Too many new sonic characters?

[Angro66]

I think sega are making too many new sonic characters. They are making a new one for almost every game. I want to know if anyone agrees with me so post what you think here.

[GrooveMan.exe]

You say that; but you also have Shadow in your avatar; who is often considered one of the unecessary Sonic character additions.

You uh, didn't think this through too hard, did you?

[Rakia]

I think all sonic characters are unnecessary.
Hit me with your fanboy flames!

[Badassbill]

Ever seen the TV series' or read the comics? There's all ready a shit-storm of characters.

[Flare]

I wouldn't call Shadow useless, but he did his job and instead of going they put him back. They should just kept him in things such as party games where there needs to be no real story to why hes there.

Useless character = Blaze.
What is her point?!?!?! She has no real need to be from where ever she is and she took the worst character of them all with her, Nega Eggman.

If the characters have a role then fine, but then again, characters who had roles, such as Rouge and Knuckles just seem to follow Sonic now. God SA2 Knuckles wasn't even really part of Sonic's cutscene til he need to be, now he is with Sonic at the start, what kind a loner and protector of the ME starts his story with people and away from his job.

[mozzy]

They all look like recolors to me.

[kyrtuck]

I haven't played any of the new new games, but yeah, Silver, Blaze, Elsie, the Babylon Rogues, Nega, all looked stupid. I think we've covered this topic someplace else....

By the way, how come no one complains about the Mario series having too many characters? They have their share of pointless characters.

[DarkWalnut]

Let's put it this way...
The pointless characters have SOME point.
I mean, they can look useless, but at one point or another they do something useful.
Take Shadow (as used in this topic) for instance:
Sonic Adventure Battle 2. Wouldn't have been a game without him.
I mean... The spin-offs were EXTREMELY pointless...
But none the less, he had a point.

[Flare]

Thats my point, they bring in characters to serve the point but they keep them long after that. And the reason Mario can get away with lots of characters is that;

You don't need to play as them, unless for party games.
They don't have irritating voices.
They are either background or story characters that don't get in the way of the actual game.

For example, in Galaxy we had Rosalina's story which was an extra and really she just appeared to say, hey look you are collecting stars, now if it was a Sonic game, the story would be forced upon you, you would hear her talk to you during levels and at some point she will either be in a level or you play as her.

In Sonic Rush Adventure, what they did with Marine was good, she was there, she served as purpose in the plot, and she hasn't returned to the series.

Where as, Shadow, is a prime example of how wrong the writing staff are when it comes to games. He is a great part of the story and he dies, this is not just a good twist but emotional side to Sonic. Its a "hey look Sonic is not just for kids" and then... he comes back to the story with a half assed story to explain why he survived, and then they change his story around, and show that no matter how good the characters are Sonic Team can still muck them up.

[Flare]

But the ones get stick for being recolours, are hedgehogs, so of course they follow Sonic's hedgehog design. Its like saying that all humans looks the same and just have different hair styles and clothes.

If they had a small fat hedgehog, people would just say its classic Sonic re-coloured.
They can't win with new character's designs especially when people then put Mighty on a pedestal of character design brilliance and we all know how lazy Sega were when they sprited him.

[Codestar]

How to make a new sonic character:

step 1: add moar spikes.
step 2: Give character an over complicated story.
step 3: flying is a must.
step 4: rinse and repeat.

[Alpha Six]

god dammit why can everyone fly in this game but me?

"and so sonic learned that he blows ass because all he has is that crappy-ass spinning air strike move that sucks balls. THE END"

that's why

[DioShiba]

Where as, Shadow, is a prime example of how wrong the writing staff are when it comes to games. He is a great part of the story and he dies, this is not just a good twist but emotional side to Sonic. Its a "hey look Sonic is not just for kids" and then... he comes back to the story with a half assed story to explain why he survived, and then they change his story around, and show that no matter how good the characters are Sonic Team can still muck them up.

It'd probably be vice versa if the Dreamcast wasn't discontinued. If I recall correctly Sonic Unleashed was supposed to be a sonic adventure 3, but considdering that the PS2 was discontinued, they ended up in a shithole for the Dreamcast, ended up becoming third party and started to make rather crappy games for the Sonic Series, Then started experimenting with them with the series because they thought we got bored with playing the same thing.

But then again know sega as they are there rather pretty sutpid nowadays, and there were like that during when the dreamcast came to an end. Because they ended up not thinking when they were trying to save the DC from being discontinued.

[Flare]

SU wasn't supposed to be a SA3, they just said thats how they described it as during development. I doubt SA3 would exist, its not like they didn't have chance to do it on the GC, considering they re-released SA2 there.

[Dragon Tamer♂ Sir Repiteo]

god dammit why can everyone fly in this game but me?

"and so sonic learned that he blows ass because all he has is that crappy-ass spinning air strike move that sucks balls. THE END"

that's why

I could of sworn I read that somewhere else.

But on topic: The Sonic series does use a bunch of characters and are somtimes just revamped ideas of old characters. However, the Mario series is kinda is doing that too; mainly in Mario Kart. (Baby Luigi, Baby Peach, Baby Daisy, Dry Bones, Toadette, Dry Bowser, etc...)