Playable female characters in the Sonic games

[Blazey Firekitty]

Are female playable heroes in Sonic games remotely popular these days(Assuming that having playable characters other than Sonic is at all popular after what happened with Sonic 06)? Are Amy and Cream sweet and caring, or moronic bimbos? Are Rouge, Wave, and Blaze competent and independent, or just a trio of insufferable jerks? Is Shade even relevant anymore? Are any of them worth keeping around, or are they all a bunch of offensive stereotypes who need to be culled in favor of better more well rounded characters who are people first and female second?

[Flyboy Fox]

Oh my, the Bakeneko is back~

I like Amy. Yes, she's insufferable and a complete stereotype, but that's why she's awesome and can't go anywhere. She needs to be chasing Sonic into the infinite abyss of time, forever and all eternity. She's a complete staple of the series, as much so as Tails and Knuckles as far as I'm concerned. But if the absolute point is about being playable... I've never been bowled over by her gameplay and I'd be perfectly happy to see her, for the most part, retired to cutscenes only. Unless her gameplay can be radically reformed to make it more interesting (I'm sure there must be more she can do with that hammer), I don't need her to be playable. But I don't want her 'culled'.

Blaze I think has proven to be a competent and withstanding character. I think she has her place, in terms of being playable, in a niche number of games. Her little 'universe', complete with Nega and Silver, seems to me almost to have the vibe of a spin-off. I think there should be games that she's not in, perhaps even for the most part the main titles, but I can also see her in future outings. I've always liked/had an affinity with alternate universes and the 'AU' counterparts of the main cast. Yeah, it's kind of a gimmick, but it's fine. The Rush games were some of the best Sonic games to date, in my opinion.

Wave is fine as she is - a snarky rival to Tails. She doesn't need to be redeemed or removed. Like Blaze, she kind of fits into her own little niche. She's one of the the 'AU' counterparts of the Riders 'verse. You could almost see some of these spin-off series as individual Alice-esque looking glasses in which the main cast is reflected in some way, each mirror sort of separate from the rest, even if the lines blur. The characters inside them serve their purposes fine, but probably shouldn't bleed too much into the 'main' titles.

Rouge, Cream and Shade I personally don't give a care for, and wouldn't mind not seeing ever again - but I'm sure there are plenty of people who could give as much of a case (or more) for their 'place' in the Sonic'verse (particularly Rouge).

As far as being 'offensive stereotypes'... well, most characters in the Sonic games are stereotypes, sometimes ridiculously so. I don't think there needs to be female characters just for the sake of some sort of arbitrary ratio... and I'd personally LOVE to see a Sally Acorn-esque character in the games. But I don't think there's any crisis point with the female characters we have. They're there as options and, yes, sometimes as gimmicks... not to represent the female gender absolutely or make some sort of feminist/woman-empowering statement. I think they're fine.

[Diogenes]

Are they needed? Well, in the same way playable male characters, beyond Sonic, are needed. Arguably only one playable character is ever needed, and in this case it'd surely be Sonic. But if there are multiple playable characters, female characters should have the same opportunities male characters have.

As for how the existing female characters are doing...well, pretty much everyone's taken a few hits over the last few years. But that doesn't mean they aren't salvageable, or worth saving.

Amy: Amy went a bit nuts for a while, and seemed to drop any interesting aspects in favor of being a one-note stalker gag. She's gotten a bit better over time, but not enough to be genuinely interesting. First step is to stop using her crush on Sonic as just a gag; it might still see use as such on occasion, but it was a played-out gag even before she picked it up, and it's really not helping her image. Try taking it a bit more seriously, and actually build a dynamic between the characters based on this. It'd also help to expand her relationships with other characters, so she can interact with characters who aren't Sonic, regarding things that aren't Sonic. Also can we get rid of her new VA, or at least hit her until she stops making those unholy squealing sounds that she calls voice acting?

Cream: ...honesty I don't really think we need Cream. I'm generally against getting rid of characters (mostly because most reasons for doing so are terrible), but I just don't see much use for Cream. She's not much of a fighter. The only support she provides is of the "moral" variety, and even that's arguable. She's not an interesting character. And the one thing she is certainly supposed to be, cute, I find she does a pretty terrible job at. At the very least I see no real reason to make her playable outside of party games or other "massive cast" situations, and I'd make her NPC appearances limited as well.

