Knuckles as Guardian of ME

[DabigRG]

16 minutes ago, Plumbers_Helper said:

I don't think that's entirely true, even my niece who's age isn't even in the double digits yet was shouting at the TV for Tails to do something in Sonic Forces. She was even the one to bring up that Tails fought Chaos before.

Very few people like Tails in that game and the reason why is pretty obvious: he's supposed to be able to fend for himself and others as Sonic's sidekick since the second game.

A kid would not only get that, but be able to explain why pretty accurately.

[Shadowlax]

2 hours ago, Kuzu said:

I have never seen anyone praise how Tails or Knuckles are currently written at all, and it's the exact opposite with Tails. So I don't know where you're getting the idea that people are ok with how they are.

I have seen quite a few claim how they much prefer how team sonic is now , than they were before. Often sighting boom as how the series should be in terms of tone. And not the rest of the characters either, they will specifically denote like boom shadow is bad. But will specifically desire, more simplistic tales on the classic characters. Obviously its not everyone and my evidence is ancedotal, (infact I don't think they are a lot of these people tbh , they are just loud)  but I believe its enough people who desire that simpicity that sega perceives it whether justified or not ,as group not to piss off.

1 hour ago, DabigRG said:

Sadly, somewhat accurate. 

Funnily enough, that kinda makes my point about his post generations characterization: if they want him to be this cocky fratboy who boasts being focused enough to do things faster, then put him in a game where he can bring that to the controller and/or ongoing interactions.

Yeah some of the issues with these characterization changes is the reason or part of the reason some of these characters resonated with the audience is their ability to be in their shoes and to see their perspective. You want to make knuckles a way, show us what that means.

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Oh?

That makes some sense, given everyone else plus the five + who got embargoed in the divide. The thing is Knuckles isn't quite like everyone else and that's why there's such passion(hm) in talking about him in comparison.

I mean, I don't think its like that with anyone. Here's the deal. I don't think sega's in the right or justified on this one. I don't think the people who desire these characters to be simple whether its classic fans or children care if those specific classic characters get more complicated. The classic fans, problably ain't too interested in the 3d brand in the first place, and kids like characters getting more depth. I just get sega's reasoning, they have them away because they perceive it will make these characters stand in a better light and sell the most shit. I don't think that's accurate and they are limiting themselves, i'm just explaining the motivation.

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Oh really?

Er, was it ever like that before though?

Nah like shadow and egg's mans relationship is either shadow and eggman using eachother, or shadow trying to kill him.

This is interesting and weird because he treats him like a non threat and its justified. In that mobile game, shadow blows up a death egg by himself. Shadow is treated like a really powerful dude, and legit just treats eggman like a weird uncle who keeps bothering his friends and that's a pretty fun dynamic. It in the entirety of the series is one of the first few things that shadow talks about that makes him feel immortal. He genuinely does not care and is tired of eggman's shit but he doesn't view him in that game as much of a threat as the others because he's so strong he doesn't care.

 

 

1 hour ago, Kuzu said:

Kids liked Tails and Knuckles regardless of how simple they've been portrayed, so Sega insisting on keeping them as they are now just feels like pure apathy to me. They just don't care, because they know kids will love them regardless of how they're portrayed with only the Older fans making a stink.

I mean they care, but them caring leads them here. That isn't to say there are characters they don't really care about. But they care about Sonic, Tails, knuckles, amy , eggman , shadow and metal sonic a lot. And thier bad decisions often don't come from a place of uncaring but caring too much about these characters meeting a vision. So I guess I mean they care, mostly in a capitalistic sense, which makes sense because corporation.

[Kuzu]

32 minutes ago, Shadowlax said:

I have seen quite a few claim how they much prefer how team sonic is now , than they were before. Often sighting boom as how the series should be in terms of tone. And not the rest of the characters either, they will specifically denote like boom shadow is bad. But will specifically desire, more simplistic tales on the classic characters. Obviously its not everyone and my evidence is ancedotal, (infact I don't think they are a lot of these people tbh , they are just loud)  but I believe its enough people who desire that simpicity that sega perceives it whether justified or not ,as group not to piss off.

