How to fix the Sonic characters part 1: Shadow

WARNING: Some SPOILERS, though not many. Small SPOILERS.

Well, I was recently thinking about how to make better Sonic games (not saying that Sonic games are becoming bad, just saying that there are a few bad points) and I decided to make a mini-series: how to fix Sonic characters, or make them better. My first is Shadow the Hedgehog.

Who is Shadow the Hedgehog?

... Wow. I don't think I need this section, but I'll do it anyway. Shadow the Hedgehog is a black hedgehog, and the only living being who can keep up with Sonic. In his debut, Sonic Adventure 2 for the Dreamcast, he was a dark, mysterious hedgehog discovered by Dr. Ivo Robotnik. In this game, he is "The Ultimate Life form". If you have played Sonic Adventure 2 or its Gamecube port, Sonic Adventure 2: Battle, you know how awesome he was. Keyword: WAS. Now, he is perceived as an emo Sonic re-color. This was strengthened in his game, Shadow the Hedgehog.

How was he ruined?

Shadow was ruined in a number of ways.

1. He is now perceived an emo re-color of Sonic by some people.

2. His voice actor doesn't sound at all as he should.

3. He is, apparently, a G.U.N. agent (despite the fact that he was numero uno on their hit list in SA2).

4. He doesn't look right. Below is a picture of what he looked like in his debut. Under that is his most recent 3-D appearance. Please don't tell me I'm the only one who spots the difference.





5. His personality is more of a good guy, he is no longer going solo as much.

How can SEGA make him batter?

It actually won't be too hard to make this character better.

1. Only biased people actually think this.

2. Get him a darker, more evil sounding voice actor, or try to get his old one back.

3. Make him go on a rampage, getting him out of G.U.N.

4. Go back to something atleast close to his old appearance.

5. Have him attack Sonic and co., then do what I said he should do for the G.U.N. problem.

Thoughts?

The thing is there are two phases of Sonic's life, before Sonic Adventure and after Sonic adventure. If you look back through the games in Sonic's history, SA had more major changes than simply the jump to 3D.

First look at the characters.

Sonic:

Before After

Sonic was rounder, shorter and had dark eyes. When Adventure released Sonic got taller, his hair got longer. His eyes turned green and buckles were added to his shoes. Adventure was also when he officially started talking as well as the rest of the characters.

Amy Rose

Before After

It's hard to find a good pic of the old Amy. Also this will upset some fans but Amy has actually been around longer than Knuckles as Sonic CD came out a year before Sonic 3. Still when Amy first appeared, she was essentially Sonic painted pink with a dress and not overly prominent in the games as she didn't appear in Sonic 3 or Sonic and Knuckles and only came in as a filler for Sonic Fighters and Sonic R, but with Adventure came Amy's more drastic makeover compared to the other characters as you see from the pictures. Obviously Sega wanted her to be Sonic's answer to Peach so for better or worse Amy became the token female character.

Tails

I won't get into Tails's before and after look. Like Sonic they made him a little taller, colored his eyes but before Adventure Tails was simply Sonic's sidekick who followed him around. The Robin to Sonic's Batman and in Adventure was when we really started to see the whole Tails the inventor, kid genius thing emerge.

Knuckles didn't go through any drastic change. He remained the Emerald guardian however he was the resident badass in the series until Shadow came along. Now Knuckles is mostly Sonic's thug.

Dr. Robotnick is gone. Dr. Eggman is in.

Dr. Robotnick Dr. Eggman

While I liked the new look for Dr. Robotnick, it made him look more like a mad scientist rather than a baloon, I'll never know why Sega changed his name in Sonic Adventure. I heard that Eggman was his name in Japan and they wanted to keep it consistent but still it's like when Princess Toadstool was changed to Princess Peach. WTF?

Of course Adventure brought in characters like the Chao and ditched the old 2 act format with special stages and boss battles in the traditional Sonic sense though this format returned in Sonic Advance, Sonic Rush and Sonic Heroes. We also saw a more deeper storyline go into Sonic games which wouldn't be awful if Sega could get compitent voice talent or tell a coherent story but I do wish they'd do like Mario and stick to the simple story of Eggman (Robotnick) is trying to take over the world with Chaos Emeralds, Sonic has to stop him. That's all we need then they would focus more on gameplay instead of fancy CG cutscenes all the time.

