Also...
And it was confirmed that this is separate from the animation with Knuckles.
Sonic The Hedgehog
- Thread starter Paladin
- Start date
Also...
And it was confirmed that this is separate from the animation with Knuckles.
I beat Sonic Adventure 2: Battle and it's interesting to look at things compared to decades ago when I beat SA2. I had forgotten all of the game's music except for Escape From the City. While Keys the Ruin (the theme of Pyramid Cave) quickly became a favorite, I was shocked at how much I liked Rogue's themes. It's not a "grew into it" since I already liked this kind of jazz when the original game released. Also, while the SA1 version of Unknown From M.E. is one of my favorite Sonic songs, I might like the raw instrumental of the SA2 version slightly more.
Despite not being playable, they really did try to make Amy part of the plot. One of the bigger standouts is the "story scenes", the text and narration that plays when you come back to a level after turning the game off (or game over), that plays for the Last Story are narrated by Amy. And in the story scene for the Biolizard fight, Shadow explicitly thanks Amy for jogging his memory. That's something else. SA2 has holes in its story that diehards don't admit but the story scenes smooth out a couple of them if you back out to watch them.
I mostly like this game but I really hate the camera. I also dislike quirks to the homing attack. Made the Biolizard fight a pain. I'm technically not scared of heights but these two factors made Final Rush severely vertigo inducing.
Despite not being playable, they really did try to make Amy part of the plot. One of the bigger standouts is the "story scenes", the text and narration that plays when you come back to a level after turning the game off (or game over), that plays for the Last Story are narrated by Amy. And in the story scene for the Biolizard fight, Shadow explicitly thanks Amy for jogging his memory. That's something else. SA2 has holes in its story that diehards don't admit but the story scenes smooth out a couple of them if you back out to watch them.
I mostly like this game but I really hate the camera. I also dislike quirks to the homing attack. Made the Biolizard fight a pain. I'm technically not scared of heights but these two factors made Final Rush severely vertigo inducing.
Amy got as far as Prison Island without help. At no point while playing the game did I wonder how she did that. She is genuinely capable when she gets determined.
I really hate that they gave that to Chris in Sonic X.
I'm not even a Chris hater, I just hate that.
Helen would have made a better protag, though.
I'm not as mad at it as I probably should be but I was spoiled on few things in Sonic X before I watched it so I was prepared for a few things. But for the SA2 adaptation, I liked that they had Sonic's cell underwater since it added more emphasis to Amy rescuing him. And yes, Helen would've been better as a protagonist than Chris.
But as far as Amy, it's interesting, if sometimes disappointing, to see the way she gets regarded both in and out of game. I think the analysis I like the best about her is this:
Unlike the overwhelming majority of character analyses out there, this one actually acknowledges the out of game factors that affect her writing and portrayals. A portion of which was simply misogyny. I think the call out that she's been around so long but never been second lead stands out.
I think things have changed for the better for Amy with the overall difference in gaming culture and different people in Sega and Sonic Team. The current Sonic social media manager's favorite characters are Tails and Amy. There's just an overall more varied online voice than just speedrunners who think characters who aren't Sonic are useless.
As far as personal thoughts, I always found Amy fun in Sonic Adventure but found that Sonic Advance cemented her playstyle and mostly smoothed out the issues. My Sweet Passion is one of my favorite Sonic songs but there's an intriguing contrast when put up against Follow Me from Sonic Heroes. While Follow Me is not in my favorite genre, the lyrics have a decidedly different tone. My Sweet Passion gives off a vibe of chasing your obsession, while Follow Me gives off a vibe of being secure in your love and willing to do anything for them. Whether intentional or not, it gives off a feeling of progression.
But as far as Amy, it's interesting, if sometimes disappointing, to see the way she gets regarded both in and out of game. I think the analysis I like the best about her is this:
Unlike the overwhelming majority of character analyses out there, this one actually acknowledges the out of game factors that affect her writing and portrayals. A portion of which was simply misogyny. I think the call out that she's been around so long but never been second lead stands out.
I think things have changed for the better for Amy with the overall difference in gaming culture and different people in Sega and Sonic Team. The current Sonic social media manager's favorite characters are Tails and Amy. There's just an overall more varied online voice than just speedrunners who think characters who aren't Sonic are useless.
As far as personal thoughts, I always found Amy fun in Sonic Adventure but found that Sonic Advance cemented her playstyle and mostly smoothed out the issues. My Sweet Passion is one of my favorite Sonic songs but there's an intriguing contrast when put up against Follow Me from Sonic Heroes. While Follow Me is not in my favorite genre, the lyrics have a decidedly different tone. My Sweet Passion gives off a vibe of chasing your obsession, while Follow Me gives off a vibe of being secure in your love and willing to do anything for them. Whether intentional or not, it gives off a feeling of progression.