 

Boom is dead and no longer matters; and even then, do you not remember how many people made fun of Knuckles` entire design? Even if he is admittedly funny and well written, people specifically note that it's NOT the version of Knuckles they prefer. Tails is the only who was considered an improvement over his mainstream counterpart, and that's only because they actually gave him a personality, not because he was written to be simpler. 

Nowhere have I seen anybody praise how Tails and Knuckles are, in the main video games, as any kind of improvement over how they were utilized before. 

1 hour ago, Plumbers_Helper said:

I don't think that's entirely true, even my niece who's age isn't even in the double digits yet was shouting at the TV for Tails to do something in Sonic Forces. She was even the one to bring up that Tails fought Chaos before.

I didn't say it was universal; but uh...it's pretty telling that Tails got such an overt reaction from audiences in the stinger from the movie, and all he had to do was literally just show up. It's the same with Knuckles. Those two characters are so deeply ingrained in the public consciousness, their mere presence is enough to excite people, and it's mainly from the OG fans (and some younger fans if your niece is any indication) that people hate how they're being utilized.

 

It's because they're so iconic that many feel they aren't being treated with the respect some feel they deserve. 

[thumbs13]

I feel like Tails is one of those characters where it's way easier to tell that he's being used wrong, though. People will be like Knuckles was always dumb/Shadow was always a jerk, but nobody will defend New Tails on any grounds ever. Sure, people like Tails, but that makes it hurt more when we get things like Forces.

[Kuzu]

4 minutes ago, thumbs13 said:

I feel like Tails is one of those characters where it's way easier to tell that he's being used wrong, though. People will be like Knuckles was always dumb/Shadow was always a jerk, but nobody will defend New Tails on any grounds ever. Sure, people like Tails, but that makes it hurt more when we get things like Forces.

 

People actually hated how dumb Knuckles was when they first started doing it back in the mid 2000's; it was only recently that people just up and decided that he was always dumb and that's what he should be. Knuckles has been mischaracterized for so long, people now think his new persona is how he always was retroactively. 

It's a similar case with Shadow, where the popular opinion about the character becomes mistaken for the official version.

[Wraith]

Knuckles was always dumb though.

[Kuzu]

Yup, clearly I had the wrong idea about the character when I was a kid; silly me. 

[Dr. Mechano]

31 minutes ago, Kuzu said:

Tails is the only who was considered an improvement over his mainstream counterpart, and that's only because they actually gave him a personality, not because he was written to be simpler. 

Eh, I actually think Boom Eggman is way more endearing than his game counterpart, and about ties with Sonic X for my favorite depiction of the character. They made him more of a sympathetic figure with plenty of genuine good points, whereas I always felt like game Eggman's nicer qualities were always murkier and more ambiguous.

Granted, I fully understand how - for many people - this is a minus rather than a plus. Depends on what you want out of Eggman.

With Knuckles in particular, I feel like adapting aspects of his Boom personality - but significantly dialed back - wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. Again, see Mania's "Knuckles and Knuckles" ending; I think it captures Knuckles' goofy side, as kind of a ham who exaggerates his own feats, but not to the point where he's completely comic relief. It's all about moderation; Let Knuckles chuckle, just not constantly. 

[Kuzu]

2 minutes ago, Dr. Mechano said:

Eh, I actually think Boom Eggman is way more endearing than his game counterpart, and about ties with Sonic X for my favorite depiction of the character. They made him more of a sympathetic figure with plenty of genuine good points, whereas I always felt like game Eggman's nicer qualities were always murkier and more ambiguous.

Granted, I fully understand how - for many people - this is a minus rather than a plus. Depends on what you want out of Eggman.

I was mainly speaking about Tails and Knuckles in this case, not Eggman; he's ok.