And finally the other major change the series went through was the end of "Mobius." Even if Mobius was created merely for the sake of the comics and TV shows, old school fans liked that Sonic lived on another planet that had checkered hillsides and huge flowers and cool talking animals and everyone was fine with "Mobius" and then along comes Adventure and suddenly Sonic's world got more realistic and he and his friends were the only talking animals. All over the cities everyone else is human which is sort of a buzzkill to the fantasy world a lot of old school Sonic fans remembered. I wish Sonic's world had been modeled off Hillys from the game "Beyond Good and Evil" (look it up). There was a great sci fi world full of humans and anthropomorphs that worked great.

Some of these changes were good and others seemed unessicary. Also in the post Adventure Sonic world we saw a lot of old characters get the boot (Mighty the Armadillo, Nack the Weasel, etc.) and new ones brought in (Shadow, Rouge). Shadow not only took over Knuckle's role as resident badass but also took over Metal Sonic's role as evil twin. The last time Metal Sonic even appeared in a game was Heroes and hasn't been seen since.

There aren't that many differences from the old Shadow to the new one which are unintentional.

His voice actor is what really portrays his being on-screen, and when Sega decided to ditch the old ones, they really messed it up. Although it's hard to imagine, if you were to have Shadow's old VA back, Shadow The Hedgehog would have GREATLY improved. The VA's are often the ones who know extensive stuff about thei characters backstories. They know their characters feelings, and often have basic understandings of their motives, as we can see from games such as Mario, and cartoons like The Simpsons (where the VA's often request script changes or put in their own little bits to make things better). Shadow now has a softer, quieter voice, and it's more "breathey" compared to his old VA's, who would use his own voice effectively to make him sound less cartoony and more humany. In SA2/B, Shadow often spoke with a deep tone to his voice. "I have to go now, for the sake of Maria, and YOU!"

So pretty much, Shadow is what his VA is. The new guy (who also voices Sonic) has a different voice box... He's worked the character into his own mould, which I'm guessing sounds NOTHING like his own voice. The guy sounds like he'd have a higher voice in real life, whereas Shadows old VA would have had a deeper voice. They sound similar, but in many ways they aren't.

Also, Shadow still has amnesia... he LEARNED of his past... He didn't REMEMBER all of it. He still isn't the same Shadow. Plus, in Sonic Adventure 2, Shadow wanted revenge, and could not remember the wish he granted Maria (due to defects on him from his creation- as is implied by Rouge: "Even your memories might not be real). Also backed up by him losing his memory so easily. In Sonic Battle, he fully regains his memory. (set after the Gamecube series). In 2006, the whole timeline is retconned to a point where Eggman didn't have a plan, as Solaris didn't exist, and thus, It's likely that Shadow was not recruited by Gun, because Eggman wasn't being suspicious. Althought Rivals might talk about him being a GUN soldier, I have no idea, after Shadow, he basically had to find a reason to exist, so joining GUN would solve that and help him realise Marias wish which was to save humanity.

Anyway, I'm going off point. Shadow hasn't changed that drastically without it being a plot point, he's still got the same personality from the end of SA2/B, but well.... the VA needs to be switched.

As for his looks, all of the characters have changed since then slightly. They all seem lankier, and less colourful. Shadow now isn't Pitch Black and slightly grey, he's dark brownish (Shadow The Hedgehog) or a dark greyey mix. His eyes are also slightly different shape, but comparing a Riders image to anotehr agmes image isn't fair, as the characters in that game are purposefully warped to fit with the exaggerative cartoon style.

The thing is there are two phases of Sonic's life, before Sonic Adventure and after Sonic adventure. If you look back through the games in Sonic's history, SA had more major changes than simply the jump to 3D.

First look at the characters.

Sonic:

Before After

Sonic was rounder, shorter and had dark eyes. When Adventure released Sonic got taller, his hair got longer. His eyes turned green and buckles were added to his shoes. Adventure was also when he officially started talking as well as the rest of the characters.

Amy Rose

Before After

It's hard to find a good pic of the old Amy. Also this will upset some fans but Amy has actually been around longer than Knuckles as Sonic CD came out a year before Sonic 3. Still when Amy first appeared, she was essentially Sonic painted pink with a dress and not overly prominent in the games as she didn't appear in Sonic 3 or Sonic and Knuckles and only came in as a filler for Sonic Fighters and Sonic R, but with Adventure came Amy's more drastic makeover compared to the other characters as you see from the pictures. Obviously Sega wanted her to be Sonic's answer to Peach so for better or worse Amy became the token female character.

