Does Sonic need more than these characters?

Does Sonic need more than these characters?

Nope.

I liked Shadow in Adventure 2. If he stayed dead I think people wouldn't hate him so much. It would have been better if they waited awhile until bringing him back. His game portrays him out of character but that's what he'll always be associated with sadly. Hopefully he's handled decently in Forces. The best thing for Sega to do right now is just have Taxman and his team make classic 2D games while Sonic Team makes 3D modern games with the same amount of care as Modern's stages in Generations.

>need
Definitely not.. I don't see the problem with more characters though so long as well implemented into whatever game they're in though.

>His game portrays him out of character
Getting the perfect ending kind of really fixes his character, but nobody acknowledges that.

Absolutely

No

Still the diversity of endings meant that Shadow lacked a solid and definite personality, unlike his portrayal in SA2, who was just more or less a lonely guy who was delusional into believing he wanted revenge but really wanted redemption. Not to mention, only one of those many endings are actually canon.

Remove Tails and everything is good.

I think Sonic Advance pulled off the "multiple characters" thing really well.
fuck the Amy redesign though.

Glad someone else can appreciate best sonic girl.

What's wrong with Tails?

You really only NEED Sonic and Eggman desu, but variety's good too.
Sonic's friends aren't an issue when they're actually playable and change up the gameplay without deviating too far from the core mechanics. Looking at you Big.

depends if silver sonic, mecha sonic, and egg robo count as characters

if not then thats probably enough maybe add more when they can think of other playstyles that compliment sonics physics.

Yeah, but all the marketing, the intro, and the forced cursing cemented his character in most peoples mind as being a extremely angry, murdering pyscho.

Yes he does you piece of shit, yes he does. Out of touch neckbearded virgin balding 40 year olds need to stop criticizing my Sonikku

>Classic Era
That isn't really a representation of it. Characters were added willy nilly even back then. The Chaotix, Bean, Bark, Fang, Mighty and Ray. They disappeared but they also popped back up too just the same as some modern ones.

Before someone points out these are the ones who reccuringly appeared consistently after their introduction, that eliminates Amy (CD, then Fighters) and Metal(CD, Fighters, Chaotix) who aren't in Sonic 3 or Sonic and Knuckles (unless you count Mecha Sonic, which you shouldn't, because now Metal Sonic should then be considered Silver Sonic, which he isn't).

If you include those who make one main console platformer appearance and then multiple misc appearances then Espio (Chaotix, Fighters), should be there as well, and really if you get really meticulous about whether it's a platformer and who did what, there goes Amy because she wasn't even vital to anything until Adventure.

So to answer your question, OP, no.
Sonic doesn't really need anything outside of better direction with whatever it does or does not include. There is no real necessary or essential cast. You can even make games sans appearing or playable Sonic as Tails, Knuckles and Shadow demonstrate.

And just look at Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric as an example where we have this imagined " classic core cast" as the main ones there and they're poorly utilized in the "game" and the "story". There is no reductionist fix to directing these games.

Saying all that, there'd better be fucking Chao returning at some point.

There's nothing inherently wrong with Sonic's extended cast, just the way they're used.

>Does Sonic need more than these characters?

>no bat tats
>no eggman

???

Technically it doesn't "need" any more than Sonic and Eggman. Having more characters was never the issue, having garbage characters was.

This!

>Eggman is right there
>Implying Rouge is relevant

Drop Metal Sonic.