Rouge: I hate what's happened to Rouge. It's not a particularly original concept, but a morally ambiguous spy/thief is certainly a fun character to play around with. Unfortunately she's largely ditched the "morally ambiguous" and "thief" aspects and become little more than a GUN lackey and Shadow's fangirl. Return those aspects and make her more independent again, and see where that takes her.

Wave: Meh. Wave's in the same position as the other Rogues; unnecessary and fairly bland copies of Team Sonic. Wave only really exists to be a slightly-less-nice counterpart to Tails, both as an antagonist (or at least an irritant) to him and to fill the "smart and responsible" role of the Rogues. Beyond that there's really not much use for her (and likewise for the other two). This is one of the instances where I will seriously consider taking the knife to it and cutting a few characters; I really don't see much use for them, so they're just bloat.

Blaze: Blaze is maybe the only recurring character to not be ruined over the last few years (personalitywise, that is; some people might count the whole '06 mess as being ruined in some form). She's also one of the few characters to get solid, lasting character development; she's guarded, tough, and independent when she first appears, but as the game goes on she starts to open up and trust others (and without losing her tough edge, too). She's a solid character and I hope they keep making good use of her.

Shade: Is pretty much dead. Chronicles, and everything associated with it, seems to be a dead branch of the series, so I doubt she'll ever be relevant to anything. As for what she was, meh...her design (sans helmet) was pretty cool, but that's about all she had going for her; she came off as kind of bland, and her development is not entirely unlike Blaze's.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Are female characters popular? Depends. Blaze is without a doubt the most popular from the way she was handled, Rouge seems to be popular for certain...assets, while Amy is either only popular because of her being around during the Classics or scoffed off like most other characters despite predating Knuckles. Shade would be fourth in terms of popularity, but I think that comes from her design and backstory alone as opposed to her character - I honestly think they should retcon Chronicles' plot in the future, but that's me.

Are any of them worth keeping around? No, but then again neither are characters like Tails, Shadow, or Knuckles. So I don't see why the females are being considered for this.

Are they all a bunch of offensive stereotypes who need to be culled in favor of better more well rounded characters who are people first and female second?

...

Okay, before I even answer this, where in the blue hell is this coming from? I don't want to jump to conclusions, but I'm getting the feeling that you're targeting them mostly because they are female.

But whether or not this is the case, they're not offensive stereotypes anymore than the male characters are. And even if they were, that certainly isn't something we should use against them to cull them in favor of better characters when a much better solution would be to develop them into more well rounded characters. The last thing we need to do is start scrapping characters for newer ones just because they're not working out, especially when the main hero and villian haven't been working out either during the dark ages of this series.

Aside from the shit that went on in Sonic 06, Blaze is largely one of the few characters who hasn't been in bad shape.

Rouge has been very lax in terms of her development. She's fairly mild and inoffensive even as this series went through hell, but she's not in a position to be considered a bad character. I'm with Diogenes on the paths they took with her. She was morally ambiguous, but she seems to be much lax in terms of her previous personality. Not that she can't be the way she was originally, but she doesn't seem to be as ambiguous...I don't know.

Amy needs to be fixed. She was doing well in the Adventures, but since then it's like all that she can be has been thrown out the window. Or maybe I'm stretching how she has been in recent games. Either way, she needs to be put back on a good track.

Cream...is going to be hard to figure out where to put her. Brainstorming is going to be hell for her.

Shade I can't say too much on, but Wave is pretty good as far as I'm concerned.

But all in all, whatever has happened to the female characters has very much happened to the male characters. They shouldn't be treated any special.

[Dr. Mechano]

My thoughts on the female characters of the games? Let's see...

Amy Rose

The first female character in the series, and easily the most famous. I feel Amy's personality has been exaggerated and flanderized ever since Sonic Heroes (Though I could say Heroes did this to everybody), which makes her personality difficult to properly pin down.

I was never a fan of the exaggerated portrayal of Amy as a Sonic stalker who'd actively chase him down. Amy has an unrequited crush on Sonic, yes, but in the Adventure games she doesn't aggressively chase after him- She simply lets him know how she feels and, otherwise, acts as a reasonably calm friend and ally. Sonic Heroes had her chasing Sonic around and- essentially- threatening to throw him off a building for not marrying her in Grand Metropolis (All we have to go by is "There's no way out of marrying me!" followed by a battle, so...), which is a little... eh, psychotic.