Tails

I won't get into Tails's before and after look. Like Sonic they made him a little taller, colored his eyes but before Adventure Tails was simply Sonic's sidekick who followed him around. The Robin to Sonic's Batman and in Adventure was when we really started to see the whole Tails the inventor, kid genius thing emerge.

Knuckles didn't go through any drastic change. He remained the Emerald guardian however he was the resident badass in the series until Shadow came along. Now Knuckles is mostly Sonic's thug.

Dr. Robotnick is gone. Dr. Eggman is in.

Dr. Robotnick Dr. Eggman

While I liked the new look for Dr. Robotnick, it made him look more like a mad scientist rather than a baloon, I'll never know why Sega changed his name in Sonic Adventure. I heard that Eggman was his name in Japan and they wanted to keep it consistent but still it's like when Princess Toadstool was changed to Princess Peach. WTF?

Of course Adventure brought in characters like the Chao and ditched the old 2 act format with special stages and boss battles in the traditional Sonic sense though this format returned in Sonic Advance, Sonic Rush and Sonic Heroes. We also saw a more deeper storyline go into Sonic games which wouldn't be awful if Sega could get compitent voice talent or tell a coherent story but I do wish they'd do like Mario and stick to the simple story of Eggman (Robotnick) is trying to take over the world with Chaos Emeralds, Sonic has to stop him. That's all we need then they would focus more on gameplay instead of fancy CG cutscenes all the time.

And finally the other major change the series went through was the end of "Mobius." Even if Mobius was created merely for the sake of the comics and TV shows, old school fans liked that Sonic lived on another planet that had checkered hillsides and huge flowers and cool talking animals and everyone was fine with "Mobius" and then along comes Adventure and suddenly Sonic's world got more realistic and he and his friends were the only talking animals. All over the cities everyone else is human which is sort of a buzzkill to the fantasy world a lot of old school Sonic fans remembered. I wish Sonic's world had been modeled off Hillys from the game "Beyond Good and Evil" (look it up). There was a great sci fi world full of humans and anthropomorphs that worked great.

Some of these changes were good and others seemed unessicary. Also in the post Adventure Sonic world we saw a lot of old characters get the boot (Mighty the Armadillo, Nack the Weasel, etc.) and new ones brought in (Shadow, Rouge). Shadow not only took over Knuckle's role as resident badass but also took over Metal Sonic's role as evil twin. The last time Metal Sonic even appeared in a game was Heroes and hasn't been seen since.

kbaily

Metal Sonic appeared in Rivals. Both of them if I rememebr right =]

And the whole EGGMAN "change" didn't affect me. He's still called Robotnik in the games, as it is his real name. Eggman is his nickname, and has been used since the series began, even in the west. On Wing Fortress Zone, his ship says EGGMAN on the side, in many game gear games, his profile is EGGMAN. In Sonic the Fighters, his name is EGGMAN/Dr Robotnik. In Adventure, he is "Dr Robotnik! The Greatest Scientific genius, in the WORLD!", and Sonic replies with: "Whatever you say, Eggman!". I never really felt comfortable with the whole western "Mobius" concept. All of the animals were wierd. In the Cartoons they were funny, as they were aliens and so on, as well as beavers etc. In the more serious cartoons SATAM, Sally is naked? Wha? And the whole woman thing and dark alienistic/animal world felt slightly retarded in comparison to the Mario games, as well as the actual Sonic games themselves, where human buildings and roads can clearly be seen, and in the Japanese manga and series, there were humans. Basic concept drawings of Sonic revealed humans with him (Some blonde haired Red dressed woman). Segas American department aimed the games more at kids than adults, whereas Sonic's japanese creation (and original) always had humans, and profanity, such as the middle finger, etc.) The Adventure series mixed the lightheartedness of the West with the style of the Japanese, and thus the latest Sonic series was born. However, in more recent games such as Adventure 2, Sonic's become a more westernized thing, with Heavy Sci-fi elements based on Starwars and such, and Shadow The hedgehog's setting was more or less set in America (as was Adventure 2). Anyway, I'm going off point again.. but Sonic has evolevd so much.

To be honest, I don't like the Riders series. The Gadgets are too farfetched, even for the Sonic world. Sonic and Tails had a small Bi-plane,a nd then it moved onto a Hoverboard, shiny silver wth hardcore gear and speed etc. Not only that, but the settings are all high-tech bland metallic cities. We need some Metropolis Green, some Volcano stuff, some Green Hill Zone courses, and some catchy tunes!