I think some of the initial blowback on Amy is that early on she had this '80's webby (from Ducktales) 'tag-along' vibe to her; where it feels she only really exists to try to get girls interested because girls aren't interested in boy stuff. Though Sonic adventure is certainly the start of her feeling more like a character and not just 'corporately mandated girl' wither that was the intention or not of her creation. Modern Amy is very much Sonic's equal, and not just some damsel to be saved. She just as competent as the guys, maybe more so in some situations. I would totally love a game with her in a prominent playable role.
Wasn't she one of the playable characters in sonic boom?
Yeah, Boom Amy was great. Probably my favorite version, TBH.
And FWIW, the 3DS Boom game Fire & Ice is good, or at the very least decent. It won't blow you away, but it has some cutscenes that seem more reminiscent of the show than the console game, and if you like platforming and/or Sonic, I find it's sort of a good "comfort food" game.
...I have the first one, Shattered Crystal, but have yet to play it. Got it some time later.
And FWIW, the 3DS Boom game Fire & Ice is good, or at the very least decent. It won't blow you away, but it has some cutscenes that seem more reminiscent of the show than the console game, and if you like platforming and/or Sonic, I find it's sort of a good "comfort food" game.
...I have the first one, Shattered Crystal, but have yet to play it. Got it some time later.
So, I've finished Satam and it's an interesting experience. I can easily see why it was so beloved but the flaws show when viewed with fresh eyes. Perhaps blasphemously, I found that I enjoyed Sonic Underground more. Though it's fascinating to see just what the differences in worldbuilding, nigh apocalypse vs dystopia, and Robotnik's tone alter things. The theme song felt oddly underwhelming though I still liked it. I thought I recalled the official version being more impactful but perhaps I listened to a remaster of the original theme.
I liked Bunnie the most so it was a pity that she fell so hard into the background in Season 2. Even outside of my annoyance of underusing Tails until the last three episodes, I felt what she offered was underutilized. While she gets to be the cool, superstrength cyborg, there's brief moments early on where the problems get pointed out. Antoine, of all characters, manages to accidentally pull her arm off. Bonnie has extended limbs but they can lock up. And she's got underlying psychological damage that the show didn't really acknowledge with Uncle Chuck. What really interested me is what it made me think of and it seemed like the comic writers post "throw Ken Penders characters into a portal" wave were also thinking in that her origin was changed from incomplete roboticization to (sci fi) prosthetics from surviving an Eggman attack. It's a parallel not really shared by others in the mainline franchise.
Well, now I just have to finish out Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog and then I'll recap my thoughts on each series.
I liked Bunnie the most so it was a pity that she fell so hard into the background in Season 2. Even outside of my annoyance of underusing Tails until the last three episodes, I felt what she offered was underutilized. While she gets to be the cool, superstrength cyborg, there's brief moments early on where the problems get pointed out. Antoine, of all characters, manages to accidentally pull her arm off. Bonnie has extended limbs but they can lock up. And she's got underlying psychological damage that the show didn't really acknowledge with Uncle Chuck. What really interested me is what it made me think of and it seemed like the comic writers post "throw Ken Penders characters into a portal" wave were also thinking in that her origin was changed from incomplete roboticization to (sci fi) prosthetics from surviving an Eggman attack. It's a parallel not really shared by others in the mainline franchise.
Well, now I just have to finish out Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog and then I'll recap my thoughts on each series.
Yup, that's blasphemy, alright. Everyone get your torches ready!
Naw, seriously, I can't be objective about this. And it's been YEARS since I've seen Underground, so I barely remember most of it. It's..."possible"...that Underground is the more fun show. I guess. *grumble*
There's actually a long story about that. (A long story...about the Archie comic?....I know I'm surprised, too.)
In Sonic Super Special 11 (October 1999) Bunnie's roboticized limbs started to malfunction. She has a choice about either replacing her roboticized limbs with purely robotic ones (which can NEVER be de-roboticized) or attempt de-roboticization at the risk of her life. She chooses to replace her original limbs with robotic ones, so she can continue the fight. This was probably to give Bunnie some agency and control over her own destiny. And a excuse for a re-design.
In Sonic the Hedgehog 129 (October 2003), a alien race called the Bem have a contest to see which is superior, robotic or organic lifeforms. This leads to the de-roboticization of all the Robians on Mobius. And roboticization is actually rendered impossible from then onward due to a special energy field. Which was a way to get Eggman/Robotnik to create more classic robots like in the games. Bunnie remains the same due to her artificial limbs.