Sadly, later games like Rush and Riders clung to this stereotypical portrayal of the character. I feel her role in Unleashed was slightly better. She seemed a bit more collected and had some characterization beyond her fascination with Sonic. This direction is one I hope she continues in.

Tikal

Served her purpose for Sonic Adventure, and neither she nor Chaos should appear again without a very good reason.

But for what it was worth, I found her involvement in Adventure's story an interesting one. Seeing flashbacks of her life was interesting development to the backstory of Knuckles and his people. Though personally, I found Tikal as a character to be rather bland and uninteresting. There was simply very little character to her, and she existed purely as a plot device to explain where Chaos came from.

Rouge the Bat

Such potential, ruined.

Rouge was an interesting character in Sonic Adventure 2. Greedy, adventurous, and independent, Rouge's characterization was very fun and fresh for the series at the time.

Her friendship with Shadow and Omega from Heroes onward, though, completely killed her character. You might say character development caused her to change for the better, but I find her personality insufferable now. She just follows Shadow around and supports absolutely everything he does- She's essentially been turned from an independent treasure hunter into Shadow's sidekick. Rouge's current portrayal doesn't interest me at all, and I find her character very boring as she is now.

Maria Robotnik

Eggman's cousin was interesting for the short role she played, and provided some good insight for both Shadow and Professor Gerald. But that seems to be most of her purpose- To explain the motivations of other characters.

Maria herself is an enigma, and we really don't know much of who she was or what she was about. Even her brief playable appearance in Shadow the Hedgehog (You can control her as player 2 in The Doom and Lost Impact) didn't really expand on her character that much. While she's certainly an interesting character for her involvement in Gerald's development, and for being a part of the Robotnik family line, Maria's actual characterization is too thin to really judge properly.

The President's Secretary

She was important enough to get her own menu theme in Sonic Adventure 2. Other than that, I have very little to say about her, other than that it would be cool to see a cameo appearance sometime in the future.

Cream the Rabbit

My feelings on Cream are entirely neutral. I don't like her that much, but I don't dislike her either. She feels like a nonfactor in the series overall, and thus I find her neither offensive nor particularly interesting. I feel she's a character they can't really do too much with anymore, and that she's shoehorned into titles just to fill a "cute kid" role.

I don't mind having Cream around, but she doesn't strike me as a terribly useful or interesting character.

Vanilla the Rabbit

Like Cream, but even less interesting or useful. She basically exists to provide backstory info for Cream. She's not a bad character, but she's a very plain and underdeveloped one- And one who at this point probably can't be developed any further, really.

Blaze the Cat

I was worried at first that Blaze was going to be "Shadow for girls." She started out as a moody loner much like Sonic's angsty look-a-like, but her development really took off in another direction. While she's still somewhat gruff, she's not insufferably standoffish and moody like a certain other character is, and has a far wider range of realistic emotions. Blaze is, as a result, a much more believable and likable character than Shadow in my mind, even if her stereotype (Moody loner who eventually learns to make friends) is largely the same.

Wave the Swallow

I feel like Wave is just "Rouge, but even more obnoxious" in personality. She has that same confrontational overconfidence, but cranked up to eleven, and with a focus on tech instead of jewelry. I'm no huge fan of the Bablyon Rogues to start with, as I find them all to be rather uninteresting characters, really. I'm not terribly bothered by Wave, but she feels superfluous.

Princess Elise

Some people hate her. Me? I find her (along with 2K6's other new characters Silver and Mephiles) dreadfully boring, far too much to actively dislike. When I saw Elise's concept art, I was hoping she'd be a fun character like Sera from the OVA. But that's not what we got, and I was very disappointed by her extravagantly forgettable personality. This character had amazing potential, but it was sadly wasted.

Shahrah

Shahrah was decent. Her involvement in Erazor's backstory fleshed the character out a bit, and she herself was likable enough in her brief appearance. She almost certainly won't reappear, though, so yeah.

Shade

I was really disinterested in Shade, and most of the new inventions of Chronicles in general. I doubt she'll appear in the future, though, so it's a moot point.

Merlina

A surprisingly decent non-Eggman villain, I suppose. I feel she could have been developed a bit more, but for what screentime she had, I liked her. Not like she'll ever appear again, but I thought she did well for the role she played.