2 minutes ago, Dr. Mechano said:

With Knuckles in particular, I feel like adapting aspects of his Boom personality - but significantly dialed back - wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. Again, see Mania's "Knuckles and Knuckles" ending; I think it captures Knuckles' goofy side, as kind of a ham who exaggerates his own feats, but not to the point where he's completely comic relief. It's all about moderation; Let Knuckles chuckle, just not constantly. 

I don't have much issue with Knuckles being comic relief, so much that being comic relief tends to come at the expense of the character's competence and dignity.

You know how you and most of the Eggman fans hated how he was upstaged all throughout the previous decade for another antagonist and felt it was a disservice to the character? Yea, that's how I feel about how Knuckles is treated. Except I have to be told that it's a good thing so...

[Ryannumber1gamer]

I think a problem I have is realistically speaking, it shouldn't be this difficult to work up a reason why Knuckles has to get involved in a story. The Master Emerald is one of the most powerful sources of energy on Sonic's world, and has strong ties to the Chaos Emeralds. This more than anything gives a reason for Eggman, or even any villain to target it and get involved with the plot.

Even the Adventure games knew how to play with this fairly well - in the first game, Chaos was sealed into the Master Emerald, so therefore to free him, the emerald had to be shattered and destroyed, raising the stakes two-fold by not only sending Angel Island plummeting into the ocean below, but forcing Knuckles to get involved with a plot directly tied into his role as guardian, and his heritage as a whole.

Adventure 2 wasn't as good, but still had a fairly decent reason for it - both Eggman and Rouge were after the Master Emerald, and Knuckles was forced to shatter it in order to keep it out of their hands. Plus, the Master Emerald ends up playing a role in the end of the game, so it still gives Knuckles a fairly good reason for being there. Adventure 2 even kind of acknowledges it, with Knuckles saying "Long time no see" to Tails and Amy, upon meeting them - implying he'd went back into guarding the emerald after repairing it in Adventure.

I always found it really odd in later games, when they don't involve the Master Emerald, despite how honestly easy it should be to do so. Unleashed for example - the Chaos Emeralds are directly tied to the Master Emerald - so you could easily make the argument that the Chaos Emeralds being drained of their energy would have an effect on the Master Emerald. Although in fairness, IIRC - they cut both Knuckles/Shadow from Unleashed, so that's at least more easily excused as Knuckles still guarding it on Angel Island.

But then you have Forces, where Knuckles has randomly undertaken the role of the resistance leader, and Angel Island/Master Emerald didn't even receive so much as a mention. This was seemingly so much of an issue that Ian Flynn felt the need to make a prequel comic based on this plot point, but I'm not giving Forces points for it, because the prequel comics mean pretty much zip nothing in Forces' plot.

Like, on one hand, I get the tricky nature of it, because you probably don't want every single time Knuckles appears to just be a serious mission for him to recover the Master Emerald, but on the other hand - just ignoring it and pretending it doesn't exist ends up making it feel forgotten and irrelevant, despite it being a critically important element to the lore of the series, and Knuckles himself as a character. 

[Shadowlax]

Just now, Ryannumber1gamer said:

Like, on one hand, I get the tricky nature of it, because you probably don't want every single time Knuckles appears to just be a serious mission for him to recover the Master Emerald, but on the other hand - just ignoring it and pretending it doesn't exist ends up making it feel forgotten and irrelevant, despite it being a critically important element to the lore of the series, and Knuckles himself as a character. 

Here's the issue though, its only important to part of the lore. And that's sort of the thing.

It doesn't need to be brought up all the time, the reason people are asking for it to be brought up is knuckle's participation.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

Just now, Shadowlax said:

Here's the issue though, its only important to part of the lore. And that's sort of the thing.

It doesn't need to be brought up all the time, the reason people are asking for it to be brought up is knuckle's participation.

It sort of does though. The Master Emerald is one of the most powerful, and most dangerous sources of power and energy in the series, and having a character who's entire role is entirely based around it's protection leaves too many questions about it when it isn't mentioned.