>Sonic: The hero, the title character, the one who does everything, the world's fastest supersonic hedgehog.
>Eggman: The genius archnemesis.
>Tails: The best friend, gadgeteer genius, flying thing. Grants Sonic some semblance of social contact.
>Knuckles: Previously a rival, now a friend, probably because the idea of him defeating Sonic is laughable at best. Further expands Sonic's social circle.
>Amy: A stalker. Provided absolutely nothing of value until Sonic Advance where she actually had some interesting gameplay mechanics. Since then, she's returned to being pointless since all she ever really does is stalk Sonic.
>Metal Sonic: Created to be a worthy adversary to Sonic. Is anything but. With each new appearance, it becomes more and more pathetic, desperate to defeat Sonic in any way it can and failing miserably every time. Its entire character (when it's allowed to have one) is its sheer desperation in achieving its futile, fruitless goal. If it could actually talk for more than one game, it might have a halfway decent character. As it is, it's honestly just another tool.
>Big: Provides absolutely nothing of value, has basically faded away into obscurity.
>Shadow: An actual worthy adversary to Sonic, fulfilling the role that Metal Sonic couldn't.
>Rouge: Was something of a foil to Knuckles, though that aspect of her character has since largely faded away. Now she exists to be the closest thing Shadow has to a best friend.
>Blaze: A surprisingly ideal foil to Sonic, creating a rather interesting balance between the two.
>Team Chaotix: Comic relief.
>E-123 Omega: Is essentially the successor to the E-100 series robots.
>Silver: Worthless.

Metal Sonic is actually kinda interesting. In comics, OVA and TV shows, it's consistently shown as a major threat at best and worthy adversary at worst whenever it appears. In the games, however, it just comes off as sad, depressing and ineffective at any of its attempts. Sonic himself barely seems to remember it exists.

Thats Robotnik you faggot

Where's the Eggman user?

Not at all. Mind you I do like Sonic's friends, but these six characters alone could carry the entire series themselves. Also can we get rid of Iizuka as a director? That'd be great.

Would like to see another Mania with either

>Knuckles Chaotix gimmick with better levels
Or
>Shadow, who has ice skating physics but in exchange can teleport

You need tits the bat at least.

Sex sells.

Shadow are Rogue are fine if done like SA2 characterization. Would like to see them in a Mania game with different characters out the ass

This. From the modern characters I only like Blaze.

You don't """need""" anybody you fucking classicfag retard.

Not even Sonic, you could make a perfectly good game about Knuckles by himself.

But it IS desirable to have more characters than your status quo of twenty fucking years ago, you nostalgic moron.

...

Shadow, ez pz
The rubber band thing is inherently dumb.

Reminder that knuckles chaotix is good and fucking kino

Mecha sonic
Vector
Gamma
Big the cat

>Knuckles Chaotix sequel
I'd rather just have Espio and Vector be playable in a potential Mania 2. The ring system in itself is flawed and annoying.

>Mecha Sonic

Why do people like this one again? It doesn't even fulfill the one qualification of being a robot duplicate of Sonic: going fast.

Yes, if you don't plan on making the same game over and over again for 20 years.

He's cool looking

>Adventurefag furry mad that OP is right
It's called character bloat, faggot.

I think Shadow can be cool as long as he's either being used as a deliberate contrast to Sonic, or if he's competing against Sonic or something. He's an ideal archrival, but he's never utilized for that purpose anymore. And unlike Metal Sonic, he never really comes off as weak and ineffective, and exudes just as much confidence as Sonic does.

Agreed. Best special stages in the series.

>main cast
>OG Chaotix
>Team Hooligans
that's all there should be. rest is post-adventure era trash
pic related

It doesn't matter what meme name you call it, that doesn't make it correct.

Individual games may have too many characters. Most probably won't since that is a pretty autistic concept that relies on the idea that each character must have a specific role and attention quota rather than just showing up and servicing the story//protagonist and then getting lost like in any other kind of media.

A series cannot have character bloat. Characters appear, then they disapear, it doesn't matter. Clinging ridiculously to a small set of specific characters because of status quo instead of using characters as they're needed is fucking retarded and always leads to character rot.

lmao we sure do NEED Big and Gamma! I liked Gamma's story, but it has almost nothing to do with the plot.

Sonic can have as many characters as sega wants.
Just don't shove in 400 half baked gameplay styles.

You could easily make an argument that it literally doesn't need anything more than Sonic himself, and arguably Tails/Eggman.

But if you're gonna pair it down to bare fucking basics then yeah that's not a bad list. Get rid of Metal Sonic though. He's cool but I mean, Eggman's always building shit. He's had robot sonics before and afterwards, if he wasn't so popular in the fanbase he'd have just been another one in the line.