And there were far too many entertaining female NPCs in Sonic Unleashed to do justice here, so I'll cut it off at that for now.

In terms of mainstream platformer playability, I feel Amy, Rouge, and Blaze probably have the best chance of getting decent playable roles- They all have a play style distinct from Sonic's, which- if properly used- could potentially provide a fun gameplay experience. We shall see, though, what's in store for them as far as playability goes.

[Rynnec]

Rouge the Bat

Such potential, ruined.

Rouge was an interesting character in Sonic Adventure 2. Greedy, adventurous, and independent, Rouge's characterization was very fun and fresh for the series at the time.

Her friendship with Shadow and Omega from Heroes onward, though, completely killed her character. You might say character development caused her to change for the better, but I find her personality insufferable now. She just follows Shadow around and supports absolutely everything he does- She's essentially been turned from an independent treasure hunter into Shadow's sidekick. Rouge's current portrayal doesn't interest me at all, and I find her character very boring as she is now.

Whoa there now. Rouge is practically the same character now that she was 9 years ago. Only now she actually has people she can interact with regularly. Keep in mind that the leader of Team Dark is Rouge not Shadow, if anything Shadow is her sidekick, not the other way around. And her sticking by Shadow's side just means that she's the type of person who wouldn't turn her back on her friends. Keep in mind that I'm not really that much a fan of Rouge.(I'm pretty neutral towards her in general.)

[The Weeb with No Name]

Apparently vaginas are overrated.

[123654]

I shouldn't have laughed, Jay. XD

I've always liked Amy, but they have got to develop her more. In Sonic Adventure she swore she'd become independent and make Sonic respect her. But in all subsequent games she went back to the way she was. I'm not saying she should stop pining after him, since that's always going to be a big part of her character. I just think it should be handled differently. As someone else said, stop playing it for comedy. She loves him and it'd be interesting if they took that aspect and used it in her development. The psycho stalker thing is getting old. Let her show that she loves Sonic in a way more constructive to her character.

I also like Rouge, but I feel her characterization in the post-SA2 3D games has been pretty bland. Personally I want them to develop her relationship with Knuckles which seems to have been all but completely forgotten about. Thankfully, I think games like Battle and Chronicles have done an OK job with her, but the same can't really be said for the console games.

Blaze is fine the way she is, except for her backstory plot hole. But as a character, she's fine. I love the way she's been handled. She's probably my favorite character in the series.

[Flyboy Fox]

I completely forgot about Blaze's backstory plothole mess. It would be nice to have some definitive answers on what's officially canon for her. What is generally considered canon? HAS Sega ever tried to repair it, or said anything officially?

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

I completely forgot about Blaze's backstory plothole mess. It would be nice to have some definitive answers on what's officially canon for her. What is generally considered canon? HAS Sega ever tried to repair it, or said anything officially?

So far, no.

Honestly, Blaze is a special case in that it would likely be better to forget the plothole even existed in the first place due to how big of a fuck up they did with it and how they officially erased the shit from ever happening.

Not that I would want to forget about Silver, but until they actually address the mess it's better off left with her being in an alternate dimension like she was at first.

[123654]

All her official profiles stick with her "princess from a parallel universe" backstory. Sega seems to be entirely ignoring her involvement in the 2006 game excluding a meta gag in the DS version of Colors where she and Silver talk about how it's almost like they've worked together before.

[JezMM]

If they ever bring back character selects of the sort from Sonic Advance, I'd love to see Amy just return as a "hard mode" for Sonic due to her lack of spin attack. That's what she was to me in Sonic Advance.

As for personality I hope her return to Heroes' craziness in Sonic Free Riders is just a stupid phase or bad writing. I loved that Unleashed portrayed her as a best friend to Sonic, crush or not, effectively replacing Knuckles for a much better trio of heroes if I say so myself (Chronicles went a similar route with emphasising her as the third most important character in a lot of "team" artwork).

Cream I love but I understand if she's never playable in a main game (portable or not). I find her cute but she was at her best in Sonic X where she could still be a good character without having to get involved in the action (and when she finally did it made for one of the best episodes in the series).

Blaze is fine, nothing to complain about her as a character, but yeah the plotholes are annoying (and only teased further by Rivals Silver and Rush Blaze appearing together in Sonic Colours DS - thankfully it's pretty easy to consider these appearences non-canon).

