and see what the result is, that's my verdict.

[Your Vest Friend]

Eh, I don't think Mephiles is particularly unfitting , I mean he always struck me as being designed to be rather otherworldly anyway. 

[DabigRG]

I recall a number of you saying characters like Mephiles have "no personality" because they're lacking in the way of humorous quirks. I can't help but find issue with mentality, given that personality is supposed to describe how a character tends to act and react.

[Dr. Detective]

I have little to say about whether or not he's fitting or not. I feel like if he isn't, it's largely based around the kind of tone Sonic 06 set if anything. I don't feel like most of the characters as they're written in 06 are very fitting.

I mostly don't give a fuck about Mephiles though. I think he's an idiot who's largely given some moniker of reverence by a select group of fans because he's supposedly cool or whatever. I liked Black Doom more than this dude. At least Black Doom did a good job at posing a threat and ushered in the feeling of being trapped in a devastating, all encompassing situation. You know, his war actually felt like a fucking war. None of this "Cut to Black and type some text on screen" bullshit. Take our word for it. Eggman took over and it was a really cool Palpatine rise to power. He initiated Order 66 and everything. You just had to be there.

That isn't to say he wasn't generic as hell and the tone of the game he came from definitely could have benefited a lot from being shifted towards feeling more like a Marvel film instead of Emo Saving Private Ryan. 

Meh. But Mephiles. He just comes off as that guy but worse in all aspects.

[Multikaris]

23 hours ago, DabigRG said:

You'd have the Dark Star and the Megabug(that random Dragon-Bird-Headband thing from the Rabbids crossover).

Yeah, those are good examples of something akin to the MOTW villains, but I was asking in the context of the main games, a clearly fully sapient, pure-evil character akin to Black Doom. 

[Razule]

On 1/7/2018 at 2:21 PM, DonWaffleleven said:

It's a fantasy world where stuff can just happen. Why do we suddenly care about consistency when we don't like what's being added?

Because fantasy worlds (and fictional worlds in general) still have to be consistent within their own universe.

Why do you like inconsistency when you like what's being added?