Do you think that sega planed for knuckles to be one of sonic's main friends?

[sorathehedgehog]

I was replaying sonic 3 and knuckles and was thinking about if they were going to do what they were going to do with shadow and just have him as a one time villain, or if they planned to have him become one of sonic's friends.

[Blacklightning]

The whole root of Knuckles's antagonism in S3&K was deception - Eggman told Knux that Sonic was the one who wanted to fuck with the Chaos Emeralds / Master Emeralds, and the game wasn't even over yet by the time that deception was laid bare. Yes, joining the main cast was practically a foregone conclusion. The only beef Knux ever had was Sonic was that Eggman manipulated his sense of duty to get what they wanted.

[Danj86]

Yeah. Since Sonic 3 & Knuckles was originally intended to be a single game, I'd assume Knuckles was always intended to be playable. Maybe you'd unlock him after completing the game with Sonic?

From the information we do know, very little would've changed if Sonic 3 was the whole game. Maybe some levels might be in a slightly different order, but I've never seen anything to suggest the story changed around that time. Unless the question is in a more meta sense. As in, with the likes of Shadow, we know they only intended for him to be in Adventure 2, but brought him back due to popularity.

I don't know if that was ever the case. Knuckles always seemed popular back in the day, but I have very little evidence to know that for certain. I'd imagine if Knuckles was intended to be a one off character like Shadow, we would've heard something about it by now.

[RadicalLaRuby]

For the most part I imagined him being just made for the original game he was in, and a few spin offs in the 90s, but he was always a popular enough character to keep as a mainstay, so he just stuck around despite narrative repurposing.

[Monkey Destruction Switch]

The translation available here is done by machine and very poor, but it sounds like Knuckles was always intended to be a friend character: https://info.sonicretro.org/Takashi_Yuda_interview_by_Sega.jp_(November_2006)

[AlexHidanBR]

Your question sound the same as "Did Akira Toriyama planned Piccolo to be one of the Z-Fighters?"

I'm saying this because... I believe Knux was once planned to be a one-time anti hero, being used by Dr. Eggman, but as development of Sonic 3 went, they decided to make him Sonic's friend by the end of that game, kinda like how Piccolo had a change of heart and became one of the Z-Fighters.

[Monkey Destruction Switch]

4 hours ago, AlexHidanBR said:

Your question sound the same as "Did Akira Toriyama planned Piccolo to be one of the Z-Fighters?"

I'm saying this because... I believe Knux was once planned to be a one-time anti hero, being used by Dr. Eggman, but as development of Sonic 3 went, they decided to make him Sonic's friend by the end of that game, kinda like how Piccolo had a change of heart and became one of the Z-Fighters.

No offense, but this is pure conjecture. If the entire reason you go against the hero is because you've been tricked and you're actually a straightforward good guy, that's not much of an anti-hero.

A better argument for Knuckles not being intended as just being one of "Sonic's buddies" could be the fact that he continued to antagonize Sonic shortly after Sonic 3 & Knuckles, such as in the Triple Trouble game and Archie Sonic, but that was still due to being tricked/misunderstandings/general mistrust between him and Sonic, so it's still not really that he's an anti-hero, just that he specifically doesn't get along with Sonic in particular for various, usually contrived, reasons. He's still clearly a good guy, and eventually as media got tired of thinking of excuses for him and Sonic to fight, they grew a stronger friendship (though the habit of Knuckles getting tricked and them fighting was so irresistible it did appear a few times in the modern era).

[AlexHidanBR]

10 minutes ago, Monkey Destruction Switch said:

No offense, but this is pure conjecture. If the entire reason you go against the hero is because you've been tricked and you're actually a straightforward good guy, that's not much of an anti-hero.

A better argument for Knuckles not being intended as just being one of "Sonic's buddies" could be the fact that he continued to antagonize Sonic shortly after Sonic 3 & Knuckles, such as in the Triple Trouble game and Archie Sonic, but that was still due to being tricked/misunderstandings/general mistrust between him and Sonic, so it's still not really that he's an anti-hero, just that he specifically doesn't get along with Sonic in particular for various, usually contrived, reasons. He's still clearly a good guy, and eventually as media got tired of thinking of excuses for him and Sonic to fight, they grew a stronger friendship (though the habit of Knuckles getting tricked and them fighting was so irresistible it did appear a few times in the modern era).

Good point. I misused the term "anti-hero" but I think you got my point - he was a "bad guy" in Sonic 3 despite being actually a good guy, so maybe in an alternative turn of events Knux would stil distrust Sonic and become a one time thing in Sonic 3 and then never show up again since he'd be guarding the master emerald for who knows how long, but then the people behind the games though it would be a waste and decide to use him again, so they decided to write him back as one of Sonic's friends.

Maybe I'm stretching my imagination a little bit... but yeah

Edited December 4, 2023 by AlexHidanBR