The cast in the OP is more than enough for main appearances. I'd include Shadow and Blaze as well. Beyond that, everyone else isn't mandatory or can straight up be removed from existence.

>femhog
it was all down hill from threre. glad she wasn't included in Mania.

fpbp
this OC cancer needs to go and stay go.

I bet she'll cameo somewhere

Yes. Of course.
Flicky, Picky, Ricky, Rocy, Cucky, etc
More new animals for each games
New badniks
New robotic bosses
Some side-characters for very small roles, like Amy, are fine. Like the Sonic Band just for the sound test, or Madonna for something.
But for MAIN characters, you only need Sonic the Hedgehog and Dr. Eggman. Miles and Knuckles are just a welcomed bonus.

*unsheathes katana*
I'll remove YOU from existence first, user. Heh.

There are no characters that the franchise needs. Not even Sonic and Eggman. There have been games centering around characters other than Sonic, and there have been games where characters other than Eggman have been the main villain. The franchise "needs" any character that works with whatever game they want to make at any given time. The franchise has enough variety in characters that they should not think of only making one Sonic game every two or three years or whatever, but expanding the game's world into multiple sub-series like Nintendo did with Mario/Donkey Kong/Yoshi/Wario/etc.

>it was all down hill from there
*blocks your path*

They just need to give the ones they already have bigger titties.

>sonic team will never make more sonic advance sequels
the advance trilogy was the only time any of sonic's friends were interesting or useful.

Curiously, this was a thing occurring in the '90s, to an extent.

Sonic had his games.
Tails had two titles on Game Gear (only one of them is actually good)
Knuckles got a title on the 32X.
Robotnik got a re-skinned Puyo Puyo, because SoA wasn't sure it'd localize well over here.

I'd include Cabletrunks the Hedgehog as an occasional appearance, he'd be one of the better Sonic characters if he wasn't inexorably linked to what is objectively the worst mainline Sonic game bar none, if only because it's pretty much impossible to fuck up Future Trunks as a character.

>the edgehog
can't think a a better example of everything wrong with modern sonic plots

>can't think a a better example of everything wrong with modern sonic plots
Are you stuck 10 years in the past, user? Sonic hasn't been edgy garbage in forever.

I'd argue Nack, but that's really about it.

Everyone introduced after 1994 never needs to return.

>tfw we could have got a 3D Knuckles game but got Shadow the Hedgehog instead
Still hurts, thanks a lot fanbase.

Shadow was perfectly fine in SA2, he wasn't even all that edgy, just an antagonistic science experiment seeking revenge. The problem was they brought him back and flanderized him into the stupid edgy bullshit he's known for today.

She was okay.

>We will never get a Robotnik the Scientist game

Metal Sonic at the end of Sonic Heroes looked a hell of a lot like Mecha Sonic and it pissed me off that they didn't just merge them together at that point canonically.

This. As much as I don't care for Shadow I think he was handled pretty well in SA2. The problem was that they didn't keep him dead like they were originally going to.

Everything you said is pretty much irrelevant.

The only characters added "willy nilly" to the series before Sonic & Knuckles were Mighty the Armadillo or Ray the Flying Squirrel in the arcade game.

Everyone else (save for Fang) was introduced to the series in 95 or afterwards, which is after the classic series (1, 2, 3, K, and sometimes CD) was released.

So it's much less that they've been adding characters since the beginning, and much more that 1995 was the beginning of TOO MANY FUCKING CHARACTERS.

Now I'm really upset, thanks.

>a real time strategy where you need to prevent the freedom fighters from destroying your base

>Everyone introduced after 1994 never needs to return.
>Big needs to return
>Cream and Cheese need to return
>Silver needs to return
>Jet, Wave and Storm need to return
>Chip needs to return
>that human girl from sonic 06 needs to return
>Amy needs to return

I really like metal sonic

>freedom fighters
Who?

Amy is 93 bro

How did you quote it right, but read it wrong?