It shouldn't be that difficult a problem to solve, seriously. Hell, even Archie had fixed it - the Emerald wasn't kept out in the open, but rather inside of a cave that was surrounded by booby-traps that meant Knuckles didn't have to be present 24/7 to protect it.

Runners at least attempted to come up with an explanation, although in all honesty - between how awful Runners' story is as a whole, and the fact that they want me to buy that a bunch of critters under Omochao's training can fight off Eggman and a Badnik invasion, it's still not a particularly good one.

[Dr. Mechano]

8 minutes ago, Kuzu said:

I was mainly speaking about Tails and Knuckles in this case, not Eggman; he's ok.

I don't have much issue with Knuckles being comic relief, so much that being comic relief tends to come at the expense of the character's competence and dignity.

You know how you and most of the Eggman fans hated how he was upstaged all throughout the previous decade for another antagonist and felt it was a disservice to the character? Yea, that's how I feel about how Knuckles is treated. Except I have to be told that it's a good thing so...

Oh yeah, I don't disagree. 

I imagine Mania was a breath of fresh air then, huh? He was playable, the Master Emerald was actually relevant to his role in the game, and he even got unique zones and boss fights not present in the other characters' stories.

I'm hoping that this is the first in a trend of Knuckles getting more prominent roles in the series again, not just a one-off thing.

[Kuzu]

2 minutes ago, Ryannumber1gamer said:

It sort of does though. The Master Emerald is one of the most powerful, and most dangerous sources of power and energy in the series, and having a character who's entire role is entirely based around it's protection leaves too many questions about it when it isn't mentioned.

It shouldn't be that difficult a problem to solve, seriously. Hell, even Archie had fixed it - the Emerald wasn't kept out in the open, but rather inside of a cave that was surrounded by booby-traps that meant Knuckles didn't have to be present 24/7 to protect it.

Runners at least attempted to come up with an explanation, although in all honesty - between how awful Runners' story is as a whole, and the fact that they want me to buy that a bunch of critters under Omochao's training can fight off Eggman and a Badnik invasion, it's still not a particularly good one.

Its not brought up all of the time because its usually not important to the story that the game is trying to tell; in Adventure, the Emerald is explicitly tied into the plot surrounding Chaos, while in Adventure 2, it's presence is more incidental until the last story. 

Its the same thing with the Chaos Emeralds recently; they've pretty much stopped being at the center of the conflicts, because they're not important to the stories the games are doing. 

But the lack of the Master Emerald's mention is an explicit black mark on Knuckles` character in particular since he is it's guardian. So if the ME doesn't exist, Knuckles isn't doing much of anything. 

[Wraith]

I don't care about protecting Knuckles's dignity considering he was conceived as a looney tunes styl foil to Sonic who would be humiliated by him repeatedly. If anything the 3D games treated him better than that. 

I've always found the pearl clutching over Eggman's role to be annoying too though. All that ever did was limit the types of antagonists and conflicts we could see in the series for the sake of respecting tradition. If you want Sonic's world to feel bigger and more fleshed out than you can't be afraid of main characters like Eggman feeling smaller at the same time. He can't be behind everything.

[Kuzu]

3 minutes ago, Dr. Mechano said:

Oh yeah, I don't disagree. 

I imagine Mania was a breath of fresh air then, huh? He was playable, the Master Emerald was actually relevant to his role in the game, and he even got unique zones and boss fights not present in the other characters' stories.

I'm hoping that this is the first in a trend of Knuckles getting more prominent roles in the series again, not just a one-off thing.

Call me cynical, but I don't expect it to be the norm; Mania is explicitly a throwback to the time when Knuckles was still relevant, and it wasn't even developed in-house by Sonic Team. I enjoyed it, but I don't expect for him to get that same treatment going forward.

That being said, yea I enjoyed him in Mania; he's still a doofus, but he's a competent doofus at least. That's something Mania Adventures leans into as well with him single handily resolving the conflict, while being under the impression he was fighting Sonic. It's a rare moment when his short-sightedness is used to enhance the character and I appreciated it. 