[Ultimate Victory]

All of them need to be canned accept Rouge and Blaze.

Amy Rose

Who actually likes this chick and she's overrated as far as a fandom whore goes.

Tikal

Pricess Leia aka furry echinda mess.

Rouge

She's one of the most badass female characters, she's like a furry Lara Croft meets Faye Valentine.

Cream

Boring and desperately cute.

Wave

Female featherfaggot tails rip off.

Blaze

Probably the coolest female after Rouge, IMO she needs to replace Amy as heroine. Amy is boring, her purpose is boring, and her overall character sucks. Blaze always makes it fun to be a girl(aka play as one), she's also a princess, that is so much better than being a fangirl.

Yeah the other chicks suck so I don't need to mention them.

Edited January 6, 2011 by Ultimate Victory

[Marcello]

How is Tikal Princess Leia? They're completely different.

[speedfreak]

I only need to play as Sonic.

[Flyboy Fox]

All of them need to be canned accept Rouge and Blaze.

Seriously? O.o

Amy Rose

Who actually likes this chick and she's overrated as far as a fandom whore goes.

Actually, she's probably the LEAST likely to be a whore. She has eyes for only one guy (; [/technicality]. But to answer that question, LOTS of people like Amy. I like Amy, even though I agree that she's a ridiculous walking stereotype and annoying beyond belief. In fact, that's WHY I like her. I don't feel she could just... disappear. There'd be a gaping black whole where all her... pinkness was before XD

Tikal

Pricess Leia aka furry echinda mess.

As opposed to a hot tranny mess? (SORRY SORRY /Project Runway). Tikal was useful for what she did. Unless we return to the events of Sonic Adventure to unlock more of that tribe's past, there's no need to use her again. However, it's most likely a non-issue as she appears to have been designed as a one-shot (two if you count SA2 multiplayer unlockable, but not really) character with a specific purpose for one game.

Rouge

She's one of the most badass female characters, she's like a furry Lara Croft meets Faye Valentine.

I'm not a fan of Rouge, so I can't really say, but I know plenty of people DO like her, so I guess she's got sticking power. Or... other useful assets (;

Cream

Boring and desperately cute.

I agree here. Except I don't find her to be cute at all =P Just irritating.

Wave

Female featherfaggot tails rip off.

Well, that's kind of the point. Jet is the arrogant Sonic rival, Wave is the tech-minded Tails rival, and Storm is the brute-strength Knux rival. They're created to be as similar as possible so that 1) the rivalry is fair and balanced and 2) you can have the same enjoyment/experience whichever side you chose to play, whilst effecting a different path.

Blaze

Probably the coolest female after Rouge, IMO she needs to replace Amy as heroine. Amy is boring, her purpose is boring, and her overall character sucks. Blaze always makes it fun to be a girl(aka play as one), she's also a princess, that is so much better than being a fangirl.

That's ridiculous. Blaze's character alone means that she can never 'replace' Amy. They fill completely different roles. Blaze is pretty cool, yes, but if she were to become a mainstay, she'd most closely be a rival for Knuckles' purpose/role in the series, not Amy's.

[Diogenes]

Keep in mind that the leader of Team Dark is Rouge not Shadow,

Let's look at Team Dark's major appearances since it was formed. In Heroes, Rouge finds Shadow (and Omega) at the start of the game and has them make friends. She then becomes essentially irrelevant to the story, as Shadow's amnesia and the issue of the Shadow androids steps up. Hell, even E-123 "DESTROY ALL" Omega has more story focus than her. ShtH, well, obviously Shadow's going to take the lead here; Rouge, like everyone else, is only there to serve Shadow's story. In '06, Shadow's story starts with him running in to save her, and then Mephy shows up and, once again, all the focus is on Shadow's problems, while Rouge is reduced to a cheerleader. She's the leader in name only; everything revolves around Shadow, with her just tagging along for moral support.

And her sticking by Shadow's side just means that she's the type of person who wouldn't turn her back on her friends.

I'm not saying she should completely abandon Shadow and Omega, but she should be able to act alone, for her own interests, in addition to supporting the team.