>Need
not unless it's a spinoff
Also Metal Sonic, though rad, is not essential. As lost world showed, Knux and Amy are also expendable

Don't mind others for spinoffs and the like. Advance games make a good argument for Cream being main cast material

I like him too but he's basically spent now since Sonic Heroes

Characters from 1994 and before, in order of conception:

Sonic
Eggman
Metal Sonic
Amy
Tails
Ray
Mighty
Knuckles
Fang

Every other character is after, and they're mostly shit.

Bean and Bark are cool though.

I think they could go back to him being self-aware. Change the costume though, the crotch guard and butt cape look pretty dumb.
Kind of a shame we never saw him doing anything in that form.

He is self-aware. He's motivated primarily by his desperation and inferiority complex. He created a long and convoluted plan just to challenge Sonic to a board race, just so that he could say that he beat Sonic in SOMETHING.

>and much more that 1995 was the beginning of TOO MANY FUCKING CHARACTERS.
In your opinion

This idea you can narrow down some cast cut off point, that also just happens to meet your preference, is nonsense.
The absence or presence of any particular character or number of characters, "1994"ers or otherwise, has never been vital.

Games like Rush, Unleashed, Colors and Generations function just fine with the secondary characters being just that or barely appearing at all emphasis, function. Nitpicks about the games or gameplay essentially have nothing really to do with the cast address nothing..

the canon group of furry faggots who devoted their lives to fighting eggman

Need to learn how to use all of them well first

>that human girl from sonic 06 needs to return
Well none of that happened, so there's no reason for a return.

True, but I mean the whole "taking matters into his own hands" thing. He seems mostly obedient besides that last Riders game.
I would like to see him go over the edge again. It feels kinda bad that he doesn't get anything interesting considering most of Sonic's other rivals do.

No point.

I think their biggest issue is trying to put too many characters into a single game. They haven't done it for a while, but it seems they will be with Forces.

Personally, I'd say limit each game to no more that three playable characters and any additional characters should be only there if required by the story. That is, stop shoe-horning in Chaotix.
I'd also be happy if Knuckles didn't show up unless he was playable or story-centric. They've dropped his Guardian of the Master Emerald shtick something fierce since Adventure.

There was a lot of wasted opportunity of Shadow and Metal Sonic to have meaningful interaction of what it means to be a rival and live in Sonic's shadow (oops) all the time

Yes

...

>This idea you can narrow down some cast cut off point, that also just happens to meet your preference, is nonsense.

It's easy. Every character released after the last classic game is shit.

The only thing the secondary characters did in Generations was constantly chime in during the final boss fight and get a quip in when you beat their level. Would've been a holistically better experience without them.
Not that I'm arguing against Sonic's friends, but they need a reason for actually being there.
Did Shadow have a point?

>knuckles
>tails
>metal sonic
>good

>bee
>armadillo
>teakettle
>good

That's because, when you get right down to it, he's just a robot. He doesn't even have a sophisticated A.I. like Orbot and Cubot do. All he can do is try to fulfill his original objective in any way he can.

Shadow's not trapped in Sonic's shadow. He's got far too much confidence in himself for that, and he's the second-most popular character in the franchise.

Mostly agree but you forgot Egg Robo

Sonic's cast should go like this

Friends
>Tails
>Amy
>Cream

Rivals
>Shadow
>Knuckles
>Blaze

Allies
>Rouge
>Silver
>Team Chaotix

Enemies
>Eggman
>Metal Sonic

That's it. This is what the main cast should always be aside from new characters from new games or spinoffs that stay exclusive to those games, like the Babylon Rogues.

And the best thing about this cast is that every single character has been playable at some point in time so they each have their own distinct gameplay styles. So if SEGA ever wanted to make any of them playable again, they already know how to do it, except Sonic who they can't even decide if he should Spin Dash or Boost.

It's weird that Adventure portrayed him as guarding the Master Emerald 24/7 when in 3&K he just hid it in Hidden Palace Zone. Him being a treasure hunter was a big part of his character back then too, which wouldn't really make sense if he just sat at the altar all day.

>>bee
>>armadillo
>>teakettle
>>good
The image labels them as okay for spin-offs, not flat out good.