[Dr. Mechano]

1 minute ago, Wrapped in Black said:

I don't care about protecting Knuckles's dignity considering he was conceived as a looney tunes styl foil to Sonic who would be humiliated by him repeatedly. If anything the 3D games treated him better than that. 

I've always found the pearl clutching over Eggman's role to be annoying too though. All that ever did was limit the types of antagonists and conflicts we could see in the series for the sake of respecting tradition. If you want Sonic's world to feel bigger and more fleshed out than you can't be afraid of main characters like Eggman feeling smaller at the same time. He can't be behind everything.

I actually don't disagree, surprisingly.

My problem during the late 00s wasn't that other villains besides Eggman existed, but that Eggman wasn't utilized particularly well a lot of the time in those games. I liked his role in SA1 and especially SA2 (I mean, he was playable!); and even in Unleashed he had a pretty good showing despite not being the final boss. But I feel like his treatment in Heroes and Shadow in particular was pretty lame. So it was really a case-by-case thing for me.

[Shadowlax]

Just now, Ryannumber1gamer said:

It sort of does though. The Master Emerald is one of the most powerful, and most dangerous sources of power and energy in the series, and having a character who's entire role is entirely based around it's protection leaves too many questions about it when it isn't mentioned.

Is it? Because no one treats it like it.

Like literally shadow's alien dad, who has been to the planet before who could have easily snatched it up forgoes doing that entirely just to get the chaos emeralds. And it isn't just black doom, multiple villian's foregoe even going for the thing because its largely not worth it, not because of knuckles because its just in universe it seems more powerful to have the chaos emeralds than the M.E the universe doesn't really give it due importance. And all its important lore bits largely revolve around echidna lore in the past rather than any current relevance.

Eggman in the last 3d game has a comic where explains as to why he does not give a shit about the M.E.

The M.E ain't important. You could literally destroy the M.E right now and nothing would happen to the world besides angel island would be in the sea. Would i love for the M.E and echidina lore to be more important? Sure , is it though, in retrospect not really no. The only time it gets to be important is in the comics really.

The M.E in multiple ways is just limiting narrative. Like you don't even need it for knuckles to be the same. Knuckles could just be guarding angel island, because it has ruins that I dunno reveal how to get the true power out of the chaos emeralds, maybe it shows how chaos control works. Acient robots like the gizoids. Maybe its just a bastion of history that needs to be protected.

M.E just feels like " what if we made a super emerald," had like 1 idea for it (chaos) and then realized they only had one idea and quitely shuffled it out.

 

1 minute ago, Wrapped in Black said:

I've always found the pearl clutching over Eggman's role to be annoying too though. All that ever did was limit the types of antagonists and conflicts we could see in the series for the sake of respecting tradition. If you want Sonic's world to feel bigger and more fleshed out than you can't be afraid of main characters like Eggman feeling smaller at the same time. He can't be behind everything.

I agree with this

[Kuzu]

5 minutes ago, Wrapped in Black said:

I don't care about protecting Knuckles's dignity considering he was conceived as a looney tunes styl foil to Sonic who would be humiliated by him repeatedly. If anything the 3D games treated him better than that. 
 

I thought he was initially concieved as a teammate and Sega decided to make him an antagonist-turned-good. They didn't really start leaning into the Daffy Duck, loser-type until about the mid-2000's when Shadow had the role as the serious foil to Sonic. 

[Shadowlax]

Comparing knuckles to daffy duck is an insult to daffy

[Wraith]

1 minute ago, Kuzu said:

I thought he was initially concieved as a teammate and Sega decided to make him an antagonist-turned-good. They didn't really start leaning into the Daffy Duck, loser-type until about the mid-2000's when Shadow had the role as the serious foil to Sonic. 

