Does Amy qualify as the fourth member of Team Sonic?

[Marco9966]

Yeah Amy could ve a 4th member, she has good interaction with the boys in Mega Drive comic, SA2...

But she also has her own best friends like Cream, Big, Sticks...

[Sonic Fan J]

My two cents. Yes.

My reasons. Amy and Knuckles have actually been pretty interchangeable until Heroes where the grouping of the so-called Classic Trio became a main thing. If you jump over to the pre-Adventure spin-offs you'll find in most cases it is Amy grouped up with Sonic and Tails and Knuckles being a competitive rival. Even in Sonic Adventure 2 Amy is the one paired off with those two with Knuckles doing his own thing through most of the game even when he does finally team up with everyone. but that's just it, he teams up with everyone, not outright replace Amy. Though Amy doesn't have her own gameplay in Adventure 2, she is from nearly the beginning of the game part of the team. Then there are other games where they were not afraid to include Amy like, Sonic Shuffle, Sonic Advance 1 & 3 and Sonic Riders Zero Gravity. On the Comics side of things Ian Flynn even started playing up the grouping of Sonic, Tails, and Amy so there is more than enough precedent for it to work.

How I perceive the dynamics though is fairly different from most as I don't see Amy as playing Knuckles' role of power character (though with her hammer she should play it as Knuckles' call to in world fame is as a treasure hunter which Sonic even exploits in Adventure 2). I'm actually one of those who sees Amy more as the true Tails 2.0, a tag along who Sonic puts up with but is able to develop a friendship with based off of how much time they spend together due to their own ability to keep up. Knuckles in contrast I don't see as a tag along sidekick, but rather a partner character with Knuckles perceiving Sonic as his partner when his duty sees him away from Angel Island. Part of my reason for this is that both Amy and Tails idolize Sonic, and chase after him with the primary difference personality-wise being Tails is unsure while Amy is energetically optimistic. It actually makes them good partners in their own way as Tails wants to be like Sonic and Amy can both believe in/encourage him and have the optimism and energy to try to show him how it's/that it can be done (anther reason why I dislike her hammer since it limits that kind of interaction with Tails). Then a character like Knuckles who does his own thing put partners up with Sonic is another source of inspiration for the two would be adventurers as he shows that their other skills can be useful as well and that they don't necessarily have to be exactly like Sonic (a fine argument for Amy's hammer if you want to use it against me). Of course a good part of those types of dynamics works best more with the trio's interpretation in the OVA than anywhere else and believing that Amy truly is a Genki Girl and acknowledging that she is a hedgehog and that curling into a ball is a natural thing to do for her even if imitating Sonic's abilities are not. But I'm not here to argue my stance on Amy herself, but rather that I am of the mind that she doe qualify as a member of Team Sonic.

[DabigRG]

3 minutes ago, Sonic Fan J said:

 

My reasons. Amy and Knuckles have actually been pretty interchangeable until Heroes where the grouping of the so-called Classic Trio became a main thing. 

 

I don't know if I'd say interchangeable, but go on.

3 minutes ago, Sonic Fan J said:

 I'm actually one of those who sees Amy more as the true Tails 2.0, a tag along who Sonic puts up with but is able to develop a friendship with based off of how much time they spend together due to their own ability to keep up.  Part of my reason for this is that both Amy and Tails idolize Sonic, and chase after him with the primary difference personality-wise being Tails is unsure while Amy is energetically optimistic. 

Yeah, that is pretty much what she is.

 

 

[Sonic Fan J]

2 minutes ago, DabigRG said:

I don't know if I'd say interchangeable, but go on.

Well, I mean they rotated out of the third slot based on what type of game it was really. In spin offs Amy took the third slot while Knuckles straight up played a rival when he appeared while in main platformers Amy was more a background character or a cameo at best (this alone could be used as an argument against Amy being playable in Mania but I digress). This finally changed with the first Riders when Knuckles was in the third slot in a spin-off instead of Amy though in the subsequent game Amy was arguably part of the whole four man group even if she was more ancillary. Honestly, I think it's kind of a shame that Amy lost her place as the third member in spin-offs since it was her time to get to be involved with Sonic and allowed Knuckles to really play up his rival position. Oh well, I guess that's just part of the marketing power that the Classic Trio image has.