Later in Sonic the Hedgehog 232 (December 2011), Ixis Naugus used his magic on Bunnie and accidentally magically restored her organic limbs, while trying to prove he deserved to be the new king of the Mobians.
Eventually, Antoine, her-then husband, was put into a coma. And in Sonic Universe 48 (January 2013) Bunnie went on a journey to get her robotic limbs BACK again, to be more useful in fights, from some former Dark Legion members lead by her uncle(Knuckles' enemies from his comic).
Then the Super Genesis Wave happened and reset continuity. In this version of events, Bunnie is injured by Robotnik's attack and Uncle Chuck used a experimental roboticizer to save her life. It's not Robotnik's roboticizer anymore, but she still had to replace her roboticized limbs with artificial ones, even in this new continuity. This is revealed in Sonic the Hedgehog 255 (December 2013) and GREATLY expanded upon in "Sonic Comic Origins-The Belle in the Machine" from Sonic Super Digest Special 9 (October 2014), and this is where she actually has to train up her body to use the artificial limbs. And that remained the status quo until Archie lost the license.
Simple, right?
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Part 1 dropped. Some of the lines are bringing back memories.
Going back to the topic of Amy, SA1 was clearly a step in the right direction, but I feel like it may have been a bigger step than it gets credit for. It has notable issues, but on paper they got a lot right.
She is 100% the protagonist of her own story, not a tag-along. She is briefly involved in Sonic's story, but her own story begins and ends separately. It just intersects at a point.
This game was the start of better things for her, but could also be looked at as a partial retroactive fix. The other characters don't pay much attention to Amy's story. Sonic is barely aware of what she's doing, and doesn't realize the importance. Maybe it's disappointing how she's regarded in-game. But it does (possibly deliberately) give us an opportunity to wonder, has she been doing important things in the background this whole time and the other characters just never noticed? That's how Tails was treated in the Fleetway comics, so I could see it.
She was a literal game changer in Gamma's story. Relatedly...
She may not have actually needed Sonic and Tails to rescue her. She was already long out of her cell by the time they found her. Robotnik wasn't even surprised. Has she been a secret thorn in his side this whole time?
She is 100% the protagonist of her own story, not a tag-along. She is briefly involved in Sonic's story, but her own story begins and ends separately. It just intersects at a point.
This game was the start of better things for her, but could also be looked at as a partial retroactive fix. The other characters don't pay much attention to Amy's story. Sonic is barely aware of what she's doing, and doesn't realize the importance. Maybe it's disappointing how she's regarded in-game. But it does (possibly deliberately) give us an opportunity to wonder, has she been doing important things in the background this whole time and the other characters just never noticed? That's how Tails was treated in the Fleetway comics, so I could see it.
She was a literal game changer in Gamma's story. Relatedly...
She may not have actually needed Sonic and Tails to rescue her. She was already long out of her cell by the time they found her. Robotnik wasn't even surprised. Has she been a secret thorn in his side this whole time?
I saw some Sonic 2 toys. It really took a long time before movie Sonic toys appeared. Odd but ok.
I've seen some earlier.
Saw that Classic Sonic and Tails diorama pack the other day, too, but $30 (at a discount!) just felt like too much.
Pity, as I'd really like those figures, since they scale well with the Mecha Sonic figure... better than the others in similar packaging, at that!
Saw that Classic Sonic and Tails diorama pack the other day, too, but $30 (at a discount!) just felt like too much.
Pity, as I'd really like those figures, since they scale well with the Mecha Sonic figure... better than the others in similar packaging, at that!
An interesting thing about Amy is her original fortune reading. It said she would have a "destined encounter". She assumed it would a knight in shining armor/true love but I once saw someone make the suggestion that the destined encounter was to kickstart her own heroics. In SA1, she recalls her flashback as "chasing bad guys and blowing them away" as opposed to getting kidnapped and being rescued.
It's also worth noting how opposing forces in the Adventure games view her. While we never see a wanted poster like we do with Tails, GUN said "you three" in regards to being under arrest. For a while the military was willing to treat her as the same relative threat as the series protagonist and the the kid in the mech. Eggman is about to attack her on Prison Island until Tails jumps in and he outright points a gun at her head late game. He's not taking any chances.
It's also worth noting how opposing forces in the Adventure games view her. While we never see a wanted poster like we do with Tails, GUN said "you three" in regards to being under arrest. For a while the military was willing to treat her as the same relative threat as the series protagonist and the the kid in the mech. Eggman is about to attack her on Prison Island until Tails jumps in and he outright points a gun at her head late game. He's not taking any chances.