Other than all the times in Sonic 3 where Knuckles would throw ineffective Wille E Coyote type traps at Sonic that the player would shrug off? Or when he got tricked by Eggman in that game? Or Sonic Adventure? Or Sonic Advance 2? Or the time he crashed the ship in Sonic Adventure 2? 

Sonic Heroes and Shadow paint him as competent in comparison. In almost every game from his inception to the supposed mid-2000s breaking pint Knuckles is largely shortsighted and ineffective until Sonic starts pointing him in the right direction. That was his shtick. I don't know why people on here try to rewrite history so often.

[Kuzu]

That's literally what he was though; Sonic X was particularly in on it, as everyone gave Knuckles shit in that show while Sonic was hailed as a god.  

[Dr. Mechano]

4 minutes ago, Wrapped in Black said:

Other than all the times in Sonic 3 where Knuckles would throw ineffective Wille E Coyote type traps at Sonic that the player would shrug off? Or when he got tricked by Eggman in that game? Or Sonic Adventure? Or Sonic Advance 2? Or the time he crashed the ship in Sonic Adventure 2? 

Sonic Heroes and Shadow paint him as competent in comparison. In almost every game from his inception to the supposed mid-2000s breaking pint Knuckles is largely shortsighted and ineffective until Sonic starts pointing him in the right direction. That was his shtick. I don't know why people on here try to rewrite history so often.

I mean, in S3&K he's still largely one step ahead of Sonic and constantly a thorn in his side. Those traps still inconvenience Sonic from a narrative standpoint, if not in gameplay.

And it makes sense; This is Angel Island, Knuckles's home turf. Of course he knows all the tricks and traps to give Sonic a hard time. I felt like that was conveyed pretty well in-game; Knuckles is tricked by Eggman, sure, but he's still decently effective at throwing a wrench into Sonic's progress while he believes that Sonic's the bad guy.

Not downplaying the comic relief angle though; Knuckles does occasionally get knocked around a bit himself, like falling off the platform in Launch Base during the Death Egg launch. I feel like it was an even-handed mix; Knuckles was an effective enemy, but still kind of silly, which is fine.

[Kuzu]

1 minute ago, Wrapped in Black said:

Other than all the times in Sonic 3 where Knuckles would throw ineffective Wille E Coyote type traps at Sonic that the player would shrug off? Or when he got tricked by Eggman in that game? Or Sonic Adventure? Or Sonic Advance 2? Or the time he crashed the ship in Sonic Adventure 2? 

Sonic Heroes and Shadow paint him as competent in comparison. In almost every game from his inception to the supposed mid-2000s breaking pint Knuckles is largely shortsighted and ineffective until Sonic starts pointing him in the right direction. That was his shtick. I don't know why people on here try to rewrite history so often.

With the exception of Adventure and Advance 2, most of those had some explanation though from official sources. It was explicitly said that Knuckles` lack of social skills meant he was open to Eggman's manipulations, and all those traps were meant to show off how he knew the ins and outs of Angel Island to impede the player. And yes, there are plenty players who took him seriously and hated him for his impediments. 

Nobody is trying to rewrite anything; if there was a punchline to Knuckles` character, then it must have went over everyone's head, because it wasn't until Sonic X and Sonic Battle where everyone started to notice how he was being treated like shit. I'm not saying people took Knuckles all that serious, but they certainly leaned more into the bumbling nature later on than before. 

[Dr. Mechano]

1 minute ago, Kuzu said:

It was explicitly said that Knuckles` lack of social skills meant he was open to Eggman's manipulations

Yeah. Plus, Generations outright says "his belief in the goodness of others sometimes makes him gullible."

Eggman tricking him in Triple Trouble and Advance 2, despite what happened in 3&K, probably wasn't Knuckles being dumb. It was Knuckles being overly charitable toward Eggman, thinking "Well, maybe he has really turned over a new leaf this time." Despite his reputation as a hothead, Knuckles is a kind, forgiving soul who really wants to believe that everyone can change.

(Granted, him believing Eggman's good now usually comes with also believing Sonic is bad now, so it's not a perfectly consistent worldview.)