[azoo]

I'm indifferent towards all of this. Not because I have anything against female characters, but none of them are really worth playing as besides Blaze which is best left to only appear in stories related to alternate dimension mumbojumbo. Amy is best left as an NPC girl that best fits as a minor character, although admittedly playing as her in Sonic Advance 1 was really fun. Cream is boring as all mess, and with an irritating voice as well. I don't really like stories where government forces intertwine with Sonic stuff, and since Rouge is related to that, that means I can't really see a reason for her to recur all that often (minus the "lol mission briefing at Eggman's HQ" excuse).

Edited January 6, 2011 by Azukara

[Blue Blood]

I completely forgot about Blaze's backstory plothole mess. It would be nice to have some definitive answers on what's officially canon for her. What is generally considered canon? HAS Sega ever tried to repair it, or said anything officially?

Colours DS actually makes a mod to all of this. Blaze came from another dimension (and mentions Marine) whereas Silver travelled from the future. Someone says that they may have fought together somewhere and sometime.

[Glenn]

First up, huge apologies if my opinions cause offence. I don't mean this to be directed at anybody, at all, and none of this is any kind of personal attack.

But from where I stand, Amy Rose is pointless. *dodges rotten fruit* Seriously, I'd love her to have more meaning in the storylines of future games. I really hate the fact that I hate her, but she's just so one-dimensional in the videogames and it frustrates the heck out of me... because if there is going to be the "token girl" in a future main series Sonic title, you can bet it'll be Amy Rose. Other, better female characters like Blaze, Marine, Rouge and Wave will be overlooked in favour of Amy. And Amy desperately needs depth. She needs a point other than following Sonic around with a big hammer, whining about marriage. And yet she's rarely done anything but that. The only example where I can think of her being anything but an annoying groupie is Sonic Advance, where the happy lack of cutscenes made her just another playable sprite (and an interesting, challenging one at that).

Thanks to the Nintendo DS version of Sonic Colours, I doubt we'll ever see a third Sonic Rush. A huge shame, too, because when it comes to ladygirls, Blaze the Cat is the best of the best in Sonic's world. She had a mission, she had a point and, until the big conclusion in the first Sonic Rush, she had a storyline that didn't really require interaction on Sonic. Subsequently she was allowed to develop a character for herself. She isn't defined by "I want this" or "I like this" like so many other one-hit wonders, but rather has an attitude and behaviour that you can clearly associate with her and her alone. There was slight disappointment in Sonic Rush Adventure, when Blaze turned up and just became part of Sonic's storyline rather than being an independent cat, but that videogame also boasted the incredible Marine the Raccoon. So I can forgive it. Just.

Okay, so the alternate dimension is a weak story concept that should be avoided in the future. Perhaps there's some way of meeting "our" version of Blaze? And if there's an "our" version of Marine, too, that'd be fantastic as long as the basic characters remained true to their alternate selves. On that note, I would adore seeing a playable Marine.

Aside from developing Amy Rose to a tolerable level, the only other real chance is Rouge the Bat. She's definitely one of the more interesting characters because she's got a bad side. She is ultimately a thief, a huntress who is obsessed with jewels, and she won't do anything heroic unless there's a big shiny reward at the end (even when acting as a GUN agent, she's being paid in expensive diamonds). But she also cares about her friends, especially Shadow and Knuckles, and ultimately does the noble and right thing. So brilliantly, however, she hides her true feelings for Shadow and Knuckles behind a mask of teasing and flirting... like so many teenage girls in so many countries across the world. Perhaps that can be a failing, though. Rouge can be a greedy criminal in one scene and an upstanding GUN agent in the next. She can be cold and yet compassionate, too. Whether that's the fault of inconsistent writing or deliberate layering of her character, we'll never know. But it does give her some interesting room.

Rouge also has much to boast, gameplay-wise. Ultimately Blaze, in Sonic Rush, had the same moves as Sonic which just looked a bit different and were called different things (and goodness only knows what Marine's gameplay would be like). Amy Rose is slower and she gets a hammer to add to her combat moves, but otherwise we've seen all kinds of crazy ideas implemented for her, including invisibility in Sonic the Hedgehog (2006). She's massively hit-and-miss and I wouldn't be surprised if she ended up in a mech suit at some stage. Rouge, meanwhile, has some definite attributes. She can climb like Knuckles, fly like Tails and let's not forget, she's a bat... so where are the sonar-based moves?

Cream the Rabbit has, again, been inconsistent. I actually loved her introduction in Sonic Advance 2. She was another flight character but also had a more lethal, long-range attack in the form of Cheese. It was a great ability and felt really fresh, especially in the two-dimensional Sonic games. She has quickly, however, fallen into more routine gameplay styles. Straight away, she was demoted to a female Tails in Sonic Heroes, and her entire character seemed to centre around finding and/or caring for Cheese (much in the same way Big the Cat revolves around Froggy, only without the offensively small intelligence level). Since then, she's only really perked up in Sonic Rush, when she accompanied Blaze during her storyline and provided a friendly guide service. That helped to restore her character somewhat, but I'd want to see more refreshing gameplay on her part in the future, getting back to the energy of her appearance in Sonic Advance 2.

As for the others, well... Wave only ever shows up in one series, Sonic Riders, and gameplay across all characters in a racing videogame must be uniform. She's okay but clearly just making up the numbers and I felt her relationship with Tails, while not annoying, was quite an obvious rewrite of the Rouge/Knuckles arguments. Tikal? Anybody honestly think we'll see her again? Really?

That's my two pence, anyway. Like I said at the beginning, no offence is intended to any fans of any characters mentioned, and I'm sorry if that does happen all the same.

[DarkLight]

Colours DS actually makes a mod to all of this. Blaze came from another dimension (and mentions Marine) whereas Silver travelled from the future. Someone says that they may have fought together somewhere and sometime.

Why Sega thought it was good idea to reference an almost-universally hated game in Colors is beyond me.

Another thing that bothers me is what was the purpose of Amy in Unleashed anyway? I will acknowledge her portrayal was better than in most games, but the cutscenes with her could have been taken out and there would have been no difference.

[Kuzu]

Let's look at Team Dark's major appearances since it was formed. In Heroes, Rouge finds Shadow (and Omega) at the start of the game and has them make friends. She then becomes essentially irrelevant to the story, as Shadow's amnesia and the issue of the Shadow androids steps up. Hell, even E-123 "DESTROY ALL" Omega has more story focus than her. ShtH, well, obviously Shadow's going to take the lead here; Rouge, like everyone else, is only there to serve Shadow's story. In '06, Shadow's story starts with him running in to save her, and then Mephy shows up and, once again, all the focus is on Shadow's problems, while Rouge is reduced to a cheerleader. She's the leader in name only; everything revolves around Shadow, with her just tagging along for moral support.

I'm not saying she should completely abandon Shadow and Omega, but she should be able to act alone, for her own interests, in addition to supporting the team.

In both of those cases however the story was clearly focused around Shadow. In the other media where Team Dark appear Rouge is clearly the one taking charge(SFR, Archie). Its just a matter if Shadow is being a spotlight stealer or not, and in Heroes and 06 he arguably was that.

As for my view on the female characters..I think the only relelvant ones are Amy, Rouge, and Blaze everyone else either does crap(Cream, Elise), dead(Tikal), only appear in spinoffs or just uninteresting(Wave, Shade).

Amy needs to drop the stalker part of her personality, it was funny at first, but now its just annoying, because it shows up everywhere.

Like Diogenes, Rouge needs more moral ambiguity, and independent actions, because at this point she has become just Shadow's sidekick(Though in Colors DS, and SFR she seems to be getting better). And bring back her flirting with the other characters, because its one of the most hilarious moments I see in the franchise.

Blaze is pretty much the only one who still is good, though she hasn't been around as long as Amy, and Rouge have, and has only appeared in(technically) 3 games storywise.

Another thing that bothers me is what was the purpose of Amy in Unleashed anyway? I will acknowledge her portrayal was better than in most games, but the cutscenes with her could have been taken out and there would have been no difference.

There was that scene where she made Sonic sad by not recognizing him, it was small but it was signifigant for Sonic's character.

Edited January 6, 2011 by Shadic93

[DarkLight]

There was that scene where she made Sonic sad by not recognizing him, it was small but it was signifigant for Sonic's character.

[Kuzu]

That's called ship-tesing. Not nescessarily realvent to the story was it?

IT was both Ship Teasing, and a Hidden Depth to Sonic. Have you ever seen him get depressed like that? Especially when Amy runs from him, you'd think he'd be jumping for joy.

[Marcello]

It wasn't significant to the story, though. It just added depth. It could've easily been taken out without the story really suffering.